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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-rev...@lists.h-net.org> > Date: August 7, 2019 at 12:31:16 PM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Cc: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.org> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-CivWar]: Rein on Mellott and Snell, 'The Seventh > West Virginia Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War's Most > Divided State' > Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > > David W. Mellott, Mark A. Snell. The Seventh West Virginia Infantry: > An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War's Most Divided State. > Lawrence University Press of Kansas, 2019. pages cm. $34.95 > (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7006-2753-0. > > Reviewed by Christopher Rein (Air University Press, Maxwell AFB, AL) > Published on H-CivWar (August, 2019) > Commissioned by G. David Schieffler > > Rein Review of Mellott and Snell, _The Seventh West Virginia > Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War's Most > Divided State_ > > David Mellott and Mark Snell's comprehensively researched work on the > Seventh West Virginia Infantry Regiment highlights the Civil War > service of soldiers from an understudied region of the war who fought > in the most significant campaigns in the eastern theater. Despite > hailing from a remote region of a new state, the soldiers of the > "Bloody Seventh" turned into something of a Forrest Gump of the Army > of the Potomac, assaulting Bloody Lane at Antietam, holding a portion > of Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg, and attacking the Mule Shoe at > Spotsylvania. Their participation in each of these engagements wore > the full regiment down to "a battalion of four companies" (p. 150), > but levies from West Virginia coupled with a veterans' furlough > sustained the unit through Appomattox, highlighting the Confederacy's > inability to do the same. While, on most levels, a standard unit > history of a somewhat atypical regiment (the regiment was the only > one from the state to be listed as one of William Fox's "Fighting > 300," with 14 percent of the soldiers losing their lives in the > conflict), _The Seventh West Virginia Infantry_ also sheds important > light on dissent within the Confederacy and the shifting demographics > in the new state of West Virginia. > > The book is organized chronologically, beginning with West Virginia's > opposition to secession and the Confederacy, and early efforts to > organize a new state from the western counties of old Virginia. It > moves rapidly into the early campaigns for control of the state, > setting the stage for the Seventh's recruitment and muster into > service. Union officials initially intended the regiment to protect > the vulnerable line of the vital Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as it > wound its way up the Potomac River toward the Ohio Valley, but events > pulled the unit into the contest for Virginia proper, first in the > Shenandoah Valley but eventually on the peninsula below Richmond. > After suffering significant casualties at Antietam, from which "the > Seventh would never fully recover" (p. 85), the regiment fought at > Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and throughout the 1864 Overland > Campaign, culminating with the Army of Northern Virginia's surrender > at Appomattox. A brief epilogue covers extant information from > veterans' postwar lives and efforts to commemorate the regiment's > significant service while suggesting that West Virginia was yet > another venue where, having won the war, the Union lost the peace, as > former Confederates migrated west into the Union state. > > Alongside the standard official sources, both authors use their > various talents to uncover personal stories from diaries, newspapers, > and letters to paint a detailed portrait of a number of members of > the regiment. Mellott, a descendant of several soldiers of the > regiment, applies his legal training to unearth long-forgotten > sources, while Snell leverages his considerable knowledge of the > state and the conflict to provide greater depth and context (and, > presumably, to smooth out the legal jargon, though one wishes the > editors had mirrored the soldiers' resolve in fighting against the > passive voice!). The partnership generally works effectively, > balancing detailed evidence with broader significance in telling the > regiment's story. But regimental history, to remain a useful format > for understanding the war, must tell us something larger about the > war itself, and the country as it endured the trial. The book begins > promisingly, detailing the communities in the northwestern corner of > the new state that raised companies for the regiment. However, by > including that the regiment contained one company each from Ohio and > Pennsylvania, as well as eight more, largely from the far-northern > region of West Virginia between these two Union states, the authors > blur the regiment's regional identity. Was it a unit of Southern > dissenters who tapped into backcountry resistance to the Tidewater > elites that dated as far back as Bacon's Rebellion to finally give > Virginia's Appalachian counties the representation they craved? Or > was it a more typical Midwestern regiment, spawned from the new > industrial and economic corridor created by the Baltimore and Ohio, > as Kristen Wilkes's recent research suggests?[1] If the latter, what > light could this shed on the story of West Virginia statehood? If the > soldiers of the Seventh felt a stronger tie to the Union based on > economic activity along the older canal, and new rail corridor, does > that shift our interpretation of the West Virginia statehood movement > from one of a "radical" revolution against slaveholding elites to a > more "conservative" one (to borrow from Gordon Wood's > characterization in _The Radicalism of the American Revolution_ > [1991]) by new elites in the extreme northern tier of West Virginia? > While the authors provide much evidence to suggest the latter, the > work focuses primarily on the regiment's battlefield experiences, > leaving these broader questions largely unanswered. > > Still, Mellott and Snell have produced a first-rate regimental > history that demonstrates the enduring value of military history in > understanding the sectional conflict. By examining soldiers' lives, > experiences, and sacrifices, they reveal the broad opposition to the > new Confederacy, even within regions nominally under secessionist > control. While it remains unclear if the soldiers truly considered > themselves "Southerners" or "Midwesterners," by highlighting this > dilemma, the authors force us to reconsider sectional identity in a > contested borderland that is receiving increasing attention from > scholars, and they extend this discussion geographically as far as > the headwaters of the Ohio River.[2] Thus, the work makes a > substantial contribution to several fields, including regional and > military history as well as the broader subfield of the Civil War, > and will find a ready audience among both scholars in those areas of > inquiry as well as among lay readers interested in the Civil War in > general. > > Notes > > Citation: Christopher Rein. Review of Mellott, David W.; Snell, Mark > A., _The Seventh West Virginia Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment > from the Civil War's Most Divided State_. H-CivWar, H-Net Reviews. > August, 2019. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53706 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
