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5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 A Revealing Journey with Civil War Soldiers Dec 31, 2006
By John P. Snyder
The number of soldiers who died in Civil War battles is astonishing. In one three-day fight known as the Battle of the Wilderness, the Union Army suffered 11,400 casualties, the Confederates 18,400, "with neither side able to claim victory," according to Richard Hafeman Haviland, author of Splendid Gallantry. The book is a fascinating story that covers most of the war from the perspective of the men in a Wisconsin regiment. The reader travels with the men, from muster to discharge, and the story is so compelling that we almost feel part of the group, experiencing the agony and fear of hand-to-hand combat, the weariness of long marches under heavy loads, and the yearning for loved ones at home.
Mr. Haviland's story started out as family history to learn more about a relative serving in the Wisconsin regiment, but the scope of the work grew when he learned that the mostly German immigrants from Wisconsin were unfairly accused of being cowards "who ran at the first fire." Instead, the author builds a strong case that the reports of battlefield cowardice were nothing more than a cover-up by incompetent leaders.
Splendid Gallantry is a valuable addition to any Civil War collection, a book to be savored and enjoyed by all.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
A Splendid Trip in Time Dec 08, 2006
By John Henry
It isn't every historian who can go looking for an ancestor and discover a war.
But then Richard Hafeman Haviland isn't just any historian. Rather, he is a descendant of a German-American named Carl Hafemann (the family lost the second "n" somewhere through the years) who, in the course of looking back through family history, found not only his Wisconsin-raised forebear but a series of false accusations that had rattled around since the Civil War.
With remarkable dedication and impressive research, Haviland set out to repair the reputations of a band of young immigrants who responded to a call for volunteers to join the Union Army in the early months of the War Between the States. They became part of the 26th Wisconsin Regiment, and eventually arrived in a war zone - and abruptly left again - just in time to be contemptuously branded the "Flying Dutchmen."
Carl Hafemann and his friends, along with thousands of other young German-Americans, deserved better than an ill-aimed blame, and Haviland makes sure they receive it. His tale of the group from the tiny village of West Bend, Wisconsin (Company G, it was called) expands to a microcosm of the war itself. The Eleventh Corps, of which the 26th was a part, bridged the entire conflict, from the disaster of Chancellorsville at the beginning, through the pivotal days of Gettysburg, on to the thrust toward Atlanta.
Carl Hafemann was there for almost all of it, despite two war wounds, but his role in this history is minimal; he peeks from the background from time to time, but Haviland's vision covers a far wider field. His focus is on the allegations of cowardice that tracked the Eleventh Corps for much of the war, and his goal is to lay the blame where he believes it to be merited, in the lap of the atrocious leadership that clung to the corps for virtually all its life.
Haviland's story is studded with contemporary reports, from the soldiers who were writing home and from the newspaper that served the town where they had settled. The West Bend Post wasn't always a friendly reporter; it sometimes repeated the slanders against the Eleventh Corps. Still, its archives provide an enlivening immediacy to the story.
But Haviland's research, including a number of personal visits to battle sites - and at least one brief plunge into a river that played a role in his war story - has produced a book that is at once a history and a tale. It is a captivating combination.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Correcting a Slander Oct 25, 2006
By Jane D. Garton
Civil War history buffs are a natural first audience for Splendid Gallantry: The Union Army XI Corps by Richard Hafeman Haviland. They are not, by any means, the only ones who will benefit from reading this beautifully researched book that started as a genealogy project and evolved into a chronicle of the Twenty-Sixth Wisconsin Regiment, a regiment formed of German immigrants and their sons in 1863.
The Twenty-Sixth was the scapegoat for bad decisions on the part of
high-ranking officers in early battles. Haviland found that slander,
blaming the regiment for being cowardly and running away from attack as
"Flying Dutchmen," both lingering and unacceptable. He expanded his
research beyond the civil service of his ancestor, Carl Hafemann.
One in four of all Union soldiers was of German descent, Haviland found,
and the more he read, the more determined he became to redeem the men who
were unjustly characterized as cowards who "ran at first fire." The
Twenty-Sixth Regiment as part of the Eleventh Corps, became the focus of the book.
To redeem the soldiers' less than heroic reputations, Haviland used the
long lens of history to document less than competent leadership: " . . .
Soldiers cannot fight under the conviction that they are predestined to be
the scapegoat of the imbecility of their commanders. If the Eleventh Corps
is left under this ban, it will be betrayed, and slaughtered, and broken
in engagement after engagement, until not a man of it will be left in arms
to bear the designation of the 'cowardly Dutchman,'" according to an 1863
speech by Charles Goeff at the Cooper Union Institute.
What is most endearing about the book is the use of letters from the
soldiers to their families to tell of the hardships they faced in the war.
The chapter titles often came from those letters and Haviland's author
notes sprinkled throughout the book show a deep affinity between the
writer and his subjects. He tramped battlefields, rivers, and libraries to do his research.
Hafemann and his friends - all volunteers -- who enlisted 100-strong with
enthusiasm in the West Bend Company G, returned at substantially less
strength: 26 were killed on the battlefield or died of their wounds; eight
more died of disease; 29 were wounded and recovered; and 15 returned home
disable - many of them amputees.
It was some of the generals who had so badly led them, who called them cowards and who blamed them for all that went wrong, Haviland writes. That the volunteers were derided in the national press - and their hometown paper - was the unfairness the author disputes.
The epic scope of the Civil War, with detailed accounts of the battles at
Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and Sherman's campaigns, brings with it a
specialized vocabulary. Haviland masterfully tackles descriptions of the strategies of war which are complex and intriguing.
His chapter on the "Medical Middle Ages" is a fine example of taking
readers into fields and makeshift treatment places.
Haviland clearly gained major respect for General Carl Schurz through his
research. And Schurz was the military man who provided the book's title
through this quote about their fighting at Chancellorsville:
"The Twenty-Sixth Wisconsin, a young regiment that had never been under
fire, maintained the hopeless contest for a considerable time with
splendid gallantry. It did not fall back until I ordered it to do so."
Splendid Gallantry is a fine read for Civil War history experts and novices and an excellent account of the rest of the "Flying Dutchmen" story.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A personal journey to find the truth Dec 04, 2006
By CHRISTINE MCMAHON
"Christine"
I have always been interested in `war' stories and reading through SPLENDID GALLANTRY was a very satisfactory time-well-spent.
While making the case that the 26th was incorrectly slandered, Mr. Haviland imparts the facts behind his research to show the unit had, indeed, shown Splendid Gallantry.
I was especially moved by his journey to follow in his ancestor's footsteps. Attempting to wade the river the 26th would have traveled during the trek to battle, brought his journey into today's perspective - where he decided to return to shore, the soldiers forged ahead.
The inclusion of letters and stories of the soldiers' families while they were at war, puts an encompassing human face to the trials of any war. Widows and children suffered terribly during those years.
Mr. Haviland's footnotes and his own time spent in the military brings this story home. An excellent read for anyone interested in our history.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
The 26th Wisconsin May 25, 2007
By Book Nooks
This book primarily deals with the 26th Wisconsin and specifically one soldier's history, Pvt. Hafeman. As I also had relatives in the 26th Wisconsin, I really appreciated this work. There were numerous typo's and at times I felt it was confusing, but overall, an excellent resource. Well worth the price.
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