Customer Reviews

Silk Flags and Cold Steel: The Piedmont (Civil War in North Carolina)

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

 

 

Ive really enjoyed having read all three of the books by Trotter and refer to them frequently when endulging in converrsations of North Carolina Civil War history. These books are informative without long winded versions of trivial dialogue that sometimes populates some narratives of such a broad subject. Seems that the movie Cold Mountain refers to several scenes in this book, and the other two in the triliogy, in their attempt to portray the southern NC civilian life and its hardships. The books also portrays that not all NC natives were in favor of the war which reflects the accurate nature of polictics of the period. Enjoy.

William R. Trotter's "Silk Flags and Cold Steel" is a fascinating account of the effects of the American Civil War in North Carolina's Piedmont Region. Trotter's accounts of the relationship between wartime NC Governor Zebulon Vance and the Confederate Government in Richmond, and a masterful re-telling of the Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville, makes this a book worthy of anyone's collection of Civil War books.
Grade: A-

The books of Trotter's trilogy, "The Civil War in North Carolina" (the other volumes are "Ironclads and Columbiads: The Coast" and "Bushwhackers: The Mountains"), were published as independent works, and can be enjoyed as such. But one can't get a good understanding of the war in the Tarheel State just reading about a single region. I strongly suggest that serious students of the war, or of North Carolina, take time to read the entire trilogy.

Aside from John G. Barrett's "The Civil War in North Carolina," Trotter's trilogy is the only modern comprehensive account of the war in the Tar Heel state. (See also my review of Barrett's book at Amazon.com.) Unlike Barrett's rather academic, formal approach, Trotter is as concerned with telling some good stories as he is with documenting North Carolina's role in the war. He includes a fairly extensive bibliography in each volume, but apparently he relied mainly on published sources, and the footnotes are very sparse. This is not to say that his work is inaccurate or invalid, but it is hardly the ultimate account of the war in North Carolina.

His geographical division of the three volumes also presents some problems. Much information about the state's entry into the war and about its political aspects is found in "Silk Flags and Cold Steel," but the most important battles in the first three years of the war -- which had an influence on these political events -- are covered in the "Ironclads and Columbiads" volume about the coastal war. These two volumes also contain many later events that "interact," for example, the closing battles in March and April of 1865. And some events in "Bushwhackers" - most notably, Stoneman's cavalry raid in the final weeks of the war - also lap over into the Piedmont. Again, a full understanding requires reading all three of these books. Trotter, while adopting a mildly pro-Confederate tone like Barrett's, doesn't do as good a job of tying events in North Carolina to those of the wider war.

"Silk Flags and Cold Steel" contains the most information about North Carolina politics and the reasons for the state's reluctant secession in May 1861. Since there was little fighting in the Piedmont region of the state until the closing months of the war, most of the book deals with the war's impact on the economy, the relationship between the state and Confederate governments, and the roles of certain groups, including African-Americans, in the war. The latter part of the book covers Sherman's invasion of the state in March 1865, the battles of Averasboro and Bentonville, the surrender of Raleigh and the final surrender of Confederate forces in the state at Bennett Farm, near Durham.

One failing that Trotter shares with Barrett is the poor quality of his maps and the lack of description of battle sites, roads, and other places in modern terms. A copy of DeLorme's "North Carolina Atlas and Gazetteer" is a vital supplement to these three books; modern place names and locations of battles and other events should have been located using modern landmarks, included as footnotes.

Trotter's trilogy is "popular" history, entertainingly related and highly readable. He doesn't hesitate to have occasional fun with purple prose -- "The obsidian mountain night engulfed them like wraiths" -- but the writing usually is lively and flows well. There may be more recent and more thorough books about various aspects of the Civil War in North Carolina, but these three volumes present an introductory survey in a convenient package.