Diary fills in blanks on forgotten service

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

THE SOUTHERN JOURNEY OF A CIVIL WAR MARINE: THE ILLUSTRATED NOTE-BOOK OF HENRY O. GUSLEY

Edited and annotated by Edward T. Cotham Jr., University of Texas Press, 223 pages, illus., $24.95

I have read and reported upon five or six Civil War journals and diaries over the past 10 years, and this is by far the best.

The newly released "note-book," or diary, of Marine Henry O. Gusley is a wonderment for several reasons. First, Gusley proves to be a remarkably colorful, humorous and articulate storyteller and observer of naval operations in the Gulf of Mexico in 1862 and 1863. There are no diaries or memoirs quite as good as this.

Second, the editor of this journal, Edward T. Cotham Jr., combines Gusley's book with the drawings of another keen observer in the same U.S. Navy Mortar Squadron, Dr. Daniel D.T. Nestell, an acting assistant surgeon in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron.

To paraphrase the editor, if Gusley supplies the soundtrack and very colorful narration of Navy operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Dr. Nestell provides the videotape.

Then there is the wonderful contribution of the editor himself, who gives us a terrific forward and follows up with detailed notes. If most readers are like me, they rarely read the footnotes. This time you will want to read them.

The U.S. Marine Corps is the forgotten service of the Civil War. In fact, many Civil War historians and enthusiasts don't even know that the Marines served. Gusley fully covers shipboard life; the armaments, capabilities and limitations of his vessels; societal aspects of the war, including emancipation; the duties of a U.S. Marine at sea during the Civil War; and at-sea operations.

Gusley participated in so many sustained shore bombardments of Confederate forts and concentrations that he was losing his hearing at the end of the war. He participated in operations against New Orleans; Vicksburg, Miss.; Mobile, Ala.; and Galveston, Texas, among others. His book gives one of the few firsthand Union Navy accounts of the terrible defeat at the hands of the Confederates at Sabine Pass, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1863. Gusley was captured in this engagement.