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Summary: A Union veteran's novel
Review: Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty may have a cumbersome title, but it is an enjoyable read. It tells the story of Lillie Ravenel who with her father are exiled from Louisiana at the beginning of the Civil War. Lillie is an ardent Confederate, but her father's loyalist sympathies force them to take refuge in New England. In the fictional city of New Boston, they meet two men who both fall in love with Lillie. These men fight for Lillie at the same time as fighting for the Union. It is through these relationships and through her experiences on returning to occupied Louisiana that Lillie's gradual conversion occurs. John De Forest's novel is part romance and part war story. These strands of the story are interweaved well and are fascinating for the insight they give into life in the 1860s. The romance is at times quite conventional with Lillie constantly blushing and occasionally swooning, but the story also contains unusual elements for a 19th century novel. The story includes a woman seeking an affair with a married man, a man keeping an apartment for his mistress and a Union officer conquering not only a Southern town, but also two of the women in it. The battle scenes are well told and are clearly based on De Forest's experiences during the war. He is not afraid to show the consequences of battle, describing soldiers horribly mutilated with rotting wounds. The actual battle scenes are quite few in number and are mainly skirmishes. The only large-scale engagement in which the characters are involved is Port Hudson. This is a pity for with De Forest's writing skill, it would have been interesting if he had been involved in and given an account of one of the really great battles. Nevertheless he provides a detailed account of army life during the Civil War showing the bureaucracy and boredom, the frustration and pettiness, the bravery and the cowardice. His account is extremely one-sided and he has scarcely a good word to say about the Confederacy, but this adds to the fascination of the novel, for it gives the reader first-hand insight into the attitude of a Union veteran towards his beaten enemy and why it was that he fought against the South. The Penguin edition of the novel has a good introduction with some helpful information about De Forest and the reception of his novel. It also has many useful notes especially those which translate phrases written in French and Latin. However it must be said that a lot of these notes are superfluous for most readers, e.g. explaining what the Mason Dixon Line is, or what the dodo was, and some of the notes are mistaken such as the statement that Stonewall Jackson commanded the Confederate forces at first Manassas.
Rating: 
Summary: Miss Ravenel's Conversion
Review: Professor Gary Scharnhorst has done readers interested in the American Civil War a great favor in his erudite and readable introduction to John De Forest's novel. One can only hope that for the next edition he will reduce by eighty or ninety percent the number of his Explanatory Notes which, if necessary for some under-educated undergraduates, will seem demeaning and at times inaccurate to educated Penguin readers. (Walter Scott's good Bailie Jarvie would have taken umbrage to see himself described as "a Scots weaver"!)
Rating:
Summary: Underappreciated Classic That's Great Fun
Review: When I read "Miss Ravenel" several years ago, I did not fully appreciate it--now that I'm very much into The War, I have a new outlook. Yes, it's dated, and to modern readers, the dialogue at times is corny and silly (as is DeForest's hesitancy to be more explicit about certain sexual matters). To me,though, that's part of the charm, along with its Victorian sentimentality. It's too bad it was not appreciated when it was published in 1867. Anyone interested in The War needs to read this--and keep in mind the fact that I'm a blue-blooded Southern boy.
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