Thursday, April 3, 2014

Booknotes II (April '14)

New Arrivals:

1. The Petersburg Campaign: The Western Front Battles, September 1864 - April 1865, Volume 2 by Edwin C. Bearss with Bryce Suderow (Savas Beatie, 2014).

The first volume (my review here) of classic Bearss articles took the reader from the initial assaults through Ream's Station, while the second book moves to the later western flank operations [Peebles' Farm, Burgess Mill, Hatcher's Run, Fort Stedman, Five Forks, and the decisive VI Corps breakthrough].  There are 25 original George Skoch maps to go with the text.

2. William S. Rosecrans and the Union Victory: A Civil War Biography by David G. Moore (McFarland, 2014).

It's been a long time since Lamers's The Edge of Glory first appeared in print, so Old Rosey is due for another biography. With only the briefest of chapters covering his life before and after the Civil War, this would classify as a military biography more than a "full" treatment.

3. "Death does seem to have all he can attend to": The Civil War Diary of an Andersonville Survivor edited by Ronald G. Watson (McFarland, 2014).

Hitchcock fought in both the western and eastern theaters with the 21st Massachusetts. Though the Andersonville portion of his diary (Hitchcock was captured at Cold Harbor) will undoubtedly interest many readers, with not much published about Burnside's invasion of East Tennessee, I would be more interested in the larger portion of the book devoted to 1863 activities in East Kentucky and the Knoxville Expedition.

1 comment:

  1. I have the version of the Hitchcock book that Savas put out in 1997. Great book and excellent maps with it.

    The campaign of East Tennessee is covered in detail. Andersonville is a extremely important resource on that debacle.

    Weirdly, original (Hardcover) copies of the books are cheaper than the paperback that McFarland has released.

    Chris

    ReplyDelete

***PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING***: You must SIGN YOUR NAME when submitting your comment. In order to maintain civil discourse and ease moderating duties, anonymous comments will be deleted. Comments containing outside promotions and/or product links will also be removed. Thank you for your cooperation.