By Bob Tedder • It has been my experience that many historians upon earning a terminal degree inevitably publish their first book by rebranding their thesis. However, whether the book becomes a consumable work is another matter entirely. Determining if the market will support a work such as “Limited War, Limited Enthusiasm: Sexuality, Disillusionment, Survival, and the Changing Landscape of War Culture in Korean War-era Comic Books and Soldier Iconography” is at best problematic. (Note this is an actual title of a thesis currently listed on a major university’s website.) Therefore, a reader approaching a book billed as the first publication of a 40-year-old history dissertation does so with a certain amount of trepidation. Fortunately, such fears evaporate immediately upon opening O. Edward Cunningham’s “Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862.” This is evident on two levels; subject matter and style.
As pointed out by Gary Joiner and Timothy Smith, the two history professors who resurrected, edited and published Cunningham’s magnum opus, this particular subject is not heavily represented in Civil War historiography. The casual student of the American Civil War will when prompted speak of Gettysburg, Sherman’s march to the sea, the Glory of Robert Gould Shaw or perhaps, on a good day, elucidate Scott’s Anaconda Plan. However, they probably would not mention the events of April 6 and 7, 1862, occurring around Shiloh Church and Pittsburg Landing, Tenn. There, the first large-scale battle of the war took place over 4,000 acres of what is now perhaps the best preserved of all that war’s battle sites. These facts and the runup campaigns through Forts Henry and Donelson led by the Union’s rising star Ulysses S.Grant yield not to the sword of droll academia but to the poetic pen of Cunningham’s historical narrative.
The history is there. The accompanying maps with the usual movement arrows and unit positional rectangles demanded by the tactically oriented reader are present. The breadth and depth of Cunningham’s research is exceptional. Tables of organization, troop dispositions and maneuvers stand mute testimony to the long hours of research necessary to prepare a work of this magnitude. But one need read no further than the opening sentence to realize a sparkling historical gem underlies the charts and statistics. “A poet might describe them as arrows running through the heart of the Confederacy, but to the military and political leaders of the North and South back in 1861, the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers represented something much more prosaic, yet vital; the probable difference between victory and defeat in the American Civil War.”
Such effervescent prose escorts the reader through distant memories of a Hornet’s Nest, a Bloody Ponds and a boot full of blood which marked the death of Southern leadership in the Western theater of war. This is a must-read for the Civil War buff and a suggested read for the historical curious. There is a copy available at the Speckled Paw.