On Campaign with the Army of the Potomac: The Civil War Journal of Theodore Ayrault Dodge

Theodore Ayrault Dodge (1842-1909) was the nineteenth century's greatest military historian and author of biographies of Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus and Napoleon.

Recreational readers and historians alike never tire of the Civil War, which assures a readership for this new book on the conflict. Stephen W. Sears, known for his book on Antietam, Landscape Turned Red (1983), has edited the journal of Theodore Dodge, who turned historian after the war and wrote one of the first books on Chancellorsville, of which he had firsthand knowledge, for his regiment was in the Union wing crushed by Stonewall Jackson's attack. Dodge's acuity makes invaluable his persepctive on the Army of the Potomac's hadir, its string of defeats in 1862-63. The privations of campaigning, the loss of companions, and even the life of camp rumors Dodge records enable his journal, which ends with his wounding and capture at Gettysburg, to conjure a vivid, you-are-there aura. Gilbert Taylor
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Among the never-ending appearance of Civil War memoirs, diaries, and correspondence, this journal, kept by Theodore A. Dodge, deserves special attention. Ably compiled by well-known Civil War chronicler Sears (Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam), this New York regimental officer's account covers a year of military service, from the Seven Days battles outside Richmond in 1862 to Gettysburg, where Dodge (who later became a great military historian) was wounded. Whether he is passing judgment on superior officers, describing the everyday humdrum of soldier life, or pondering why he was fighting, Dodge's observations are unfailingly interesting. Filled with incisive observations and penetrating commentary on subjects ranging from generalship to the political objectives of the conflict, this narrative is sure to enrich and inform our understanding of both the war and the men who fought it. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
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