Tennessee Books

I am a recent transplant to Nashville (yeah, I play the guitar) and I was eager to read about the literary history of Nashville. There is so much more to the history of this city than Garth Brooks and Vandy fever. The editor has done a great job in seeking out "high" and "low"--the Fugitives to John Berendt--to present a well-balanced picture of this city. Funny, serious, old, and new--this is probably the defiitive history of Nash Vegas' literary scene.

A Union force of some 42,000 troops and over 100 vessels campaigned in areas of Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas in an attempt to take Shreveport, LA, headquarters of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. Though geographically on the periphery of the warfare and not much covered at the time by newspapers concentrating on events surrounding the Union and Confederate capitols in the East and in the upper part of the Mississippi River surrounding the strategically important cities of Chattanooga and Vicksburg, the Red River Campaigns, as they are called, brought widespread changes to this region and had adverse effects on the careers of several high-ranking officers. Against the Union force of tens of thousands, the Confederates could bring together only 25,000 men, with no more than 12,000 in action in any one engagement. With the help of an inhospitable terrain and dissensions among Union officers, and despite dissensions within their own ranks, the Confederates held off the Union army and navy. Documents from veterans associations, official reports, and diaries by soldiers of all ranks of both sides, a Frenchman who was serving in the Confederate Army, and a woman living on a plantation recreate all facets of the military, historical, and personal aspects of the Campaigns. Appendices include orders of battle for both sides and a listing of the numerous Union vessels. The volume of the publisher's Voices of the Civil War series collects and puts into perspective considerable source material on this southeastern theater of the Civil War.

Any interested in Southern history, culture and social issues must take a look at Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. It follows the Dixie Highway from southern Illinois to Florida with essays which cover a wide swatch of the South and a range of Southern subjects, from the rise and fall of brick highways to changing styles in Southern hotels, architecture, and music and the arts. A fine survey of evolving Southern culture lends plenty of insights into social and political influences along the way.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Dr. David Madden founded the Civil War website at LSU and is a real student of the war. This book gives accounts by the survivors of the largest maritime disaster in our nation's history--more lives lost than on the Titanic. The disaster occurred so close to the Lincoln Assassination and Booth Chase and so near the end of the Civil War that it has been largely lost to history.

Many of the soldiers were former prisoners of war at Andersonville (GA) and Cahaba (AL) and were weakened from near starvation. My ancestor was a private in the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry (USA) that had been captured by Gen. N.B. Forrest at Sulphur Springs Trestle, Alabama (near Athens, AL). He survived the disaster, floated to shore at Memphis (the sinking was eight miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi at the Hens and Chickens Islands), walked home to Monroe County (south of Knoxville) and fathered six children, my grandmother included.

Dr. Madden's introduction to the book is worth the entire cost, as he covers the essentials admirably.

Books by Jerry Potter and Gene Salecker give more details on the disaster, the packet boat itself and the trial attempting to assess the responsibility for vast overcrowding, but these first person accounts are priceless.

The annual reunion of the Sultana Descendents will be held in Athens, Alabama on April 13-14, 2007 with Dr. Madden present and speaking.

J.C. Tumblin, Past-President
Knoxville Civil War Roundtable

If you ever travelled old US Hwy 41 from the North to FL, you probably passed through this area...may even have stopped at a "Tourist Court" or dined at The Monteagle Diner. This little book should appeal to all you Yankees who rushed to FL in the 20's, 30's, 50's and even the 50's.

Even more so, it should appeal to ANY SOutherner who recalls, or remineses about, these years and travel by car.

Makes a great gift too.

The Mountain Heritage Museum in Townsend, Tennessee now owns the wiskey still mentioned in this book. My husband and I donated the funds to build a secure building to house the still, and it should be completed this spring (2007). The book is very interesting and well worth reading. My Grandpa, like many others in his day, owned a still in the hills of southern Kentucky.

I was amazed at the life of Mr. Timblake. If you wished to get insight into the Pre Revolution Era life, then Read this Book.

Robert Trout has done an excellent job on putting together 3 different views on J.E.B. Stuart's Horse Artillery Battalion. If you are looking for information/history on the battles, course events, and the personal views of those in this battery, then this is the right book for you. The first part covers Lt. Lewis Tune Nunnelee and his daily diary that has survived all these years by his grandson, Lewis Tune Nunnelee II and was graciously offered to Robert Trout for publishing. These diaries are not only in Lt. Nunnelee's handwriting, but tells of the daily rigors of the battalion and the strategic events involved in this most popular leader. It includes Moorman's and Hart's Batteries under the leadership of J.E.B. Stuart and the lessons learned during battle.

Highly recommended for those that enjoy the REAL history of the War Between the States and the important details of an era that is almost completely lost.

I read a lot of Memphis books. I look at a lot of Memphis pictures. As the webmaster at MemphisHistory.com I can tell you that Mr. Dougan has provided a brilliant cross-section of both picture and narrative in this book of very manageable size.

Although this is, in many ways a picture book, Dougan manages to cover things others ignore. He touches on the four or five major industries of Memphis, from transportation to hardwood to mules and back to transportation. There are some unique pictures of early Memphis athletes as well.

This author has taken a limited amount of space and packed it full of spot-on history and incredibly attractive visual bites of the past.

Memphis Since Crump spends the first 70 of its 183 pages talking about the Crump era. After the death of Crump in 1954 this book only follows on in detail for the subsequent 14 years basically ending with the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.

So why the five stars? This book is remarkably insightful, penetrating and meticulously researched. As a student of Memphis history I also felt fortunate to have a book that explained those post-Crump days of Orgill, Loeb and Ingram. The book dedicates much space to the reform efforts of newspaper editor Ed Meeman, hardware tycoon Edmund Orgill and lawyer / activist Lucius Burch who together tried to reform the government of Memphis, meeting with some limited success.

The book is written largely from an African American point of view. It deals much more freely with African American and civil rights issues than most history books. In that way it fills in a vacuum. Most books covering the civil rights struggle tend to begin with the sanitation strike rather than end with it.

Aside from his barely restrained, absolute contempt for E. H. Crump the author generally takes a positive approach with Memphians of that period.

There is a lot to be learned about the Memphis of the 1950s and 1960s from this book.

Russ Johnson
MemphisHistory.com