Tales From The North And South - Twenty-Four Remarkable People And Events of the Civil War

By Frances H. Casstevens
Illustrated, notes, bibliography, index, 374 pp., 2007. McFarland & Company, Box 611, Jefferson, N.C. 28640, $35 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Clint Johnson
Clint Johnson's latest book is The Politically Incorrect Guide To The South. His next book will be Pursuit - The Chase, Capture, Persecution and Surprising Release of Confederate President Jefferson Davis coming in June 2008.

Review:
I like mini-biographies like Tales because in one book you can learn about men and women who have escaped the attention of other writers who concentrate on the big battles and big characters.

Casstevens has made a fine selection of characters to describe.

There is Gen, Edward Wild, a man who lived up to his name by often ignoring orders and protocol to do what he thought was right. Wild was arrested several times by his superiors, including once for wearing a gray overcoat instead of one more appropriate to his rank.

When Wild led a raid of black soldiers into North Carolina he earned the curious curse from Confederates that he must be a cousin to "Beelzebub." Wild trusted his black soldiers and they trusted him.

After the war he was removed from command in a Freedman's Bureau in Georgia for seemingly to allow his black soldiers to mistreat the white people. One small passage in the book sums up the character of Wild. He used a wooden log for a pillow.

For every somewhat-known hardhead like Wild there are almost anonymous men like Capt. Reuben Wilson of Casstevens' home county of Yadkin, North Carolina. Wilson fought hard and came home to become a member of the Home Guard.

Not long after the war was over local legend said he was arrested by U.S. Army soldiers and turned over to civilian authorities after being charged with the murders of three Confederate soldiers the Home Guard believed were deserters. Casstevens delved into records and found that he was charged with murder, but the arrest order was issued by North Carolina state officials, not by the U.S. Army.

Then there was Gen. John Turchin, a Russian made slightly famous by allowing his men to burn down Athens, Ala., while he acted like he did not know they were doing it.

The author combines his story with that of his wife, Nadine, an apparently formidable woman who not only got her husband's court-martial overturned, but also got him promoted to general after a convincing visit to President Lincoln.

Other women are also featured. In fact, Casstevens writes that Mrs. Susie Baker Taylor King was a woman who had "risen from so low to achieve too much and to help so many." Casstevens writes that she should be remembered as much as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth.

Taylor became a nurse and after the war wrote her memoirs. According to Casstevens, she was the only black woman serving black troops to have detailed her story in print.

Each chapter is broken up with sub-heads that describe what the reader will find. This is the kind of book where one can read a chapter, put it down, and then come back to it weeks later and pick right back up with a fresh chapter.