More Great Books!

In my last posting, I bemoaned the heavy emphasis on eastern campaigns in the early stages of the sesquicentennial. In response to a list of Civil War books published in The Wall Street Journal, I started offering a counter-list of six personal accounts by soldiers in the trans-Mississippi. Last time, two Confederate primary sources were featured, and for balance two Union accounts are highlighted this time.

Britton, Wiley. Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border: 1863. (Chicago: Cushing, Thomas, and Co., 1882; reprint ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).

Britton, a young Missourian, served in the 6^th Kansas Cavalry, a unit that campaigned along the troubled border region. Britton’s war was fought in Missouri, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory. This account, possibly based on a journal, only discusses events that occurred in 1863. There is no attempt at objectivity in the book—Union soldiers only engage in good deeds in this account. However, Britton was a keen observer of the countryside and had a strong empathy for civilians, and these elements are the strength of the book in my opinion. Since Britton and his regiment served at times close to the area where I live, I find this book highly interesting.

Cotham, Edward T., Jr., ed. The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book Of Henry O. Gusley. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.)

Featured in an earlier posting on my blog, this book merits attention because it features naval actions along the Gulf of Mexico from Galveston and then eastward to Mobile Bay. Gusley was captured at the battle of Sabine Pass, and his captured “note-book” was published in the Galveston Tri-Weekly News during the war. His notebook has been paired with sketches made by Dr. Daniel D. T. Nestell whose service paralleled Gusley’s. Beautifully produced and edited, this is one of my favorite trans-Mississippi books to be published in the last few years.

So Many Books and So Little Time

Thanks to Christmas gifts from kind relatives, I now have a stack of new books to read for 2010. Unfortunately, I am not a particularly fast reader so I often despair of being able to read all of the books that I really want to read. Occasionally, I enjoy highlighting books that I have found personally rewarding. Among these is The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book of Henry O. Gusley edited and annotated by Edward T. Cotham, Jr.; I found this to be an excellent and relatively quick read. Published by the University of Texas Press in 2006, The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine is an attractive and well-designed book. A native Pennsylvanian, Henry O. Gusley, enlisted in the U. S. Marines in 1861 at age 24. Gusley served along the Gulf Coast and was involved in blockading duties and a number of skirmishes from the Texas coast to the Florida coast. Most notably, he served in the Louisiana Teche campaigns and the battles of Galveston and Sabine Pass. Confederates captured him after the battle of Sabine Pass, and imprisoned him at Camp Groce in Texas. His captured journal made its way into the hands of the editor of the Galveston Tri-Weekly News who published Gusley’s journal serially during the war; this became a popular feature of the newspaper and even led to a brief correspondence between the newspaper editor and the imprisoned Gusley. In the book, editor Edward T. Cotham, Jr. pairs Gusley’s journal with the wartime drawings of Dr. Daniel D. T. Nestell who also served in the Gulf and observed many of the same things that Gusley did. The journal and the drawings fit amazingly well together. Of course the heart of the book is Gusley’s journal. Gusley struck me as decent, thoughtful, and observant, and I suspect that many of the readers of the Galveston Tri-Weekly reached the same conclusion. Mr. Cotham is to be commended for pairing Gusley’s journal and Nestell’s drawings and for his excellent editing. The book offers many interesting insights into shipboard service in the trans-Mississippi.

Union Soldiers and the Christmas Season

Have you ever wondered what the Christmas season was like for Civil War soldiers? I perused my bookshelves and located some quotes about the day from the perspective of Union soldiers posted in various parts of the trans-Mississippi.

August Scherneckau, near Van Buren, Missouri:
“Wednesday, December 24 [1862]—….Christmas Eve, surrounded by the loveliest evergreen trees, provided many opportunities to obtain a Christmas tree, but for whom? And with whom? I felt lonesome in the middle of thousands of comrades, almost had some sort of homesickness. It was, of course, the first Christmas Eve I had to spend without having some friends or relatives around who like myself—and we North Germans in general—were accustomed to observing this evening. The pine branches that we brought into camp tonight reminded me very vividly of our homeland….

Thursday, December 25—Christmas Day. The most miserable I have ever spent….We had to clean the whole camp, each company its tent alley and also around the tents of its officers. All bushes had to be cut down, the leaves swept away and burned. The rocks, with which the ground is covered, had to be thrown onto piles, etc. I was busy with this work when I was ordered to report to the quartermaster. There I received the assignment, with about twenty more men, to chop wood for burning charcoal….This pleasant work kept us going until evening….”

From James E. Potter and Edith Robbins, eds., Marching With The First Nebraska: A Civil War Diary (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 50-51.

Robert T. McMahan, Rhea’s Mills, Arkansas:
“December 25 1862:
Nothing unusual in camp today save the extra chicken fixens etc. for Christmas. Heard that our Reg. camped in Leavenworth the evening of the 6^th on their way to Ohio. Arrived in Leavenworth from Ft. Scott in mule wagons and on foot. Horses played out and turned over at Ft. Scott.”

From Michael E. Banasik, ed., Reluctant Cannoneer: The Diary of Robert T. McMahan of the Twenty-fifth Independent Ohio Light Artillery (Iowa City: Camp Pope Bookshop, 2000), 94.

Henry O. Gusley, Galveston, Texas:
“December 26, 1862
Christmas is over—gone—past; nor was it in any respect dissimilar to other days. Even the quiet of Sunday was not ours; and the same ration which a common day would have brought, we thankfully received. Well, its novelty may after all be of some benefit; and at some future Christmas, if we are spared to spend another in civil life, the remembrance of this and the last one may add a greater zest to the roast fowl, pies, puddings and bonbons in which we may then be indulging. We hope so….”

From Edward T. Cotham, Jr., ed., The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book of Henry O. Gusley (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 126.

Sergeant George Hand, Fort McRae, New Mexico:
“Dec. 25. [1863] Christmas passed off very dull, but towards night whiskey was found where soldiers always find it, and Co. ‘G’ was nearly all drunk and noisy until morning, when a cold snowstorm dr0ve them all to bed.”

From Neil B. Carmony, ed., The Civil War in Apacheland: Sergeant George Hand’s Diary: California, Arizona, West Texas, New Mexico, 1861-1864 (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome Books, 1996), 151.