The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 444

Southwestern Hztorzcal Quarterly

this brief sketch. That said, Daniel embarks on an impressive task and if for
no other reason, he deserves accolades. The wealth of materials quoted makes
the volume attractive to a broad readership. Daniel discusses each of the
Southern states that supplied men to the AOT. This lack of bias is especially
commendable.
Daniel finds that the average AOT soldier was "a nonslaveowning man in his
early twenties, born in a small log cabin, with limited education, who farmed
for a living" (p. 13). But this did not mean that he was brutish or ignorant. In
fact, the AOT soldier represented both the "cream and the crap" of a complex
Southern prewar society. Daniel's expostulations of class and social distinctions
in the military as cohesive and factionalizlng tools accurately reflect the signifi-
cance of those upon morale. To the novice, for example, it may be difficult to
understand why eastern and western rebels often evinced as much hostility
towards one another as towards their "common" enemy.
A young Alabaman's description of Terry's Texas Rangers as "certainly a
rough looking set" (p. 13) reveals the marked distinction between frontier sol-
diers and their "prim and proper" comrades. Another non-Texan's description
of Ector's Texas Brigade in French's Division as "good in a fight but [they] are
wild and wreckless and troublesome" (p. 9) displays the same bias toward those
from east of the Mississippi.
What makes the volume so appealing, in fact, to those of us from west of the
river is that it contains many references to "our own folks." Whether you are
interested in Douglas's Battery, Granbury's and Ector's Infantry Brigades, or
Terry's Rangers, you will find herein reliable descriptions of those Texans serv-
ing in that famous, if ill-fated, army.
The book's best feature is Daniel's explanation of how the stressful initial
adaptation to military service, the effects of disease and battlefield deaths, the
scarcity of rations, the absence of medicines, and the paucity of pay combined
to affect men's morale adversely. Daniel's concise footnotes and rich mixture of
textual quotes make the volume a pleasure to read. It is worth the cost and
should appeal to scholars and a lay audience alike.
Lamar Universzty at Port Arthur DANNY M. SESSUMS
In joy and In Sorrow: Women, Family and Marriage in the Vlctorian South. By Carol
Blesser. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xxviii+ 330. Pref-
ace, foreword, new introduction, epilogue, appendix, notes, illustrations,
photographs. $24.95.)
This collection of fourteen original articles springs from a 1989 conference
on "Women, Family, and Marriage in the Victorian South" hosted by Clemson
University. Among the authors are some of the foremost scholars in the field
of Southern history, including Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Bertram Wyatt-
Brown, while Anne Firor Scott provides the foreword, C. Vann Woodward the
introduction, and Drew Gilpin Faust the epilogue. The essays cover nearly ev-
ery segment of the Southern population, black and white, rich and poor, al-
though the greatest amount of space is devoted to the lettered upper class:

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