Sounding the Shallows: A Confederate Companion for the Maryland Campaign of 1862, by Joseph L. Harsh

Kent, Oh.: Kent State University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi, 280. Tables, notes, biblio., index. $18.00 paper. ISBN:0-87338-641-8.

Sounding the Shallows is the third volume in what will be Prof. Harsh's four volume treatment of Robert E. Lee's 1862 Campaign in Maryland, which began with Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy (Kent, Oh.: Kent State University Press, 1998), and was followed by his award-winning, Taken at the Flood (Kent, Oh: Kent State University Press, 1999), which focused on the actual campaign and battle of Antietam. Sounding the Shallows is essentially an expanded appendix. It includes an almanac, with detailed weather reports for the area of the campaign, information on the composition of Lee's army, a gazetteer of places, and literally scores of "research appendices," actually long footnotes, on various aspects of the campaign, including such matters as Lee's Mode of Travel on September 19" and "The Number of Copies of Special Orders No. 191."

Sounding the Shallows, which is to be followed in a year or so by a volume of miscellania devoted to the Union side, is an invaluable reference and resource for the serious student of the Civil War. rc=http://www

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