Brother Against Brother: The Lost Civil War Diary of Lt. Edmund Halsey

by Edmund Halsey

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Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction

308 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects invaluable documents from the Civil War. The main feature is the diary of Edmund Halsey, who served in the First New Jersey Brigade from 1862 to 1865. Intriguingly, Edmund's older brother Joseph had moved from New Jersey to Virginia before the war, and became a firm Confederate partisan. He even served in a semi-regular cavalry regiment during the war. Interspersed with Edmund's regular diary entries and occasional letters, we get a handful of letters written by Joseph. Edmund comes across as very earnest and likable; Joseph, by contrast, is frequently angry. For instance, he was furious at his wife for sending their daughters north to New Jersey to live with Joseph's father during the war.

The primary source material here is useful. Unfortunately, the connecting material, by editor Bruce Chadwick, is uninspiring. He attempts to fill in the gaps and explain references in the documents. His annotations do not reveal a particularly thorough understanding of the war. There are a lot of generalizations that don't end up saying much. I would sometimes read a sentence or paragraph and think to myself, "That's not right." So it helps to have a firm grasp of the history of the Civil War before reading this book. Then it can add a little bit of color around the edges.

[Susan Lundy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover indicated that the book included actual journals from a Union soldier plus love letters to home from his older Confederate brother. In actual fact, most of the book was based upon and reprinting the Union journals, with only a very occasional older bro note.

The book was well researched, documented, and footnoted, with nicely done parenthetical updates to the Union foot-soldier's view of the war. Even though I am NOT normally a history reader, nor Civil War buff, I found this book well worth reading because the daily trials required of the average soldier in that war provided an appreciation of the heroic actions that passed as daily living then.