Book Reviews 

The focus of the book is clearly on the everyday life of the soldier rather than an analysis of battlefield deportment.  Even the account of the Battle of Winchester, where the 110^th received their derisive nickname, is given just a couple of pages in the narrative and the only reinterpretation of the performance of the 110^th that the reader is given is a few sentences stating that the regiment did not simply run away, but was ordered to retreat after being outnumbered by Confederate forces.  Pope contends that while General Milroy was court-martialed for his conduct at Winchester he was later exonerated of any wrongdoing thus implying that the Ohio troops had not acted improperly either.    

The lack of scholarly analysis is the most disappointing aspect of the book.  The author chooses simply to describe the existence of the regiment.  The narrative skips over large blocks of time and it is assumed that the reader already knows the political and military events that occur throughout the existence of the regiment.  Pope clearly admires the soldiers of the 110^th and tends to allow that admiration to take precedence over historical analysis of the soldiers' writings.  The reader is left with a monograph that is similar in style to regimental histories written at the turn of the nineteenth century rather than being a product of the twenty-first century.  The format makes sense when one examines the sources used in the creation of this work.  Pope makes wonderful use of primary source materials but the majority of his secondary sources date from the early 1900s, almost completely ignoring current historical scholarship.  Current scholarship on the common soldier and memory would have added another viewpoint through which to examine the soldiers' narratives from the 110^th Ohio instead of simply accepting the soldiers' words without any attempt at analysis. 

Instead of offering a fresh analysis of the regiment the author instead leaves the reader with the following summation of the accomplishments of the 110^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry:  "[D]uring their nearly three years of service the men of the 110^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry endured many hardships.  But through it they saw areas of their country that many would never get to see again or have seen otherwise.  The Civil War experience also showed these men that their nation was real, and it created a personal, everlasting bond between the veterans" [111].  While this is not necessarily a false statement, it is not the reconsideration of the 110^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry that the reader was promised.  Thomas Pope has succeeded in writing a regimental history of the 110^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the style of classic regimentals from the late nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Milroy's The Weary Boys had the potential to be so much more.   

Lisa M. Smith
University of Akron
Akron, Ohio

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