California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War [Hardcover]

R. James McLean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2000

California Sabers
The Second Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War
James McLean

The saga of a little-known group of California calvary in the Civil War.

California Sabers is the story of the California Battalion and Hundred, a group of 500 select men who were the only organized group of Californians to fight in the East during the Civil War. They volunteered their enlistment bounty to pay their passage across Panama and on to
Massachusetts, where they became the cadre of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry.

From mid-1863 to July 1864, the Second Massachusetts fought a bloody guerilla war in northern Virginia against John S. Mosby, the confederacy's "Gray Ghost." In July 1864 the regiment became part of Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah, and that fall it played a major role in the decisive battles of Winchester, Toms Run, and Cedar Creek.

In early 1865 the regiment was in the column that marched across Virginia destroying the vital railroad and canal that carried supplies from the Shenandoah Valley to the besieged Army of Northern Virginia. In late March, the Second Massachusetts was in the forefront of the battles at Dinwiddie Courthouse and Five Forks, the two actions that finally broke the stalemate at Petersburg and forced Lee to retreat to the west. In the ensuing chase, the regiment was the part of the cavalry spearhead that finally blocked Lee's army at Appomattox Courthouse.

This work, based on extensive research, is the first comprehensive history of this relatively unknown group and will be of great interest to Civil War enthusiasts and historians.

James McLean is a descendent of a pioneer family that came to San Francisco in 1848. During his service in the Korean War, he became interested in the Civil War when a Navy librarian suggested he read Bruce Catton's trilogy on the Army of the Potomac. That led to his collecting books on the war, and when his brother told him they had a great-great-uncle who fought in the Civil War, McClean discovered the California Battalion and Hundred in the Official Records. This book is a culmination of his 20-year effort to recover their story.

Contents
List of Maps
Join the Cavalry
Gone For A Soldier
Gettysburg and Guerrillas
Inglorious Warfare
The Killing Ground
Old Jube Invades
Hard Marching
Sheridan Takes Command
Opequon Creek and Fisher's Hill
A Crow Will Have to Carry His Own Provisions
The Woodstock Races
Sabers at Cedar Creek
Burning Mosby's Confederacy
Virginia Mud
Dinwiddie Courthouse
The Five Forks Shad Bake
Road Block at Appomattox
Appendix—Casualties

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A descendent of a pioneer family that came to San Francisco in 1848, McLean graduated from the University of California in 1956. During his service in the Korean War, he became interested in the Civil War when a Navy Librarian suggested he read Bruce Catton's trilogy on the Army of the Potomac. McLean started collecting volumes of the Official Records and any other books he could find relating to the Civil War. When his brother, the family genealogist, told him they had a great-great uncle who fought in the Civil War, he discovered the California Battalion and Hundred in the Official Records. In 1993 he retired to devote more time to the writing of the history of the Battalion and Hundred. This book is a culmination of this twenty-year effort.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (December 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253337860
• ISBN-13: 978-0253337863
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,035,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars California Gold !, December 13, 2000

By 

Wayne E Sherman (Solvang, Ca. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War (Hardcover)

Finally, in print, the full story of California's finest contribution to the preservation of the Union during the American Civil War. A story ,until now, only found in scattered newspaper articles, memoirs, diarys, official records, and brief spotlight accounts.James McLean has scoured the available information for the past twenty years to produce a most complete and un-whitewashed account of the service,from concept to muster out,of these brave and able Bear Flaggers. His detailed research leads us from campaign to campaign outlining every move of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment with detail from command down to personal insight from the troopers themselves. Along the way we meet many luminaries such as Col. John S. Mosby and boy General George Armstrong Custer both of whom's popular romantic shine does not glow as well under the objective light provided by Mr McLeans research.Other Personalities such as General Phillip Sheridan, Col. Charles Russell Lowell, L.T Col. Caspar Crowinshield, Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck , Gen. Richard S Ewell, Lt. Gen Jubal Early, and a host of others all take their turn under this able historians pen. The end result being a finely researched piece of true history unmassaged by the romantic fog of time.A must read for Californians and American Civil War enthusiasts alike. This is an almost epic story of California's most determined patriotic troopers and their adventures from San Francisco to Appomattox. Having researched this same group of Californian Troopers for the past ten years I was ,at times, amazed at the depth of his research as he mentions things about unit details I previously thought only I knew!! A very fine treatment of a much over looked group of American Heros, the California Hundred and Battalion .

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More scholarship, less opinion, November 10, 2005

By 

V. Protopapas "ghost chaser" (Huntington Station, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War (Hardcover)

I am doing research on Confederate partisan leader, John Singleton Mosby and bought this book because of Mosby's involvement with the 2nd Massachusetts in Northern Virginia. Naturally, I accessed Mr. McLean's numerous references to the man first - for interest's sake - and discovered that in many instances, either his scholarship or his objectiveness was sadly lacking. Indeed, his negative feelings about Mosby appeared to have influenced the matter to the detriment of simple truth.

Furthermore, some of the things he presented - had they been true - would have 'changed history', so to speak. For instance, in his reference to Mosby's shooting of a fellow student ('supposedly in self defense', itself a rather subjective comment for a 'supposedly' historical tome), McLean states that Mosby was 'tried and sentenced to prison..' Mosby went to jail, not prison. He was found guilty of a misdemeanor, not a felony. Had he been convicted of a felony, Mosby would never have become a Confederate officer so in that context, McLean's assertions are refuted by his own scholarship - i.e. Mosby was a Confederate officer.

McLean then states that 'His family's connections and political influence got him a pardon after he had served only seven months...' Untrue! Mosby served nine months of a twelve month sentence. His family tried to get him pardoned earlier, but the Governor refused. Finally, after petitions from numerous citizens and after it was discovered that one of the jurors had a grudge against the boy's father and after two prominent physicians wrote that the boy was 'constitutionally consumptive' and further imprisonment would imperil his life, the Governor relented and released him. Hardly an act of political power on the part of Mosby's family.

Insofar as the matter of the hanging of Union troops of Powell and Custer in retaliation for the hanging and shooting of six of Mosby's men in Front Royal: Mr. McLean again fails the test of scholarship. Mosby did NOT act in 'revenge'. When several of the condemned managed to escape (to the great relief of the Rangers and Mosby himself!), he did not replace them, but rather stated that he was glad that they got away so that they might carry the message to Sheridan. Unfortunately, McLean did not see fit to include the letter Mosby wrote to Sheridan which put an end to the cycle of hanging. Of course, had he done so, his own conclusions would have been rendered void.

McLean then states that the drummer boy who had drawn one of the condemned lots was spared by one of Mosby's subordinates. Untrue! Mosby, when told that they boy had drawn one of the lots, went to him, took the paper from his hand, dropped it back in the hat and told the remaining men to 'draw again'. This has been substantiated by the fact that the boy himself when he was being repatriated, saw Mosby on the ship and ran and hugged him in gratitude. After the war, Mosby received a silver headed cane with a message that it was from 'the drummer boy'. These acts as well as the fact that many of Mosby's best friends after the war were men who had come under his hand as prisoners, reveal a very different Mosby than McLean would have us believe.

And there are other instances where McLean intimates that Mosby lied in stating he had a greater effect that he actually did. Unfortunately, he uses the dispatches of Union officers to verify that statement, dispatches that other historians have proven to be themselves mendacious. Frequently officers who came against Mosby lied in their reports regarding how much damage he did, how many men he had and how much damage they did to him. Mosby stated that if he had all the men that they said he had and lost as many as they said he did at their hands, he would have had a larger army than Lee!

The problem with all of this is that either Mr. McLean has allowed his personal dislike of this particular subject to color his scholarship or he has indulged in slipshod scholarship. Either way, it makes the reader pause when considering just how accurate the rest of the book may be.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars California Sabers, August 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War (Hardcover)

A useful, highly detailed account of the troops, some of whom were from California, who made up the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, and their actions during the Civil War. They did much of their fighting in the Valley Campaign of '64, and those battles are described at length.

The writing here may be a bit too dry for amateurs. I had two major criticisms:

As a Californian, I wanted to know more about where in the state the men came from. Normally, in a history of a unit, one gets a roster with places of origin, peactime occupation, where enlisted, how dismissed and so forth. This information would have been interesting to me.

Secondly, the author is not to be trusted blindly on matters outside his specific topic. Especially, his statements on prisons and the treatment of prisoners should be qualified by examination of other texts ("Portals to Hell" is a decent secondary source). As befits a historian of a Unionist regiment, he is of clear Unionist sympathies and while I don't think he forsakes scholarly objectivity too badly, readers wanting to learn more about Mosby, the regiment's primary antagonist, will want to look at other sources as well.

Though flawed, this book still will prove invaluable for anyone curious about Californians in the Civil War.