Captains of the Civil War Part 17

Then, when the pageantry was finished, and the volunteers that formed the vast bulk of those magnificent Federal armies had again become American civilians in thought and word and deed, these steadfast men, whose arms had saved the Union in the field, were first in peace as they had been in war: first in the reconstruction of their country's interrupted life, first in recognizing all that was best in the splendid fighters with whom they had crossed swords, and first--incomparably first--in keeping one and indivisible the reunited home land of both North and South.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Thousands of books have been written about the Civil War; and more about the armies than about the navies and the civil interests together. Yet, even about the armies, there are very few that give a just idea of how every part of the war was correlated with every other part and with the very complex whole; while fewer still give any idea of how closely the navies were correlated with the armies throughout the long amphibious campaigns.

The only works mentioned here are either those containing the original evidence or those written by experts directly from the original evidence. And of course there are a good many works belonging to both these cla.s.ses for which no room can be found in a bibliography so very brief as the present one must be.

_The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies_, 128 vols. (1880-1901), and _Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion_, 26 vols. (1894-), form two magnificent collections of original evidence published by the United States Government.

But they have some gaps which nothing else can fill. _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_ (1887-89), written by competent witnesses on both sides, gives the gist of the story in four volumes (published afterwards in eight). _The Rebellion Record_, 12 vols. (1862-68), edited by Frank Moore, forms an interesting collection of non-official doc.u.ments. _The Story of the Civil War_, 4 vols. (1895-1913), begun by J. C. Ropes, and continued by W. R. Livermore, is an historical work of real value. Larned's _Literature of American History_ contains an excellent bibliography; but it needs supplementing by bibliographies of the present century. Inquiring readers should consult the bibliographies in volumes 20 and 21 (by J. K. Hosmer) in the _American Nation_ series.

There are many works of a more special kind that deserve particular attention. General E. P. Alexander's _Military Memoirs of a Confederate_ (1907), the _Transactions of the Military Historical Society of Ma.s.sachusetts_, Major John Bigelow's _The Campaign of Chancellorsville_ (1910), and J. D. c.o.x's _Military Reminiscences_, 2 vols. (1900), are admirable specimens of this very extensive cla.s.s.

The two greatest generals on the Northern side have written their own memoirs, and written them exceedingly well: _Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant_, 2 vols. (1885-86), and _Memoirs of General W. T.

Sherman_, 2 vols. (1886). But the two greatest on the Southern side wrote nothing themselves; and no one else has written a really great life of that very great commander, Robert Lee. Fitzhugh Lee's enthusiastic sketch of his uncle, _General Lee_ (1894), is one of the several second-rate books on the subject. Colonel G. F. R.

Henderson's _Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War_, 2 vols.

(1898), is, on the other hand, among the best of war biographies.

Henderson's strategical study of the Valley Campaign is a masterpiece.

Two good works of very different kinds are: _A History of the Civil War in the United States_ (1905), by W. Birkbeck Wood and Major J.

E. Edmonds, and _A History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850_, 8 vols. (1893-1919), by James Ford Rhodes. The first is military, the second political. Mr. Rhodes has also written a single volume _History of the Civil War_ (1917). _American Campaigns_ by Major M. F. Steele, issued under the supervision of the War Department (1909), deals chiefly with the military operations of the Civil War.

The naval side of this, as of all other wars, has been far too much neglected. But that great historian of sea-power, Admiral Mahan, has told the best of the story in his _Admiral Farragut_ (1892).

An interesting contemporary account of the war will be found in the five volumes of Appleton's _American Annual Cyclop?dia_ for the years from 1861 to 1865. B. J. Lossing's _Pictorial History of the Civil War_, 3 vols. (1866-69), and Harper's _Pictorial History of the Rebellion_, 2 vols. (1868), give graphic pictures of military life as seen by contemporaries. Personal reminiscences of the war, of varying merit, have multiplied rapidly in recent years. These are appraised for the unwary reader in the bibliographies already mentioned. Frank Wilkeson's _Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac_ (1887), George C. Eggleston's _A Rebel's Recollections_ (1905), and Mrs. Mary B. Chestnut's _Diary from Dixie_ (1905) are among the best of these personal recollections.

The political and diplomatic history has been dealt with already in the two preceding _Chronicles_. _Abraham Lincoln: a History_, by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, in ten volumes (1890), and _The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln_, in twelve volumes (1905), form the quarry from which all true accounts of his war statesmans.h.i.+p must be built up. Lord Charnwood's _Abraham Lincoln_ (1917) is an admirable summary. To these t.i.tles should be added Gideon Welles's _Diary_, 3 vols. (1911), and, on the Confederate side, Jefferson Davis's _The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_, 2 vols.

(1881), and Alexander H. Stephens's _A Const.i.tutional View of the Late War Between the States_, 2 vols. (1870). The best life of Jefferson Davis is that by William E. Dodd in the _American Crisis Biographies_ (1907). W. H. Russell's _My Diary North and South_ (1863) records the impressions of an intelligent foreign observer.

The present _Chronicle_ is based entirely on the original evidence, with the convenient use only of such works as have themselves been written by qualified experts directly from the original evidence.