Customer Reviews

New Jerseyans in the Civil War: For Union and Liberty (Rivergate Book)

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New Jerseyans in the Civil War is a readable and enjoyable study of New Jersey's role in the Civil War. The author's major theme is how the influence of popular attitude regarding race and slavery, evolving out of the state's history, conditioned its ambivilence towards the war. The author asserts that persistent, strident criticism of the conduct of war and its purposes, put New Jersey out of step with the rest of the northern states. Readers will find the book to be interesting not only for its focus on the state's unique role in the war, but as a microcosm of the causes of the Civil War, and its impact.

Having taken a graduate degree of my own, I am well aware of how academia cripples the creative spirit in the way it teaches us to write. I was hoping for something more "narrative" in the style for example of Jeff Schaara or Shelby Foote, but this is more of that pedantic and factual material that you put on your shelf for a reference work but can't really read. I put it down and returned to Shelby Foote and Mary Chestnut to read about the war, though I had great hopes for this book since one of my ancestors was in the 38th NJ Volunteers. I would have liked to read about the calling up of the young men and their expeirences thereafter. I love history, but I already see how fear of making a mistake or getting criicized or called up by 'experts' makes poor story tellers of historians.