Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/331

 Rh of neither side is he a partisan. It is one of the great values of this book that it is the work of an author who is neither Northern nor Southern, who has not committed himself to a judgment on the great question at issue, and who is here engaged in a just and careful study of the critical period of the war, in the interest of military science.

The book is an octavo volume of over four hundred pages, somewhat compactly printed, and is, therefore, quite a full and substantial volume. Its maps are well prepared, and are, on the whole, quite accurate reproductions of the country as it was in the time of war. It is not at all a complete history of the downfall of the military power of the Southern States, but it aims to be "a concise account of the most critical phase of this great Civil War." There is no attempt to embrace the elements of weakness that existed in finance, in blockade ports, in lack of manufactures, in imperfect transportation, nor is there any outline of the campaigns in the West, and the seizure of the Mississippi River.

But with Gettysburg in view, the author gives a brief account of the campaigns in Virginia from the beginning. And this is done to bring the reader to the crisis of the war at Gettysburg, with an intelligent comprehension of the conditions which there existed, the generals who commanded, and the battalions which were now filled with veteran soldiers, who had passed through long marches and well-fought battles. Chancellorsville is especially studied as the field from which the invasion of Pennsylvania has seemed to many the logical and necessary conclusion. Then the cavalry engagement at Brandy Station is quite fully narrated, and the capture of Winchester by Gen. Ewell, and the defeat of Millroy. With most admirable care, Captain Battine has studied many sources of information, and knows well the books both North and South. He is familiar with the topography of Northern Virginia, and follows the movement of Stuart in Fauquier and Prince William with intelligence, and gives as complete an account of his daring but mistaken ride to the east of Hooker into Pennsylvania as exists in print today.

The great and critical contest at Gettysburg is treated not