The Battle of Okolona: Defending the Mississippi Prairie The Battle of Franklin: When the Devil Had Full Possession of the Earth
The Battle of Okolona: Defending the Mississippi Prairie by Brandon H. Beck. Photographs, maps, notes, guided tour, bibliography, index, 111 pp., 2009, The History Press, www.historypress.net, $19.99, softcover. The Battle of Franklin: When the Devil Had Full Possession of the Earth by James R. Knight. Photographs, maps, notes, appendix, bibliography, index, 158 pp., 2009, The History Press, www.historypress.net, $19.99, softcover.
These two volumes are part of the Civil War Sesquicentennial Series from History Press. Douglas W. Bostick is the series editor. Both are concise, well-written accounts. If these two volumes are representative of the entire series, the series will make a fine addition to Civil War literature. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman planned a campaign to destroy the railroad junction at Meridian, Miss. As Sherman marched east from Vicksburg, Gen. William Sooy Smith was ordered to march from Memphis, Tenn., with som e 7,000 cavalry on a raid into the Mississippi prairie. He was to destroy this breadbasket of the Confederacy before meeting Sherman in Meridian. The plan was probably a good one except that it failed to reckon on Confederate cavalry genius Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. When Smith reached West Point, he decided, under pressure from Forrest, to retreat back to Memphis. Forrest, of course, was not content to let him go peacefully; Smith’s retreat turned into a savage running fight from West Point to Okolona. He never got close to his rendezvous with Sherman at Meridian. Beck’s illustrated guided tour adds much to this volume. The Battle of Okolona will make a nice companion when driving the route of the cavalry of both North and South. James R. Knight’s volume on the Battle of Franklin concerns a much larger battle, one of the most savage of the war. In late 1864 Gen. John Bell Hood marched the only Confederate army capable of offensive warfare away from Sherman’s army in Georgia to invade Tennessee. He even had hopes of marching all the way to the Ohio River. This is easily the best-written short account of the battle I have read. Knight provides the details of the battle in a clear, succinct text. He also enlivens the text with personal anecdotes describing what the soldiers of both sides faced. South of Franklin, Tenn., Hood ran into the army of Gen. John Schofield. Angered that Schofield’s troops were allowed to escape a Rebel trap at Spring Hill, Hood next ordered a suicidal attack at Franklin. Surprising his own troops as much as he did those of the enemy, Hood sent his troops against the entrenched Union troops of Schofield. Attacking across open fields, the Confederates were cut down like sheaves of wheat; still a great many reached the Yankee trenches. Often fighting on opposing sides of the same trench, the soldiers experienced close combat at its fiercest. After reading The Battle of Franklin, with the aid of the fine maps, the reader will have a much clearer understanding of the tactics of the battle and of the horrors experienced by the infantry of both sides. These are two excellent books. I recommend both for buffs just learning about the Civil War in the Western Theater. They will provide a solid foundation for further reading. Reviewer: Robert L. Durham Robert L. Durham is a computer specialist. A longtime Civil War buff, he is also interested in Old West history and has written articles and book reviews for Alamo Journal, True West, Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association, and Alamo de Parras web site at www.flash.net/~alamo3
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