Customer Reviews

"We Have It Damn Hard Out Here": The Civil War Letters of Sergeant Thomas W. Smith, 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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I am as impressed with Mr. Wittenberg's command of words as I am with the letters he annotates in this book. Sgt. Smith was a prolific writer, who at times may have left out a few details, but Mr. Wittenberg did a great job of filling those details in. For those who want to know what soldiers were really like during the Civil War, this is a good place to start!

Those who've had experience with using civil war letters for research are painfully aware that it's usually a hit and miss affiar. The letters in this book have varying amounts of substance, just like most letters I've used for my research in college. The easiest explination for this is the monotony of life for a civil war soldier between the battles. However, Eric Wittenberg more than makes up for the understandable lack of action in some letters (hey, armies don't fight all the time) with his excellent commentary. This is the third work of Mr. Wittenberg's that I've read and once again I'm impressed by his grasp of the material and by his fortune of finding these wonderful letters. This book is a truly valuable source for all civil war cavalry researchers.

I expected more for my $35. This is a rather short book in which we hear at least as much from the editor as we do from Sgt. Smith. The reason for this is that many of the roughly 70 letters in the book are brief and lack much substance.