​The Million-Dollar Man Who Helped Kill a President: George Washington Gayle and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Christopher Lyle McIlwain, Sr.
Savas Beatie, 2018, 265 pgs., $32.95
ISBN: 978-1-61121-394-2
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The assassination of Abraham Lincoln has been studied for years, producing some fine content in the way of scholarship.  The story of the conspirators who plotted to not only kill Lincoln, but Johnson and Seward as well, hoping to topple the government has been well documented, and often reads like a spy thriller.  But what about the man named George Washington Gayle and his involvement?  The Million-Dollar Man Who Helped Kill a President brings a name to the study of the assassination that hasn’t quite been covered in the past.  Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr.’s addition to the study of Lincoln’s assassination helps us understand more of what this man had to do with this.
            Christopher Lyle McIlwain, Sr. is the winner of the McMillan Prize for his book Civil War Alabama and has also authored 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace.  He’s been practicing law for more than thirty years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  His passion outside of that is nineteenth century history.  Outside of his books, he has also written a number of articles in history journals.
            As I stated in the introduction, most of the Lincoln Assassination plot, reads much like a spy thriller especially when you tie in the stories of the other conspirators.  But who is George Washington Gayle, and why is he so important to the story?  Gayle was one of the leading lawyers in Alabama, a connection our main character shares with the author, and was a Unionist for quite some time.  But that all changed with California joining the Union as a free state.  It was that moment when he changed his tune.  When talking about the assassination here in this book, McIlwain goes in depth throughout Lincoln’s career, talking even about other plots throughout the Lincoln’s tenure.  McIlwain mentions the Baltimore plot involving the Knights of the Golden Circle.  If you don’t know who they are, they’re an interesting secret society during the Civil War, look them up.  In 1864, Gayle created an ad stating that if he was given one million dollars, with fifty thousand in advance, he would set forth in motion the plan to eliminate Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward.  This all spirals towards the time when Lincoln would be assassinated and the trials that ensued.  Gayle would eventually be arrested and taken to Washington D.C. to be tried.  Gayle’s story in this book takes us to a different level of the Lincoln assassination, one that brings sufficient research to the subject and presents new material.
            I highly recomment this book to anyone interested in Abraham Lincoln, or the assassination plot.  This book is presented quite well, with well researched efforts to bring a name to the scholarship that might not be readily known by the people.  This is made me interested in reading other works by McIlwain and I do hope that he continues to present more information through the years.  This book proves that there’s always more to learn when it comes to the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln.  Highly Recommend!  

Confederate Soldiers in the American Civil War

Mark Hughes

Savas Beatie, 2019, $15.95, 168 pages
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ISBN: 978-1-61121-341-6

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With the massive libraries of Civil War academia only growing through the years, there has been one aspect of the war I felt has been observed, but rarely written on in depth.  A few weeks ago, I reviewed Union Soldiers, a book about the lives of “Billy Yank,” throughout the war.  This week, I’m taking a look at the opposite release of that book, Confederate Soldiers, which not only looks at the battlefield lives of these men, but the sailors as well.  I’m quite interested to see what this book offers because there are not many books on this subject, dedicating a whole book to the lifestyle of the soldiers during the war. 

            Mark Hughes is a retired electronics technician and was a department head and instructor for Electronic Engineering Technology.  He graduated from Gaston College and Southeastern Oklahoma State University.  The latter awarded him as a Distinguished Alumni.  He has written the major works on both Union and Confederate Cemeteries, Bivouac of the Dead, The Unpublished Road of Honor, and Confederate Cemeteries, which is published in two volumes.  Hughes is considered to be the authority on these cemeteries and is the only author who has written works on them.  He is also the author of The New Civil War Handbook, along with a number of articles on differing subjects.     

            One of the first things I enjoyed about this book was the ease of reading in which Hughes writes.  Not only is this book approachable for anyone interested in the subject, but I think it’ll be a great book for beginners in the subject.  The whole life of the soldier is laid bare for everyone to see, from enlistment, all the way to the end of the war.  I found that his discussion on the prisoners of war was useful, and gave me information that I never had before, and mirrored the opposite book Union Soldiers.  I appreciated knowing more about those experiences, and as stated before, was accessible to many.  Hughes also gives us a look at a Civil War timeline which is wonderfully presented.   But the most poignant portion of the book is the end, where it not only talks about what happens when the war is over, but how to heal from one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history.  It shows pictures of reunions, monuments, and the veterans of the war sitting side by side.  I know it was only a short section, but that kind of information sticks with me.  The book concludes with a gallery of Confederate soldiers and a short blurb about who they are and what they accomplished during the war.  This section only added to the detail of the book that surrounds it, heightening the information presented in the previous chapters. 
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            I highly recommend this book to any interested in the Civil War, not only those who’ve been studying the conflict for years, but beginners as well.  Combined with Union Soldiers, these two books should be in every Civil War library as a study on the lives of soldiers during the conflict.  The narrative was beautiful, the information was well researched, and I can’t thank Mark Hughes enough for this entry into Civil War books.    

General Grant and the Rewriting of History: How the Destruction of General William S. Rosecrans Influenced Our Understanding of the Civil War
Frank P. Varney
Savas Beatie, 2018, 312 pgs, $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-61121-419-2
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 Ever since I got interested in the American Civil War, I’ve been fascinated with the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.  I am aware that most of it is personal memories that are manipulated to better the image of himself, but I still think that it is an important book.  That doesn’t mean historians cannot scrutinize the work that Grant performed in the writing of this book.  General Grant and the Rewriting of History is the book that tackles the subject of how Grant wrote these words and how he used his own standing do defame General Rosecrans.  Frank P. Varney takes us through this journey and understanding of how such a book became a cornerstone in Civil War era writing.
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            Frank P. Vareny teaches United States and Classical History at Dickinson State University of North Dakota and is also the Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Honors Leadership Program.  He gained his Ph.D. at Cornell University and regularly brings student groups to battlefields.  He is working on an on-site course for both Gettysburg and Chickamauga and has made several appearances before Civil War Roundtables and historical societies around the country.

            One of the first things I learned about the memoirs of U.S. Grant is that they were heavily influenced by Mark Twain.  I have learned since that it’s not quite true, and that has morphed my understanding of this book.  So I’m always excited when a book is released about the creation of this book that so many have in their Civil War collections.  Frank Varney goes deeper than just a simple idea that memoirs are memoirs and should be taken with a grain of salt.  No one wants to write a memoir where they come off looking poorly.  And the same can be said for Grant’s memoirs.  But the main point of this Varney’s book comes in the analysis of what happened to Rosecrans and how Grant treated him in his writing.  While Varney talks about the unreliability of Grant throughout the introduction and the first few chapters, it is his account of the Battle of Iuka where the rivalry between Rosecrans truly begins.  The issues with Rosecrans find its way towards Edwin Stanton, which doesn’t surprise me one bit, and from that, the feud only grows.  

            Varney speaks quite well about the subject matter, and I was pleased to learn that the subject of this book stems from a dissertation he had written.  There is a great passion to the narrative that I have not seen in a book about this subject for some time.  When I started reading this book, I thought it was going to be solely about the memoirs themselves, but instead, it takes the reader through the feud between both Grant and Rosecrans and broadens the horizon when it comes to understanding the memoirs.  The old adage is that “history is written by the victors,” but I never thought I would read an account about how the victors would blame and defame the victors twenty years after the war was over.  I knew about Confederate memoirs often passing blame from one to the other, but for the Union side to play that card as well?  It was surprising to say the least.  It is because of this that I always love reading about Grant’s memoirs and the process through which they were created.

            I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in either the Western Theater of the American Civil War or Ulysses S. Grant.  I think the service Varney has done for the Civil War community here is top notch, and shouldn’t be ignored.  I look forward to what he will offer the scholarship in the future.  Highly Recommended! 

​ The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865
John Horn
Savas Beatie, 2019, 456 pgs, $39.95
ISBN: 978-1-61121-436-9
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     I enjoy a number of regimental histories as I grew my Civil War book collection, and I seemed to gravitate towards those units that served throughout the war as a whole, whether it be the eastern or western theater.  And each time a new history came out, I would be drawn to it.  These books gave me a chance to see through the eyes of a soldier through personal accounts and battle reports.  Today’s book, The Petersburg Regiment, is one such unit that served for the entirety of the war, and even serving before the war began.  And just like the subtitle of the book, this addition to regimental studies in the war doesn’t disappoint.
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            John Horn gained his B.A. in English and Latin from New College in Sarasota, Florida and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.  John has practiced law around Chicago and has also held a local public office.  He has published a number of articles in Civil War Times Illustrated, America’s Civil War, and has authored some books on the subject as well.  Most recently, his work The Destruction of the Weldon Railroad, was republished in 2015 as The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.  

            If you were to look at a regimental history from the post-Civil War era of publishing, the chapters titles offer a look into each portion of the unit’s history.  While that may have been the style then, it’s no longer the case.  Horn puts out the regiment’s history in easy-to-follow segments, so that anyone looking to gain information on a specific battle or campaign would be able to find it in the table of contents.  But I’m not here to tell you about the table of contents.  But just by looking at the contents of this book, you’ll find that these men who served in the 12th Virginia, witnessed some of the most iconic battles during the war on the eastern theater.  I’ve always been fascinated with the story about the Bliss Farm during the Gettysburg campaign, and I was pleased to see such vivid accounts of the fight there during the battle.  Yet, one of the more exciting and nerve-wracking portions of the book was the account of the Crater.  To hear some of the stories about these men who were fighting in ditches and trying to find safety in this time was some of the best portions of the book.  Overall, the accounts of the battles were solid, well researched, and accompanied by some fine maps.

            But that’s not the only thing this book gave us.  One thing that regimental histories seems to drop during their accounts of the war tends to be the humanity of some soldiers.  The best ones stand out, but most others are there for research purposes.  I’m happy to say that The Petersburg Regiment is one of the regimental histories that humanizes the men in the ranks.  This isn’t just some informative reference guide that deepens histories of the battle.  These people described in this account are people.  By the end of reading this, I felt that some of these men were alive, jumping out of the page, and for that, it is a book that I would recommend.  Horn did an amazing job giving life to those who have passed so long ago.  The narrative is something to behold, and should be read by any regimental enthusiast.

            I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the life of Civil War regiments.  Not only does Horn excellently describe the battles these units took place in, but he brought them to life.  If there is anything an author should be praised for, it is the ability to create a story from the history.  Highly recommended!