Dear Catharine, Dear Taylor: the Civil War Letters of a Union Soldier and His Wife.

Edited by Richard L. Kiper. Modern War Studies. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, c. 2002. Pp. [xvi], 448. $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-1205-X.)

Taylor Peirce joined the 22nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry in 1862 as third sergeant, leaving behind his pregnant wife Catharine, two children, and his sister Mary, who was married to Catharine's brother, Cyrus. Catharine and the children moved in with Mary and Cyrus in Des Moines, and all the adults and the eldest daughter contributed to this collection of 178 letters. Both families were originally from Pennsylvania and apparently of Quaker background but unconflicted about taking up arras. They disdained the local Copperheads as much as the "Rebles" and were passionate abolitionists. "If I thought today that slavery could or would exist after the rebellion I would leave the army tomorrow," Taylor wrote shortly after enlisting, adding that "if they whip us and succeede in establishing slavery every vestige of human rights are swolowed up in brute force or the aristocracy of wealth" (p. 28). Two years later his convictions were still firm: "When I come to think and reflect that the nation has permitted and assisted in that most iniquitous institution I do not wonder at the Rivers of blood that has been shed to make a just attonement for its crimes" (p. 265).

Editor Richard L. Kiper has arranged the letters in five sections, according to the 22nd Iowa's deployments from 1862 to 1865. Each section begins with a good map and a brief summary of the main campaign events. The regiment went first to Missouri and then, in 1863, to Mississippi, where it became part of the Army of Tennessee and participated in the Vicksburg campaign. From late fall 1863 to July 1864 it was assigned to the 13th Army Corps and served in Texas and Louisiana under Nathaniel P. Banks. The next deployment was to Virginia, where it joined Philip Sheridan's forces in "giving the Rebs the devil" (p. 270) in the Shenandoah Valley campaign. After January 1865 the 22nd Iowa was posted in Savannah and the Carolinas; Taylor Peirce took over as acting adjutant and was never under fire again.

Taylor Peirce's letters intersperse battlefield accounts with the familiar preoccupations of field soldiers: irregular mails, late pay, the high price of provisions, complaints about officers, and the desire for a commission (he was promoted to first lieutenant in the last days of the war). He never misses an opportunity to exalt western troops over their eastern counterparts, who were commanded, he believed, by "pimps and Saloon keepers" (p. 242) and commissioned through political influence. There are lengthy instructions to Catharine regarding payment and collection of debts in Iowa from various business transactions--tedious to read but clearly indicating confidence in her ability to act in his stead. Catharine, for her part, expresses a wish to be in the South helping the freed slaves. Although preoccupied with the children's health and schooling, she reports on the local economy and politics; the reelection of "old Abe" Lincoln, she writes with satisfaction in 1864, had made the Iowa Copperheads "hang their heads very low and keep their mouth mighty close" (p. 302).

Editor Kiper, a military historian, provides full, well-done annotations to the text. More knowledge of social history, however, would have greatly strengthened his introduction. Kiper seems unfamiliar with recent scholarship on women, gender, and the home front; and as a consequence, he misses much of significance in Taylor and Catharine's marriage and in Taylor's relationship with his children.

JUDITH N. MCARTHUR

Victoria, Texas