The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-05-27
.E5m0ng fBe DeQD Books.

THE Mississippi Valley in the Civil
war. BY John Eiske. With twenty
maps. 81. Houghton, Miff1in & Co.,
Boston and New York.
Mr.. Fiske declares his object in this vol
ume to be to exhibit an outline Of the mil
itary events which brought about the
overthrow Of the Southern Confederacy
by turning its left flank, following the
war in the West from It's small beginnings
in Missouri down the river as far as
Ficksburg and as far into the Southeast
as Chiekamauga, where was struck the
blow that practically ended the war In
the West
To readers Of Southern sympathies Mr.
Ffske writes in his preface:
ut may be observed that this book
sometimes refers to the Confederates as
rebels. have been surprised to find how
generally people seem to think that some
sort Of stigma Is implied by that word
For my own part, 1 have sympathfzed
with so many Of the great rebellions In
history, from the revolt of the Ionian
cities against Darius Hystaspes, down to
the uprising of Cuba against the Span
iards. that am quite unable to conceive Of
rebels as term Of reproach In the
present case it enables one to avoid the
excessive iteration Of the word 'confed-
crate while it simply gives expression
10 the undeniable fact that our Southern
friends were trying to cast OF an estab-
lished government In England to this
day CrOmWelIs admirers do not hesitate
to speak with pride of the Great Rebel
lion. While my own sympathie5 have
always been intensely Northern, as BELTS
a Connecticut Yankee, l could STILL In
all sincerity, take off my hat to the stat
ue of Lee"
In keeping with this he pays tribute
to Virginia that is eloquent indeed when
he asks:
Was it not Virginia that. stubborn and
defiant to the last, held even the indom-
liable cOnquerOr of the Southwest at bay
until his great lieutenant had cut from
her all the rest of the Confederacy, leav-
ing her to fall alone. vanquished, but
| not humiliated?"
But Virginia was strong factor In
preserving t@S Confederacy SO long, not
the less, in Mr. Fiske's appraisal, was
Missouri to be credited with contributing
to its downfall, for, from the seizure of
Camp Jackson, at the outskirts Of st.
Louis, in 1851, he traces a steady progress
sion of events down to the final over
throw of the Confederacy.
The obstinate resistance Of Lee in YIr-
ginia, writes Mr.. Fiske, Served for a
long time to mask the desperate condition
acy were sinking: and the student Of that
history cannot obtain an adequate view
without carefully following the sequence
Of events in the Mississippi valley"
Pursuing the early maneuYers in the
West, the historian styles Fremont terse-
~, incapable; Halleck worse than medi-
OGRE; Grant a jealous and efficient com
mander, with an OVerWeening fondness
for John Barleycorn. which never i'm
paired his usefulness as a commander in
Mr. Fiske's opinion. Mcpherson he sums
up as zone of the ablest generals of the
war"
The entering wedge at Fort Donelson,
the slaughter at Shiloh, the hard siege
at Vicksburg, the fall of New Orleans
and the campaigns in Eastern Tennessee
are gone into in a brief, yet orderly, as
well as even critical, manner, and the
judgment of contemporaries on the err
rors Of commission or omission Of the
various commanders are now and then
cited either for approval or question as
to judgment or sincerity
The book is generous in its tributes to
the casually less successful generals Of
the Civil war. on the other side, and
taken all in all, Is a most interesting
volume for the student or casual reader
even In these days when military men
and movements of another generation
on two hemispheres, are so conspicuous
in the public eye.