Blood Image: Turner Ashby in the Civil War and the Southern Mind

If you're looking for a conventional biography of Turner Ashby look elsewhere and good luck. As Paul Christopher Anderson reminds us in "Blood Image", there really are not enough primary materials to offer anything close to a competent biography. Taking a page from the likes of Thomas Connelly and Gary Gallagher (with shades of Bertram Wyatt-Brown), Anderson offers the reader an interesting account of how a Confederate officer mirrored Southern society and that may be more valuable than an account of Ashby's ante-bellum career as merchant and would be politician and his year in the Confederate service. Anderson uses the example of Ashby to show what his society valued: horsemanship, honor, chivalry, leadership, courage. It is a fascinating account of an overlooked, almost forgotten, Civil War commander and what he represented. On the whole, Anderson is a solid writer and some of his passages, namely those dealing with Ashby's long and winding funeral processions, are vivid. This book represents a promising future for Civil War studies: a united look at commanders and their men, military operations and society's perceptions and values. Keep an eye on Paul Christopher Anderson who seems to be just the kind of historian to explore new parts of the Civil War and add new life into that important topic.

Blood Image is a story of mentalities, not a biography, as the introduction and even the title make clear.Anderson presents an interesting study of Southern mentalities, ideals of chivalry and honor (with a fascinating aside on horses), and how Turner Ashby, as both chivalric and violent, provided his supporters with a vital image with which to construct their wartime behavior.Occasionally Anderson's prose is not as lucid as it might be, and he doesn't distinguish Ashby's supporters demographically as clearly as I wish he had. Coming from the Shenandoah Valley area as they did, one imagines that some of his followers were really from the mountains: did they share images of chivalry? In addition, I'd have liked to see more quotes from the irregular cavalrymen who presumably made up most of the supporters Anderson is studying. Overall, I found this to be an interesting, if not flawless, study of mentalities, and a unique addition to Civil War scholarship. Anderson's descriptions of Ashby's personal experiences are especially vivid.