Memoirs of the Stuart Horse Artillery: Moorman’s and Hart’s Batteries
Edited by Robert J. Trout

Illustrated, index, notes, xvii, 374 pp., 2008. The University of Tennessee Press, 110 Conference Center, Knoxville, TN, 37996-4108, $45 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Ethan S. Rafuse
Ethan S. Rafuse is associate professor of military history at the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College. His publications include A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas; George Gordon Meade and the War in the East; and, most recently, McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union.

Review:
Here is a fine addition to the body of primary source material that has been published as part of the University of Tennessee Press’s “Voices of the Civil War” series. It brings together three primary source documents editor Robert J. Trout uncovered in the course of his research on the men who manned the guns that served with the Army of Northern Virginia’s fabled cavalry, first under the legendary James E. B. Stuart and then under the no less capable Wade Hampton.

By bringing them to print, Trout provides enthusiasts of the Confederate horse artillery a fine complement to earlier studies that established his stature as the leading authority on the subject.

The first of the materials is titled a “History of A Famous Company,” but is in fact simply the wartime diary of Lewis Tune Nunnelee, who served in the battery formed in Lynchburg in 1861 and commanded by Marcellus N. Moorman.

Nunnelee, who was quite a bit older than most of his comrades, served with the battery until the end of the war, rose steadily through the ranks and eventually received a commission as a second lieutenant in 1864. His diary provides an interesting chronicle of Nunnelee’s service, during which he witnessed the Hampton Roads battles of 8-9 March 1862; participated in several engagements, including Malvern Hill, Brandy Station, and Trevilian Station; and had the sanguinary experience of witnessing the evacuation of Richmond in 1865.

This is followed by a chronicle of the exploits of a battery that was initially raised in South Carolina to be part of Hampton’s Legion under the command of Stephen D. Lee, but became better known as Hart’s Battery, after James F. Hart, who replaced Lee as commander in late 1861.

Like Nunnelee’s, the men of this unit saw extensive action in the East. It is effectively, albeit relatively uncritically, described by the four members of the unit who in the 1890s collaborated in the production of the unit history provided in this book.

The final primary source, “Reminiscences of a Color-Bearer,” is the memoir of Louis Sherfesee, a Prussian immigrant who served with Hart’s command as its color bearer and remarkably managed to survive the over 100 engagements the unit participated in — which included such bloody battles as Glendale, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Yellow Tavern and Bentonville — without a significant wound.

All three of the documents are clearly written, although the prose is workmanlike rather than compelling or graceful. They provide a wealth of information and lots of good quotable material that will make them useful to researchers and general readers alike.

Their value is significantly enhanced by the fact that, like the editors of previous volumes in this series, Trout has done an exemplary job editing this book. He provides informative and useful introductions to the book and each of the documents, as well as thoroughly researched notes that give lots of important information that helps the reader follow the various narratives and understand the larger contexts that shaped the events described.

It is lamentable, though, that the editor and publisher failed to provide any maps to help the reader follow the action. In a book like this, in which many locations, operations and engagements are mentioned, good maps are essential.