All Right Let Them Come: The Civil War Diary of an East Tennessee Confederate.

All Right Let Them Come: The Civil War Diary of an East Tennessee Confederate. Edited by Charles Swift Northen III. Voices of the Civil War. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003. Pp. xvi, 115. $24.95, ISBN 1-57233-233-6.)

A Confederate Yankee: The Journal of Edward William Drummond, a Confederate Soldier from Maine. Edited by Roger S. Durham. Voices of the Civil War. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. Pp. xliv, 160. $30.00, ISBN 1-57233-276-X.)

"Fear Was Not in Him": The Civil War Letters of Major General Francis C. Barlow, U.S.A. Edited by Christian G. Samito. The North's Civil War. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004. Pp. xl, 247. $55.00, ISBN 0-8232-2323-X.)

In the Saddle with the Texans: Day by Day with Parsons's Cavalry Brigade, 1862-1865. Edited by Anne J. Bailey. (Abilene, Tex.: McWhiney Foundation Press, c. 2004. Pp. 414. $29.95, ISBN 1-893114-48-1.)

Voices from Company D: Diaries by the Greensboro Guards, Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment Army of Northern Virginia. Edited by G. Ward Hubbs. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, 2003. Pp. xxii, 441. $39.95, ISBN 0-8203-2514-7.)

Memoirs of a Dutch Mudsill: The "War Memories" of John Henry Otto, Captain, Company D, 21st Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. Edited by David Gould and James B. Kennedy. (Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, c. 2004. Pp. xviii, 425. $39.00, ISBN 0-87338-799-6.)

A Legacy of Valor: The Memoirs and Letters of Captain Henry Newton Comey, 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. Edited by Lyman Richard Comey. Voices of the Civil War. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. Pp. xxii, 284. $38.00, ISBN 1-57233-247-6.)

Southern Sons, Northern Soldiers: The Civil War Letters of the Remley Brothers, 22nd Iowa Infantry. Edited by Julie Holcomb. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, c. 2004. Pp. xxxii, 184. $32.00, ISBN 0-87580-319-9.)

Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar: The Memoirs of William Henry Corbusier, 1844-1930. Edited by Robert Wooster. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, c. 2003. Pp. xx, 234. $29.95, ISBN 0-8061-3549-2.)

Despite the wealth of Civil War information published each year, enterprising authors can still find the "untold story." Some might even find the long-forgotten packet of letters tucked away in the corner of a dusty attic. Once these discoveries make their way into the hands of a historian, a much more rounded picture of life during the Civil War emerges. Each of the above nine books reflects this. The subjects range from a Union general's letters to the memoirs of a surgeon, but all of them are similar in the fact that they focus on topics that have not always received the same amount of attention as other Civil War events. Trans-Mississippi Texans, northern-born Confederates, southern-born "Yankees," East Tennessee Confederates, and junior officers all receive attention in these works.

Five of the books concern junior officers or enlisted men, one is a collection of letters from a division commander, one is a regimental history, another is a company history, and, finally, one book concerns the lengthy career of a U.S. Army surgeon. Despite such seemingly far-flung subject matter, a common theme emerges: a portrait of the war as one of long hours spent in camp and on the march. Soldiers spent far more time performing mundane tasks than they did in battle. Naturally, these subjects have been addressed in scores of previous books, but it is always refreshing to see new material that reinforces that fact.

Every theater of the war is covered. From the fields of Gettysburg to the Texas-Louisiana border, these books show us the war as it was, not as we sometimes think of it. The nervous excitement of a soldier awaiting his first battle, the horrors of a surgical tent, the pride of winning the day, and the heartrending tragedy of seeing friends and relatives lost fill their pages. Sadly, had it not been for the discovery of letters, a journal, or some other account involving the principals in several of the books, the stories would have been lost. That makes them all the more compelling.

As long as historians and writers continue to wade through the sometimes murky waters of the American past, they will continue to uncover stories such as these. All of the above books examine unique or different aspects of the war. Their focus is not always on glorious victories on the field of battle, but rather on the very different task of soldiering. These authors have managed to pull their stories from the dusty pages of history and present them to an eager audience. The little-known aspects of the war always attract attention, and so long as there are stories waiting to be uncovered, interest in books such as these will never cease. [BRADY LEE HUTCHISON, The Papers of Jefferson Davis]