7  american poet-general overfond of drink

----------------------
Jon Stephen Miller
Department of English
University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa  52242
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Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 14:18:51 -0400
From: H-Net Reviews <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject: Johnson on Carter, ed., _For Honor Glory and Union_

Ruth C. Carter, ed.  _For Honor Glory & Union: The Mexican & Civil War
Letters of Brig. Gen. William Haines Lytle_.  Lexington: University Press
of Kentucky, 1999.  xiv + 244 pp.  Illustrations, notes, bibliography,
appendices, index.  $27.50 (cloth), ISBN 0-811-2108-6.

Reviewed for H-CIVWAR by Timothy D. Johnson, <[log in to unmask]>
Department of History, Politics, and Philosophy, Lipscomb University,
Nashville, Tenn.

For Honor, Glory, and Union

William Haines Lytle is sometimes referred to as the poet-general of the
Civil War.  This skillfully edited book constitutes his Mexican and Civil
War letters.  The editor, Ruth C. Carter, is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio
who worked as manuscript curator at the Cincinnati Historical Society,
where the letters are housed.  Carter is now head of the Archives Service
Center and the Curator of Historical Collections at the University of
Pittsburgh Library, the institution where she earned a Ph.D. in history.

Will Lytle was more than a poet and soldier.  He was an orator, a
politician, and an avid horseman and hunter.  Born into a prominent Ohio
family, Lytle entered Cincinnati College in 1840 at the age of thirteen.
He later studied law and established a law practice in his home town.  By
the time he reached adulthood, he had grieved the deaths of parents, a
sibling, and other family members.  Dispite a strong intellect and a
variety of talents, Lytle did not always live up to his potential, perhaps
because of his fondness for drink.  He was often bored and seemed to have
no clear direction in life.  As the editor points out in the introduction,
"During his brief life Lytle displayed many flashes of brilliance.  Yet
his failure to channel his energies consistently frustrated those who knew
him best"(6-7).

Like his father before him, Will Lytle was an ardent Jacksonian Democrat
in a city whose business elites where mostly Whig.  He was a states'
rights advocate with strong southern sympathies, but his equally strong
nationalism induced him to serve his country not only in the Mexican War
but in the Civil War as well.  In 1861 he left the Ohio militia to accept
a commission as colonel in the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment.  He
was seriously wounded in (West) Virginia in September 1861 and again at
the Battle of Perryville in October 1862 where he was captured by
Confederate forces.  He was later exchanged and promoted to brigadier
general.  While commanding a brigade in Philip Sheridan's' division at the
Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, Lytle was killed.

Collections of letters are generally not published for the casual reader,
but they are of great interest to historians and other serious students of
history.  Their value lies in what they can reveal about individuals,
attitudes, and opinions of the times, and this collection is particularly
rich.  Many of the letters contained herein were written from Will Lytle
to his sisters, and the author's fluid writing style makes them a pleasure
to read.  From them the reader learns about barefoot soldiers, exhausting
marches, and that omnipresent request by soldiers for their loved ones to
write often.  First impressions and changing attitudes are also evident in
his letters.  While quartered in Huntsville, Alabama in 1862, Lytle once
reported that "the women are _venomous_" (p. 117), but a few weeks later
he acknowledged that many people in the town were actually quite "kind"
(125).  In a particularly poignant 1861 letter, Lytle, writing on the eve
of battle, instructed his sisters on how to settle his accounts if he did
not survive.

The collection was carefully edited with explanatory notes sprinkled
throughout the text.  In addition, Carter inserts brief narratives to
guide the reader from letter to letter.  And as further testament to the
editor's diligence, the book contains a lengthy biographical sketch, a
useful bibliography and appendices, along with a good index, which is
indispensable when using letter collections.  The University Press of
Kentucky did its part also by producing an attractive volume and a useful
collection of primary source material from a colorful Union officer.

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