Customer Reviews

Bluegrass Confederate: The Headquarters Diary of Edward O. Guerrant

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Though not devoid of some human interest value, this is not an especially useful source for the historian. Guerrant saw little action, and writes scantily about what he did see. I can't imagine that most of his sojourns in West Virginia and Kentucky will be of interest to most scholars; there is an account of the Battle of Saltville, but that's about it. Eloquent, not to say melodramatic, jeremiads on the weather make up a good deal of the text.

On the other hand, Guerrant was the kind of diarist who thinks that posterity may read his diary someday, and he writes with verve and emotion -- multiple exclamation points, parenthetical clever remarks, and so on. After hundreds of pages -- for a Civil War diary this is exceedingly long -- that gets old, but he undeniably has his moments.

I currently have 15 books that I use in researching information about Morgan's Raiders. While this book touches on part of those events, it is hard to find a book that gives better description of the day to day boredom and survival of the Confederate forces in western Virginia and eastern Tennessee during that time. It also helps reinforce the unending confusion among the officers and the struggles of vanity that were taking place. There is MUCH information here that is missing from any of the other books.

I found Guerrant a likeable young man whose concerns for his appearance, young ladies and a good horse not so different than the standard concerns of young men today. At one point he commented that he had written a thought with the idea that no young woman would ever be reading it. I considered that this older woman was reading it, but then realized that he had died long before I was born. It really puts life cycles and our communications by writing into perspective.

I am not a scholar, but have enjoyed this book tremendously. When it ended, I felt I had lost a friend. I often go back and read about his life afterwards that is in the introduction. I have been to his area of Kentucky to visit. There is a display about him, his father, son and grandson in the Bluegrass Heritage Museum in Winchester.

This is the best day to day reading of everyday life in the CSA stationed in SW Virgina by people from Kentucky. I have read and re-reading it and use it for a reference all the time. I cannot say that I have read any better book of the everyday life of a conman solider as well as with decisions made by generals. Great book.

This amounts to nearly 700 pages of transcribed diaries from an officer who saw very little action except in Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee and two campaigns in Kentucky. I echo the previous review by saying that this book is more for a specialist in those campaigns rather than for the general reader of the Civil War. What is as interesting is Guerrant's retelling of all the rumors he hears about the conduct of the war. He keeps hope alive that the Confederacy is winning until he learns of the surrender of Lee's army, in fact does not believe any northern sources and tries to accept every southern source. He also wears religious blinders, feeling that the South will win because God is on it's side. As a good Christian he is fignting for freedom and Southern rights (whatever they are, he doesn't say), but is not troubled by fellow Confederates murdering Black soldiers over a two day period after the first battle of Saltville. His enemies are Yankee Vandals and Niggers, not human beings and certainly not people like himself.

I am troubled about the quality of the editing. William C. Davis gets top billing, but there are so many errors in the footnotes, plus trivia footnoted and important information left unfootnoted, that I wonder how much of this Davis really read. Much of the editing is frankly done by an amateur and is not corrected. This is not what I expect from LSU Press for my fifty bucks. In the chapter notes for early 1863 the editor says Guerrant was looking forward to seeing his friends and family because he had not been home in a year. Yet, he had returned as part of the Confederate invasion in the fall of 1862 and did see friends and some family (he had failed to see his father.) Makes me wonder who really read the material. How about Grant's victory at Missionnary Ridge allowing the Federals to occupy Chattanooga? I thought that they were there already. Several footnotes refer to Federal soldiers as Yankees (I guess the 21st century still needs to catch up in some areas: this on a day when several "Yankee" soldiers have died in Iraq.) Given the competence of the editors and the price I say caveat emptor.

As has been stated by another reviewer, there is little here for the general Civil War buff. I've had this book for years and and have finally forced myself to wade through to the end. Guerrant was in a backwater of the war the whole time and was assigned to headquarters, so he didn't see much action. Sometimes this book seems like 700 pages of poetic descriptions of how hard it was raining at the time.

Excellent diary with lots of good information. Editors did a poor job as town names such as Jonesburg Tennessee should be Jonesbough, and a couple others that never existed or are badly mis-spelled. It is sad these errors had to get into the book. Otherwise an excellent read.