Friday, October 23, 2009

Booknotes IV (October '09)

New additions this month:

1. The Sumter Flying Artillery: A Civil War History of the Eleventh Battalion Georgia Light Artillery by James L. Speicher (Pelican, 2009).

Pelican gets some deserved grief for some of the Civil War titles it chooses to publish, but I've found others to be worthwhile studies. Speicher's book looks to have most of the elements of a useful unit history, including a very detailed roster that will undoubtedly appeal to genealogists and researchers. Artillery battalion histories are rarely published (for a variety of reasons, I would guess), but it might be interesting to see what we can learn about this level of artillery organization in the ANV's conduct of battle, and perhaps how it changed over time.

2. Race and Radicalism in the Union Army by Mark A. Lause (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2009).

Lause's book examines the social, political, and military impact of blacks, whites, and Indians serving together in the Army of the Frontier. Given the interpretive slant and relatively short length, one would guess this one had its origins in the author's thesis or dissertation.

2 comments:

  1. Fun facts to know and tell: President Jimmy Carter had an ancestor in the Sumter Flying Artillery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David,
    In the front of the book, the author reproduced a previously unpublished Civil War poem written by Jimmy Carter. It's not art...LOL.

    The note attached by Speicher to the poem mentions that Carter's G-GF and a GG-Uncle served in Battery A (Ross's) of the battalion. The author's ancestor served in the same battery.

    ReplyDelete

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