Abraham Lincoln quarterly. [Vol. 5, no. 3]

168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY
Dr. Harrington sums up the career and character of Banks in
a well-phrased sentence: "He had many opportunities, but he
too often preferred expediency to principle." Yet the whole story
is not told in this judgment, for the opportunities came to Banks
often as a result of his preference for expediency. American
politics before, during, and after the Civil War gave few rewards
to fidelity to principle. Even, for example, the Major-generalship
which Lincoln conferred, and the confidence which Lincoln
placed in Banks' political efforts to organize a loyal state government in Louisiana, derived perhaps from Lincoln's recognition
that Banks was a skilful politician who had demonstrated that
he could compromise and could work with people. It is a truism
that no man has ever consistently managed to get himself elected
and appointed to office over a period of thirty years without bowing many times to expediency, and Banks' record proves the rule
most adequately.
Dr. Harrington recognizes Banks' strength as well as his weakness. The book is objective not only in the impartial recording
of fact, but also in the relative statements of judgment. Banks
comes off better as a politician than as a general, as might be
expected, but he is best as a man who made his own way, supporting his family, serving his friends and constituents, and furthering the development of his country in spite of the fact that
he seems to have held consistently no principle except that of
remaining in office.
GETTYSBURG. Edited by Earl Schenck Miers and Richard A.
Brown. Maps by Harold C. Detje. New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1948. xviii, 308 pp. $3.50.
Gettysburg is a dramatic book. The excitement of battle is
on every page, now suppressed and now exuberant. From June 15
to July 14, 1863, the entries in the diary of Sallie Robbins Broadhead, who lived on the Chambersburg Pike near Gettysburg, tell
the story of a civilian's apprehension, excitement, and jubilation.
The soldiers' story is told in excerpts from firsthand contemporary accounts arranged in climactic narrative. In all, ninety-two
selections, woven together with editorial comment, make up the
volume. Excellent maps illustrate the progress of the battle.
As Mr. Miers notes in the "Introduction" the result is not