Phil Gottschalk

There was no better combat brigade than the Missouri Brigade, and Gottschalk does a masterful job of telling their story. His combat accounts, in particular, are compelling and dramatic. He uses participant accounts to good effect and makes the reader empathize with the soldiers in battle and on the march.

In unit histories, the tricky part is balancing the unit's personal story with the context needed to understand what is going on in the larger war. This is where Gottschalk loses one star in the rating. He goes into so much detail on campaigns and battles beyond the purview of the Missouri Brigade that it becomes almost a history of the war in the western theater. And, writing in 1991, he is still under the influence of the pro-Joe Johnston historiography of Connelly, Horn and Sword. As a result, he repeats the unfair aspersions cast on Pemberton in the Vicksburg Campaign, and his treatment of Hood is downright calumnious. I'm sure he was also influenced by the bitterness of the accounts of Missouri Brigade veterans who felt that Hood had sacrificed them needlessly, but his constant and unfair denunciation of Hood grew tiresome.

A well written classic unit history, a must read specially for those interested in the combat experience of the western theater Confederates.… (altro)