The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 80, July 1976 - April, 1977 Page: 346
492 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume II. Edited by James T. McIntosh.
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975. Pp. v+806.
Illustrations, maps, index. $20.)
Professor James T. McIntosh and his very able staff have published
22 additional documents and advanced the Davis chronology from June,
I841, to July, 1846. In this five-year period Davis becomes increasingly
active in Mississippi's Democratic party, makes an unsuccessful bid for a
seat in the state legislature, marries Varina Banks Howell of Natchez,
wins election to the United States House of Representatives, attends his
first session ,of Congress, and returns to Vicksburg to take command of the
ist Mississippi Regiment, which has been ordered to Texas. Upon this
foundation of rather indifferent biographical gleanings rests a massive
superstructure of textual annotation and bibliographical compilation.
A useful stratagem for working through this volume's labyrinth of foot-
noting is to key one's reading on the index. For example, the analytics
for "Davis, Jefferson" are grouped under sixteen topical headings, of
which the most frequently cited are Davis's political career, personal af-
fairs, opinions, family, and relationships. Other references fall under the
categories of education, military career, planter, Mexican War, Senate,
gubernatorial campaign, secretary of war, confederacy, flight and im-
prisonment, retirement, and servants. Using this approach one quickly
discovers that the editor has written a substantial part of Davis's life and
times in six-point type.
This reviewer found the annotations much more informative and in-
teresting than the documents themselves. The bibliographical sources cited
in the notes further illustrate the unexcelled thoroughness with which the
editorial staff has mastered the twin tasks of compilation and research.
To sum up, while the Davis documents published in this volume hardly
require such extensive annotation, the awesome display of historical re-
search therein commands great respect for and general acceptance of the
editor's labors.
Vanderbilt University WAYNE CUTLER
Suffering to Silence. By John C. Grady and Bradford K. Felmly. (Quanah,
Texas: Nortex Press, 1976. Pp. xi+ 243. Illustrations, biographies,
bibliography. $8.50.)
In early summer, 1862 Charles DeMorse, well-known pro-secessionist
editor of the Clarksville Standard, raised the 29th Texas Cavalry Regiment
primarily from the North Texas counties just below the Red River. The346
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 80, July 1976 - April, 1977, periodical, 1976/1977; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101204/m1/390/?rotate=270: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.