One of the Best First Person Accounts of the Civil War, October 11, 2003
Reviewer:
Peter V. Tamas (New Brunswick area, NJ United States) -
See all my reviews 
First-person historical accounts can be a lot of fun for the frequent reader of history. Details that did not make their way into the books that summarize campaigns (or the entire war) pop up like Easter eggs. When you read a particularly outstanding account, like this one, there's also the pleasure in reading often-quoted descriptions in their original context.
This collection of a Union staff officer's letters to his wife is a primary source of detail about the Grant versus Lee period of the American Civil War (1864-5). The author, Theodore Lyman, was on Meade's staff for roughly the last 18 months of the war and his letters give us an insider's view from the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.
A Civil War buff interested in this period of the war will find this book not only very interesting, but a fun read as well.
Lyman, a biologist, met Meade, an engineer, in Florida, where Lyman was collecting specimens and Meade was building a lighthouse. They remained friends and during the war, after one of Meade's promotions before Gettysburg, he offered Lyman a position on his staff. Lyman joined immediately before the Mine Run campaign. His letters comment on the period of the Army of the Potomac's impotency in the months after Gettysburg to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. He writes about Grant's arrival, the Wilderness campaign, Petersburg and the Appomattox campaign.
Lyman, well educated and well traveled, makes many interesting observations and passing references that add color to the reader's knowledge of the period. I was under the impression that "doughboy" originated in WWI, but Lyman uses it in 1863: "There was a piercing cold wind, the roads were frozen, and ice was on the pools; but the night was beautiful, with a lovely moon, that rose over the pine trees, and really seemed to me to be laughing derisively at our poor doughboys."
Lyman's extensive travels with his wife before the war led to his making many interesting comparisons. For example: "Our people are very different from the Europeans in their care for the dead, and mark each grave with its name; even in the heat of battle."
Most enjoyable for me is Lyman's clever and often amusing phrases, such as this reference to Shakespeare's MacBeth: "...so I was up at 4:30 - rain pitchforks! Dark as a box - everything but `enter three witches.'"
Lyman's letters are sprinkled with mentions of secondary Civil War figures such as this of the man who later teamed with his father to build the Brooklyn Bridge: "Captain Roebling, from General Warren's staff, galloped up. He is the most immovable of men, but had, at that moment, rather a troubled air. He handed a scrap of paper. General Meade opened it and his face changed. `My God!' he said, `General Warren has half my army!' Roebling shrugged his shoulders."
Lyman's descriptions give a lot of color to the war. Here are two more examples of what you can expect from this book:
"The houses that have not actually burnt usually look almost worse than those that have: so dreary are they with their windows without sashes, and their open doors, and their walls half stripped of boards."
"Headed by General Webb, we gave three cheers, and three more for General Meade. Then he mounted and rode through the 2d and 6th Corps. Such a scene followed as I can never see again. The soldiers rushed, perfectly crazy, to the roadside, and there crowding in dense masses, shouted, screamed, yelled, threw up their hats and hopped madly up and down! The batteries were run out and began firing, the bands played the flags waved. The noise of the cheering was such that my ears rang. And there was General Meade galloping about and waving his cap with the best of them! Poor old Robert Lee!"
Lyman's letters have been a gold mine for historians. Someone well read in civil war histories will recognize at least a few some of his descriptions, such as this one of Grant: "He habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it." His description of Custer is also memorable: "This officer is one of the funniest looking beings you ever saw, and looks like a circus rider gone mad! He wears a huzzar jacket and tight trousers, of faded black velvet trimmed with tarnished gold lace." Its very difficult to find the perfect gift for the fanatic. After all, what could you get a fanatic that he doesn't already have? When I am buying a gift for a Civil War buff who has not yet discovered first-person accounts, this is my first choice. I am writing this review in the hopes that someone will give this book (sections of which I've reread many times) to that hard-to-buy-for Civil War buff on their gift list.
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