Tweet
For what it's worth, I wrote the following book review for "North and South" magazine a few months ago, and thought the info might be semi-useful to some of the guys portraying the 104th Ohio at Franklin/Nashville:
******************
Barbara Smith and Nina Baker present a well-written collection of 142 letters spanning 1862 through 1865, penned by their ancestor.
Private William Bentley served in the 104th Ohio Volunteers in the Army of the Ohio’s 23rd Corps. Bentley and his regiment spent most of their first year of service marching to and fro through Kentucky, spent the autumn of 1863 and winter of 1864 in eastern Tennessee, took part in the siege of Knoxville, and participated in the Atlanta campaign, Hood’s 1864 Tennessee campaign, and the latter stages of the 1865 Carolinas campaign.
Smith and Baker appear to be first-time editors and show both promise and their inexperience. Despite their family connection with the letters’ author, they have excised most family references and “small talk” from Bentley’s wartime writings, leaving 160 pages of small text with crisp, soldier’s-eye-view accounts of life in camp and on the march. For this they are to be congratulated, because most editors related to their subject tend regard all the original material, no matter how boring or relevant, as invaluable.
In addition to Bentley’s letters, the editors have included a roster of the entire 104th Ohio, which will be of interest to researchers and descendents.
On the other hand, Smith and Bentley’s work contains editorial text that is uneven and often poorly situated within the book. Each of the seven chapters contains a page or two summarizing Private Bentley’s experiences over the several months covered in each chapter, annoyingly supplemented by endnotes located in the book’s appendices. Instead of this format, a brief paragraph prior to every letter or two would have improved the overall narrative flow and placed each letter more squarely in the context of the larger events in which Private Bentley participated.
Another sign of the editors’ inexperience is the book’s bibliography, consisting of only the Official Records, two secondary sources on the war, a book and an article on Bentley’s hometown, and several Internet websites for which nothing but the website’s domain name is provided, such as “www.nps.gov”, “www.civilwar.com”, and others. This is amateur research, poor referencing, or both.
Another disappointment is the book’s complete lack of maps of Bentley’s campaigns. In particular, maps of Kentucky to orient the reader on towns through which Bentley and the 104th Ohio repeatedly marched would have been useful.
Despite these shortcomings, Private Bentley’s letters are a good read. Bentley, who enlisted at age 19, was extremely observant and a very good writer. His letters present his opinions of his officers and politicians, vivid descriptions of his marches and the countryside through which he campaigned, soldier life, his changing attitudes on the war, and many other topics. Through the book we see Bentley grow from a teenager into a man, with a man’s mature views.
Those looking for first-person battlefield narratives may be disappointed in this work. Despite the publisher’s claim that “Bentley participated in 13 of the notable battles of the war”, his letters contain few accounts of combat. The 104th Ohio, while part of Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, was often on the army’s flanks and saw hard marching instead of extensive fighting. Bentley’s letters include nothing on the actual siege of Knoxville, and provide a powerful account of only one battle: Franklin. Even here, Bentley was in the rear and rejoined the 104th shortly after of the fighting ended, although he provides a vivid, lengthy account of the corpse-strewn field in front of his regiment.
Despite the fact that it is lacking in a few areas, this collection of Bentley’s letters is nevertheless a very good read, and should be of interest to anyone concerned in the Army of the Ohio, the 104th Ohio Volunteers, and the life of the common Federal soldier in the Western theatre.
— Reviewed by Kevin O’Beirne
Hamburg, New York
*********************
******************
“BURNING RAILS AS WE PLEASED”
The Civil War Letters of William Garrigues Bentley,
104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
Edited by Barbara Bentley Smith and Nina Bentley Baker
McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004, 216 pages plus index, $49.95, cloth,
ISBN: 0-7844-1659-9
The Civil War Letters of William Garrigues Bentley,
104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
Edited by Barbara Bentley Smith and Nina Bentley Baker
McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004, 216 pages plus index, $49.95, cloth,
ISBN: 0-7844-1659-9
Barbara Smith and Nina Baker present a well-written collection of 142 letters spanning 1862 through 1865, penned by their ancestor.
Private William Bentley served in the 104th Ohio Volunteers in the Army of the Ohio’s 23rd Corps. Bentley and his regiment spent most of their first year of service marching to and fro through Kentucky, spent the autumn of 1863 and winter of 1864 in eastern Tennessee, took part in the siege of Knoxville, and participated in the Atlanta campaign, Hood’s 1864 Tennessee campaign, and the latter stages of the 1865 Carolinas campaign.
Smith and Baker appear to be first-time editors and show both promise and their inexperience. Despite their family connection with the letters’ author, they have excised most family references and “small talk” from Bentley’s wartime writings, leaving 160 pages of small text with crisp, soldier’s-eye-view accounts of life in camp and on the march. For this they are to be congratulated, because most editors related to their subject tend regard all the original material, no matter how boring or relevant, as invaluable.
In addition to Bentley’s letters, the editors have included a roster of the entire 104th Ohio, which will be of interest to researchers and descendents.
On the other hand, Smith and Bentley’s work contains editorial text that is uneven and often poorly situated within the book. Each of the seven chapters contains a page or two summarizing Private Bentley’s experiences over the several months covered in each chapter, annoyingly supplemented by endnotes located in the book’s appendices. Instead of this format, a brief paragraph prior to every letter or two would have improved the overall narrative flow and placed each letter more squarely in the context of the larger events in which Private Bentley participated.
Another sign of the editors’ inexperience is the book’s bibliography, consisting of only the Official Records, two secondary sources on the war, a book and an article on Bentley’s hometown, and several Internet websites for which nothing but the website’s domain name is provided, such as “www.nps.gov”, “www.civilwar.com”, and others. This is amateur research, poor referencing, or both.
Another disappointment is the book’s complete lack of maps of Bentley’s campaigns. In particular, maps of Kentucky to orient the reader on towns through which Bentley and the 104th Ohio repeatedly marched would have been useful.
Despite these shortcomings, Private Bentley’s letters are a good read. Bentley, who enlisted at age 19, was extremely observant and a very good writer. His letters present his opinions of his officers and politicians, vivid descriptions of his marches and the countryside through which he campaigned, soldier life, his changing attitudes on the war, and many other topics. Through the book we see Bentley grow from a teenager into a man, with a man’s mature views.
Those looking for first-person battlefield narratives may be disappointed in this work. Despite the publisher’s claim that “Bentley participated in 13 of the notable battles of the war”, his letters contain few accounts of combat. The 104th Ohio, while part of Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, was often on the army’s flanks and saw hard marching instead of extensive fighting. Bentley’s letters include nothing on the actual siege of Knoxville, and provide a powerful account of only one battle: Franklin. Even here, Bentley was in the rear and rejoined the 104th shortly after of the fighting ended, although he provides a vivid, lengthy account of the corpse-strewn field in front of his regiment.
Despite the fact that it is lacking in a few areas, this collection of Bentley’s letters is nevertheless a very good read, and should be of interest to anyone concerned in the Army of the Ohio, the 104th Ohio Volunteers, and the life of the common Federal soldier in the Western theatre.
— Reviewed by Kevin O’Beirne
Hamburg, New York
*********************