Book Review: Hell by the Acre by Dan Masters

Hell by the Acre: A Narrative of the Stones River Campaign, November 1862 - January 1863

Daniel A. Masters
Savas Beatie
copyright 2025

Hell by the Acre is simply a terrific book.

And when I say book, I mean book. It is over 600 pages, hardcover, with a wonderful dust jacket. It is thick and heavy. It reminds me of the scene in Crocodile Dundee, when Mick Dundee says "That is not a knife. This is a knife" and whips out a large, intimidating blade. I'm just waiting for someone to show me the book they just read, so I can say "that is not a book, this is a book" and drop it down with a loud thud on the table. That may make little sense from a true perspective of a review, but it was the first impression I got and maintained. It's just a different tactile sensation than I get from most books I read. No e-book can match it.

Despite its size, this book should not be intimidating to prospective readers. Not at all. The narrative is so well-written and flows so well, that this book is not a difficult read. It actually moves fairly quickly, though the sheer number of pages on which this writing lands does, of course, require some time to finish, so I won’t go so far as to label it a quick read - just an enjoyable, informative one.  

From another perhaps selfish angle, this book let me see just how little I knew of this battle, and how bloody, tough, and downright nasty this contest was. I'm still no expert on it, but this volume gave me a much better appreciation of this fight. I expect to retain at least a more basic understanding than I had previously. In other words - it taught me something. Entertainment is good, but I suspect that most or all Civil War students read such works to gain knowledge and understanding, and this work hits a home run in that regard.

Additionally, the title reveals another important component of this work - it's not just about the actual battle from December 31 through January 2, but of the entire campaign. It starts with a terrific overview of the two army leaders, William Rosecrans, nearly arrived in what became the Army of the Cumberland, and Braxton Bragg of what he would redesignate the Army of Tennessee and how both arrived in their positions.

Masters then describes the campaign in the weeks before the actual fighting, setting the scene for the carnage that followed. The way each leader tried to improve their armies' discipline and the various skirmishes, marches, and weather-related challenges they faced before the actual all help address questions like "why at Murfreesboro" and "why at the end of December" This beginning is a logical, yet beautiful way to approach the battle and the bigger picture of the war in this region of the country in late 1862. It truly sets the scene for the end of December and beginning of January.

In a book focused on a battle, the description of the actual combat is an important, perhaps THE key part of the work, and Masters' ability to weave a sensible understanding out of the chaos of this engagement may be the strong point of this book. His writing makes it abundantly clear how tough, deadly, and fast-moving the fighting was all over the battlefield was, especially on December 31 when the Confederate attack began. 

At some points, I did find myself wondering where Rosecrans was and what was he doing. Was he panicking as his right side was broken into shambles? What was Bragg thinking? I then recalled that the introduction indicated that the reason the author wrote this was to “ensure that the men who did the actual fighting get their just due in the history of the Stones River campaign.” (p. xi) With that back in my mind, I found that this book achieved that goal. Masters used a vast number of sources, from both sides, that do show what this whirlwind of chaos looked and felt like from the perspectives of the men around the battleground as time passed.  Rosecrans and Bragg took a backseat during the book’s description of most of the fighting as they did during the actual battle. This was about the fighting men, and their strength, courage, and resiliency - as well as their humanity in recognizing when situations become hopeless, and retreat is necessary, even if in a panic - shine through on these pages. It's barely possible to imagine the conditions during the fight and even at night when the fighting napped, but the frigid air and the sounds of wounded and dying men in the darkness surrounded the survivors. For those able to drift off that night, what must their dreams have been like, still on the scene of such carnage?

Rosecrans and Bragg do show up again later in this narrative, at an appropriate time and place in both the battle's timeline and the book. This shows how well the book's organization was thought-out in meeting the dual plans of telling the story of the battle and of focusing on the combatants.

One cliche is that all stories have three sides. For Civil War studies, those might be the "Union side," the "Confederate side," and some mysterious "truth." The sources that Masters found and used tell the views of the Union and Confederate soldiers, and the author's analysis of the fighting, including decisions made, strategy and tactics employed, and overall performance of both leaders and the soldiers, try to determine that elusive truth, at least as much as it can be found 160+ years later. It is an important part of any study of a battle to discuss not only what happened, but why and how these events and decisions mattered or influenced other movements during it after the engagement. That comes through strongly in this volume.  

I enjoyed the maps and photographs in this book. At times, I found myself looking back a few pages to look again at the most recent map to help me visualize the ongoing action I was reading about. These maps were very clear to read and helped my comprehension of the fight and where the combatants were in relation to each other. 

The occasional photographs of battle participants spread throughout the text are also a nice addition. I think I like the pictures as placed in this book, where they fit in with the timeline of the narrative, sometimes near a quote from that soldier or where the text mentions his actions or even death, more than other works which often just include a "photographs" section in thru r middle sections, though maybe one or two photographs of parts of the remaining battlefield may have worked, especially in the last chapter with its focus on preservation.

One other nit to pick occurred in the latter part of the work, when both sides had units from Kentucky fighting on the same day, I sometimes had to stop and double check a bit to determine if it was a Union or Confederate Kentucky unit being mentioned. I wonder if that could have been made a bit clearer or if that was just my problem. (For instance, both sides had a 6th Kentucky Infantry present and fighting.)

As this story nears its end, a brief discussion of whether this was an actual Federal victory or not grabs the reader's attention. This section, including the comparison of the bloodshed at this battle to other large battles of the war, was a great addition, once again providing valuable context. Masters shows how the Union's viewpoint of this fight as a victory was a morale booster following recent bad defeats in Viriginia and Mississippi in the same month. Abraham Lincoln certainly appreciated the outcome of this fight as his final Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.

This book also explores the unsurprising disagreements between Bragg and his subordinates after the commander had made the decision to retreat and then asked them for their thoughts on him as commander. This analysis was just what a book such as this needs, and, again, meets the desires of people wanting to read such a book.

I also appreciate the use of footnotes instead of endnotes and that the index includes mentions of the regiments involved under their state names. That makes it easier to look up a specific unit, although I can barely fathom how much extra work and effort that took. The order of battle was very helpful as well. Using it and the various maps made the action easier for me to follow, at least in understanding the units involved and their placement on the landscape.

I certainly recommend this book highly to anyone wanting a good Civil War work to read. It is a must add to Civil War bookshelves. 

Jonathan Williams, African American Patriot of the Civil War

Jonathan Williams was born in Campbell County, Kentucky, located at the northern edge of that slave state, nestled along the southern shore of the Ohio River, directly south of Cincinnati and southern Ohio, on the border of slavery and freedom. As with many people in the nineteenth century, however, some of his background - in this case, his exact year of birth - remains elusive, as various ages and dates appear on different records.

Post-Civil War paperwork for the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, for instance, alleges that he was 80 years old when he entered the facility in 1893, and a form in his pension file shows he was “over eighty” years old on the days of an April 1890 examination, reasonably close to that first document.

Two other forms in that pension file, however, show different ages, one recording him as 37 years old in 1864, and the other listing him as 39 in that same year, though those two are fairly similar to each other, showing that the 1825-1827 period was when he was born.

 

Yet a different document claimed he was 36 years old in 1862, and an 1897 newspaper story reported him to be 89, again switching between 1826 or 1808 as his approximate birth year, both reasonably close to what other sources claimed.

 In 1850, he had moved from Kentucky just across the Ohio River to the free state of Ohio, where he lived in Monroe in Clermont County, with his mother Hannah. He was a laborer, and the census recorded him as 24 years old, again suggesting a birth date of around 1826.

He held the same job title in 1860, when he lived in New Richmond, still in Clermont County. He still lived with Hannah and was supposedly just 30 years old at this time, although his mother had aged a full 10 years, from 60 to 70, in that decade.

Overall, it seems likely that he was born sometime around 1826 but that is far from definite. 

It is, however, certain, that he was a free man as the Civil War arrived, although it remains possible that he had been born into slavery in Kentucky and had somehow gained his liberty, allowing him to move to Ohio. 

Once the war came, he was determined to aid the Federal government. He first served in the navy, initially on the USS Indianola, which was constructed in Cincinnati and served as Jonathan's receiving ship for a few days while shipbuilders rushed to ready it for full service. He then moved to the USS Linden for a one-year term from about December 27, 1862, to December 20, 1863, as a second-class fireman, helping care for the fires that created the steam power that ran the ship.

A naval rendezvous record from his enlistment in late 1862 lists him as 36 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, with cooper for his profession.

The Linden was a 177-ton wooden side wheel steamboat constructed in Pennsylvania in 1860 as a peacetime commercial vessel[1] before the U.S. Navy purchased it in Cincinnati in 1862.

During its service in the long attempt to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Linden was “ordered to cooperate with General (Ulysses S.) Grant in cutting a canal between the Red and Black Rivers through Tensas Bayou.”[2]

That attempt failed and the ship “continued to support operations” against Vicksburg, though it was not among the ships that ran past the city in April, a bold move which allowed Grant to place his army in position for the final fighting against that Confederate stronghold.  

  USS Linden, from https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/media/uss-linden-19229/

                                                   

In May, the Linden “silenced a masked battery at Island No. 82; then covered troops who landed and destroyed buildings in the area.”

 

Vicksburg finally fell to the Union on July 4, and the Linden later “performed valuable but unspectacular service on reconnaissance and convoy missions on the Mississippi and its tributaries” before Jonathan’s term expired in December of 1863.[3]

 

After his year in the navy, Jonathan still wished to fight for the nation that had for so long shown so little interest in helping people like him.

 

On August 8, 1864, he enlisted in company K of the 27th United States Colored Infantry (USCI) regiment at Camp Delaware, Ohio, where the regiment organized. One document in his compiled military records claim he was 37 years old, stood 5 feet 10.75 inches tall, and had brown eyes. His hair was black, as was his complexion. He still listed his job as a cooper. Remaining consistent with the variance of the information in his story, another form listed him as 39 years old.

His records credited his enlistment to Clermont County, Ohio, helping that area meet its quota of men needed for the war, and adding evidence that he was the Jonathan Williams listed in that county on the census records of 1850 and 1860.

The 27th USCI was the second African American regiment formed in Ohio, as the state “was slow to organize black regiments,”[4] even after laws had changed to allow these men to serve in the Union military.

In August of that year, “hundreds of newly recruited men were sent to the 27th from Ohio.”[5] Jonathan was among them, and in September he worked as his company’s cook, a vital role in any army, even if it was not what men dreamt of when enlisting. 

The unit did its assigned duty through early fall, then fought in the Battle of Boydton Plank Road, also known as the First Battle of Hatcher's Run, on October 27 and 28, during the Federal siege of Petersburg, Virginia.

 

Its next assignment was in the Union’s campaign against Fort Fisher and Wilmington, North Carolina, from December of 1864 through February of 1865. The Federal forces captured the fort on January 15, another nail in the Confederacy’s coffin, as the fort “guarded the last remaining open port for the Confederacy at Wilmington.”[6]

The town fell on February 21, and “the 27th was among the regiments that marched into the city the next day.” These soldiers were incredibly happy and “sang John Brown’s Body as now-liberated slaves greeted them with food and tobacco.”[7] Such a moment must have been quite a remarkable, even unforgettable, experience for both the liberated and liberators. 

 

A few days later, these men came to the aid of more fellow Union soldiers by assisting “newly freed Union prisoners. The entire regiment turned out to prepare food for the former POWs who were in shockingly emaciated conditions.” This was another duty that created sights and feelings very difficult for readers today to comprehend fully.

“Now part of (General William T.) Sherman’s forces,” the 27th experienced another challenge similar troops faced – not all Union army officers were enthused with the enlistment of African Americans. “Sherman saw black troops under his command more as laborers than as combatants.”

After Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman’s forces, including the 27th, pursued Joseph Johnston’s Confederates, a chase that ended successfully when Johnston surrendered at Bennett’s House, North Carolina on April 26.

This surrender brought the unit’s fighting days to an end, but these men remained in the region, among the Union troops occupying North Carolina.

Despite the news of Johnston’s surrender, not everything was as desired. In June, the unit’s Lieutenant Colonel noted that “many of his men had not been paid since August 1864.”

Additionally, these soldiers were unhappy “that while much of the army was being demobilized, they were still serving.” Some white regiments, including the 23rd Kentucky Infantry, which included many Campbell Countians from the same area where Jonathan was born, faced the same disappointment. The 23rd did not muster out until December 27, 1865, in Texas.

In March or April of 1865, the army deducted money from Jonathan's paycheck for a canteen that he had lost or could no longer use. This happened to many soldiers when pieces of their gear were lost or destroyed as sometimes happened in camps or campaigns. Such was the nature of war.

In July, Jonathan found himself doing a task that no soldier likely envisioned before the war - he was part of the regiment’s cattle guard. The unit’s cooks held important roles in preparing meals but guarding the food supply so that the cooks had food to cook was also necessary. 

Jonathan mustered out of the army on September 7, 1865, at New Bern, North Carolina. He had received $33 1/3 of his $100 bounty and was still owed $66 2/3, as military paperwork listed it. He also owed the army $30.42 for clothing he had drawn since December 31, 1864, so his final net payment would have been just over $36.00.

 

After the entire regiment mustered out on September 21, the soldiers finally headed to their families and homes.  This could have been a time of complete happiness with a job well done, but not everything was so perfect.

 “When the men returned to Ohio, they initially went to Camp Chase where they were paid off” and attended a ceremony at the state house, where “a preacher spoke warning the men that many whites wanted to expel the black population from Ohio. He told them they might have to use their rifles later to defend their communities.”

 

Thus, as this regiment reached the end of its existence, this was the type of thanks these warriors received.

 

After returning home to Cincinnati, where he had moved at some point, (it was not far from his previous home in Clermont County), Jonathan received a military pension due to rheumatism and senility, though he also complained of other physical maladies from his time in the service. He had been away from duty with the 27th from April 25 to May 6, 1865, as the unit was in Virginia, due to diarrhea caused by exposure while in the line of duty, but he recovered his health and then returned to duty, with no other recurrence of the disease.

In the navy, had contracted malaria while his ship was in the White River in Arkansas. He also suffered from conditions with his kidneys and eyes, as well as dropsy, the buildup of fluids in the body, resulting in swelling in his body, probably but not necessarily in his legs.

His postwar movements are harder to track, but he did enter the Central Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio, on July 29, 1893. He now was described as 80 years old, single, with laborer as his occupation. He was a tall man, standing exactly 6 feet tall, (somehow supposedly a bit taller than when he enlisted in the navy three decades earlier) and had a dark complexion, dark eyes, and, to no surprise, gray hair. He was a Protestant in his religious views and could not read or write.

 

Jonathan died at the home on June 10, 1897, due to pneumonia and senility, and was buried nearby in Dayton National Cemetery. His obituary in the next day’s Dayton Herald referred to him as a “well-known naval veteran” and claimed he was 89 years old. He was receiving a pension of $12 per month at the time.

 

Jonathan Williams was a patriot who had fought for freedom in two branches of the military, defending a government that had allowed the enslavement of millions of people of his race. He risked his life and freedom against a ruthless foe who was more than willing to continue that peculiar institution and that would have been happy to return him to it. His story should assume its well-earned place in his nation’s memory and history, a true freedom fighter for so many fellow countrymen. 

Photo  from findagrave memorial 1327887

                                                                                                      

Note on Sources: The blog post at https://thereconstructionera.com/27th-usct-a-black-regiment-from-ohio/ provided much, maybe most, of the information on the 27th USCI that I quoted and used in this post, but that page includes many more details than fit in this profile. It also recommends the book For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops for a more in-depth exploration of this unit. 

 

1http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/86/86093.htm

2https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/l/linden-i.html

3Ibid

4https://thereconstructionera.com/27th-usct-a-black-regiment-from-ohio/

5Ibid

6https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/fort-fisher,

7https://thereconstructionera.com/27th-usct-a-black-regiment-from-ohio/ All quotes and details on the 27th USCI from this paragraph to the end of the story are from this same source. 

Distinguished by His Bravery: William Sanders, Newport Home Guards

During the Civil War, many Home Guard companies quickly came together during the chaos and uncertainty of the initial weeks and months of the war, as men were anxious to join the fight. These smaller groups were often the first military units to form, sometimes centered around prewar militia groups, or geographic circumstances, and were perhaps easier and quicker to join without the usual military paperwork.

In Kentucky during the summer of 1861, weeks after the war started, the state created "county-based companies of Union men" that it called Home Guards.  However, the organization of these units was "never uniform throughout the state" and was frequently rather "informal."[1]

In Campbell County, several such units popped up, usually based around the town or community where the members lived instead of just the county. These included groups in Brooklyn and Jamestown as well as in the Mt. Vernon and Mt. Pleasant areas of what is now Ft. Thomas. Gus Artsman’s (or Artzman’s) company of the Kentucky Police Guard and the 42nd Kentucky Enrolled Militia regiment also organized largely in Campbell County, the latter not until the late summer of 1862.

Around the state, as summer of 1861 transformed into fall, “many Home Guard units saw action in defense of their communities, although the combat value of most Home Guard companies was slight.” These were not well-trained, disciplined troops. These were groups of men, usually without military experience, coming together for a common cause.

When these local groups entered combat, they often experienced a similar fate as similar companies. “Confederate units, especially those led by John Hunt Morgan, who often encountered Home Guardsmen, seldom had much trouble brushing aside even the most persistent of men.”[2]

Some of these units, or at least some of their men, did, however, fight bravely when they had the chance to “see the elephant.” It did not happen in their own community, but the men of one such unit that formed in Newport, Kentucky, soon witnessed the true nature of combat.

——

William Sanders was born on January 16, 1829, in England, three decades and a wide ocean away from the war that would eventually decide his fate. He later made his way across the cold and often dangerous Atlantic Ocean to the United States, settling in Campbell County, Kentucky by the late 1850s, when he married Elizabeth Band, another immigrant from England, on October 3, 1857, in Newport.

In 1860, he lived in Newport with his wife, two children, and 16-year-old Thomas Sanders, who may have been his nephew, as the census reports he was also an English native. William worked as a clerk. 

After the Civil War started, William joined Artsman’s company of the Kentucky Police Guard, a short-term home guard unit based in Newport, enlisting as a sergeant on September 19, 1861, but he mustered out just two weeks later on October 4. This company included 70 men, likely all or mostly from Campbell County, including a Thomas Sanders, quite possibly William’s family and housemate. Thomas would have been 18 by this time. 

 

After leaving that unit, William enlisted as a second lieutenant in another local group of citizen-soldiers, this time John Arthur’s company of Newport Home Guards. In mid-1862, danger approached a region not terribly far from Campbell County, so the men of this unit travelled south to Cynthiana in Harrison County to face an approaching enemy force.

Confederate General Morgan, of course, was soon to become the scourge of many Union supporters in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and a hero to southern sympathizers. He had just recently “launched his first major raid into Kentucky,” hoping to interrupt Union communication lines and to recruit more men for his cause.

On July 17, he had arrived in Cynthiana, “strategically located on the Kentucky Central Railroad and the Licking River.” His troops, about 800 in number, soon met the enemy, some of whom had “positioned themselves across the river in houses and had posted artillery to contest the bridge crossing.     

The Confederates attacked and soon forced their opponents to surrender. They “captured more than 300 horses, destroyed Cynthiana’s railroad depot and nearby railroad track, and wrecked a Union camp.”[3]     

 The beaten Union forces included the Newport Home Guards, which had been “badly cut up” during the battle.[4] This unit had suffered losses reported as two men killed, six wounded, and two missing.[5]

 William was one of those casualties, suffering an undocumented wound which was not immediately fatal. He was able to leave the battlefield having “distinguished himself by his bravery” on that ground.

His wounds were apparently serious, as he eventually was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Cincinnati, where he died of his battlefield injuries on November 18, four months after the engagement. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate, Kentucky, where his colleagues attended the funeral of this immigrant who had given his all in defending his adopted homeland.[6]

His widowed Elizabeth lived until 1920, but in 1871 remarried, now to John Henry Stegeman, another Civil War veteran, having served as a 1st Lieutenant in the 5th Ohio Light Artillery.

Those few lines in the newspaper and a headstone were the closest to fame or glory William Sanders ever received but his story is another one worthy of recognition and a place in the memory of this bloody war.

[1]Hughes, Nicky. Home Guards. Taken from The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Kleber, John E. (Editor-in-chief); Clark, Thomas D.; Harrison, Lowell M.; Klotter, James C.; (Associate Editors) University Press of Kentucky. 1992. p. 438 

[2]Ibid

[3]https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/99

[4]Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, July 19, 1862

[5]Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, July 21, 1862

[6]Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, November 19, 1862

 

The first photo is from https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=711423

The next one is courtesy of https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/files/show/111

The headstone photograph came from findagrave memorial id 88684715