Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson's Topographer

Rating:
Summary: Startlingly unhelpful source
Review: I expected this to be an excellent primary source, full of information on General Jackson, his campaigns and his "foot cavalry", as well as the exploits of the Second Corps after Jackson's death. In addition, I hoped to find some interesting description of map-making during the war. I was quite disappointed. Hotchkiss' memoir is made up of diary entries with an occasional note added later. And they mostly concern the weather, troop movements, and where he slept that night. They are almost devoid of description, emotion, and overall detail. Though Hotchkiss does mention making maps, of course, it's in brief statements like "Reduced Charlottesville today". His account of Jackson's death reads rather like "Jackson died. Fine clear day." It's hard to say whether this dullness represents something about Hotchkiss' personality (unemotional engineer, perhaps?) or is simply a function of the way he wrote his diary. In any case, though scholars of the period will want to glance at this, I found it not very useful and utterly unentertaining.

Rating:
Summary: a good book
Review: i really liked this book cause it was cool and i like historical books cause theyre intersting.the end.