It can be difficult to
return to a project after a long absence, but continuing this blog is one of my
goals. Unfortunately, events in 2015 left me with little time to read, so I’m
woefully behind on the stack of books by my reading chair. Several months ago,
though, I did read Kyle S. Sinisi’s, The
Last Hurrah: Sterling Price’s Missouri Expedition of 1864. Drew
Wagenhoffer
gave it an honorable mention in the “Best Civil War Books of 2015” article in The Civil War Monitor’s winter issue. I
agree with his assessment that the book is “a first rate operational history.
The author persuasively rejects or revises a large number of traditional
campaign interpretations while advancing fresh ones of his own.” If you haven’t
seen it yet, do check out Drew’s September 28, 2015 interview with Kyle Sinisi.
On my 2016 reading list is
Jerry D. Thompson’s, A Civil War History
of the New Mexico Volunteers & Militia (University of New Mexico
Press). This is a mammoth book totaling 935 pages! Dr. Thompson is an authority
on the war in the southwest, and the initial 431 double-columned pages feature
a discussion of the men and officers of the New Mexico regiments and the
campaigns that they served in. The remaining few hundred pages consist of ten appendices
with the lengthiest being a roster of the New Mexico soldiers. These regiments
have long been a mystery to me, so I’m looking forward to learning more about them.
I tackled Thompson's tome by assigning myself 10 pages a day for however long it took. Mentally, it made it seem more manageable and I actually kept to the program from start to finish. It's a hardcore book.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the warning about the book--I will plan accordingly!
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