Texas Coastal Defense in the Civil War. By William Nelson Fox. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2024. Softcover, 159 pp. $24.99. Reviewed by Neil P. Chatelain When one thinks of coastal military and naval activity of the Civil War, the large-scale sieges and assaults of Mobile Bay, Charleston, and Wilmington come to mind. But as William Nelson Fox demonstrates in Texas Coastal Defense in the Civil War, there was a series of coastal campaigns over whether the United States or Confederacy would control the Lone Star State. Fox’s book outlines the varied military and naval efforts made by the C ..read more

The Folly and the Madness: The Civil War Letters of Captain Orlando S. Palmer, Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry. Edited by Thomas W. Cutrer. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 2023. Softcover, 264 pp. $39.00. Reviewed by David A. Powell The vast primary source literature of the American Civil War is not so crowded of a field that new voices are no longer welcome, far from it. When weighed against the millions of people who experienced our greatest national cataclysm, the number of published letters, diaries, and memoirs is but a minute fraction of the whole. An exciting newcomer to T ..read more

Adelbert Ames, the Civil War, and the Creation of Modern America. By Michael J. Megelsh. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2024. Softcover, 320 pp., $39.95. Reviewed by Brian Swartz Despite his bleeding heroism at First Manassas, ability to whip almost a thousand independent-minded Mainers into regimental shape, and divisional leadership at Gettysburg, Adelbert Ames remains a Civil War shadow even in his native state. He is best known — some historians might say only known — for teaching a certain lieutenant colonel how to lead soldiers. Fortunately for Civil War historiography, Mic ..read more

Here’s a Letter from Thy Dear Son: Letters of a Georgia Family during the Civil War Era. Edited by Edward H. Pulliam. Macon: GA: Mercer University Press, 2024. Hardcover, 640 pp. $50.00. Reviewed by Tim Talbott During the American Civil War, family ties not only helped soldiers maintain distant connections with once very familiar people and places, relatives also often served as providers for some of the soldiers’ most basic needs when their governments were unable or unwilling to do so. Throughout the conflict, letter writing maintained and strengthened family bonds. Thousands of surviving le ..read more

Virginia Secedes: A Documentary History. Edited by Dwight T. Pitcaithley. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2024. Hardcover, 308 pp., $48.00. Reviewed by John G. Selby Historian Dwight Pitcaithley continues his fine analysis of the state secession debates in the South during the winter of 1860-1861, with his most recent volume, Virginia Secedes: A Documentary History. In focusing on the Old Dominion, he annotates 43 critical primary documents drawn from the 9,000 pages of the Congressional Globe, the journal of Virginia’s state convention, the Washington Peace Conference, and the p ..read more

American Visions: The United States, 1800-1860. By Edward L. Ayers. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2023. Hardcover, 368 pp. $32.50. Reviewed by Evan Clapsaddle In American Visions, Edward Ayers presents a young America trying to find its identity while emerging from its founding era into an unknown and uncertain future. Progressing through the years 1800-1860, Ayers discusses how our country created a uniquely American identity through commercial pursuits, artistic and literary endeavors, as well as social and spiritual movements. These cultural outlets held potential ramifications re ..read more

Creating a More Perfect Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, the Constitution, and Secession in Antebellum America. By Peter Radan. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2023. Hardback, 389 pp. $44.95. Reviewed by Kevin C. Donovan, Esq. The Civil War did not resolve the question of whether states had the right under the Constitution to secede. Rather, the war simply established that the Confederate States did not have the military power to enforce their position against a rival combination of states (the Union) that insisted that no right to secession existed. Secession as a legal doctrine on ..read more

Confederates from Canada: John Yates Beall and the Rebel Raids on the Great Lakes. By Ralph Lindeman. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishing, 2023. Softcover, 240 pp. $39.99. Reviewed by Robert Grandchamp A significant amount of scholarship has appeared over the years covering several of the Confederate operations in Canada during the Civil War. Canada, a British possession until Confederation in 1867, witnessed some 50,000 of its citizens serve in either the Union or Confederate forces during the conflict. Although the soon-to-be nation had been a beacon of freedom for enslaved people escaping n ..read more

In the Shadow of the Round Tops: Longstreet’s Countermarch, Johnston’s Reconnaissance and the Enduring Battles for the Memory of July 2, 1863. By Allen R. Thompson. New York: Knox Press, 2023. Softcover, 516 pp. $24.00. Reviewed by Peter Miele “What happened before the fighting started on July 2, 1863?” (26) This seemingly simple question ignited Allen Thompson’s book project, In the Shadow of the Round Tops: Longstreet’s Countermarch, Johnston’s Reconnaissance and the Enduring Battles for the Memory of July 2, 1863. The story of Samuel Johnston’s reconnaissance in the early morning hours of J ..read more

Decisions at Franklin: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle. By Andrew S. Bledsoe. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2023. Softcover, 280 pp, $29.95. Reviewed by Lee White Decisions at Franklin: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Dr. Andrew S. Bledsoe is a recent addition to The University of Tennessee Press’s ever-expanding “Command Decisions in America’s Civil War” series. The battle of Franklin, and the 1864 Tennessee Campaign as a whole, are particularly well suited for this type of study as both are rife with persistent myths and coun ..read more