Selling the Civil War in Art and Memoir: Review of Private Robert Knox Sneden, Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey, ed. Charles F. Bryan, Jr., and Nelson D. Lankford.

Authors

John David Smith, North Carolina State UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

9-2002

Document Type

Article

Citation

Documentary Editing, Volume 24, Number 3, September 2002.

ISSN 2476-1796 (electronic); ISSN 2167-1451 (print)

Comments

2002 © the Association for Documentary Editing. Used by permission.

Abstract

Despite the economic twists and turns of scholarly V publishing, presses can bank on selling Civil War documentary editions. Like books on sex and the Nazis, Civil War titles satisfy a seemingly insatiable appetite of readers both at home and abroad. This is especially true for handsomely illustrated memoirs like Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey, edited by Charles F. Bryan, Jr., and Nelson D. Lankford of the Virginia Historical Society. Eye of the Storm is an edition of watercolor images drawn by and the Civil War memoir of Robert Knox Sneden (1832-1918). Heretofore an anonymous figure, Sneden was an analytical, articulate, opinionated, and perceptive Union soldier and an extremely talented artist.