Book Notes

BOOK NOTES Leroy Pope Walker: Confederate Secretary of War. By WilUam C. Harris. (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: Confederate PubUshing Co., 1962. Pp. 141. $4.50.) writers of the past who have touched on the Confederate cabinet have classified the Alabamian who served as Davis's first war secretary either as a gross failure because of ill health and poor judgment, or as a man so dedicated to the Confederacy that he was able to accomplish much in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In any event, the tobacco-chewing, middle -aged attorney served faithfully at a post no man in the South wanted, and the fact that the Confederacy got armies into the field and reasonably equipped by the summer of 1861 was in essence a testimony to Walker's labors. Nevertheless, he early incurred the animosity of Jefferson Davis; in September, 1861, with the President desirous of it, Walker submitted his resignation. This new monograph, another volume in the "Confederate Centennial Studies," is the first attempt at a full biography of Walker. It lacks comprehensiveness and is more heavy on facts than on interpretation. Nevertheless , it is a needed and well-written work on this unheralded public servant whose patriotism, perhaps, was rivaled only by that of Davis himself. Jefferson Davisand His Cabinet. By Rembert W. Patrick. ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961. Pp. x, 401. $6.00. ) among the reprints now appearing, this one should enjoy healthy sales. This excellentíy written study of the Confederate cabinet first appeared in 1944 and quickly went out of print. In answer to great demand, Louisiana State has republished the volume in its exact original format. The book contains a long treatise on Davis, a discussion of the makeup and functions of the cabinet, plus keen analyses of the seventeen men who held various positions in that body. The book's last chapter is a social essay on life in the capitals of Montgomery and Richmond. As one would expect, the two chief figures in the book are Davis and the brilliant Judah P. Benjamin. The author is not as critical of those men who deserve censure as perhaps he should be; on the other hand, he is quick to point out virtues of those men with whom history has dealt harshly. The sum total is an outstanding collection of discourses on that group of men who had the firmest grasp on the Confederacy reins. It is a must for any Civil War bookshelf. 238 Stoneman's Last Raid. By Ina Woestemeyer Van Noppen. (Raleigh: North Carolina State College Print Shop, 1961. Pp. xi, 112. $5.00.) anxious t? redeem himself after two failures earlier in the Civil War, General George Stoneman in March, 1865, started out on a third raid into the South. His objective was initially the two remaining and valuable rail lines in North Carolina. In all, 6,000 blueclad cavalrymen comprised the force that swooped out of East Tennessee and into the mountainous country of North Carolina. The Federals tore up property as they swerved northward into Virginia, then galloped back across the Tarheel State in a second swath of destruction. The climax of the raid came with the capture of Salisbury and its notorious prison pen for Federal soldiers. Following this liberation , Stoneman and his men plundered their way back into Tennessee. In this paperback study the author (a history instructor at Appalachian State Teachers College in Boone) has made abundant use of available sources, especially those with a Confederate bent. One will look in vain for compassion among Stoneman's troops. In spite of an absence of bibliography and index, this is an absorbing story, rich in little chunks of local, heretofore unknown information. Illustrations round out an above-average narrative of one of the war's obscure campaigns. The Great Hanging at Gainesville. By Thomas Barrett. (Austin: The Texas State Historical Association, 1961. Pp. iv, 34. $5.00.) that strong unionist sentiment existed all through the war in East Tennessee and in northern Alabama and Mississippi is a well-known fact. Yet similar sentiment was present abo in six counties in North Texas, and in the fall of 1862, it caused a veritable reign of terror...