New and Noteworthy---Maney's Confederate Brigade At The Battle of Perryville

Maney's Confederate Brigade At The Battle of Perryville, Stuart W. Sanders, History Press, 40 illustrations, 5 maps, endnotes, index, $19.99.

Stuart W. Sanders, the author of The Battle of Mill Springs Kentucky and Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky's Largest Civil War Battle, continues to offer clear and concise work on the Civil War in Kentucky.Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee Infantry who after the war became the  author of Company Aytch stated the the battle was the hardest fought battle in which that he had participated.

Relying equally upon secondary histories of the battle and primary sources of the eyewitness, Sanders' presents a  moving account of a Confederate brigade that suffered over 50% in casualties. Consisting of Tennessee and Georgia soldiers, Maney lead two separate assaults in which two Federal generals were killed, two artillery positions were overrun and caused the Federal left to nearly collapsing. Sanders' narrative captures both the momentum and exhaustion of the Confederate brigade.

Additionally, Sanders opens up the issues and even hostility that Confederate regimental, brigade and division commanders could show each other. Though the Maney's brigade gave a stellar effort during the battle, other commanders laid complaints against Maney and afterward a duel was fought between Maney and a surgeon. The author also presents an interesting discussion of how the citizens of Perryville dealt with the bodies and the wounded after the battle.  Stuart W. Sanders' Maney's Confederate Brigade At The Battle of Perryville is accessible to general readers. Those interested in both a cogent presentation regarding Tennessee and Georgia troops and the Civil War west of the Appalachian Mountains will be pleased. 

Noteworthy---The 1862 Kentucky Campaign and The Battle of Perrysville

The Civil War At Perryville: Battling For The Bluegrass, Christopher L. Kolakowski, History Press, 2009, 189 pp., 38 illustrations, 17 maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, $21.99.


The Civil War At Perryville: Battling For The Bluegrass offers a straight forward account of the autumn 1862 Kentucky Campaign.  Readers unfamiliar with the campaign should prepare for Kolakowski's work by using Shelby Foote's the Civil War: A Narrative--Fort Sumter to Perryville [volume I] places the campaign in both a political and military context.  Also readers may also review online resources such as http://www.battleofperryville.com/ and The Civil War Trust's http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/perryville.html?tab=facts. 


Kolakowski sketches the personalities of the commanders and terrain features of the campaign; his narrative is well organized and well paced.  Most readers will find The Civil War At Perryville a good introduction; others may wish to read a more comprehensive treatment such as Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle by Kenneth W. Noe.  Deficits of the book include the poor quality of several reproduced portraits.  The maps appear to be poor photocopies of previously photocopied topographic maps.  An Order of Battle for Kirby Smith's Confederate army is missing, though an Order of Battle for Buell's Federal army and Bragg's Confederate army are offered.   A chronology would have been helpful for understanding sequence of events for three armies. Also an index would have been made it possible for readers to follow a person or an unit through the campaign.

News---1862 Turning Point: Perrysville, Kentucky Adds 140 Acres, Another 122 Acres A Possibility

Perryville Battlefield Adds 140 Acres, Joanna King, The Advocate-Messenger, May 2, 2012.

 Much like winning a battle one field at a time, Perryville continues to capture more of the land that shaped the identity of a region and, ultimately, a nation. James R. Overstreet and Pat W. and Lora June Overstreet have transferred ownership of more than 140 acres on Hayes-May Road to the Civil War Preservation Trust for $725,000, according to a deed filed recently at the Boyle County Clerk’s Office.

Joni L. House, preservation specialist and program coordinator for Perryville Battlefield State Historical Site, said the acquisition represents an opportunity  to keep a piece of history intact that might otherwise be lost to development. “In Franklin, Tenn., the site of a historical battle was only preserved after the tract was purchased and the Pizza Hut that had been built on there torn down,” she said.

The Civil War Preservation Trust is a national non-profit supported by donors who believe like House does that such areas should be off limits to development and available for future generations. House was raised on battlegrounds by a father who was a history teacher. Her husband and son are re-enactors, and their home resembles those of the Civil War era. “Ihave a churn, and I even know how to use it,” she said. “My middle name is ‘Lee’ if that tells you anything,” she said, an apparent reference to Robert E. Lee, general of the Confederate army.

The latest property acquisition in Perryville picks up where the gravel road that intersects the battlefield ends. “It is the land that surrounds the Bottom House,” she said. According to House, H.P. Bottom went to bed one night the first week of October 1862 a wealthy man comfortable in his place in the world and woke up in a world that would never be the same with all he knew destroyed by a war in his own backyard. “I think we are still suffering on some levels from what happened here,” House said, speaking about the economic direction the town was headed before war set it back.

The beautiful rolling green hills became “hell on earth” littered with the dead and dying, she said. Preservation of the battlefield pays homage to the 2,500 who died. The Civil War Preservation Trust hopes to acquire even more land in the area. It is soliciting donations to purchase a 122-acre tract known as the “Slaughter Pen.” Other property for potential purchase includes a 60-70 acre tract. According to the trust website (www.civilwar.org/battlefields/perryville.html), every $1 donated multiplies to $3.28 because of available matching and other grants. Registration is also now open at www.perryvillebattlefield.org to participate in the 150th commemoration of the Battle of Perryville scheduled for Oct. 5-7 in which 100 percent of funds raised will go toward preservation efforts.


Text and Image Source: Advocate-Messenger

New and Noteworthy----Lincoln's Kentucky Ally And Prosecutor of The Conspirators

Lincoln's Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Jospeh Holt of Kentucky, Elizabeth Leonard, Univ. Of North Carolina Press, 448 pages, notes, bibliography, index, $40.00, Release Date: October 10, 2011.

Lincoln's Forgotten Ally, Review by William C. Davis, History Book Club.

First impressions are important, and for most people who first see his hard stare and cold features, impressions of Joseph Holt seldom improve upon familiarity. When he is recalled at all, it is as the implacable and merciless prosecutor of the conspirators involved in the kidnapping and assassination plots against Abraham Lincoln. Almost a century and a half after the trial of the criminals, Holt is still largely remembered for allegedly suborning perjury and paying for damning testimony to take the trial beyond just those immediately involved, seeking to implicate Confederate President Jefferson Davis and others in high position in the Lost Cause.

Elizabeth D. Leonard's new Lincoln's Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky is a welcome tonic to long-held prejudices. If Holt was indeed relentless in his pursuit of Lincoln's killers, still he was also firmly opposed to slavery and a staunch supporter of the Union from the outset despite being a Democrat from slave-holding Kentucky.

He served in the lackluster cabinet of the equally lackluster President James Buchanan, first as postmaster general, and then as secretary of war after scandal rocked the administration. When war broke out Holt at first took a commission as colonel of a Union infantry regiment, but in 1862 Lincoln appointed him judge advocate general of the Union army. No one likes a prosecutor as a rule, and as judge advocate, prosecution was Holt's mandate. He pursued the case against General Fitz-John Porter, a popular and capable officer who ran afoul of internal army politics, and then became the guiding force behind the trials of the Lincoln conspirators. The convictions were perhaps his greatest success, though the manner in which they were obtained tarnished his image ever after, and effectively ended any hopes he may have had for a postwar political career.

Lincoln's Forgotten Ally is the first full biography we have had of Holt, and the author is more than equal to the task of taking a two-dimensional figure and putting flesh on his bones. Throughout Holt's life his devotion to the Union comes through, from his efforts to keep Kentucky from seceding, to his work in making the Emancipation Proclamation effective, and his postwar efforts to use his office to make sure that military forces occupying the South during Reconstruction effectively implemented the reforms implicit in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, while combating the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and other extremists. When he died in 1894, his body was wrapped in a battle flag that he had kept for that purpose for almost 30 years.

Combining in-depth research and able narrative with measured judgment, Elizabeth D. Leonard has given Holt that necessary third dimension at last, and in the process filled an important void in our understanding of the men and measures that turned Lincoln's vision into a reality.

Text and Image Source: History Book Club

Classic in Paper Reprint Edition---To Duty and to Nation: The Extraordinary Life of John Cabell Breckinridge

Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol, William C. Davis. University Press of Kentucky, 712 pp., $19.95 (paper), 2010.

Reviewed by Michael Taylor (Paine College) Published on H-CivWar (March, 2011), To Duty and to Nation: The Extraordinary Life of John Cabell Breckinridge

Excerpt:
There have been those among us who were born to lead remarkable lives. From an early age their endeavors became noteworthy in some manner. Lives so touched by accomplishment leave the most enduring legacies of history, for they provide an illustration of courage, commitment, and moral fortitude.

One of those remarkable people was John Cabell Breckinridge of Kentucky. Within a brief lifespan of fifty-four years, he served his nation successfully as a member of both houses of Congress, vice president, Confederate cabinet secretary, and commander of soldiers on the battlefield. When the Civil War ended, and his cause defeated, from exile he became a forceful advocate for reconciliation and reunification. His notable life can be savored once again through the reissue by the University Press of Kentucky of William C. Davis's extensive biography,Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol.

Davis's biography is organized into three separate books: Breckinridge as politician, as soldier, and as reconciliator. Each section is painstakingly structured with every page steeped in factual information with detailed analysis. Every chapter flows nearly effortlessly from start to finish, with each stage of the subject's life placed in careful context of time, place, and circumstance. These elements combined with a charismatic subject not only produce a sound piece of historical work, but also provide a fascinating reading experience.

Perhaps due to the family tradition of public service Breckinridge felt the tug toward a life in politics. Trained in law at Kentucky's Transylvania University, Breckinridge graduated at seventeen years old and began to practice his craft by age twenty. Afterward, he rose swiftly through the ranks of state politics as a states' rights, pro-Union Democrat. Before his thirtieth birthday he had been elected to the House of Representatives, serving two terms (1851-55). During his tenure the congressman's most notable action was to guide the Kansas-Nebraska Bill to successful passage in the House in 1854. As a compromise candidate between the James Buchanan and Stephen Douglas factions, Breckinridge won the vice presidential nomination at age thirty-five; yet, it proved to be a hollow victory, for though he served Buchanan with sincerity and purpose, the president often ignored his counsel. As Buchanan's term was winding down and Breckinridge became increasingly dissatisfied with the candidacy of Senator Douglas from Illinois, Breckinridge became the presidential candidate on the Southern Democratic ticket in 1860. He was sent back to Washington DC, only this time as a U.S. senator representing his home state; but after nine months of service his seat was abolished due to his outspoken advocacy of states' rights.

As for the book itself, there is but one blemish. With such an extraordinary life to recount it is difficult for any author not to be filled with a certain amount of admiration. Yet, just as with his tome of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Davis has allowed his obvious high esteem for Breckinridge to emerge too fully. It is the historian's duty to remain aloof from personal regard in order to get to the true significance of the subject at hand. One instance where the author crosses this line is in his account of Breckinridge's actions at Murfeesborough, and later at Chickamauga. At the orders of General Bragg, Breckinridge led the Kentucky regiment into a suicidal attack that cost the lives of many Confederate soldiers. Davis laid the blame for the slaughters solely on Bragg's poor disposition of the Kentucky troops without offering any substantive proof that this was, indeed, the case. A further instance is in the final paragraphs; the author recounts his subject's demise in which "all of Kentucky went into mourning" (p. 638). The description that Davis gives of Breckinridge's funeral and legacy are laced with glowing superlatives, though earlier in the same chapter he had mentioned a premature obituary that heavily criticized the former vice president.

In closing, this biography of Breckinridge is well worth the time investment. Despite its flaws the story of this man's rise to prominence in two countries in two separate careers within such a short time is nothing short of astounding. Few histories have been filled with such overbearing elements: the weight of the Breckinridge legacy, the expectations of mother and grandmother, and the man's own drive to succeed in every field he touched were such a burden on Breckinridge that it ultimately turned his meteoric success into a shadow existence at his death. Furthermore, the author's attention to detail allows the story to unfold as it should, making its significance obvious. In tales of duty and nation, this book ranks among the most vivid.

Full Text of Review: H-Net Civil War Reviews [May 17, 2011]