Marching with Sherman: Through Georgia and the Carolinas with the 154th New York by Mark H. Dunkelman was a fascinating day by day account of one unit’s experience during this campaign. Dunkelman, a historian and descendant of the 154th NY has used mostly primary sources to tell the story of that regiment. Interestingly, he has also integrated primary source accounts from various Southern sources into the narrative. This was simply an outstanding book. I recommend it very highly to anyone with an interest in Sherman’s tour of GA, SC, and NC. A hat tip to Dr Gerry Prokopowicz and his outstanding Civil War Talk Radio (https://www.impedimentsofwar.org/) for turning me on to it.
All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863 is David Powell’s follow-up volume to his Battle Above the Clouds which covered the earlier phase of the action in and around Chattanooga. As with other volumes in Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War series this one provides a concise account of the battle and an excellent driving tour of the surviving sites. If you want to understand what happened after Chickamauga, this is your book.
Guide to the Atlanta Campaign: Rocky Face Ridge to Kennesaw Mountain by Jay Luvaas and Harold W. Nelson was a necessary supplemental guide to tour what’s left of the Atlanta Campaign. Frankly the book doesn’t have enough narrative to be your only guide, but it does provide a more detailed series of stops than the book I was using as my primary guide, Stephen Davis’ A Long and Bloody Task which I found a bit lacking in detail. Between the two of them, one can put together an excellent and enlightening tour.
Chickamauga: A Battlefield Guide by Steven E. Woodworth is my go-to battlefield guide to Chickamauga striking just the right balance between the rather superficial National Park Driving tour and the “drinking from a firehose” War College guide. As a bonus the book also has a pretty good guide to the actions in and around Chattanooga. One note, if you use this book as your guide to Chickamauga, be sure to start with the two “optional” stops that frame and describe the cavalry delaying actions of 18 September at Reed’s and Alexander’s bridges. To me they are essential to understanding the events of the 19th.
While touring the Chickamauga battlefield I was very pleasantly surprised to find a second edition of the US Army War College Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga by Army War College Foundation, Inc. and Matt Spruill in the visitor center book store. Since I already had an itinerary I didn’t use the book as a guide on this trip, but while reading it afterwards I was delighted to find that this edition is far superior to the prior one as a guide. Readers who are familiar with the War College guides will be familiar with their reliance on lengthy excerpts from the pertinent parts of the O.R. to frame and describe the stops, sometimes with no other narrative. This book maintains the tradition of relying on O.R. for the detail, but also provides a concise, descriptive narrative for each stop. I can’t tell you how much more effective this makes the book (IMHO) as a battlefield guide. If you’re seriously interested in the battle of Chickamauga, this is the book for you, but make sure you get the second edition!
In addition to the Civil War stuff, I’ve also run through the usual assortment of fiction.
The Night Fire by Michael Connelly is the latest volume in the adventures of retired LAPD murder cop Harry Bosch and his sorta-partner/protégé LAPD detective Renee Ballard. The book covers three cases and was entirely up to Connelly’s usual high standards. Fans of the other Bosch books will enjoy this one as well, but its not the place to start. One note, with Harry’s aging and increasing physical decrepitude it looks like Connelly is laying the groundwork for a full transition to Ballard at some point. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Castle of Water: A Novel by Dane Huckelbridge is a charming little castaway novel about the adventures of Sophie Ducel, a newly-wed French architect, and Barry Bleecker, a quitting the Wall street rat-race financial guy, who meet on a commuter flight from one island to another in French Polynesia. The flight goes down and the two find themselves the only survivors washed up on a desert island. The novel proceeds from there mostly in a fairly predictable way but with a few surprises along the way. I enjoyed it because the writing was good, especially the characterizations which I found engaging and believable. I enjoyed it and if you’ve got a few hours to kill you might too, although I probably wouldn’t read it during a long flight over water.
Elevation by Stephen King was a silly and forgettable novella about Scott Carey, a work from home web-designer, who is rapidly losing weight without decreasing in size or appearance. As an added weirdness, Carey weighs the same no matter what he’s wearing. At one point in the story, he gets on a scale at 180, puts on a jacket with about 20 lbs of coins in the pockets and steps back on the scale. Still 180. There’s a sub-plot about a lesbian couple next door to Carey who are meeting cultural resistance from the locals as a same-sex couple. The resistance is threatening to doom their Vegan-Mexican restaurant. King ties the two stories together in a trite and contrived way, just in time for the silly and implausible ending. This is the worst Stephen King book I’ve ever read, and I’ve been reading him for about 40 years. You have been warned.
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is a wonderful sci-fi novel that follows up her outstanding The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. This book isn’t really a sequel as much as it’s another story related to the first one by common characters. In this case Lovelace, the A.I. who is placed into an artificial human body kit and Pepper, the technical wizard who facilitated the transfer, at the end of the first book. There’s also a separate plot-line about the trials and tribulations of a girl named Jane who finds herself in some sort of strange semi-slavery factory environment. The book is excellent! I enjoyed it as much as I did Small, Angry, Planet and I enjoyed that one a lot. I can’t wait to get the third one out of the library and see what Chambers comes up with next.
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham is basically what I’ve been saying ever since the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave began warming the chair of his betters. Although we’re living in trying times and things look bleak for American Democracy, this isn’t even close to the worst things have been. Meacham provides numerous examples of when things were arguably, worse: Jackson defying SCOTUS resulting in the Trail of Tears, the failure of Reconstruction, KKK influence on state governments in the 1920s, McCarthyism, etc, etc. He recounts how the ship of state has always in the past righted itself sooner or later. I believe and fervently hope, that this is just another one of those cases. We shall see.
129 for the year
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