Illustrated, photographs, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 590 pp., 2010, Brewster River Press, www.vermontsirishrebel.com, $29.95, softcover.

Author William L. McKone is proud of his Irish heritage. The cover of this book is green. The font used on the cover is green. Instead of an apostrophe in the word Vermont’s, there is a shamrock. Inside the book there are numerous photographs of the author touring historic sites in Ireland, ostensibly while conducting research on Capt. John Lonergan.

The book itself is yet another example of a well-intentioned and dedicated author creating a tome about a relatively minor Civil War figure. McKone writes competently and provides a prodigious amount of detail; he goes back as far as 1247 to provide a comprehensive portrait of Lonergan’s background. Unfortunately, the audience for this book is so narrow that McKone’s labor of love may be lost in obscurity.

McKone does not help to expand his audience with sentences such as “The Bobd Dearg resided in ‘the Sidh of Femen,’ the mountain which is now called Slievenamon.”

This language might make perfect sense to someone of Irish background, but to a general audience looking to learn more about a brave Union officer who earned the Medal of Honor at Gettysburg, the use of such unfamiliar terminology and geography is off-putting, to say the least.

The Gettysburg Campaign occupies nearly 70 pages of the book. McKone succeeds in keeping his focus on Lonergan and his Vermonters before, during and after the three-day fight in Pennsylvania, while not necessarily breaking any new historical ground in the depiction of their actions.

McKone resurrects the minor controversy over who ordered George Stannard’s Vermonters to flank George Pickett’s men on July 3, Stannard or Winfield Hancock. Rather than take a position in this debate, however, McKone merely describes the key role of the 13th Vermont in the tactical movement, regardless of who ordered it.

The third part of the book focuses on the quixotic attempt by the Fenians to invade Canada after the Civil War. This misadventure failed in no small part due to the inability of Fenian leaders, including Lonergan, to reach consensus on much of anything.

McKone cares passionately about his subject, and his efforts to remember and memorialize Lonergan are commendable. The author would have helped his cause with a more concise and briskly paced narrative that was a bit less steeped in the lore of the Emerald Isle.

Revierer: John Deppen

John Deppen is past president of the Susquehanna CWRT, a member of General John F. Hartranft Camp #15 of the SUVCW and a living historian who portrays Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock.  His articles and reviews have appeared in Military Heritage, Gettysburg Magazine, The Civil War News and The Daily Item in central Pennsylvania.