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COMPENDIUM OF THE CONFEDERACY 
by John Wright
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
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