I want to thank the Historical Society of Michigan for publishing a very kind review of my book, Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010), in the most recent issue (Fall 2011) of their publication, Michigan Historical Review. Excerpts are below.The review was written by Rev. Anthony J. Kuzniewski, S.J., Professor of History, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Fr. Kuzniewski is the author of several publications, including Faith and Fatherland: The Polish Church War in Wisconsin, 1896-1918 (winner of the 1973 Kosciuszko Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Award), Thy Honored Name: A History of the College of the Holy Cross, 1843-1994, assistant editor of Waclaw Kruszka: A History of the Poles in America to 1908 (multivolume annotated translation of original work), articles in The Catholic Historical Review, Milwaukee History, Polish American Studies, American National Biography, Eerdmans' Handbook to Christianity in America, The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History, and in separate anthologies edited by Robert Trisco, Frank Mocha, Frank Renkiewicz, and Sally M. Miller. In 2002, Fr. Kusniewski received the Holy Cross Distinguished Teaching Award.
As you can imagine, it's an honor to receive such a kind review from a distinguished professor, historian, author, and man-of-the cloth.
Excerpts:
"In telling the story of Notre Dame and its role in that conflict, Schmidt makes abundant use of archival materials belonging to the university, and of those deposited with the men’s and women’s branches of the Congregation of the Holy Cross...
"The story Schmidt relates is a dramatic one. More than one hundred students and alumni eventually participated in the Civil War...Notre Dame men were a part of virtually all of the major battles that involved the Army of the Potomac and Grant’s Army of the Tennessee...Father Edward Sorin, Notre Dame’s founder and president during the Civil War, was concerned about the large number of Irishmen and other Catholics in the Union armies and eventually supplied seven priest-chaplains...Finally, the CSC sisters, under the leadership of Mother Angela Gillespie, were staffing ten Union hospitals by the war’s end, serving heroically in challenging and often disheartening and dangerous conditions.
"Notre Dame and the Civil War is lavishly illustrated with fine portraits of participants in the war and of the monuments constructed to honor them after the conflict ended. The text abounds in quotes from primary documents, which are cited in the endnotes. They add color and life to Schmidt’s account...This useful account of Notre Dame’s participation in the Civil War will be of particular interest to alumni and supporters of the school. It will also be helpful to some future historian who may attempt to write a general account of the war’s impact on institutions of higher education."
Thank You Michigan Historical Review and Fr. Kusniewski!
Read other reviews of Notre Dame and the Civil War here:
America's Civil War Magazine (here)
Patrick McNamara's Blog (here)
Civil War News (here)
Civil War Librarian (Rea Andrew Redd) (here)
Almost Chosen People/The American Catholic (Don McClarey) (here)
Confederate Book Review (Robert Redd)(review and interview!) (here)
Irish in the American Civil War (Damian Shiels) (here)
South Bend Tribune Feature (here)
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