Yet the battle has for years been viewed as little more than a follow up action to the Battle of Westport, fought a few days before. Author Lumir F. Buresh describes Mine Creek's significance to the Trans Mississippi theater and the effect the battle had on the war at large.

    It is a masterful description of war's grim reality."--VFW Magazine

    Augustine, Florida. It is a book that was independently created and published by the Braverman family. There were 50 copies printed - this is #38.I could not resist it - a piece of history - never seen this particular speech in a single publication before. Reminded me of Lincoln and his use of words and the power he had when using them. I literally see him giving this speech in the Hall of Representatives in the - then - state capitol of the State of Illinois. By the way, he wore a white linen suit when he gave this speech, in June of 1858.

    Mr. Williams is interested not only in military skills but in the temperament for command and, most of all, in moral courage. Each of these men, he writes, "represents a particular and significant aspect of leadership, and together they show a progression toward the final type of leadership that had to be developed before the war could be won. Most important, each one illustrates dramatically the relation between character and generalship." From McClellan's eighteenth-century view of war as something like a game conducted by experts on a strategic chessboard; to Sherman's understanding of the violent implications of making war against civilians; to the completeness of character displayed by Grant, Mr. Williams's absorbing investigation offers a fresh perspective on a subject of enduring interest.

    Both of the Ruffin homesteads, Marlbourne and Beechwood, were overrun during McClellan's Peninsular Campaign of 1862, and the journal contains interesting observations about the conduct of Virginia slaves during this campaign, as well as the change it engendered in master-slave relations. Also included is a remarkable recollection of the Nat Turner revolt.The day-to-day descriptions of the Civil War in Virginia are laced with illumination comments about civil and military leaders on both sides, the prospect of foreign intervention, the increasing strain upon the southern economy, the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the possibility of detaching the northwestern states from the East.Written by a man totally committed to the southern cause, The Diary of Edmund Ruffin is a literate, dependable source of information about the Civil War and its effects, as well as the political and social conditions in the South during the most critical period in its history. Meticulously edited by William Kauffman Scarborough, it will be of lasting value to anyone who wishes to study the Civil War from the insider's point of view.