What are you currently reading ?

[paulr]

Sounds like a fascinating read

[kipt]

Finished what I considered a strange little paperback, "The Indians Won" by Martin Smith. The premise being the different tribes got together and with the help of European money, guns and artillery, were able to defeat the US Army.  So a nation of Indians was established in the western middle of the US.  West US being California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington and the Eastern portion stops at Texas and points north.

Many famous names being involved, from generals to politicians to Indian chiefs and roughly adhering to history. In WWI the Zimmerman telegram goes to the Indians rather than the Mexicans, but the Indians do not want to get involved. The Indians remain neutral during WWII.

[Gwydion]

Sounds an interesting book, but at £61.69 on Amazon I think I'll have to pass! Only £10.77 on ABE UK but £15.06 shipping from South Africa.

I confess I seldom find alternative histories that convincing which is odd given I love 'historical' wargaming scenarios that take a situation and let the game provide alternative endings. Just awkward I guess.

[Elliesdad]

Sounds an interesting book, but at £61.69 on Amazon I think I'll have to pass! Only £10.77 on ABE UK but £15.06 shipping from South Africa.

So, in retrospect, the £1.00 or so I spent to purchase this book many, many moons ago is now beginning to look like a wise investment after all... Who'd've thunk it?

Cheers,

Geoff

[TheLimey]

Currently inhaling a series of WW1 Books, including Paddy Griffith's 'Battle Tactics on the Western Front', Gary Sheffield's 'Forgotten Victory', and Corrigan's 'Mud Blood and Poppycock'

[kipt]

And finished Volume 2 of Samuel Eliot Morison's History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, "Operations in North African Waters, October 1942-June 1943".

This is the invasion of North Africa from the American actions.  These occurred on the west coast outside of the straits of Gibraltar. Some army actions described but as the title of the series says, this is for Naval Operations.

[kipt]

Finished Volume 3 of Morison's History, "The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931 - April 1942".  In this volume the Japanese run rampant through the southwest Pacific, pushing ABDA out and touching on the actions in the Indian Ocean.

Very easy to read and now I am back to painting ships.

[pierre the shy]

Did you find Morison's writing style and attitude towards the Japanese a little.....dated (I guess is the word I'm looking for) Kipt?

I read Morison's series years ago and found the early volumes a bit one eyed - they were written not long after the end of WW2 so I guess they were written very much from the victors point of view.

His later volumes and other works like "The Two Ocean War" are excellent. 

[kipt]

In my mind, Morison's writing style isn't so much dated as lacking in later information.  I think he treats the Japanese very fairly, with no racial overtones in his writing.  The edition I have is a reprint of a somewhat revised history.  He collected many reviews and letters after the first edition was released and incorporated new information into this set.

Morison did not know about all the code breaking that occurred, which information was released much later.  With the books, he wrote of what was generally known at the time but used participants views and the US Navy reports.  So in that respect, yes he wrote from the victors perspective, but pretty even keeled.

[pierre the shy]

Well, as I said its a long time since I read them (the whole set of Morison was in my local library, but their history section is now a very thin skeleton of what is was  ).

Really good point about the 1941 - 42 books being put out before the intelligence breakthroughs etc had been revealed.

I think he did a good job covering the whole of WW2 from the USN's perspective. It grew to be the largest navy in the world by 1945 and was involved right round the world, so small wonder it took 15 volumes to record the entire story! 

[kipt]

Finished "Confederate Commissary General: Lucius Bellinger Northrop and the Subsistence Bureau of the Southern Army"  by Jerrold Northrop Moore.  All I had read about Northrop had been his inability to continually supply the Southern armies and so was incompetent.  Not evidently the case based on this book.

Northrop was a West Point graduate and close friends with Jefferson Davis.  They both were in the west before the war, dealing with the Indians and the white settlers encroachments on Indian lands.  (Northrop believed the whites caused the problems).   He accidentally shot himself in the knee which troubled him for the rest of his life.

He was on leave just prior to the ACW and resigned once it started.  Davis, knowing Northrup's honesty and work ethic, asked him to run the Subsistence Department,  Northrop did not want to but accepted.  He put in a comprehensive plan to collect and distribute food to all the southern armies, but was stymied by the terrible railroad system (and the railroad owners who put profit over patriotism), the Confederate congress who would not give him the powers to stop private speculation, Jefferson Davis who would not allow cotton to be traded for supplies (with the enemy who was anxious through private persons and some generals - Butler? - to get cotton) and generals who would upset Northrop plans to share the food. 

Beauregard, Johnson, Bragg and others collected food and kept it, essentially shorting Lee's army.  Even Lee would look no further than his own army, even when Northrop asked for wagons to collect relatively close by supplies for Lee.  Inflation of the Confederate money, the inability of the Confederate Treasury to supply gold or greenbacks (US currency, which was still available), huge debts incurred by all Departments caused massive problems.  Farmers were reluctant to provide excess stock and food on money or bonds that rapidly depreciated.

Another source was meat and foodstuffs from Britain.  This of course relied on the blockade runners, which were a shrinking asset as the war went on, not withstanding the lack of funds.  But, this supply did help.

After the war there was an outcry in the north over the treatment of prisoners.  There were reports the prisoners were systematically underfed.  actually the ration for prisoners was the same as for the Confederate army, who were usually lacking due to the problems listed above.  Northrop was arrested but never charged after the war but still gets a bad rap in most books as being incompetent.  Having read this book I believe he did more with less to keep the troops supplied to the bast of his ability.

[paulr]

Interesting, looks to reinforce my view that the South didn't have the economic power to prosecute the war

[Steve J]

Sounds like a very interesting read .

[John Cook]

Interesting, looks to reinforce my view that the South didn't have the economic power to prosecute the war

A matter of fact I'd call it.  The Confederacy was never able to raise enough money to pay for the war, either in taxes or through its economy, which was essentially agriculturally based, depended on cotton and slave labour.  Once the war started, the markets for cotton in the North evaporated, and the Union blockade interrupted exports, so it printed money.  The North had all the advantages, larger manpower pool, aggriculture which was already largely mechanized and much, much, more efficient and an industrial base that before the war accounted for the larger part of the country's entire output.  The Confederacy never stood a chance.

[kipt]

Finished a little booklet by the US Park Service, "The Battle of Pea Ridge 1862".  Only 44 pages with illustrations and pictures.  Not sure when it was printed but I would guess it has been redone. This looks to be done when the park was still being put together.

Several articles (chapters?) included:
The Pea Ridge Campaign,
Elkhorn Tavern History,
Leetown,
Life in Benton Country,
Commanders at Pea Ridge,
Butterfield Overland Mail Co. (I found this to be very interesting as it describes the first overland mail from St. Louis and Memphis to San Francisco),
The Indian Regiments In the Battle of Pea Ridge,
Reunions of Blue and Gray,
and Trail of Tears.