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The two books below tell stories set in the American Civil War, one from the Union point of view and the other from the Confederate viewpoint. It is good to have a balanced understanding of this bitter war in United States history.
In 1783, in France, the Montgolfier brothers made the first manned hot-air balloon. Less than 80 years later, in the American Civil War, military observation balloons were tried by the Union early in the war. They gave a birds-eye view of battle lines, but were dangerous going up and going down, because at those points they came within range of rifles and cannons. Both hydrogen-filled and hot-air tethered balloons were used with some success.
High Spy, a high-school reading level novel by Robert Edmond Alter, tells the story of the 18-year-old William Thaxton, or Thax, who is one of the first aeronauts for the Union during the Peninsular Campaign, early in the war, when General George McClellan, one of the most incompetent of the Northern generals, tried to take Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America. Thax had many adventures beyond being a balloon observer: captured and put in the infamous Belle Island prisoner of war camp, escaped from Belle Island, and helped by slaves to avoid recapture as he fled across Virginia. He overhears some Confederate battle plans and struggles to get back to the Northern Army to inform McClellan, even stealing a balloon to help him! There are other plot twists but I’ll let you find out about them. The author does an excellent job of making the reader feel like they are there, in that time and place, which is the best part of historical fiction. Several of Alter’s other books, set around the American Revolution, have been reviewed by me for Plumfield Library.
For the first three years in the American Civil War, the cavalry of the Confederacy was better, man for man, than the Union cavalry. With the advent of the rifled musket, with their greater range and rapidity of fire, the glorious cavalry charges of the past, reminiscent of knights in shining armor, had become a thing of the past. Cavalry in the Civil War was used for scouting, commerce raiding, and taking out telegraph wires and railroad tracks. There were pitched battles but only between cavalry units. What was the reason for this initial superiority of the Confederate cavalry? It has been thought that the Southern cavalry came from the ranks of the richer plantation owners, who had extensive riding experience. By way of contrast, the Union was drawing on individual farmers and factory workers who did not have the same riding experience. This difference could also be partly due to the incompetence of the Union generals – there did seem to be a lot of incompetent ones, at least early in the war.
In Swords, Stars, and Bars, by Lee McGiffin, each chapter in this middle-school reading level book gives a short biography of a famous Confederate cavalry officer, from John Mosby to John Morgan and Jeb Stuart. Each biography has been made into more of a story, almost but not quite historical fiction, by adding dialogue to the bare facts. The pen and ink drawings are few but are exquisitely detailed. It is interesting to note that one of the chapters is about Wade Hampton, who was probably second only to Jeb Stuart as a cavalry leader in the judgement of General Robert E. Lee. One of Wade Hampton’s descendants, Manly Wade Wellman, wrote a biography of his illustrious ancestor and also produced about 15 to 20 very nice historical novels for middle schoolers, from the early colonies through the American Revolution to the Civil War and on to the opening of the western United States. Swords, Stars, and Bars is a great book to understand and appreciate some of the famous cavalry leaders on the Southern side of the war, who often get neglected in school history courses. And of course, the cavalry arm of the army was probably the most exciting one to be in! Lee McGiffin was from Texas and was a journalist, columnist, and writer of many books for students about history.