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COMPENDIUM
OF THE CONFEDERACY 
Wilmington,
NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1989. First Edition. 8-1/2 x
11. Hard Cover. 2 volumes, 1340 pages.
- The
most complete reference to Confederate writing ever published.
A listing of every book, pamphlet and article ever published
relating to the Confederacy. Each entry provides, where
available, author, title, place, publisher, pages, wraps or
hardback, brief note on content, and booksellers' prices with
seller noted. It was a few years ago that the Civil War
collector and researcher had only two major guides to Civil War
literature, Charles E. Dornbusch's Military
Biography of the Civil War
and Messrs. Nevins, Robertson, and Wiley's Civil
War Books, A Critical Bibliography.
Both of these works are still in use and will stand the test of
time even though revisions will always be needed. Since then,
several more specialized works have appeared on the market as
guides to the best in Union and Confederate literature. Most
notable are Michael Mullins' The
Union Bookshelf and
Richard Harwell's In
Tall Cotton.
-
A
recent bibliography ventured into the unchartered, but
extremely valuable territory of listing serial and periodical
offerings to Civil War research: Gerold L. Cole's Civil
War Eyewitnesses- An Annotated Bibliography of Books and
Articles, 1955-1986.
Professor Cole's sources include articles from one hundred
serials and periodicals along with new independent works
published since 1955. Now John H. Wright's Compendium
of the Confederacy
has arrived on the Civil War scene. Forty years of personal
collecting and research are represented in these two massive
volumes filled with over 20,000 entries. If we compare with the
standards listed above, we note that Mr. Wright does not only
list military titles in his work. He includes fiction,
political, naval, and civilian entries. He gleans material from
200 serials and periodicals (Dornbusch used fifty). This
thoroughness brings to light a most valuable and untapped
resource; the state and local historical society publications
and limited printings by small and private publishers. This,
plus material extracted from the standard published Civil War
and Confederate sources such as Confederate
Military History, Confederate Veteran, Southern Historical
Society Papers, Southern Bivouac,
and Journal
of Southern History
are included. Each entry, listed in alphabetical order by
author or title, includes place and date of publication, number
of pages, notes on content, and booksellers' prices over the
years. Wright, in addition to his own massive Confederate
collection (now housed at Duke University), culled thousands of
dealers' catalogs over the years.
-
When
word got out about his work he received catalogs (some over a
hundred years old) from the Universities of Texas, Alabama and
Duke along with old established book dealers. Also, the Library
of Congress Card Catalog was tapped. It became a challenge to
try and find missing works from the Compendium
of the Confederacy.
I managed to find one book (after three months of scanning),
William J. Jones' Christ
in the Camp
and several articles, notably those in Confederate
Veteran
by Colonel George T. Rogers of the 6th Virginia Infantry.
However, time after time, obscure titles located to test the
Compendium were found listed. . . . This is a tremendous new
source of Confederate data. John Wright states in his
introduction: "An effort has been made to find every
title possible on the Confederacy in hopes that some future
researcher will complete a definitive bibliography." The
author is modest. It would take the resources and staff of a
large institution to match what has been done here. The
importance of this work is obvious to collectors, genealogists,
and persons involved in the study of this period of American
history. If the price is beyond your budget do all you can to
get this into your local school or community library. It will
become a standard reference source for many years to come. We
owe a deep debt of gratitude to Tom Broadfoot and Mr. John
Wright for bringing this bibliographic treasure to print.
-
__
Mike
Cavanaugh, Civil
War News
-
Printed
on acid-free paper, sturdy cloth binding, sewn not glued,
reinforced hinges, gold stamping, easy to read type, head and
foot bands, new, in shrinkwrap.
$100
ISBN
0-916107-74-4
Order
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