And, once again because it is so important and exceptional, “UNION WARRIORS AT SUNSET – –The Lives of Twenty Commanders After the War”, by Allie Stuart Povall. McFarland & Company,Inc., Publishers: 2022; 203 pages, 6”x9”, softcover; $39.95. Visit, www.mcfarlandpub.In “The 117 th New York Infantry in the Civil War – A History and Roster”, author James Pulapresents a Union regimental history that can be counted among the best ten ever complied,narrated, and published. The full story sounds fictional since it is so mesmerizing, dotted withrealism so believable, the reader is indeed a shooting soldier participant. And James Pula is noamateur historian. He has written numerous books, honored with the Distinguished ServiceAward from the American Council for Polish Culture, receiving three Oskar Halecki Prizes, andthe Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Republic of Poland, among others. A good man, anear-perfect narrator of an intriguing 300-page history, in this reviewer’s opinion.This unique history of the 117 th recognizes the importance of the average foot soldier byfocusing on the regiment’s experience through these eyewitnesses to history via their on-sitedescriptions, memoirs, letters, diaries. Their emphasis is therefore on the men, with justenough grand strategy to provide the appropriate historical context for their struggles andachievements. Readers are privy to inside narrations of campaigns and engagements, including
casualty reports for battles won or lost.
In Wayne Soini’s excellent “Abraham Lincoln, American Prince”, we have a fascinatingsubject little is known about, a subject hardly researched – the relationship between Abe andhis two most influential ancestors – his mom and “the Virginia planter”, a slaveholder, ashadowy grandfather he likely never met. Rarely examined, the topic is now in the sunlightforever linked to the cause of freedom and equality in our country. Lincoln spoke candidly ofthe planter to his law partner, Billy Herndon. He said, “My mother inherited his qualities and Ihers. All that I am or ever hope to be I get from my mother – God bless her”.Soini chronicles and clarifies this vital two-generation relationship he refers to as“problematic”. In Lincoln’s boyhood the planter was a figure he ridiculed while in his youngmanhood the planter had evolved into a role model whom Lincoln revered and associated withJefferson’s overdue ideal that “all men are created equal”.Galvanized “by blood” to educate himself, to stand for election and to oppose slavery, Abequit farming at age 22. Soini narration is superlative as he carries us with Lincoln following hisdream.“Union Warriors at Sunset” by Allie Stuart Povall is yet another book my readers of thiscolumn already know about, having praised it to High Heaven in later 2022. My messageremains the same today as it did then: you’ve given us the lives of 20 former subordinatecommanders after the war. How about an additional 120 more by the 4 July? Who would do it
but for you, Allie?
