Archaeological Perspectives on the American Civil War.

Edited by Clarence R. Geier and Stephen R. Potter. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, c. 2000. Pp. [xxxiv], 412. $55.00, ISBN 0-8130-1834-X.)

Collectively, the contributors to this volume possess more than 250 years of experience studying the American Civil War as archaeologists and historians. Co-editors Clarence R. Geier and Stephen R. Potter begin each of the book's three sections with a context-setting overview, and the authors of the eighteen essays also establish historical contexts for their archaeological perspectives through comprehensive reviews of the locales and events that they study. Most of them, however, base their distinctive analyses on the recovered evidence of material culture, such as food and structural remains; ceramic, glass, and metal containers; military accoutrements; small-arms projectiles; and artillery ordnance.

The first essay, by Stephen Potter, Robert C. Sonderman, Marian C. Creveling, and Susannah L. Dean, draws from a metal-detector survey and test excavations at the Brawner Farm site at First Manassas battlefield to illustrate how troop placements and structural types conformed to--and in some cases differed from--descriptions in historical documents. Similarly, John E. Comelison Jr. uses a metal-detector survey, computer mapping, and archival research to analyze aspects of the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, and identify pathways followed by retreating Federal units. Joseph W. A. Whitehorne and Clarence Geier's discussion of the battle of Cool Spring, Virginia, and its archaeologically documented artifact distributions reveals how topography and locations of structures conditioned underlying decision-making processes and thereby determined battlefield tactics.

Four essays are set on or near the Antietam battlefield, including Potter and Douglas W. Owsley's forensic investigation of one of the 63rd New York Regiment's Irish soldiers killed in the battle. Bruce B. Sterling and Bernard W. Slaughter use data from metal-detector surveys and computer-generated artifact-distribution maps to assess the accuracy of recorded troop movements. In separate articles Sterling and Jeffrey Harbison each describe on-the-ground distributions of small-arms projectiles and artillery shells, respectively, make comparisons to ordnance records, and identify tactical aspects of the battle not reported in written accounts.

Robert J. Fryman analyzes the documentary evidence on Atlanta's earthen fortifications, describes the known aboveground remains of such defenses, and predicts subsurface locations of earthen fortifications elsewhere in the city. Joseph Balicki examines artifact types and distributions at Fort C. F. Smith, a defensive earthwork near Washington, D.C., and identifies military-activity areas within the compound. Whitehorne, Geier, and Warren R. Hofstra use information gleaned from army regulation manuals to identify features discovered during excavations at the site of the Sheridan Field Hospital in Virginia. Recovered food remains and containers, as well as subsurface structural remains, help W. Stephen McBride, Susan C. Andrews, and Sean P. Coughlin to distinguish areas used predominately by white officers from those used mainly by African American enlisted men at Camp Nelson, Kentucky. Guy Prentice and Marie C. Prentice's report on archaeological investigations at Andersonville Prison confirms historical records about the structure and configuration of stockade walls and reveals new details about the main gateway area.

Steven D. Smith's essay about the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley as "southern icon" first examines the history of engineering developments and organizational politics in the vessel's construction, then discusses controversies that followed the 1995 discovery of the vessel's remains. Kenneth E. Koons's detailed historical analysis of African American laborers in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley from enslavement through their continued servile status after emancipation also provides a socioeconomic context for other essays, including Laura J. Galke's investigation of African and African-inspired artifacts recovered from three sites at Manassas National Battlefield Park. Erika K. Martin Seibert and Mia T. Parsons's essay discusses the "two-ness" of African American culture as revealed by excavations of a farmstead in the same area that was owned by a free black man and his postwar descendants. Focusing on sites formerly owned by whites, Paul A. Shackel describes and analyzes animal bones and food, alcohol, and medicine containers found during excavations of a boardinghouse in Harpers Ferry, and Elise Manning-Sterling interprets the results of test excavations at two farms on the Antietam National Battlefield as evidence that the occupants removed much of the war debris from their property and quickly rebuilt in an attempt to restore the prewar landscape.

Civil War historians will find that these archaeological perspectives, generated through analysis of material culture and detailed archival research, both shed new light on un- or underdocumented events and help correct misconceptions in the written records. Historical archaeologists will benefit from discussions of innovative approaches and methodological "dos and don'ts," as well as from the essays' useful comparative data and comprehensive bibliographies. Civil War enthusiasts and the interested public will learn much about the nature of thorough archaeological and historical detective work. However, due to a paucity of maps that locate key places, towns, or battlefields within a given state or multistate region, those not already knowledgeable about Civil War history and geography may find themselves occasionally lost in space. Less-informed readers might also wish that the three-page glossary had been expanded, as many technical and military terms used in the essays are not defined.

ALSTON V. THOMS
Texas A&M University