Recent Acquisitions to My Library

As I often do, I am kicking off a new month's set of posts with recent additions to my personal library. This month's crop of books includes some brand new titles, while others have been hanging out for a while on my "wishlist."

The newest release in this group is James P. Byrd's A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War. This is yet another study that makes one wonder why didn't someone think to write this specific topic earlier. Yes, there are a number of books about religion and how certain religious denomination weathered the Civil War, but I'm not aware of many (if any) that deal specially with the Bible and the Civil War. This should be a fascinating read!

In a somewhat similar vein to the above title, Luke Harlow's Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880, is a book that I've been wanting to read for several years now. My fondness of Kentucky history has not diminished since leaving there in 2015. I found Anne Marshall's book Creating a Confederate Kentucky to be such a compelling read. And this book appears to branch off of Marshall's and show how religion and slavery shaped the state's response to emancipation and its post-war alignment with Lost Cause.   

I've mentioned on here before how I am trying to find just about everything I can get my hands on related to the Battle of New Market Heights and the United States Colored Troops who fought there. Recently I became aware of The Colors of Dignity: Memoirs of Civil War Brigadier General Giles Waldo Shurtleff, edited by Catherine Durant Voorhees. Memoirs always need to approached with a degree of caution due to time lag between when the events being described happened and when they are being written about. However, memoirs can also provide invaluable insights and should be judged after reading them and not before. At the battle of New Market Heights, Shurtleff served as lieutenant colonel of the 5th United States Colored Infantry. Raised primarily in Ohio, and formerly known as the 127th Ohio, this regiment saw significant action around Petersburg and Richmond. I'm eager to read how he remembered his service and the men he fought with.

There are certain historian authors that I particularly enjoy reading. Brian Steel Wills is one of many for me. Wills has covered a diverse array of topics and personalities during his career. One of those people is someone I know little about--although he is the subject of several biographical studies. Wills' Confederate General William Dorsey Pender: The Hope of Glory will hopefully provide me with a much richer understanding of this young general's personality and his life. I've encountered Pender's voluminous wartime correspondence with his wife while reading other books, but I'm looking forward to reading those references within the context of his life story. 

 

I often have people comment to me about my eclectic reading within the field of Civil War-era studies. I am guilty as charged. I don't seem to have just one niche interest in Civil War studies. When I come across mentions of books like Brandi Clay Brimmer's Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, and Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South, there is a strong sense of curiosity and something in me that wants to know about it. Reading books concerning the struggles of USCT soldiers to obtain pensions for their service after the war makes me wonder how even more difficult it must have been for their widows, who perhaps did not have the immediate connections of comrades and white officers that their soldier husbands did. I'm fascinated to learn more!

The 1863 months following the Battle of Gettysburg are traditionally the least studied in the the histories of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. However, historian Jeffrey William Hunt is currently making that period a definite focus of his research and writing. To go along with his previously published book, Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station, which appeared in 2018, now available is, Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station: The Army of the Potomac's First Post-Gettysburg Offensive, From Kelly's Ford to the Rapidan, October 21 to November 20, 1863. This book will go a long way toward filling yet another "pot-hole" of my knowledge and will hopefully help me better understand the months leading into the Overland Campaign.