Book Review

[David Fox]

In recent years I've concentrated my CW reading on the topic of the more obscure battles and campaigns. It's been a largely disappointing endeavour. Many of these books appear to be expanded doctorial theses, the prose turgid, the structure stilted, and my reader's enjoyment minimal. Not so with William L. Shea's 2009 publication "Fields of Blood". This book, covering the Prairie Grove campaign in northern Arkansas culminating in a sharp, close-run, decisive slugfest in the bitter cold of December of 1862, is a gem. Great personality development of the quirky leaders, humourous insights, good explanation of movements, and useful uniform and weapons coverage. As to the latter, though buck and ball was the mainstay of the battle, an Illinois officer inspecting the Confederate dead at one location after the battle noted they were warmly dressed, poorly shod, emaciated, but well armed "with the best Enfield rifles and entirely new equipments of the latest style, and furnished with the best cartridges bearing the stamp of the English manufacturer" (p. 260). An earlier thread in this forum addressed the possibility some of the mutilated dead photographed after Gettysburg were savaged by hogs. At Prairie Grove, the feral Arkansas razorbacks feasted. Both forces, at the absolute end of their logistical tether in one of the remotest spots in any of the obscure Trans-Mississippi, exhaused by long, difficult marches and bone-chilling cold nights, fought like heros. Shea's epilogue satisfyingly pursues the careers of the major participates, "American Graffiti" style: the greatest whining, back-biting scoundrel of all the generals involved went on to become Commanding General of the United States Army! Darn good read.

[Hairy Nation Boys]

Re: Book Review

This book is on my Christmas list.

Pick up: A Damned Iowa Greyhound. Is a diary of a soldier in the 19th Iowa. Very good. I will get who edited later.

Trans-Mississippi needs more love!