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New features update 1902 account of battle New features update 1902 account of battle
"The Battle of Shiloh and the Organizations Engaged" "The Battle of Shiloh and the Organizations Engaged" is a seminal work on the Battle of Shiloh written by a man who was both a veteran of the battle itself and the first official historian of the battlefield park and was first published in 1902 by the US Government Printing Office. Every important work of scholarship of the battle since has taken a wealth of information from Reed's book as it presented data and first-person accounts only a primary source written by a consummate historian could present. However, for years, it has been out of print and therefore difficult for the non-professional interested in the Civil War to own or even read if distant from a major academic library. The University of Tennessee Press has, in sage wisdom, elected to print a new edition of "The Battle of Shiloh and the Organizations Engaged" with a new introduction prepared by Timothy Smith, one of the current experts on the battle. Timothy Smith has added some interesting new features to update an account of the battle first published over a century ago: in instance, a CD-ROM of splendid maps of the battlefield is included to provide computer users with PDFs of original battlefield surveys scanned and rendered in far greater detail and resolution that a small book could possibly contain in print. How often the reader will dig out the CD to consult these maps will depend on his needs and desires in reading this book, but the maps are certainly a great feature to have around and one I think David Reed, had he the ability to see them, would find quite a marvel of our technological age. Beyond the maps on CD, Smith also has added references to works which came along after the original publication of "The Battle of Shiloh and the Organizations Engaged" such as Edward Cunningham's vast and amazing book "Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862" which Savas Beatie published in 2007. In this sense, a work from 1902 is brought up to date in its relationship with contemporary scholarship and such is certainly a benefit for those who wish to use Reed's book in their own research. Smith's astute and expert introduction to Reed's corpus in fact is a huge bonus in that it sets the tone for reading a work of scholarship very different from how contemporary historians write about the Civil War: as Reed, who left the military at rank of a Major, was himself a professional man of arms, the tactical accounts provided in his narrative are both very detailed and nearly numbing in their depth and scope. While Reed may not be as much of a stylish author and wordsmith as current historians such as Peter Cozzens, he came from a different time and place and thankfully for us, that time was during the Civil War and that place was the battlefield of Shiloh. As a writer and historian, he's the best starting place for any exploration of Shiloh. Having recently read and reviewed Cunningham's book, I felt pretty prepared to tackle anything further on Shiloh but came away from Reed's work knowing things that Cunningham either treated differently or skimmed over, though of course, Cunningham himself deeply consulted Reed, too. In the future I expect the re-publication of this slim volume will open up a lot of young scholars to Shiloh and also will further the interest of the layman with a yearning to better understand the American Civil War. Timothy Smith and the publisher have done a great job presenting this book in print for a whole new readership, though I really wish the typographical quality of Reed's text was cleaned up as it is a bit of an eyestrain to read for long periods of time compared to the flowing layout of Smith's own introduction. This however, is a minor issue as the condition of Reed's prose is still a vast bit better than reading it in a musty copy of the 1902 edition. The complex nature of the Battle of Shiloh is such that a detailed treatment offers a great deal that can be the starting point to understanding a battle which was really a fulcrum in the tide of the Civil War and makes one appreciate the nature of fighting as told by a man who was actually there. Were we only so lucky to have resources of this quality on all the major battles of the Civil War and publishers willing to produce them in modern editions, we would all benefit from such a bounty.
MIKE WALKER is a journalist based in Gainesville, Florida. He writes for this and other news media about ecology, natural history, military history, and architectural history. He may be reached via email at: cloudrace@prontomail.co |
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