“Major Adam’s statements are carefully documented. The book, as Major Adam has framed it, is undoubtedly an absorbing fragment of human history.”
+ Ath p95 Ja 16 ’20 120w + Spec 124:175 F 7 ’20 1650w
“Reading between the lines of his book, one gains the impression, that the gallant major is one of those unfortunate persons who ‘seize the hot end of the poker,’ or, in other words, are their own worst enemies. But this volume is interesting.”
+ − Springf’d Republican p9a O 24 ’20 210w
ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS; ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, jr., and ADAMS, HENRY. Cycle of Adams letters: 1861 to 1865; ed by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 2v il *$10 Houghton 973.7
20–21411
The editor of these two volumes of family letters has selected them from many others for their description of social conditions, discussion of public questions and contribution to the social, military and diplomatic history of the War of secession. With the great conflict as a back-ground, they supply “no little new history, much untold detail, much discussion, many rumors and predictions, expressed with individuality and in a literary form.... It is an old story, but the manner of telling it is new, all the more remarkable because unstudied and spontaneous.” (Introd. note) The books are illustrated and indexed.
“The two volumes are not merely interesting, but fascinating. Of their contributions to history, aside from the personal views here quoted or described, there is not space to say anything, but they are important and valuable. No better book about the war of secession has come out in many a year.”