2 comments about Gunner with Stonewall: Reminiscences of William Thomas Poague (Bison Book).

1. Poague reminds me of Porter Alexander in his occasionally acerbic tone and his willingness to tell it like he thinks it is with regards to generals and their foibles. Maybe it's an artillery thing. Also like Alexander, he's refreshingly bloodthirsty -- no Gordon-esque blandishments about chivalry here. His account of the death of Federal Gen. Kearny contrasts interestingly with other accounts I've read, and his description of the surrender at Appomattox is particularly evocative.



2. Gunner With Stonewall is a typical and valuable first hand account of life in wartime. Filled with intersting atecdotes and personal details, it is closer in perspective to Henry Kyd Douglas' "I Rode With Stonewall" than Foote's or Catton's histories on the same period. This lends and air of timelessness and similarity with WWII- and Vietnam-era first -hand accounts. Written many years after the fact, the book contains some minor innaccuracies ultimately clarified by the Editor. All in all, considering the dirth of books about Confederate Army Artillery, it is a good read that diserves a place on the historian's bookshelf.

4 comments about The Last Fighting General: The Biography of Robert Tryon Frederick.

1. For a man whose character and accomplishments were monumental his story should have been handled by a writer with experience for well written prose and narrative. I struggled reading this book with its stilted, cumbersome and sometimes difficult and unbelievable phrasing. I've rarely encountered words such as humongous or pertinacious among others used in historical narrative. Nobody talks like this.
   The author should have used, or at least someone from Schiffer should have suggested an editor to clean this up. I was suspect of the author's background where the inside jacket reads "...After attending university," What university? Any prior contributions to journals, magazines or other publications? A noble effort by Hicks but certainly not the paean Frederick deserves. Perhaps his story will be rewritten by an author with credentials and a knack for writing clear, succinct and cogent narrative.



2. A rich and rewarding look at the founder and commander of the First Special Service Force, and perhaps the most decorated senior ground commander of ww2.General Fredericks early life is well recorded and his combat history is covered well. This is a must have for FSSF and SF historians and recomended for the serious reader of ww2 military history.



3. An outstanding biography on a true American hero. This is one of the best biographies (possibly THE best) that I have ever read. Not only is the story of General Frederick extremely compelling, but Ms. Hicks does an excellent job in conveying both the professional and personal sides of this great man. I highly, highly recommend this book for any fan of military history, or for that matter, anyone interested in reading about a man who lived life with honor, and who was committed to helping their fellow man.



4. Excellent book.I have most of the books on the Devil's Brigade.
   This is truly a book worth 5 stars!

5 comments about Mary Queen of Scots.

1. Overall, this is a well-written and well-researched biography, although not objective enough about its subject. I appreciated the beautiful writing and the thorough scholarship of this book, although in the end I could not share the author's unqualified admiration for Mary Queen of Scots.
   
   Ms. Fraser presents enough evidence to convince me that Mary probably was not involved beforehand in her second husband Darnley's murder, and that the infamous Casket Letters were probably forgeries or interpolations of other letters. She was certainly not prepared by her French upbringing to deal with the problems she found in Scotland, and was very ill-served by the brutal Scottish lords there, including her own half-brother.
   
   However, Mary apparently did willingly marry her husband's murderer, which cost her the love of her subjects; willingly fled to England even though she knew she was seen as a rival to Queen Elizabeth's throne; and later on became involved in conspiracies in England to overthrow Elizabeth, which virtually forced Elizabeth to have her executed. Even Ms. Fraser cannot explain away these naive and reckless actions, although she tries. Her bias towards her subject is rather obvious. I also shared other readers' frustration with the many untranslated French and Latin phrases, which slows down the reading for those of us not fluent in those languages.



2. amazing book makes you feel as if you want to be in that world most touching and amazingly well written with no bias and no dodgy facts very good choice of language



3. Before this book, I'd only just gotten started on my Mary Stuart research, having only read two "semi-biographies"(Mary and Elizabeth by Jane Dunn & Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Darnley) of her. I was hesitant about buying the book because I read the reviews of it on here and it sounded ugly. But I'm very glad I did buy it, because now I am much, much better informed on the subject of Mary than before.
   
   I'm an Antonia Fraser fan, and this book is written in her usual poetic and heart-warming style. She is, I'd have to say, among my favorite historical biographers. She is clearly very passionate about her subject and I was able to sympathize with Mary throughout. Likewise, she is very good about referencing unlike her counterpart Alison Weir.
   
   I'd have to disagree with the reviewers who said this book made Mary out to be saintly. She is portrayed, in my opinion, as sweet and strong, but by no means perfect. There were times in the bio when I thought she was extremely foolish, and often times I was out and out annoyed by her. I agreed with Fraser's conclusion that Mary probably did not try kill her second husband, Henry Darnley and that it was a political set-up. I also agree with her about the Casket Letters. I'm on the fence about Bothwell. I think many of his actions are not at odds with a rapist and abductor. Likewise, I don't see how or why he would proceed to murder Darnley and just hope that Mary would marry him, which could mean prompt execution or life imprisonment. But I didn't mark this against Fraser, because I'm still trying to figure out what I feel on the subject, and also because she convincingly argued her side.
   
   
   I do take issue with a few slender things in the book. For one, I love Fraser's style, but I did find her constant use of footnotes distracting*. And I definitely agree with the reviewers who said it was biased against Elizabeth. Some of the commentary, such as sharp jabs at Elizabeth's beauty and lifestyle, were entirely editorial and completely uncalled for. Fraser degraded Elizabeth so hard at times that I felt her case for Mary might have been a little too weak. I've read several books on Elizabeth and none so far have made petty, out of place remarks about Mary and rightly so. Both were interesting, incredible women and one need not be knocked down at the expense of the other. This bio would have gotten five stars had there been a little more objectivity.
   
   
   
   
   
   *Most of them I felt could have been worked conveniently into the narrative.



4. Antonia Fraser's book, Mary Queen of Scots, is very readable and entertaining. However, the author's "hero-worship" of Mary and low opinion of English Queen Elizabeth I rings out loud and clear. Fraser makes history come alive; just be aware that this is her version of history.



5. Antonia Fraser's first biography still stands as one of her best. This is a sympathetic look at Mary who at a young age was used as a political pawn, raised not to be "Queen of the Scots" but to be Queen of France. After the Dauphin died, she eventually returned to Scotland as a stranger to the culture and religion of her native land. Though a strong women, she was easily led astray by her passions and her advisors. Her cousin Elizabeth I, offered Mary shelter after she was forced to abdicate her Scottish thrown. Instead of shelter, Elizabeth held her prisoner moving her from place to place to isolate her as much as possible. This is the first great read from Fraser.

2 comments about Grasshopper Pilot: A Memoir.

1. This book is a collection of writings by Julian Cummings and assembled into a book by his wife as he lay terminally ill in 2002. As such, the book has a number of problems: it's too short to say much; it's erratic in that some chapters have a nice amount of detail and others are just a page or two long; the writing style varies from pretty good to annoying.
   
   Most people seem to be able to write well about their own experiences, whether they are professional authors or not. You can see glimmers of that here, but it's not consistent. These wartime memoirs are best written in the first decade or two after the war. Beyond that the story just doesn't seem fresh, and parts of this book show that symptom.
   
   That said, the subject is an interesting and somewhat neglected one; although there are other books out on these small planes and their pilots they're expensive and hard to find.
   
   If you're at all curious about this aspect of WW2, you'll enjoy reading through this, but I recommend you check it out of a library or find a used copy cheap. I did not find it to be a "keeper".



2. The stories of the air war in Europe and Japan have concentrated on the stories of mighty bombers going off to bomb Germany or Japan and of sleek, fast, agile fighters defending Britain or the bombers. Bill Cummings did it differently. He flew a 'Grasshopper' the military version of the Piper Cub - 65 glorious horsepower (finally expanded to a mighty 100 hp).
   
   His story begins with being fascinated with flying as a kid and learning how to fly before WW II started. With 60+ hours of flying time, and an ROTC commission as a second lieutenant he was getting ready to put in for the air corp when a notice came down that all the officers who had sixty hours or more of private flying were to put in for flight training. Suddenly he was a military pilot.
   
   His military career took him to North Africa, Sicily, Italy and finally to the Philippines. Most of the time he flew in one plane, 'Maggie the Faithful,' 485 missions. His story is quite a different one from the usual Army 'I was there' book. He helps to fill a niche in an understudied dimension of the war.

1 comments about Submarine Admiral: FROM BATTLEWAGONS TO BALLISTIC MISSILES.

1. Admiral Galantin's book tells the story of his personal involvement in the post-war U.S. Navy in a readable and entertaining manner. His accounts of bureaucratic turf wars in the Navy were especially interesting to naval historians like myself. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

No comments about The 92nd Field Hospital: a Surgeon's Memories of WWII.

5 comments about Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II.

1. This is the book I've always wanted to read! I had just turned 6 when Pearl Harbor was bombed and my uncle and most of the other men in our family and neighborhood disappeared to that thing called "WAR"! I prayed for all of them and wondered, "Where did they go, what happened to them, what was it like?" My uncle was captured in the Battle of the Bulge, spent time in a German prison camp and came home very different - now I know and understand better why! Reading Prof. Harrison's book I finally know what happened to the young men who were suddenly jerked from their families, schools, futures, through no fault or desire of their own, and were trained and sent to see and do things they could not have previously imagined. They were pushed to and beyond limits they did not know they had, degraded, treated like cattle at times by our own army, and thus molded into a great and loyal fighting unit.
   
   How any of our men experienced this and stayed sane, that they were able to return home to slip back into the lives they had expected, is incredible. I have read every book I find on World War II and studied military history in college trying to understand and know what happened, what war is REALLY like for our men. I've always known it wasn't what we saw on the movie screen. Now I know. Thanks to Prof. Harrison's detail and honesty, it is possible to get a sense of what it was like for the draftee. UNSUNG VALOR is very properly named - to go when called, to perform with the best of your abilities, to respond to the unknown and unbelievable with fear and courage, that is valor at its best - and it was unsung.
   
   To survive, to return home, to teach hundreds of teenagers to speak properly in public, to act and produce plays, to put up with all the campus nonsense that young people in their late teens and early twenties produce, and to never lose your cool, never tell them what he saw and experienced at their age - that was also UNSUNG VALOR! A. Cleveland Harrison is an unusual man and has written a book that should be required reading of all Americans!



2. Unsung Valor is truly an extraordinary book. I am 44 years old and have studied World War II rather extensively in the past. However, this book has revealed this war (and all wars) to me in a way that is completely surprising and unique. I now have a different frame of reference for studying all wars, especially World War II. For someone like me who has never served in the military, this book provides an invaluable insight to truly understanding the realities of war. The common, mundane, everyday details, which are made so interesting, provide a setting which only heightens the intensity of the actual battle scenes in an unusually enriching and exciting way. This book reads so easily you literally feel as if you are going through the experiences with Dr. Harrison. Unsung Valor brings the reality of war to the reader in a unique way and succeeds where most other narrowly focused books fail. Dr. Harrison should be commended for educating a younger public on the extraordinary sacrifices made by ordinary men who answered when their nation called. It is well worth the read and the time invested.



3. "Unsung Valor" by A. Cleveland Harrison. Subtitled: "A GI's Story Of World War II". University Press of Mississippi, Jackson. 2000.
   
   This is a very complete and detailed book, tracing the experiences of a skinny Southern boy, (in 1943), drafted into the United States Army, deciding on the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), trained at the University of Mississippi, transferred into a regular Army unit (the 94th Division) and then sent to the European Theater of Operations, ETO, just when things were becoming really hot. General George Marshall had shut down the Army Specialized Training Program so as to supply warm bodies as replacements for all the causalities in the ETO. The author, A. Cleveland Harrison, recounts being wounded (88 artillery fire,) as his Division advanced on the town of Orscholz, his treatment, infection, his stint in hospital and, finally, his recovery. Then, he remained in England until his reassignment, April 1945, to the hostilities in Europe. Happily, the war in Europe ended in May 1945, and the author became a "Clerk-Typist" in Versailles, France and later, a "Mail Clerk-Draftsman" in Frankfurt am Main.
   
   If you have had the opportunity to study the history of World War II, you probably have been exposed to the grand strategies of different battles, the movement of this numbered unit on one side against another number on the other side. You might even have become impatient with the stories of how one American general (or two) could not get along with a certain British field marshal, and begin to wonder how many people were killed by the egoistical personalities of such high ranking individuals. So, this present work, by A. Cleveland Harrison, is a refreshing relief in its detailed examination of the feelings and daily experiences of an ordinary Americana solider in the ETO
   
   I became the fiftieth reviewer of this book because of the correspondence form Dr. Harrison prodding me to add his book to my Amazon Listmania list on the Army Specialized Training Program, ASTP. The first two chapters of Dr. Harrison's book deal extensively with the Army Specialized Training Program. certainly merit a place on any list on the ASTP. Thos chapters speak about an ASTP experience at a Southern university, which, from what I read, quite different than the ASTP experience at Manhattan College, my alma mater. I do not believe that an ASTPer at Manhattan College had to be concerned with how to wear a saber without getting the weapon caught between his legs. On the other hand, the Manhattan College ASTPer had to be concerned with living in an apartment on 7th Avenue.
   
   I am happy to join some 45 other Amazon reviewers in assigning five stars to this book.



4. After posting a message on the 94th Infantry Division's website looking for information on the attack on Orsholz, Germany January 20-21, 1945 I was contacted by Cleveland Harrison. Mr. Harrison put me in contact with other members of the 301st Regiment of the 94th Division who were with a family friend when he was captured outside of Orsholz. Mr. Harrison mentioned his book and suggested it might provide more detail about the battle. After reading his book I was amazed at the clarity and detail of his recollections. I have corresponded several times with Mr. Harrison, and he was gracious enough to sign my copy of his book with a dedication to my friend. His story is wonderfully expressed as the memories and journey of one man in a time of fear and uncertainty. It is written in a way that will touch the average person, and make them understand, if only for a moment, what it was like to see the world through his eyes.
   To all the 94th Division veterans, and to you Cleveland, thank you for your service.
   Welcome Home.



5. Upon reading Unsung valor I discovered that Cleveland Harrison and I had been inducted into the army the same day at Little Rock, Arkansas,we went through the same sweltering day of probings,punchings,bendings,spreadings, and at last were sworn into the Army of the United States.our serial numbers were just a few numbers apart,yet I never met Professor Harrison. Upon reading Unsung valor this fall I was immediately taken back in time to 1943, and to the years following throughout WWII of which our president Franklin Roosevelt said" This is the generation which has a rendezvous with destiny"I relived that traumatic,hectic day of gathering together the eighteen year olds of our state predominately ,recent high school graduates ,to perform the miracle of making us into soldiers and sailors to free a world in chains. That group of newly inducted soldiers went to all parts of the globe.Prof. Harrison went as a rifleman;I went into the Army Air Corp as an aerial gunner with the Eighth Air force and was shot down over Germany and spent the last months of the war as a P.O.W..Our generation kept that rendezvous and fully met the responsibility placed upon our young shoulders to the satisfaction of a grateful nation and world. Professor Harrison's book tells about all this through the eyes and heart of a young Arkansas lad who as we said in those day "took up arms as a boy,became a man overnight,and a hero in a twinkling of an eye,some to come home,some to remain. Since reading Unsung Valor I have met Cleveland Harrison via E-mail and have discovered that we have much in common. it took took 63 years and one most touching,moving literary epic to do this.For Professor Harrison's time,effort,and no doubt many shed tears,I am truly thankful to him. Hand Salute <><

1 comments about Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War.

1. In the early 1800s, slavery's values were as widely promoted as buying American cars are in today's world. "Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War" is a complete and comprehensive examination of America's early years and its politics regarding slavery - and how a few fledgling activists turned America around and against this mindset, beginning a chain of events that freed an entire people. A story of how even the smallest minority can set events in motion, "Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War" is highly recommended for both American history and black studies collections alike.

4 comments about Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay.

1. Nicolay and Hay were basically the White House Chief of Staff and Administrative Aid. Fortunately for those of us who are both history and political junkies it doesn't get any better than this. With Hay we have the nation's most unpopular president pursuing a most unpopular war (one that will claim more American casualties than any other), with a critical press and political opponents galore. There is political intrigue, dirty politics, and presidential personal tragedy. In Lincoln we have a president who imprisoned US citizens without trial and without habeas corpus, we have a president who captured foreign nationals (Confederates) from a British ship and imprisoned them in the US, a president who was soundly and rightfully criticized for suspending personal rights, a president who sent troops to arrest an entire state legislature. In Lincoln we have a president called stupid and a baboon.
   
   Hay's Diary takes us inside the White House in these most troubling of times. One sees close parallels to today. It is hard not to read Hay in the light of the current White House and presidential race. Only the names have changed, the issues are very much the same. I could not recommend a better source to obtain some perspective for the current political season.
   
   John Ellingson



2. One reviewer found Hay's diary uninteresting, and that is hardly strange. Most diaries I've read are dull because they are most often jottings of information out of the head of an individual. I, too, would have liked more inside information out of John Hay, but he did not write it, so let's not downgrade the book because we didn't get what we would have liked. Burlingame's editing is top-notch, just what you would expect from a quality historian. My two gripes about the book were undoubtedly caused by the publisher's decision, which I recognize from first-hand experience: 1) Why endnotes instead of footnotes? If all the notes listed were sources, endnotes would be fine, but Burlingame's notes are critical and provide a lot of additional information. Constantly turning back to the endnotes breaks up the reading experience. 2) Burlingame maintained the crossed-out words in Hay's diary by using a strike-through font, which is fine except that the publisher used a strike-through so dark that it is hard to read the words underneath. Nonetheless, this is fine work, and I highly recommend it. If nothing else, you will gain knowledge of the enormous number of people with whom Abraham Lincoln had to deal every day.



3. My opinion of Hay's diary is very different then the other reviewer. I found it very hard to read, to understand, and to learn from. For a Lincoln scholar it might be useful, For me, a general history reader, I was very disappointed. The language was often bizzare, superficial, and very small. A great many names but no real people! Just names. Flat,flat,very flat. Hay died in Teddy Roosevelt's administration during the canal project as Sec. of State. He must have had a great deal on the ball to be so useful so long. I see nothing of it is his "Civil War Diary".



4. Hay, the young Assistant Presidential Secretary, was like a son to Lincoln. The President, in the diary often affectionately and irreverently referred to as "The Tycoon", relaxed around Hay as around few others, giving the diarist an insight into the character of Lincoln which is almost unique. This alone would make the book worthwhile, but Hay's views on other personalities and events of those dramatic days are also valuable, and engagingly written.
   Hay's diary has been published before, but incomplete and poorly edited. This is the first complete edition, with all the entries restored and with extensive explanatory notes, which are necesary to follow Hay's refernces to obscure persons and events.
   Essential for the Lincoln scholar and highly recommended for anyone's Civil War shelf.

   (The numerical rating above is an ineradicable default setting within the page. This reviewer does nort employ numerical ratings.)

No comments about Forgotten Voices of the Falklands: The Real Story of the Falklands War (Forgotten Voices).