Two Northerners have had such treatment, in Allen Johnson's "Stephen A. Douglas" (1908), and Frederic Bancroft's "Life of William H. Seward", 2 vols. (1900). Good, but without the requisite detachment, is Moorfield Storey's "Charles Sumner", ("American Statesmen Series", 1900). With similar excellences but with the same defect, though still the best in its field, is Albert Bushnell Hart's "Salmon P. Chase" ("American Statesmen Series", 1899). Among the Southern statesmen involved in the events of this volume, only the President of the Confederacy has received adequate reconsideration in recent years, in William E.
Dodd's "Jefferson Davis" (1907). The latest life of "Robert Toombs", by Ulrich B. Phillips (1914), is not definitive, but the best extant. The great need for adequate lives of Stephens and Yancey is not at all met by the obsolete works--R. M. Johnston and W. M. Browne, "Life of Alexander H. Stephens" (1878), and J.
W. Du Bose, "The Life and Times of William Lowndes Yancey"(1892). There is a brief biography of Stephens by Louis Pendleton, in the "American Crisis Biographies". Most of the remaining biographies of the period, whether Northern or Southern, are either too superficial or too partisan to be recommended for general use. Almost alone in their way are the delightful "Confederate Portraits", by Gamaliel Bradford (1914), and the same author's "Union Portraits "(1916).
Upon conditions in the North during the war there is a vast amount of material; but little is accessible to the general reader. A book of great value is Emerson Fite's Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War (1910).
Out of unnumbered books of reminiscence, one stands forth for the sincerity of its disinterested, if sharp, observation--W. H.
Russell's "My Diary North and South" (1868). Two newspapers are invaluable: The "New York Tribune" for a version of events as seen by the war party, "The New York Herald "for the opposite point of view; the Chicago papers are also important, chiefly the "Times" and "Tribune"; the "Republican "of Springfield, Mass., had begun its distinguished career, while the "Journal" and "Advertiser" of Boston revealed Eastern New England. For the Southern point of view, no papers are more important than the Richmond "Examiner", the Charleston "Mercury", and the New Orleans "Picayune". Financial and economic problems are well summed up in D. R. Dewey's "Financial History of the United States" (3d edition, 1907), and in E. P. Oberholzer's "Jay Cooks", 2 vols. (1907). Foreign affairs are summarized adequately in C. F. Adams's "Charles Francis Adams" ("American Statesmen Series", 1900), John Bigelow's "France and the Confederate Navy" (1888), A. P. Martin's "Maximilian in Mexico"(1914), and John Bassett Moore's "Digest of International Law", 8vols. (1906).
The documents of the period ranging from newspapers to presidential messages are not likely to be considered by the general reader, but if given a fair chance will prove fascinating. Besides the biographical edition of Lincoln's Writings, should be named, first of all, "The Congressional Globe" for debates in Congress; the "Statutes at Large"; the "Executive Documents", published by the Government and containing a great number of reports; and the enormous collection issued by the War Department under the title "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", 128 vols. (1880-1901), especially the groups of volumes known as second and third series.
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