President Lincoln's Recruiter:
General Lorenzo Thomas and the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War
Michael A. Eggleston
McFarland, 2013, 208 pp., $39.95

Review by Gordon Berg

When the Civil War began, Colonel Lorenzo Thomas was a paper pusher; as the army's adjutant general, much of his work involved processing resignations from officers planning to join the Confederate States of America.  If this were the extent of his wartime activities, he would have hardly merited Michael Eggleston's earnest, if uneven, effort to document his life.  But when Edwin M. Stanton was appointed Secretary of War in January 1862, Thomas' life changed dramatically.  His duties during the rest of the war more than justify documenting his vital contribution to the eventual Union victory.

Stanton and Thomas instantly disliked each other and, in March 1863, Stanton ordered his nemesis to the Mississippi Valley to get him out of Washington and to recruit African American men into military service as permitted under terms of the Emancipation Proclamation. Eggleston rightly concludes that Thomas "was not simply a senior recruiter, but a man charged with initiating a new Union policy, breaking down opposition to African American soldiers and resolving issues with the new policy." It was a big job and Thomas proved to be just the man to carry it out.  According to Eggleston, "he managed to recruit and organize 41 percent of the African Americans who fought in the Civil War."

Eggleston does an excellent job describing how the troops were raised and the process that was created to select and train white officers to lead the black regiments.  He rightly concludes, though, that Thomas' job involved much more.  Thomas had to address issues about unequal pay, the care and feeding of the women and children who frequently accompanied the men into Union camps, finding physicians to treat the sick, procuring quality equipment, and providing remedial education and training for an illiterate soldiery.  Eggleston quotes from Thomas' final report dated Oct. 3, 1865, in which Thomas admits, "I entered upon the duty by no means certain at what I might be able to effect."  Thomas' effect was indeed substantial; by the end of the war, African Americans comprised 12 percent of the Union Army's strength.

The end of the war did not end Thomas' military service or his contentious relationship with Stanton. Thomas resumed his duties as adjutant general until February 1868, when he inserted himself into the bitter confrontation between President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress. Johnson asked Thomas to serve as Secretary of War, replacing Stanton.  Thomas accepted, with the provision that he be restored to his wartime rank of major general.  This arrangement violated the Tenure of Office Act, legislation passed by Congress to hamstring Johnson from filling his administration with supporters of his plans to reconstruct the South.  Thomas' appointment and the attempt to remove Stanton from office gave Radical Republicans the justification they needed to initiate impeachment proceedings against Johnson.

Thomas testified before the Senate to the effect that his actions were designed to test the Act's legality in the courts.  According to Eggleston, "Lorenzo Thomas may have turned a number of Radicals toward acquittal."  Johnson was acquitted by a single vote and Thomas' poor performance on the stand made him a pathetic laughingstock to many.  He returned to the position of adjutant general until he retired in 1869.  Thomas died in Washington, DC in March 1875.

Unfortunately, several sections of Eggleston's book do not seem germane to the story of Thomas as a "Recruiter of United States Colored Troops."  For example, Eggleston describes the significant battles fought by the USCT and the mini biographies of African Americans who received the Medal of Honor, which smack of padding. He also includes a "Biographical Dictionary," which takes up 14 pages with irrelevant personalities, including John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Benito Juarez, Sylavanus Thayer, Carl Schurz and James Monroe.  In addition, Eggleston reproduces all 11 Articles of Impeachment, which could easily have been summarized in the text.  Last, Appendix B, "Early Recruiting Efforts," documents claims of African American participation in the Confederate Army, which includes sources that readers should investigate and evaluate before drawing any conclusions.

Lorenzo Thomas deserves a comprehensive, scholarly biography. To Michael Eggleston's credit, he understands Thomas' important contributions to the Union cause and his monograph should be used by future biographers as an appropriate place to begin their investigations.______________________________________

Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (www.cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

Rethinking Shiloh:

Myth and Memory

Timothy B. Smith

The University of Tennessee Press, 2013, 200 pp., $38.95

Review by Gordon Berg

      

Ulysses S. Grant, who knew something about battles, wrote that Shiloh "has been perhaps less understood, or to state the case more accurately, more persistently misunderstood than any other engagement…during the entire rebellion."  Timothy B. Smith has spent a significant portion of his professional life working to correct Grant's perception.  The latest compilation of essays, most of which have appeared before, continues Smith's stellar efforts to explicate this important Civil War battle.

Some of the essays take a revisionist stance.  Two deal with the myth and memory of the Hornet's Nest.  "In actuality," Smith contends, "the Hornet's Nest's iconic status is a result of a few veterans' interpretation of the facts and that interpretation has been growing in reputation ever since."  Smith concludes that "The evidence points to the fact that the Hornet's Nest was not the most vicious, important, or decisive engagement at Shiloh."  Furthermore,  after carefully examining the historical record, Smith declares "The soldiers themselves stated as much, the position of troops does not support the idea, and the casualties and burials firmly argue against such a notion."

Smith takes a similarly clear-eyed approach to analyzing Lew Wallace's march to Shiloh on April 6 by actually taking a group of eight people and retracing Wallace's march and countermarch on that fateful day.  It took the intrepid band of hikers, unencumbered with wagons, horses, and artillery, 15 minutes longer than it took Wallace and 5,800 fully equipped soldiers.  "All doubt about the speed of Wallace's march," Smith declares, "should thus be muffled forever."

What about the civilians who lived on the land where the battle was fought?  Their story rarely makes the history books.  Most fled before the fighting started but a few remained.  "Several family stories have survived," Smith relates, "and they provide a clear picture of the horror and fright of being a civilian in the midst of a battle."  After the battle, the victorious Union forces remained on the inhabitant's land for weeks, turning the homes and farms into "a vast cemetery."  Almost all of the three thousand men who died during the battle were buried on the field.

One of Smith's most insightful essays analyzes the importance geography played on the battle.  A careful examination of the terrain of Shiloh, both natural and manmade, leads Smith to propose "that it is quite possible the Confederates never actually had a chance to win at Shiloh."  His essay on the New Deal's effect on Shiloh catalogues the remarkable transformation that remade an iconic battlefield into an outstanding National Military Park.  Finally, most visitors to Shiloh National Military Park begin their journey by viewing the park's introductory film in the visitor's center.  First shown in 1956 and retired only in 2012, “Shiloh: Portrait of a Battle” influenced how millions of people viewed and understood the battle.  Its influence, Smith contends, "has been immense."

Smith's writing is crisp and confident, his arguments convincingly supported, and his conclusions based on years of research.  Reading Smith's essays is almost like having the blue and gray wraiths that ride on the mists of the Tennessee River and sometimes roll over the hallowed ground whispering in your ear about how it really was when uncommon valor was a common virtue.

______________________________________

Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (www.cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot:

The Fort Stevens Story

Benjamin Franklin Cooling III

The Scarecrow Press, 2013, 322 pp., $45.00

Review by Gordon Berg

            Every Civil War battlefield deserves a champion as passionate and learned as Frank Cooling is about the Defenses of Washington, the imposing ring of fortifications that surrounded the Union capital between 1861-1865.  Unfortunately, the remnants of those long ago defenses that still dot the urban landscape are mostly unknown and unappreciated by even the most ardent Civil War enthusiasts.

            Cooling has been studying Mr. Lincoln's forts for decades.  This, his sixth volume on the subject,  makes an eloquent case for reviving interest in them during the sesquicentennial commemoration of the war.  While not engaging in counter factual history, Cooling argues that the course of the war might have been very different had Lincoln been shot while standing on the fort's ramparts, only seven miles from the White House.

 

            Although not a major campaign by Civil War standards, the invasion staged by Confederate General Jubal Early and about 12,000 rag-tag troopers sowed anxiety and confusion in the North during the summer of 1864.  Since it was a presidential election year, the capture of Washington DC, even if only for a few days, might have changed the course of the war and prompted the election of a peace candidate in the fall.

            Cooling puts the July 11-12 engagement at Fort Stevens, the only action fought within the District of Columbia, into the larger context of the South's attempt to relieve relentless Union pressure against Richmond, Petersburg, and the once-vaunted Army of Northern Virginia.  Both Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis knew chances for success were slim, but the audacity of the attempt makes the campaign worthy of study by a wider audience. 

            Nobody tells the story better than Cooling.  For the most part, he wisely uses the participants own words to move the narrative forward.  The book, therefore, is filled with interesting and arcane anecdotes about people and places; many long lost in the fog of war or in dusty archives. 

            There's Lee's pipe dream of using Early's raid to free 20,000 Confederate prisoners supposedly held at Maryland's Point Lookout prison; B&O President John W. Garrett's determination to save his railroad from destruction; the delaying action fought on the banks of the Monocacy River by disgraced Union General Lew Wallace that might have saved Washington; Lincoln's almost child-like determination to see a real fire fight; and the curious coalition of 100-day volunteers, convalescing soldiers, and government workers hastily rounded up to defend Fort Stevens until the timely arrival of Sixth Corps veterans.  Their story makes for a colorful, off the beaten path, Civil War tale.

______________________________________

Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

James M. Williams:
Civil War General and Indian Fighter

Robert W. Lull

University of North Texas Press, 2013, 290 pp., $24.95

Review by Gordon Berg

            July 1863 saw significant Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Cabin Creek that made the careers of George G. Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, and James M. Williams.  Never heard of the battle of Cabin Creek?  That's probably because it was fought by just a few thousand Federals and Confederates on the banks of a muddy stream near the Grand River in northeastern Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).  Never heard of James M. Williams?  Read Robert W. Lull's assiduously researched, energetically written biography and learn about the trail-blazing Union commander of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry serving in the Trans-Mississippi.

            James Williams arrived in Leavenworth to open a dry goods store just as the blood began to flow along the Kansas-Missouri border.  He got to know James H. Lane and his band of abolitionist Jayhawkers.  Williams soon exchanged his clerk's apron for a Navy Colt and a Sharp's rifle.  According to Lull, “Lane swept Williams up in his organization” and, by the outbreak of the Civil War, “Williams was a veteran commander and an unreserved subscriber to the Federal cause.”

            After Kansas was admitted to the Union, Lane, now a U.S. Senator, advocated using African Americans and Indians as soldiers.  He liberally interpreted the Militia Act of July 1862 as authorizing just that and sent Williams around the state to recruit black men, most of them former slaves, into Kansas state regiments.  Lane rewarded Williams' efforts by making him commander of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry.

            The Civil War west of the Mississippi River was, for the most part, a continuation of the guerrilla warfare practiced between 1856-1861: quick-hitting, savage, and often personal.  On October 29, 1862, the First Kansas got its baptism of fire before it was officially mustered into Federal service in a tall grass prairie field on the Toothman farm near the Marais des Cygnes River.  The regiment suffered eight dead and eleven wounded.  

            Later, a larger engagement at Island Mound, the men Williams had trained proved their worth in battle.  According to Lull, they “functioned as a team, maneuvered professionally, and responded quickly to orders.”  Island Mound was a Union victory, the first for a black regiment against organized Confederate troops.  The regiment would fight at Honey Springs in the Indian Territory, Poison Spring in Arkansas, and numerous skirmishes rarely found in history books.  When the war ended, Williams commanded six regiments of United States Colored Troops brigaded together as part of the VII Corps before mustering out in October 1865.

            The end of the Civil War did not end the military career of James M. Williams.  Commissioned a captain in the Eighth U.S. Cavalry, Williams went west to fight Indians.  Lull points out that about 600 men “were responsible for national security and civil protection over an area of 558,069 untracked square miles of what would become six different states.”   After being severely wounded, Williams began his third career as a successful Colorado rancher until he died in 1907.

            Lull's book is important because it highlights the importance of African American troops in the Trans-Mississippi, a region still insufficiently studied by historians of the Civil War.

______________________________________

Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.

Knights of the Golden Circle:

Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War

David C. Keehn

LSU Press 2013, 308 pp., $39.95

Review by Gordon Berg

             It thrived in a parallel universe, hidden in plain sight throughout the antebellum South.  Ostensibly founded around 1858 by George W.L. Bickley, a filibustering wannabe and flimflamming medical doctor, the Mystic Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC)  has been intimately linked by author David Keehn with almost every tangled conspiracy, ingenuous plot, and reckless adventure in the Civil War era. 

            Writing the history of a secret society is a daunting task but one that Keehn has undertaken with the gusto born of a true believer.  After combing archives and personal narratives from Texas to Massachusetts, Keehn admits that “Verifying claims regarding the Knights is sometimes difficult.”  Nevertheless, he makes a solid case for his conclusion “that the Knights were a much more powerful force and played more of a role in precipitating the Civil War than historians have heretofore recognized.”

            Modeled after medieval orders like the Knights of Malta, Knights Templers, and the Masons, local KGC groups were organized into units known as castles.  Membership was divided into three degrees.  The first was the military arm, the second was the commercial and financial division, and the third was the governing body open only to a few select leaders.  The organization had secret initiation rites and meetings, solemn oaths, passwords, and special hand grips allowing members to recognize fellow knights.

            Keehn divides the antebellum activities of the KGC into three periods: filibustering schemes to extend slavery into Mexico, Cuba, and Central America; conspiring with disunionists to facilitate the secession of slave holding states from the Union; and clandestine operations to seize arms and ammunition from Federal installations throughout the South on the eve of the Civil War.  He maintains that the KGC's most active years were before the actual outbreak of fighting.  During the war, many prominent KGC leaders became officers in the Confederate Army.

            Members came for all walks of life including the plantation elite, government officials, newspaper editors, merchants, lawyers, doctors, and “all southern men of good character as well as northern men who stood by the constitutional claims of the South.”   Keehn uses four state commanders, “military men of substance and drive” as representative of KGC members who later became Confederate officers; Elkanah Bracken Greer from Texas, Paul Jones Semmes from Georgia, Robert Charles Taylor from  Maryland, and Virginius Despeaux Groner from Virginia. 

            While these men may not be historically familiar, some KGC “fellow travelers” did achieve more public notoriety.  John Wilkes Booth probably joined in 1859.  President James Buchanan's Secretary of War leader John Floyd ordered substantial shipments of arms to Southern states ostensibly to support local militias.  Cypriano Ferrandini, a Baltimore barber, allegedly organized the plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln when he traveled through the city on his way to be inaugurated.  Texas Ranger and U.S. Marshall Ben McCulloch played a prominent role in orchestrating Texas's secession.  California's first U.S. Senator William Gwin reportedly led 16,000 KGC members on the West Coast determined to form an independent Pacific republic.  Former Virginia Governor Henry Wise was involved in plots to seize Harpers Ferry and Fort Monroe.

             Keehn's most spirited chapter investigates KGC involvement with John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy, first to kidnap President Lincoln and later to assassinate him.  After describing an array of possible scenarios, Keehn concludes “It remains unknown whether the KGC castles around Washington City remained active during the Civil War and whether the KGC was involved in the assassination on a organizational basis.”

            In fact, much of what the KGC might have planned or done remains in the realm of the unknown or at least the unproven.  Keehn himself admits “While much has been discovered, it is likely that some things remain unknown due to the loss or destruction of records during the Civil War.”  But that's part of their mystique and why secret militant hierarchical organizations remain as much the stuff of legend as they do the stuff of history.

______________________________________

Gordon Berg is a past President and member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (cwrtdc.org).  His reviews and articles appear in the Civil War Times and America's Civil War, among other publications.