A Couple of Older Books Worth Taking a Look At

As I capture quotes from various sources, I discover in the bibliography or footnotes, other books out there, some not necessarily new, that I wish to add to my library. As economics are always a factor, I see if I can find them online relatively cheap. Last week, I found two such books.

The first is A Diary of Battle - The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainright 1861-1865 edited by Allan Nevins (New York: De Capo Press 1998). Wainright is a New York artilleryman who served throughout the Civil War with the Army of the Potomac. It is a first person original source written by Colonel Wainright in the form of a journal. What drew me to the book were some quotes I found elsewhere by Wainright on Joseph Hooker. The book is proving to be an interesting and compelling read.

The other book is Lee' Tigers by Terry L. Jones (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987). This is the story of the Louisiana troops in the Army of Northern Virginia. I became aware of this book as I was studying the fighting on the northern end of Antietam and became acquainted with the brigades of Harry Hays and William Starke. As I always do when I get a new book, I jump to the Battle of Sharpsburg to see what new details I could glean but was a little disappointed that the book doesn't add much to what I already know. Nevertheless it seems to be a well written and well document account which I will get back to at some point.

Both books are available at Amazon in the $2 - $3 price range so they are a bargain!