The 11th Alabama Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War
By Ronald G. Griffin
(December 2008 Civil War News)

Illustrated, notes, bibliography, index, 284 pp., 2008. McFarland & Company, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, $55 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Frank Piatek
Frank Piatek graduated from Geneva College with a B.A. in history. He received his J.D. from Duquesne University in 1972. He is a member of several reenactment groups and past president of the Mahoning Valley Civil War Round Table.

Review:
The 11th Alabama was part of Cadmus M. Wilcox’s Brigade and participated in heavy fighting during the Seven Days, Second Manassas, Antietam, Salem Church, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania and actions around Petersburg until its surrender at Appomattox.

This regimental history is a detailed rendition focusing on the officers and soldiers comprising the unit and draws on some first-person accounts to tell the story.

 En route to First Manassas where the battle had just concluded, the regiment suffered from measles and its first casualty, dead from disease. But significant action was awaiting the 11th during McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign where it participated in its first engagement at Seven Pines.

Perhaps the highest praise to the regiment’s service was its tenacious stand at Salem Church during the Chancellorsville Campaign. The present-day monument to the 23rd New Jersey actually pays tribute to the Alabama Brigade and in whose memory the tablet was dedicated.

On July 2 at Gettysburg, the regiment engaged Berdan’s 1st Sharpshooters and later was part of the brigade’s attack on the Federal position on Cemetery Ridge which culminated in meeting the 1st Minnesota.

The 11th Alabama was also in support of Pickett’s Division the following day. At Petersburg, the 11th participated in the repulse of the Federals during the battle of the Crater. At Davis Farm, while it moved in an open field against Federals hidden in the woods, Gen. John Sanders of the regiment, who succeeded Wilcox, was mortally wounded.

Griffin is clear and concise in his story, but his tendency to shift tenses and interject himself in the narrative sometimes disturbed me. While he provides some good detail in his explanatory endnotes, he does not cite his sources in the same manner, preferring to place them in parentheses within the narrative.

Some maps would have been helpful. Also a more generalized account of the battles would have provided a contextual framework for the regiment’s contributions even though Griffin’s objective was to focus on the regiment specifically. The photographs are mostly of modern-day sites where the regiment was positioned, although there are some portraits of members.

Griffin has done considerable work in making casualty lists for each battle, but the names are placed in succession in paragraph form. A simple alphabetical listing in a table would have been more readable. His annotated list of men at the final roll call, though, is superb because he discusses their postwar activities.

For anyone specifically interested in the men of the 11th Alabama, this is a valuable resource. I enjoyed the first-person accounts that not only discussed the battles but also depicted soldier life in general and their motivations for fighting. Particularly good were those from Gen. J.C.C. Sanders, whose letters are  at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections at the University of Alabama; the Fleming W. Thompson letters at The Center for American History at the University of Texas; and George A. Clark’s 1914 autobiography A Glance Backward: Or Some Events in the Past History of My Life.

There was no regimental history of the 11th Alabama before this one. Griffin has, therefore, made a significant contribution in that regard. But even more importantly, his personalized treatment from the perspective of the rank and file makes it interesting. He has ably honored one of the foremost fighting regiments in the Confederate Army.