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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Grassroots History of the American Civil War Volume I: The Life and Times of Pvt. Ephraim Cooper—One of Mr. Lincoln’s First Volunteers
by Richard Staats
Illustrated, maps, index, 177 pp., softcover, 2003. Heritage Books, Inc., 65 E. Main St., Westminster, MD 21157, $25 plus shipping.
The author tells us Cooper, who was mustered into the Tyler Guards or Company G of the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, on April 29, 1861, was a soldier who never fought in a battle or ever fired his gun at the enemy. So the book isn’t really about Ephraim Cooper, but about the political ferment which swirled about him when he resided in Portage County, Ohio. Staats writes of the active brew of movements that occurred in northwestern Ohio prior to the Civil War. Abolitionism, women’s rights, equality of women, transcendentalism, comeouterism, and the underground railroad movements all had their supporters in the communities around Randolph and Ravenna, Ohio. For nearly two decades the meetings, resolutions and actions of these movements were actively reported by the local newspapers—especially the Portage County Democrat, The Portage County Sentinel and the Ravenna Republican. The author freely quotes from these papers to document the fervor and passion of those who supported these movements. One of the leading figures in stirring this ferment was William Stedman. Stedman, active in Whig politics, lived in the small town of Randolph, Ohio. When the war began, 45-year-old Stedman, abolitionist, champion of women’s rights and temperance, and friend of James Garfield, led the drive to recruit young men to suppress the rebellion. Among the men he recruited was Ephraim Cooper. The story of Ephraim Cooper reminds us that not all men who volunteer died on the battlefield. Cooper dies without ever having set foot on Southern soil; only a tombstone and an obituary remain to remind us Private Cooper was one of Lincoln’s first volunteers. This sprightly written book introduces the four-volume Grassroots History of the American Civil War and will interest students of these movements as well as those with an interest in the pre-Civil War history of Portage
Gary Augustine
Gary Augustine is past president of the Western Pennsylvania Civil War Round Table and writes a monthly review of Civil War literature for the group's newsletter.
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