THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.* Mn. FORMBY'S book is an attempt
to give us a broad and concise presentation of the Civil War considered from causes to results, while avoiding the technicalities and personal details which help to swell a history without throwing any light on the broad issues. As he explains, his desire is to treat the course of events as a whole. He has succeeded. As an impartial summarised account of a great episode in history this book is admirable, and it contains several features which greatly add to its value. The first four chapters dealing with the events which gradually led up to hostilities are full, and trace matters back as far as the beginning of the century. They show how far the slavery question was responsible for the rupture between North and South. In chap. 5 the resources, positions, and prospects of the two sides are enlarged upon, and the appreciation of the courses open to the two belligerents given at the end is particularly clear. Chaps. 5 to 13 are devoted to the actual progress of the struggle, and divide up the subject into well-marked phases. There are some very pungent remarks in the portion of the book dealing with the results and lessons of the war, especially as regards American politics and so-called " freedom," and what is said about the Alabama' claim and the question of neutrality generally is well worth reading. Though battles are not described in that detail which would be necessary in a purely military history, sufficient information is given for their course to be followed easily, and for their effect on the main operations to be grasped. Of the battles, the author considers that of Stone's River to be the turning-point of the war.
Particular attention is given to the Mexican complication and its connexion with affairs in the States. This episode is more fully described than is usnally the case in histories of the Civil War, and Napoleon III.'s aims are well explained. The general arrangement of the book is excellent. Each chapter describes a certain definite period in the progress of the struggle, and discusses certain definite aspects of it. Numerous cross-references are given, and each of the chapters containing the narrative concludes with a summary, short personal notices, and a chronological table of the events occurring during the period covered by that chapter. The maps, which are bound in a separate volume and separately indexed, are clear sketch-maps. They have the great merit of being standardised as to scale, so that some comparison is possible. Those showing the relative progress of the operations during each of the four years 1861 to 1864 are particularly valuable as presenting the general course of the war at a glance.
The History of the Confederate War, by Mr. George Cary Eggleston, though describing the same event in history, is a book of a different type. The author, we think, somewhat prejudices a non-American reader by his introduction, which is not written in that dispassionate style usually associated with history as opposed to journalism. This war is universally admitted to have been a stupendous struggle, and it is hardly necessary now to impress the fact on the reader with the vehemence exhibited by Mr. Eggleston in his introduction entitled " The Magnitude of the Confederate War." He is probably correct in his assumption that an absolutely truthful account will be welcomed by the American people, and that the heroism displayed by the men who fought on either side is a subject of pride to every American, whatever the sympathies of his forbears. We may add that we yield to none in our admiration of the prowess of the American soldier. But there have been other wars in the history of the world, and we think that the omission of such paragraphs as the following—" As an exhibition of national military capacity and a revelation of our prodigious possibilities of armed resistance, it taught the world the advisability and indeed the absolute necessity of letting the United States alone, as the one unassailable and defensively irresistible nation on earth "—would have done no harm to the history which the author is about to relate with such loyalty to the truth. Apart from the fact that he is generally rather lavish of adjectives and superlatives all
• (1) The American Civil War: a Concise History of its Causes, Progress, and Results. By John Formby. London: John Murray. 118s. net.]—(2) The History of the Confederate War, its Causes and Conduct : a Narrative and Critical History. By George Cary Eggleston. 2 vols. London : W. Heinemann. [15s. net.]—(3) Hood's Texas Brigade : its Marches, its Battles, its Achievements. By J. B. Polley. New York : The Neale Publishing Company. [S3'90 net.]— (1) Cleburne and his Command. By Irving A. Buck, Same publishers. [as net.]
through the book, there is mach to interest in what he has to say. Like Mr. Formby, he does not attempt any technical account of the battles, but confines himself to a general history of the struggle and its causes. The chapters on " The Growth of the National Idea" and " The Irrepressible Conflict' "—in fact, the whole of Part I. dealing with the causes of the war—are especially attractive. The author records his opinion that the war was really the result of a chain of unavoidable circumstances, and cannot be ascribed to any one definite cause. We agree.
In Hood's Texas Brigade, by Mr. J. B. Polley, the subject is treated from quite a different point of view. It is the detailed history of some of the units of the Texas troops and others which played a conspicuous part in the cam- paign, and were brigaded together under the command of Brigadier-General Hood early in 1862. This brigade took part, with one exception, in all the great battles fought by the Army of North Virginia, and covered itself with glory. The book is carefully written, and abounds in spirited accounts of the various fights through which this famous corps went. The description of the Wilderness is especially graphic. Some of the anecdotes are typical ; for instance, one Bill Calhoun, when giving vent to the general sentiment of gratitude that the brigade was not still occupying the ground under which a mine had been fired, thus expresses himself :—" Well, boys, hit's a d—d sight more comfortabler ter be stannin' here on good ole Virginny terror firmer than to be danglin' heels up an' heads down over that cursed mine, not knowin.' whether you'd strike soft or hard groun' when you lit." We note with some curiosity that the name of the erectors is printed under the photograph of the monument to the brigade now being erected at Austin, Texas, and that the portrait of a member of the Monument Committee who sub- scribed 5,000 dollars is given as well as those of some members of the corps.
Cleburne and his Command, by Mr. Irving A. Buck, is a book similar in nature. It is confined to one feature of the war,— the services to the Confederate cause of one unit and its leader. Captain Buck, who served under Cleburne, is well qualified to give the history of his old division, of which he naturally writes with great affection. The narrative of the life of General Patrick Cleburne is romantic. He was an Irishman, and started life as a druggist in Ireland. He then enlisted in the Forty-first Foot. After three years' service he purchased his discharge and emigrated to America, where he again took up the profession of druggist. He then became a lawyer, and finally a soldier. The book is written in a pleasant style, and abounds in quotations from official and other records. The account of the battle at Franklin gives the truth about Cleburne's death. This has often been quite incorrectly described. Both the writer of this book and the historian of the Texas Brigade show an amount of affection for their old commanders and their old corps which is as touching as it is creditable, and speaks well for the camaraderie of those who fought together half-a-century ago. There is one portrait and a few small-scale battle-maps.
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