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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Pictorial History of the Confederacy
by John Chandler Griffin
Illustrated, index, 238 pp., 2004. McFarland and Company Inc., Publishers, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, $49.95 plus shipping.
How do you review a book that is basically a compilation of photographs that almost every Civil War historian, professional and amateur, has seen at one time or another? How do you review a thin, expensive book of photographs we’ve all seen?—a book that costs $50! There are some redeeming qualities about this book. It has a section showing all of the state flags of the Confederacy, which you don’t often see. It also has a sketch of the goddess Minerva drawn by Jefferson Davis while a cadet at West Point. Who knew he could draw? There is an oil painting by Confederate General Earl Van Dorn. Who knew he could paint? From the archives there is a photograph of the South Carolina secession convention in Charleston that I had never seen. I call this kind of book a “bathtub” book, one that you can soak in the tub and thumb through without worrying about getting it wet—unless you are worried about having spent the $50 to get it. You can read it and look at it, but you don’t need to study it as you do many other history books. There are, however, some problems with the book. There are misspellings (“Moseby”). There are incorrect facts (The crown of thorns presented to Jefferson Davis by the Pope is on display at Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans, not the “Confederate Museum” in Richmond. The correct name is Museum of the Confederacy), and still more incorrect facts (Confederate nurse Sally Tompkins is not buried in Richmond, but in the front yard of her home church in rural Virginia). How the author came up with some of the captions is unfathomable. The famous sniper in Devil’s Den is identified as being from the 4th Virginia and that he bled to death after being hit by shrapnel. The caption does not mention the now well-known fact that the photographer had moved that particular body around. The author forgets that Lee had four daughters, totally ignoring Annie, who died of fever at the age of 23. The last photo in the book shows the famous statue of Lee asleep in this tent, but the caption implies that it shows Lee in death. But, once in a while the author comes up with a gem, such as a poem about Robert E. Lee in death by none other than Julia Ward Howe. Howe wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was much more about conquering the South than it was about God coming for the second time. Buy this book if you want a book that you don’t want to have to think about to enjoy, but take its facts with a grain of salt because some of them are incorrect.
Clint Johnson
Clint Johnson's latest book is Bull’s-Eyes And Misfires: 50 People Whose Obscure Efforts Shaped The American Civil War.
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