Philip P. Mason

In which are collected sixteen newspaper articles written for the Associated Press for distribution to Michigan newspapers as a part of the commemoration of the Civil War centennial. As one might expect, the book is easy to read and is interesting in spots. The authors avoid one trap of local historians of the Civil War, viz., unit histories, but succumb to another, viz., lists of names, churches, and businesses which are of no interest to anybody but the most pedantic of local historians. Several of the articles treat of fairly new and interesting material, especially the one about the Confederates attempting to seize a warship on the Great Lakes, but most are either personality vignettes which are of very limited interest or rehashes of familiar episodes such as the apprehensions of Jefferson Davis and Jno. Wilkes Booth with a Michigan spin added.… (mehr)