Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/710

 700 Reviews of Books Gettysburg and Lincoln: The Battle, the Cemetery, and the National Park. By Henry Sweetser Burrage, Brevet Major, U. S. Vols. (New- York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1906, pp. xii, 224.) The title of this book gives a summary of its contents. Part i. contains a brief and well-written account of the battle of Gettysburg. Part 11. is de- voted to the movement for a national cemetery at Gettysburg, and to the consecration services of that cemetery. The most original and in- teresting parts of the book are the chapters in part 11. which give a detailed discussion of Lincoln's address at Gettysburg. Major Burrage has collected all of the available information regarding the composition of this now famous address, and presents his account in an interesting manner. Part iii. contains a history of the work of the Gettysburg Battle-field Memorial Association, and of the National Park Commission. The book is clearly written, and should be of much interest to those who have taken part in the preservation of our most famous battle- field. Documentary History of Reconstruction. By Walter L. Fleming, Ph.D., Professor of History in West Virginia University. Volume L (Cleveland, The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1906, pp. xix, 492.) The purpose of this volume, as the author tells us in his preface, is to make some of the sources relating to the political, military, social, re- ligious, educational, and industrial history of the Reconstruction period more easily accessible to the student and the general reader. It is to the former class, however, that the book will be more valuable, for it is scarcely the kind of matter that will hold the attention of the general reader on account of its necessarily fragmentary nature. From such a collection, large as it is, it would be manifestly impossible for one to gain a definite idea of Reconstruction conditions, but from it may be gained quite a definite idea of Reconstruction sentiment. So far it will be valuable to the general reader. To the close student of the period it will, naturally, prove of far more interest and value. The selections are well made and are to a high degree illustrative of public sentiment at the time. It is in these respects and as a guide to the period of Reconstruction that the book is most valuable. In this first volume the documents show a decided leaning to Radical sentiment and opinion. In his preface. Dr. Fleming states that the contrary will be the case in the second volume. In all there are 252 separate documents, of which the origin is as follows: 148 are accounts from Northern men ; 62 are from ex-Confederates ; 22 from Southern Unionists and Radicals ; 12 from negroes ; and 2 from foreigners. There are also 25 state laws and 17 Federal laws. Of the non-legal docu- ments, 118 are from the Northern standpoint; 64 are from the Southern; and about 70 are indifferent or impartial. The first chapter, entitled "The South after the War: Economic and Social Conditions ", contains, among other things, much interest- ing matter relating to the period immediately succeeding the suspension