Thomas County During the Civil War, and: The Journal of a Milledgeville Girl, 1861-1867 (review)

92CIVILWAR HISTORY military historians depend in large part on the memoirs of the participants , mostly in the form of letters or reports written shortly afterwards or occasionally in the form of newspaper and magazine articles or autobiographies written long afterwards. Now, all historians know enough to use the postwar memoirs with care, but Marshall has shown that men under combat conditions are very selective about what they remember, even immediately after the event. He points out that he interviewed a regimental commander at Bastogne during the siege, six weeks later, and then two months later. He received three entirely different versions of the action. On another subject, Marshall says flatly, "I have not known one single instance ... of a runner during combat delivering an oral message exactly as it was given him, although what he heard was not more than one concise sentence." One out of every four runners gave a message that was exactly the opposite of what he was supposed to. These and other Marshall findings should also be used to reinterpret the battles of the Civil War. Dowdey has not used all these techniques in Tiie Seven Days, but he has made a start. For the rest, this is a good, solid work, fit to take its place beside his earlier volumes on Lee and his army, Death of a Nation (Gettysburg) and Lee's Last Campaign. Although the three volumes together do not constitute a trilogy on the Army of Northern Virginia comparable in scope to Catton's works on the Army of the Potomac, they contain many of the same elements—personal anecdotes, strong character development, a good eye for drama. Scholars will be disappointed at the absence of notes, but they should not allow this to interfere with their use of Dowdey's book. He has broken new ground, and done it well. It behooves the professionals to follow his lead and broaden the area of in- " ™'Stephen E. Ambrose Johns Hopkins University Thomas County During the Civil War. By William Warren Rogers. (Tallahassee: Florida State University, 1964. Pp. xv, 112. $4.50.) The Journal of a Milledgeville Girl, 1861-1867. Edited by James C. Bonner. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1964. Pp. vii, 130. $3.00.) Grass roots glimpses into the past are sometimes rewarding, sometimes disappointing. Careful, thorough examination of a rebel microcosm can lead to a better understanding of the whole Confederate experiment. William Warren Rogers presents just such a fruitful local study of southwestern Georgia. He occasionally saturates his work with names and details which could only interest his sponsor, the Thomas County Historical Society, but, nevertheless, he has made a real contribution to Civil War history. Dr. Rogers has done a thoroughly professional job. His work is accurate BOOK REVIEWS93 and objective; his prose clear and concise. He captures the spirit and feeling of his subject without yielding to pettiness or provincialism. The research in primary sources is extensive, and the brief secondary bibliography hardly does the author justice. The first half of the book stresses the history of the various military units contributed by the county, and occasionally the narrative is burdened with details and technicalities which are not absolutely necessary. The second half emphasizes the home front. Southern women, inflation, religion , diseases, morale, farming, slaves, refugees, treatment of prisoners of war, and finally the conquering Yankees—all are examined through the eyes of the people of Thomas County. Thus the Civil War comes alive. Thomas County is not indispensable for the student of the Confederacy , but it is certainly useful and interesting. Of much less historical value is The Journal of a MiUedgeviUe Girl, 1861-1867. Born in 1844, Miss Anna Maria Green will never be known as the Anne Frank of the Confederacy. She spent most of her time seeking salvation and a husband—not necessarily in that order. Her journal is full of local gossip, and she makes only scattered, superficial references to secession and the war. Even when Sherman's troops entered Milledgeville , she penned only a few prosaic observations. The crucial Reconstruction period was ignored except for a few fleeting references to the possibility of race war and further disunion, and the impossibility...