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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Hundred Days to Richmond: Ohio’s "Hundred Days" Men in the Civil War.
Edited by Jim Leeke.
Illustrated, maps, notes, bibliography, appendices, index, 272 pp., 1999. Indiana University Press, 601 North Morton St., Bloomington, IN 47404-3797, $29.95 plus shipping.
As the Civil War entered its third year, manpower was be-coming increasingly difficult to raise both North and South. In the North, substantial bounties were offered to induce enlist-ment and the politically unpopular draft and substitute system was used to fill enlistment quotas. In the spring of 1864, Ohio Governor John Brough pitched an idea to enlist the state militia into federal service for a period of 100 days to provide short-term troops to serve as guards, la-borers, and rear echelon soldiers to free more veteran units for combat duty. Brough expanded the idea and contacted other Midwest governors to do likewise to raise 100,000 men to offer the Lincoln Administration. Only Ohio came close to its goal, federalizing close to 36,000 militiamen. Other Midwestern states only brought in a total of around 25,000. Even when the system spread to other Northern states, a total of only about 81,000 men was raised for a 100-day period. A Hundred Days to Richmond is an edited collection of letters and recollections of Ohio’s 100-day contingent incorporated into the 130th and 172nd Regiments. The editor is Jim Leeke, a freelance writer and editor, who previously published Smoke and Fury: The Civil War Memoirs of Major General Lew Wallace. The story of the 100-day men is told from their initial en-listment through their assignments to various war theaters to their muster out. Many units had a core of veterans who had served in the conflict. Many units were officered and contained in their ranks many of the upstanding citizens of Ohio who had joined the state militia out of patriotism. Many of the regiments were assigned to "backwater" areas such as prison camps, quartermaster depots, and rear fortifica-tions. Others, though, got a touch of real action as they were put into line at Petersburg, sent to hunt guerrillas and raiders in West Virginia and Kentucky, or arrived just in time in the Washington area to be thrown into the battle of Monocacy. The letters abound with apprehension of getting into combat and grumbling that their whole purpose was to be in the rear, not up close to the business end of enemy muskets. Chapters also address the prisoner of war accounts of some 100-day men; especially those captured at Monocacy. There are accounts of the sickness that swept the 100-day ranks just as it did all other troops, causing many more deaths that enemy fire. Finally, appendices list the various 100-day units from all states as well as a collection of accounts of encounters with "Father Abraham" who seemed to be everywhere in the summer of ’64. While not a grand examination of the politics and strategic uses of short term enlistments in the latter part of the war, A Hundred Days to Richmond is an interesting and readable ac-count of those whose service to the Blue was brief, but in some cases dangerous and exciting.
Kenneth D. Williams
Kenneth D. Williams is writ-ing a book on the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers and is doing doctoral level work in American history. He has worked as a park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site.
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