New on the Personal Book Shelf: The ANV, Southern Journalism and The Anti-Slavery Movement

CWL received an offer from Louisiana State University Press and picked up a nice stack of books for $7.50 each and that included shipping! Unfortunately, the books doubled the size of the stack labeled 'Read This Summer'.

Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee, edited by Peter S. Carmichael. Six essays that praise and fault the Marble Man.

The Cause of the South: Selections From De Bow's Review, 1846-1867, edited by Paul Paskoff and Daniel Wilson. De Bow's Review was one of the preeminent Southern publications of the antebellum period. Based in New Orleans, the journal was the forum for agricultural and industrial issues, the slavery vs. wage labor issue, southern nationalism and Black Republicanism issues among others. A book for the primary source shelf.

Legacy of Disunion: The Enduring Significance of the American Civil War, edited by Susan Grant and Peter Parrish. Twelve essays on the myths, memories, leaders, legacies, perceptions and realities of the war.

Campbell Brown's Civil War: With Ewell and the Army of Northern Virginia, edited by Terry Jones. Since its publication in 2001 Campbell Brown's journals have added a new dimension to the study of the Army of Northern Virgina's leadership.

A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade, Robert Gudmestad covers the emptying out of the Upper South's slaves into the lower and trans-Mississippi South during the three decades before the war. Speculation in slave prices was comparable to the speculation in oil prices today.

No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Anti-Slavery Politics, Frederick Blue. Anti-slavery politics generated Southern fears that it could lose the right to hold property in slaves. Pittsburgh's Jane Grey Swisshelm gets a chapter in the book.

The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy by Robert K. Krick. Ten essays that consider the death of Jackson, Jackson's persecution of Garnett, the accuracy of Longstreet's memoirs and his relationship with McLaws, brigade commanders Rodes, Gregg and Early, Confederate bibliography and other topics.

CWL will start with Audacity Personified, then Campbell Brown's Civil Warand then The Smoothbore That Doomed the Confederacy next. Hopefully finish one in July one in August and one in September. After reading Glaathar's General Lee's Army during the winter, it seems to be shaping up to be a Army of Northern Virginia year. CWL probably focus on John Brown in October as a way of saluting the 150th anniversary of the Harpers Ferry Raid.