Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 5 (review)

In a field abounding with published primary sources, Peter Cozzens's latest offering provides a substantive addition to what has become one of the stand-by sources for scholars and popular readers alike: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Cozzens has assembled some of the more obscure, but nevertheless interesting pieces, from the period following the publication of the original collection. With volume five, he offers a true supplement with material that covers the full spectrum of the war and actually fills voids existing in the four original volumes.

Most of the material prepared by eyewitnesses and participants in volume five appeared in periodical literature after the first four volumes were released in 1888. A few selections, like U.S. Grant's defense of Fitz John Porter, were authored prior to 1888. Cozzens draws on material from the Weekly Times, Weekly Press, Magazine of American History, National Tribune, Ohio Soldier, and Blue and Gray as well as pieces from magazines not typically associated with military history like Scribner's Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Galaxy, McClure's, Overland Monthly, United Service, and Cosmopolitan.

The introduction itself is a valuable piece of historiography, detailing how the original volumes were compiled and providing background into the proliferation of articles that followed in the wake of the war. Cozzens also explains the selection process for compiling this supplement. Although there are a few unusual pieces dealing with camp life and politics, the volume is heavily weighted toward military history. Equally balanced between the eastern and western theaters, the articles address the more obscure aspects of well known events and campaigns. The reader will not find these pieces in Confederate Veteran, the Southern Historical Society Papers, or other magazines of the era that compiled and reprinted articles on the war.

Readers will enjoy the section on prelude to war that provides eyewitness insight into John Brown's raid and the Baltimore riots. An intriguing postscript interview with James Longstreet completes the collection. Among the contributors to this supplement are men like Winfield Scott Hancock, who refused to write for the original compilers of Battles and Leaders. Harry Heth offers his explanation of the controversy surrounding his division's advance on Gettysburg that began that epic three-day struggle. Topics not considered appropriate in the aftermath of the war find a forum in Cozzens's supplement. George Smalley, an army reporter for the New York Tribune, addressed a little know incident of mutiny at the Battle of Antietam. Off the battlefield the reader gains insight into the surrender negotiations between Sherman and Johnston through the recollections of the Confederate commander. Porter Alexander, whose postwar memoirs have proven invaluable to understanding certain aspects of the war, provides a unique perspective on Robert E. Lee as the Army of Northern Virginia is finally defeated.

The supplement reads much better than its predecessor. For the most part Cozzens has been true to his claim that these articles avoid the dry and often cumbersome accounts that characterized the original collection. Far removed from the conflict, Cozzens also scrutinized each piece for accuracy. Original maps enhance the accounts and the entire volume is generously illustrated. The appendix includes an insightful section that briefly relates the history of each piece, provides background information on its author and gives the reader the contemporary importance of the article. Grant's defense of Fitz Porter, for example, caused a national stir.

Without discounting the supplement's importance as a source about the war, volume five is also the story of memory. In the seven hundred plus pages of material we see participants struggle to not only recount events in the war itself, but to strip away what they saw as misconceptions. It remains for the reader to determine if the articles clarify events, or further add to the myths.