THE ARTILLERY SERVICE

IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION

1861-65: John C. Tidball

edited by Lawrence M. Kaplan

Westholme Publishing, LLC, Yardley, PA

2011, 416 pages, $30.00

AUTHOR JOHN C. Tidball was a U.S. artillery officer who served in many of the major eastern campaigns throughout the Civil War. When the war ended, Tidball was a brevet major general and later served as the superintendant of artillery instruction at the Artillery School.

The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65, edited by Lawrence Kaplan, is a series of previously published articles by Tidball tracing the evolution of the management and application of artillery in campaigns of the Civil War. As way of a stage setter for the reader, the first chapter gives the reader an overview of artillery organization, materiel, and personnel at the beginning and throughout the war, and defines some concepts that may be foreign to today's artillerists. As way of reinforcement, Kaplan includes an edited extract from Henry J. Hunt (chief of artillery in the Army of the Potomac), which describes the organization and administration of U.S. artillery prior to and early in the war with discussions of efforts he made to more effectively manage field artillery within the Army of the Potomac.

Tidball discusses the eastern campaigns of the Peninsula Campaign, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Petersburg. While the author's personal experience was with the Army of the Potomac in many of these campaigns, for balance, editor Kaplan has included a previously unpublished manuscript by Tidball that discusses three western actions--Stones River, Chickamauga, and Shiloh. …