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Examines two little-known but extraordinary men in Civil War history: George E. Stephens and James Henry Gooding. These Union soldiers not only served in the Massachusetts 54th Infantry--the well-known black regiment--but were also war correspondents who published eyewitness reports of the battlefields. Their dispatches told the truth of their lives at camp, their intense training, and the dangers and tragedies on the battlefield. Like the other thousands of black soldiers in the regiment, they not only fought against the Confederacy and the inhumanity of slavery, but also against injustice in their own army.

\"The stock at the store is all I have right now, except for my house,\" said [George Edmund Stephens], who pledged to surrender his 2012 city of Tuscaloosa business license once his current stock had been depleted. \"I sold marijuana at my store and put money in my wallet,\" Stephens' statement said. \"I sold marijuana at store for about one year. \"This is the first time in my life I've ever been arrested for anything,\" Stephens said, noting that he brought with him a petition signed by 580 of his customers asking the City Council to grant him a reprieve.

McColley reviews \"A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens\" edited by Donald Yacovone.

\"A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens\" edited by Donald Yacovone is reviewed.

George E. Stephens, an African-American sailor and cabinetmaker from Philadelphia, served as a correspondent for a leading black newspaper, the WEEKLY ANGLO-AFRICAN, and as a member of Massachusetts' Fifty-fourth regiment during the Civil War. He wrote nearly four dozen detailed letters and essays for the newspaper that reflected the lives and aspirations of black soldiers. Stephens' biography, Civil War accounts and the Massachusetts' Fifty-fourth are profiled.

\"A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens\" by Donald Yacovone is reviewed.

Reid reviews \"A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens\" edited by Donald Yacovone.

\"A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens,\" edited by Donald Yacovone, is reviewed.

David J. Eicher, The Civil War in Books: An Analytical Bibliography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997, $39.95). Pp. 432. ISBN 0 252 02273 4. Gary W. Gallagher, The Confederate War (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1997, $24.95). Pp. 222. ISBN 0 674 16055 x. Judith N. McArthur and Orville Vernon Burton (editors), “A Gentleman and an Officer”: A Military and Social History of James B. Griffin's Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, $30.00). Pp. 382. ISBN 0 19 509311 9. A. K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times: Some Personal Recollections of War and Politics during the Lincoln Administration (Bison Books edition, with introduction by James A. Rawley; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, £18.95). Pp. 496. ISBN 0 8032 8228 1. James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, £20.00). Pp. 256. ISBN 0 19 509023 3. John Michael Priest, Before Antietam: The Battle for South Mountain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; pbk 1996, £15.99). Pp. 455. ISBN 0 19 510712 8. Jack D. Welsh, Medical Histories of Union Generals (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996). Pp. 442. ISBN 0 87338 552 7. Donald Yacovone (editor), A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997, $26.95). Pp. 372. ISBN 0 252 02245 9. Like Ol' Man River, Civil War historiography just keeps rolling along. It changes course occasionally, leaving behind bayous of stagnant argument, while it carves out new lines of inquiry and debate. The books under review here follow the meandering course of this great river of historical writing. There are two scholarly editions of the writings of Civil War soldiers, one northern one southern, one black one white. There are two reference works, each of them bearing the rather idiosyncratic stamp of its editor. The immensely detailed battlefield narrative, as exemplified by John Michael Priest's book on South Mountain, adheres to a tradition of Civil War historical writing that resists changing historiographical fashions, and continues to appeal to a readership which knows the kind of military history it likes, and simply wants still more of it. Another honoured tradition in Civil War literature is the reprint of a “classic” written by someone who lived through the conflict, and Alexander McClure has good claims to inclusion in this category. Finally, there are two quite brief books by two heavyweight historians, James McPherson and Gary Gallagher, who address some of the perennial Civil War issues, such as why did men fight and go on fighting, and which is more in need of explanation: why did the Confederacy lose, or how did it manage to fight for so long?