g, Gettysburg, and
the retreat of Lee's array to Virginia. Closer attention is paid, in
this volume, to the legislation, administration, finances, resources,
temper, and condition generally of the North and the South, and valuable
accounts are given of the organization at the North of the signal corps,
the medical and hospital service, the military telegraph, the system of
railroad transportation for military purposes, the soldiers' homes, and
the sanitary and other commissions.

As a whole, and so far as published, the work purports to give an
accurate account of what took place in all quarters of the theatre of
war, and is generally successful. It never errs on the side of
partisanship, but occasionally through ignorance or misapplication of
facts. From first to last, it is an honest and straightforward
narrative, at times eloquent and at times vivacious. The reader is bored
by no flights of rhetoric; but students will always lament a lack of
philosophical tone and _critical_ appreciation of men and events.
The maps and plans, which are numerous and are furnished from official
sources, are all that could be desired.

REMINISCENCES OF FORTS SUMTER AND MOULTRIE IN 1860-61. By Abner
Doubleday, Brevet Major General, U.S.A. 1 vol. 12mo pp. 184. New York,
Harper & Brothers.

The author bore an honorable and responsible part in the actual outbreak
of hostilities between the national government and the revolted states,
and in this book he gives a simple and faithful recital of some of the
more important facts. Though so misrepresented by certain critics, the
book is _not_ an attack on Major Anderson's character; on the
contrary, it clearly shows, and attempts to show, that that commander
firmly subdued all considerations and devices which seemed inconsistent
with his duty as a soldier of the United States, and held himself ready
to be sacrificed to the trust given him. General (then Captain, 1st
artillery U.S.A.) Doubleday was at Fort Sumter during the bombardment,
and, as might be expected, his volume gives many incidents of the life
of the little besieged band, and of the siege itself, which appear here
for the first time, and which throw fresh light upon the conduct and
principles of both parties to the conflict. As a personal narrative, it
is one of the most charming and instructive relating to the war. The
book was published in 1876.

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