Forgotten Fights

Michno, Gregory, and Susan Michno. Forgotten Fights: Little-Known Raids and Skirmishes on the Frontier, 1823 to 1890. Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press Pub. Co., 2008.

In this book, the Michnos (husband and wife) supplement the coverage of their earlier book, the Encyclopedia of Indian Wars (2003), with a detailed compilation covering about 300 small fights of the Indian wars during 1823-1890. These events were not included in the earlier publication. The book begins with a simple state-by-state chronology of the incidents examined. Each chronology is keyed to an outline map showing the locations of the incidents, plus rivers and forts and camps. This is followed by brief narratives of each event, in chronological order, from Skull Creek (Eagle Lake, Texas) in spring 1823 to Salt River (Globe, Arizona) on Mar. 7, 1890. In 1890, the frontier was declared “closed,” and the Indian wars ended. The authors’ brief Summary is sobering in its assessment of the enormous cost of the wars in human lives and property. The Notes, Bibliography, and Index are extensive and well-done.

Marin Sanudo's Diaries

Sanudo, Marino, Patricia H. Labalme, and Laura Sanguineti White. Venice, Cità Excelentissima: Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

“No writer will ever make much of modern history who has not seen my diaries, within which is contained every event.” So wrote the Venetian historian Marino Sanudo (or Sanuto) in 1531. This book provides a wide-ranging selection of Sanudo’s large and largely-inaccessible writings in a superbly edited and annotated single volume. For those interested in the early Italian Wars and particularly the circumstances surrounding the shocking (at least to the Venetians) Venetian defeat at Agnadello (1509), this is a useful and interesting book.

Fox Warrior, 1731

While browsing the superb website of the Bibliotheque nationale de France (gallica.bnf.fr) today, I came upon this striking image labeled "Guerrier Renard." It's a watercolor depicting a warrior of the Fox tribe in 1731. The Fox, an Algonquian people, were noted as warlike and appear to have been held in rather low regard by both the French and their Indian neighbors. At that time, they inhabited the region around Green Bay and Saginaw Bay in Wisconsin and Detroit in Michigan. They appear to have had the distinction of being the only tribe against which the French warred. This image represents a people rather outside the bounds of the blog, but it's so impressive, I just had to share it.

French Beaulieu 4-lb RML Light Field Gun (1860)

After the Crimean War, the standard French bronze 4-lb SBML light field guns were rifled on a plan devised by Col. Treuille de Beaulieu. Although the elongated projectile fired by the new rifle gun was heavier than the old four-pound ball of the smoothbore, the new gun retained its old designation. The service life of the tube was 1,200-1,500 rounds. When the rifling was worn, the gun was recast, “an operation of no great difficulty.”

Illustration from:

Moltzheim, Auguste de. Esquisse historique de l'artillerie française depuis le moyen-âge jusqu'à nos jours, avec un atlas de... planches dessinées par A. de Moltzheim... Strasbourg : E. Simon, 1868.

Leaders of the Lost Cause (2)

Returning to this interesting book, I thought that I’d mention an interesting approach that editors Gary W. Gallagher and Joseph T. Glatthaar took to the selection and assignment of authors to subjects. Essays were assigned to authors who had never previously written on the particular subject. Although this could not be followed completely, the essays largely do provide fresh views on the subjects and are free from the crippling hagiography and “amen chorus” aspects so often encountered in similar collective biographies. In addition, the authors were asked to look closely at the pre-war careers of their subjects -- an aspect of biography that often suffers in popular works.

Leaders of the Lost Cause

This handy volume provides biographical and interpretive essays on eight Confederate general officers who attained the rank of full general (equivalent to four-star) during the course of the U.S. Civil War. These men were: Robert E. Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, Edmund Kirby Smith, and John Bell Hood. In addition, the editors, in their Introduction, profile Confederate President Jefferson Davis, “the common thread among these officers, to whom they were beholden for their appointment.” This in itself is an important and essential essay that knits the others together in a useful fashion.

The Florida Brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg

The latest issue of Blue & Gray (Vol. 27:4) arrived recently, and by coincidence, the feature article focuses on the combats of the Florida Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg. In the battle, the brigade, consisting of the 2d, 5th, and 8th Florida regiments, saw action on July 2d and 3d in the attacks against the Federal III and II Corps along the Emmitsburg Road between the Rogers and Codori farms (July 2) and in the follow-on attack to Pickett's Charge, mounted by two brigades of Anderson's Division in the same area (July 3). This is a nice complement to the Waters and Edmonds book described in my last post.