New and Noteworthy---Civil War Sketch Book: Drawings From The Battlefront

Civil War Sketch Book: Drawings from the Battlefront, Harry L. Katz, Vincent Virga, Alan Brinkley, W. W. Norton & Company, 250 drawings and illustrations printed in full color, 288 pages, hardcover,$50.00.

From The Publisher: At a time before the camera lens could capture the frenzy and terror of battle action, illustrators known as “Special Artists”—among them such famous draftsmen as Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast—created for the American public some of the most important and lasting images of the Civil War. Reporting for newspapers like Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News, the Specials brought a visceral immediacy to the clash, presenting rich and nuanced images of soldiers in the camps and sweeping panoramas of the great battles. The illustrations span the war and its many theaters, including rarely seen views of Shiloh, Antietam, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg, and the famous stampede of Union soldiers fleeing the Rebels at Bull Run. Gathering these images for the first time in fifty years, Civil War Sketch Book gives readers the sense that they are touching history, for the illustrations (some even stained with soldiers’ blood) represent priceless artifacts from our nation’s greatest conflict.

CWL: The advance copy received today is stunning. Katz, a former curator for the Library of Congress, and Virga, a illustration historian, have selected 250 drawings by illustrators and soldiers. Long time readers of Civil War literature may recognize some but the breadth of this collection appears to offer other drawings that are less familiar probably not previously published. It appears that the majority of the illustrations are not from newspapers but are battlefield sketches submitted to the newspaper. Soldiers' works are well represented. The text offers detailed captions that include the artist, the date of composition and where the drawing is held today. Additionally, the text provides a discussion of the artists, their practices and their eyewitness accounts. Photographs of the sketch artists are included. Reenactors, 19th century popular culture enthusiasts, and general readers will enjoy such drawings as Henri Lovie's Foraging Secesh Oats and The Kitchen of Fremont Dragoons, Fairgrounds, Tipton, Maryland, and Frank Schell's Passage Down the Ohio of General Negley's Pennsylvania Brigade, October 1861 and the other 247 battlefront sketches.

New and Noteworthy---Sticks, Stones, Bones, and Words At War

Words At War: The Civil War and American Journalism, Sachsman, David B., Rushing, S. Kettrell and Morris, Roy, editors, Purdue University Press, 412 pp.,index, notes, 2008, $29.95.

Words at War analyzes the various ways in which the nation's newspaper editors, reporters, and war correspondents covered the Civil War. In doing so they both reflected the mindsets of their readers and shaped the responses of their subscibers and their antagonists. The sections of Words at War: Fighting Words, Confederates and Copperheads, Union Forever, and Continuing Conflict trace the evolving roles of the press in the antebellum, wartime, and postwar periods.

Spanning 1820 to 1900 the work offers a very large slice of newspaper history. Not limited to the Secession Crisis, campaigns and battles, Words at War covers the Nullification Crisis of 1832, the Amistad trial, the emergence of the Whig Party, the birth of the Republican Party, the Southern Press Association, the Sioux Trial of 1862, Edwin Stanton as Spinmeister, the post-war constitutional amendments, the Klan and race riots, popular religion, and lynching. Famous battlefront reporters and their writings are not neglected. Thirty essays, each with its own notes, satisfy the reader looking for scholarship. J. Cutler Andrews' seminal studies, The North Reports the Civil War and The South Reports the Civil War and Lorman A. Ratner's and Dwight L. Teeter's Fanatics and Fire-eaters: Newspapers and the Coming of the Civil War by now have company on CWL's bookshelf.

Top Image Source: General Ambrose Burnside reads newspaper to Matthew Brady.

Bottom Image: Stacked Arms with Newspaper Reader

New: Antebellum America Novel, May Ring the Bell

Fire Bell in the Night: A Novel, Geoffrey Edwards, Touchstone Press,
paperback, 464 pp., $15.00, September 2007.

Publisher's Weekly says:
"One of the two winners of the Gather.com First Chapters contest, Edwards's provocative debut begins in the summer of 1850 as the debate over the expansion of slavery into the Mexican Cession territory prompts threats of secession and war. A slave revolt and rumors that the leader of the uprising is roaming the countryside recruiting an army further frays nerves in Charleston, S.C. When a local farmer is caught harboring a runaway, he is charged with a capital crime. The New York Tribune sends young reporter John Sharp to cover the trial; he quickly befriends planter Tyler Breckenridge, the scion of one of the most powerful families in Charleston. But as Sharp and fellow reporter Owen Conway uncover clues of a covert militia buildup, Sharp begins to suspect that Breckenridge is involved. As the emotionally charged fugitive-slave trial unfolds, Sharp and Conway rush to expose the secessionist conspiracy and head off war. Edwards fills the gaps in the record of the Crisis of 1850 to produce a plausible scenario that eloquently captures the fear and rivalries of the antebellum era, though many passages could use a healthy pruning. For fans of historical fiction—and Civil War fiction particularly. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The publisher's shill:
Filled with historic details of the time, Fire Bell in the Night explores the explosive tension between North and South, black and white, that gripped Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1850. Geoffrey S. Edwards's first novel tells the story of New York Tribune reporter John Sharp, sent to cover the capital trial of Darcy Calhoun, a farmer who stands accused of harboring a fugitive slave.

As the trial begins, John quickly realizes that not everything is as it appears in the genteel city of Charleston. A series of mysterious fires in white establishments brings the state militia, a curfew for the black population, and rising tension at the courthouse. To unravel the city's secrets, Sharp must enter Charleston's plantation society, where he is befriended by Tyler Breckenridge, owner of the Willowby plantation, and his beautiful sister Clio.

Set against the backdrop of a nation headed toward civil war, Fire Bell in the Night is a page-turning account of a trial and one young reporter's efforts to discover the truth.

CWL's take on this:
It doesn't appear to be a bodice ripper.
After reading a portion of the first chapter online, it's not storytelling in the tradition of Howard Bahr, Shelby Steele, Charles Frazier, Michael Shaara (CWL's favorites). But appears to be more a a John Jakes style of novel. I'll read a few more pages in the Borders' coffee shop and report back.