Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground

Rating:
Summary: Overblown. Disappointing.
Review: I had had this book on my bookshelf for the past few years and finally decided to read it last week. Given the awards it had received, I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, I found it very uneven. The book is disjointed, with the accounts of the battle interspersed with an account of the author trying to be a gentleman farmer. I don't think he pulled it off however, although the idea of the book is an interesting one. There is not enough information to satisfy the Civil War buff, nor is there enough development about the author's own story to have made me care that much about his travails. It is not a bad book, but only a mediocre one. I would not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting attempt that doesn't quite gel
Review: Like other reviewers, I was attracted not only by this book's subject by also by its award nominations and glowing reviews ("a literary accomplishment" ... "vivid" ... "powerful" ... "a gem"). And while I found the author's blend of history and memoir an interesting approach, the book is finally unsatisfying. It certainly doesn't live up to the hyperbolic reviews.

As someone with an interest in Virginia and the Shenandoah Campaign as well as (to a small degree) farming and rural issues, I'd hoped "Battlefield" would be some combination of, say, Gene Logsdon and William C. Davis. Unfortunately, it's not quite either, and certainly not both. While it may be possible to say Peter Svenson has written the definitive history of the battle of Cross Keys, that's more a reflection on the lack of alternatives. Certainly his discussion of the battle is comprehensive, with extensive quotations from period journals and participants' reports and diaries. The thinner side is Svenson's chronicle of his own farming experiences. Apart from some interesting reflections on old barns, the village's run-down former tavern, and one or two other sections, I never really got the sense that we were experiencing Svenson's farming life on much more than a surface level. We learn a lot about cleaning and restoring old farm equipment, but far less about any sort of personal relationship with the land, or what being a landholder means to the author. When he declares at the end that he will never throw away the battlefield of which he has custody, the statement is almost surprising in its emotion.

The history of the battle is a constant presence in the farm's modern story, and so the two halves of the narrative do fit together to some extent. But while the author makes a good attempt, the blend ultimately never quite "sets."


Rating:
Summary: Overblown. Disappointing.
Review: The battle at Cross Keys, Virginia is not one of the more renowned conflicts of the Civil War. My family had been flummoxed by the lack of information when researching my great-great grandfather's teenage career as a soldier in the 39th New York regiment that fought there. Enter Peter Svenson to save the day, pulling the experience of the battle out of oblivion into an extraordinary narrative. A landscape artist, he had purchased a 40-acre rhomboid shaped tract on which to build a home and studio and to farm hay. He belatedly discovered the land to be the actual battlefield. Turning to original source material, including personal letters, memoirs and formal military reports, he summons a very detailed account of the events and environment of 8 June 1862. Not only does the battle become an important lens through which to critically assess the strategies of Fremont (North) and Jackson (South) and the fortunes of each side in the early part of the war, the account is highly revealing of the experience of the common soldier. Though there were thousands out there that day (far more Union than Confederate, though the North lost this one), Svenson takes pains to identify the regiments and their locations, and what happened to them. I now know where my ancestor most likely fell and the horror he endured for hours until he was picked up and taken to the "hospital," a store that had been appropriated for a surgery. I am astounded that he made it out of there with his limbs intact, that he survived the everpresent danger of disease Svenson describes. Please know there is more to Svenson's book than the battle history, however: he intersperses the history with accounts of life on the land in the late 20th century. In doing so, he shows how deeply connected the present is to a very traumatic part of our national past. It's a thoughtful book, made all the more enjoyable by the author's strong, pleasant voice. BATTLEFIELD was nominated for a National Book Award when it debuted; while it ultimately did not win, it is tops in my estimation.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just Good History, Great Writing, Too
Review: The battle at Cross Keys, Virginia is not one of the more renowned conflicts of the Civil War. My family had been flummoxed by the lack of information when researching my great-great grandfather's teenage career as a soldier in the 39th New York regiment that fought there. Enter Peter Svenson to save the day, pulling the experience of the battle out of oblivion into an extraordinary narrative. A landscape artist, he had purchased a 40-acre rhomboid shaped tract on which to build a home and studio and to farm hay. He belatedly discovered the land to be the actual battlefield. Turning to original source material, including personal letters, memoirs and formal military reports, he summons a very detailed account of the events and environment of 8 June 1862. Not only does the battle become an important lens through which to critically assess the strategies of Fremont (North) and Jackson (South) and the fortunes of each side in the early part of the war, the account is highly revealing of the experience of the common soldier. Though there were thousands out there that day (far more Union than Confederate, though the North lost this one), Svenson takes pains to identify the regiments and their locations, and what happened to them. I now know where my ancestor most likely fell and the horror he endured for hours until he was picked up and taken to the "hospital," a store that had been appropriated for a surgery. I am astounded that he made it out of there with his limbs intact, that he survived the everpresent danger of disease Svenson describes. Please know there is more to Svenson's book than the battle history, however: he intersperses the history with accounts of life on the land in the late 20th century. In doing so, he shows how deeply connected the present is to a very traumatic part of our national past. It's a thoughtful book, made all the more enjoyable by the author's strong, pleasant voice. BATTLEFIELD was nominated for a National Book Award when it debuted; while it ultimately did not win, it is tops in my estimation.