Vol. 38/ 1 (1962)
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Some NEW BOOKS in Review . Minnesota in the Civil War. By KENNETH CAR- first man in the nation to volunteer for Union LEY. (Minneapohs, Ross and Haines, Inc., service. 1961. 168 p. Illustrations, maps. $3.95.) All told, some twenty-five thousand Minne sotans, including teen-age boys such as Charles Reviewed by Bell I. Wiley Goddard, donned the blue and fought to save the imperiled Union. About twenty-five hun DURING the centennial observance now in dred of these — one out of ten — died of progress it is appropriate for Minnesotans to be disease or from hostile bullets. Minnesota regi reminded of the role of their state in the great ments and batteries proved their mettle at Bull confiict of the 1860s. They are fortunate in hav Run, Shiloh, Corinth, Murfreesboro, Gettys ing in their midst to tell the story for them a per burg, and other Civil War battles. At Gettysburg son like Kenneth Carley, whose recent articles the First Minnesota covered itself with glory in the Picture Magazine of the Minneapolis in a desperate charge during a crisis on the Sunday Tribune comprise the substance of the second day; in the course of the fight this splen little volume here reviewed. Mr. Carley is did unit suffered losses of eighty-two per cent, deeply interested in the Civil War; he is the a casualty rate which stands near the top among sort of reporter who insists on going beyond the Civil War regiments. obvious and easily available sources into letters, The book is abundantly illustrated with diaries, and other unpublished materials; last, photographs and drawings. It also contains a but not least, he is able to communicate his detailed chronology, a roster of leading Min findings in a manner that is pleasing to both nesota officers, a list of the state's Civil War the layman and the specialist. monuments, and a brief bibliography. It is a As Mr. Carley would be the first to admit, worthy addition to the literature of the Civil Minnesota in the Civil War is not a definitive War and a substantial contribution to the cen study. Rather, it is a series of essays portraying tennial observance. the high points of the state's participation in the conffict. It is introductory and episodic, but it is richly informative and absorbingly interest MINNESOTA PEACEMAKER ing. It ought to stimulate curiosity, lead to Frank B. Kellogg and American Foreign Rela further study, bring out letters and diaries now tions, 1925-1929. By L. ETHAN ELLIS. New reposing in attics and basements for preserva Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, I96I. tion in the Minnesota Historical Society, and ix, 303 p. $7.50.) thus pave the way for eventual preparation of the comprehensive histoiy that the subject de Reviewed by Charles G. Cleaver serves. Minnesota's role in the war, as Mr. Carley FOR A brief period in the 1920s, when the points out, was unique in that the state was in Kellogg-Briand Pact had been ratified by most volved in a twofold fight — against Southern of the nations of the world, and when Frank B. secessionists and against the Sioux Indians. Gov Kellogg was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ernor Alexander Ramsey was the first state and then appointed to the World Court, he must executive to offer troops to President Lincoln have seemed to everybody the most important and Josias R. King of St. Paul was said to be the man Minnesota had ever bred, one of the world's first citizens. His fame faded quickly as MR. WILEY, professor of history in Emory Uni the peace failed. Until recently, when the Min versity at Atlanta, is the author of numerous nesota Historical Society acquired his papers and books and a member of the National Civil War when certain State Department archives were Centennial Commission. opened to scholars, historians did little to re- March 1962 35 vive his name. Definitive studies have been to the "utopian" side of Kellogg's mind. For made of the administrations of all the Secre example, he emphasizes Kellogg's "isolationist taries of State before Kellogg and some of them predispositions" but does not stress a contrary since, but until now he has been bypassed. Pro internationalist tendency; Kellogg was not fessor Ellis has filled the gap well. His book is neatly settled in one camp or the other. Like careful, thorough, and thoughtful. Kennan, Mr. Ellis points out the legalistic turn The main body of the book is traditional his of mind of the lawyer-secretary surrounded by torical narrative, organized around the major other lawyers; but he does not emphasize suffi problems of Kellogg's administration, notably ciently the attraction of what Kellogg called a Mexico, Nicaragua, China, disarmament con "higher" law, which was contemptuous of court ferences, war debt settlements and the peace room law. There are complexities to Kellogg's pact negotiations. More or less adequate treat mind and to the business of conducting foreign ments of the last are already available and a policy in a democracy which are yet to be re sound doctoral dissertadon has been vyritten vealed. This book, however, helps us along the about Kellogg's Latin American policies. Mr. way. Ellis wisely devotes much of his attention to certain complex stories that have never been fully told, particularly the crucial American PA! NTER-HISTORI AN relations with a factious but resurgent China, and the delicate and unsuccessful attempts dur Seth Eastman: Pictorial Historian of the Indian. ing the late 1920s to extend disarmament By JOHN FRANCIS MCDERMOTT. (Nor beyond what was accomphshed at the Wash man, University of Oklahoma Press, 1961. ington Conference in 1921—22. X, 270p. Illustrations. $10.00.) A Seth Eastman Sketchbook, 1848-1849. Intro Mr. Ellis' historical narrative is framed by duction by Lois BUCKHALTER. (Austin, Uni a short impressionistic first chapter which versity of Texas Press, 1961. xxvi, 68 p. sketches the milieu in which Kellogg had to Illustrations. $7.50.) work and an interesting final chapter, an "over view," which analyzes the accomplishments of Reviewed by Bertha L. Heilbron his administration. One might wish that the author had been more adventurous in this sec THE NAME of Seth Eastman must appear near tion. Possibly many of the general insights the top of any fist of artists who have pictured which we need for understanding American frontier America and its native red men. Thus foreign policy during the twentieth century these books will be welcomed both by those have already been offered by such vyriters as concerned with American art and by historians. George Kennan and Hans Morgenthau, but Mr. As the first book-length biography of East Elhs demonstrates in this volume abilities which man to appear in print, Mr. McDermott's work suggest that he might have made further con is, of course, of prime significance. It tells the tributions to our understanding. story of a professional soldier, trained both in His work is marked by sobriety and balance. mflitary science and in art at West Point, whose He weighs the infiuence on our policy of Kel "first duty assignment took him about as far logg, the man, against the influence of other from New England and the Hudson Valley as personahties, such as Charles Evans Hughes was then possible" — to Forts Crawford and and President Calvin Coofidge; against the SneUing on the upper Mississippi. This happy effect of institutions like the Senate; and against accident contributed much toward making East the more abstract forces of traditional policy man the "master painter of the Indian" de and public opinion. He compares the view of scribed in Mr. McDermott's opening chapter as Kellogg as "utopian" with the view that he ran the "most effective pictorial historian of the foreign affairs with single-minded sympathy for Indian in the nineteenth centmy." a status quo favorable to big business. It might That seven of Eastman's most productive be argued that Mr. Elfis pays too fittle attention years were spent at Fort Snelling in the 1830s MR. CLEAVER is c member of the faculty in MISS HEILBRON, the former editor of this maga- Grinnell College. The subfect of his doctoral zine, who retired in 1960, is an authority on thesis was Kellogg's foreign policy decisions. frontier American art. 36 MINNESOTA History and 1840s, when it was still possible to observe Hill Reference Library of St. Paul should be a the Sioux and the Chippewa at close hand, is source of satisfaction to Minnesotans. A total especially fortunate for Minnesotans. The fron of 116 illustrations, eight in full color, enrich tier artist's "long isolation" on the upper Missis Mr. McDermott's book, which is marked sippi "gave him unhurried opportunity for close throughout by handsome format. study" of the red men at home and on hunting The 1848-49 sketchbook pubfished by the expeditions, in peace and in war, at work and University of Texas Press has greater interest at play. Like George Catlin, Eastman was for Minnesotans than might at first glance be "aware that the Indian was fast disappearing," surmised. More than half of the sketches repro and he "took upon himself the task of preserving duced picture scenes along the lower Missis the northern tribes visually." He had, however, sippi, working southward to the guff from a one great advantage over Catlin, and that was point some sixty miles below St. Louis. One of another "profession to live by." Thus "he could the more important sources of information on paint as he chose," and he elected to picture Eastman's tour of duty in Texas, recorded pic what he saw with complete honesty, never torially in the remaining sketches, consists of dramatizing or exaggerating, as did Catlin.