Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/919

Hosmcr : Civil War 909 and other similar impetuous spirits, fuming over the catastrophes that had come to pass, and dinning into the ears of the new general their demands for an able and aggressive course ". Touching references are made to poor, brave Hood. " It throws an interesting light upon the men with whom we are dealing to read that a few days before his death, as they were riding together, the bishop (Rt. Rev. Lieut-Gen. Leonidas Polk) was told by his fellow 'lieutenant- general. Hood, that he had never been received into the communion of the church, and be begged that the rite might be performed. The bishop arranged for the ceremony at once — at Hood's headquarters, a tallow candle giving light, the font a tin basin on the mess-table. The staff were there as witnesses ; Hood, ' with a face like that of an old crusader ', stood before the bishop. Crippled by wounds received at Gaines's Mill, at Gettysburg, and at Chickamauga, the warrior could not kneel, but bent forward on his crutches. The bishop, not robed, but girt with his soldier's belt, administered the rite. A few days later (Joseph E.) Johnston was baptized in the same simple way. Now the bishop's time had come : June 14, while reconnoitring on Pine Moun- tain, a Federal cannon-ball struck him full upon the breast and his life of devotion was ended." As a piece of historical work Mr. Hosmer's performance will rank high. It possesses every one of the historical merits usually named and is an invaluable accession to Civil War literature. Nearly every chapter thrills the reader with the most intense interest. At a few points, however, slight changes would make the statements more ac- ceptable. Only the most positive evidence can justify so much as the suggestion that Stonewall's tardiness at Cold Harbor was owing to his refusal to march on Sunday. Cooke, Henderson, White and Dabney explain otherwise. Hood led Stonewall's van, eager as always for fight. Had a " camp meeting " held him back he would surely have remembered and recorded the fact. Stonewall fought at Kernstown on a Sunday, where he was the attacking party. The troops of Buford who met Heth {Appeal, p. 289) the first day at Gettysburg were west of the town rather than north. Heth was marching from Cashtown. The account of Southern society at the outbreak of the war {ibid., p. 7) minimizes too much the middle class of whites. The border states in particular contained many white men in moderate circumstances owning perhaps a few slaves each, also some land, whom no one ever thought of as " poor whites ". The spectacled Massachusetts corporal just from college {ibid., p. 11) and the Arkansas sharpshooter who "had probably never seen a city and could read and write only imperfectly " were not to any extent typical Northern and Southern soldiers. Take the two . armies as wholes. West and East, the South had scarcely any appreciable su- AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XII. — 59