Book Notes

BOOK NOTES O.E.: Historian Without an Armchair. By Otto Eisenscbiml. (Indianapolis : Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1963. Pp. 224. $4.00) Master historical detective and raconteur Otto Eisenschiml has produced an entertaining memoir about his adventures—many of them pungentiy amusing—in well over three decades of Civil War research. Some of his most remarkable chapters tell us what the possibüities were for Civü War inquiry back when the oldtimers who had known the conflict at first-hand stiU survived. Two ancient Georgians who had grown up in the town of Andersonvüle, for example, recalled to him that their most lasting impression of the infamous prison stockade was its stench, which made nearby living almost unbearable. Such are the intriguing sidelights that no longer can be recaptured. "O.E." also editorializes occasionaUy on the matter of research and writing techniques, especially emphasizing his weU-known distaste for the ubiquitous Civü War "rehash." For those fascinated by Dr. Eisenschiml's controversial probe into the Lincoln assassination, he obligingly provides several chapters on "the story behind the story." Altogether a charming book. The Vatican and the Southern Confederacy. By Father Jerome, O.S.B. (St. Leo, Florida: Abbey Press, 1962. Pp. 39. $1.00.) In this small monograph Father Jerome, venerable Benedictine historian of Florida, adds one more valuable item to the bibliography of the Civil War. Using some documentation from the official papers of the Southern Confederacy he tells the story of President Davis' dispatch in 1863 of a commissioner, A. Dudley Mann, to the Vatican. Several times Mann saw Cardinal Antonnelli, Secretary of State of the Vatican, and on November 13, 1863, had a most cordial audience with Pope Pius IX. From this resulted a letter from Pius IX dated December 3, 1863, to the "Illustrious and Honorable Sir, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, Richmond." Mann interpreted this as official recognition by the Vatican of the Confederacy. Although this matter is controversial and can be much more elaborated and discussed, Father Jerome (transcribing some key documents) has provided us with a rare booklet—a useful beginning to another exciting chapter of the diplomacy of the Confederacy. The rich Vatican archives can tell much more. 335 336CI VIL WAR HISTOR Y The Confederate Navy: A Pictorial History. By Phüip Van Doren Stern. ( Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1962. Pp. 256. $7.95. ) This sketchy history of the Confederate navy was obviously designed for popular consumption. It reveals nothing not already known to the average Civil War student; when compared to such recent studies as V. C. Jones's three volumes on the Civil War at sea, its pitfalls become glaring. The bulk of the ülustrations included are woodcuts and engravings based more on artistic imagination than on personal observation. Sources for the text are never mentioned. Thus, whüe Mr. Stern expressed the prefatory hope that this work would "provide the reader with enough basic information to enable him to investigate the naval history of the Civil War still further," he denies the reader those very tools of investigation. As the author himself states, dus book "is intended to serve as an introduction. . . ." It does little more than that. The Alabama Confederate Reader. Edited by Malcolm C. McMillan. (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1963. Pp. xx, 468. $7.75.) This compilation, states the author in his preface, "is an attempt to bring about a deeper understanding and greater interest in the Civil War period ... by aUowing the people who lived through the Civil War to present in their own words the story of Alabama in the nation's greatest struggle." The result is a work on a par with the Bettersworth-Silver anthology on Mississippi . McMillan, a research professor of history at Auburn University, has amassed over one hundred excerpts from printed and manuscript sources. Politicians, soldiers, women on the home front, nurses, diplomats, newspaper editors, and others relate their experiences. The sum total shows war in afl of its fury and complexities. The author has possibly gleaned too much from the Official Records; yet the majority of his material is from normally inaccessible sources. The introduction to each selection is adequate, the...