Paine, Halbert Eleazer. A Wisconsin Yankee in Confederate Bayou Country. Edited by Samuel C. Hyde, Jr. LSU Press. Ill. Notes. Index. Map. ISBN 978-0-8071-3418-0. 180p. May, 2009.

This Civil War memoir, penned some forty years after the conflict ended, is an unvarnished account primarily of the campaigns in Louisiana from the arrival of troops at Ship Island in February, 1862 up to the siege of Port Hudson in June, 1863.

General Halbert Paine was a practicing attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1861 when he was offered a quartermasters' position in the 2^nd Wisconsin Infantry, a ninety-day regiment. By his own admission, he performed poorly, earning the contempt of the soldiers serving in the unit. He was soon appointed Colonel of the 4^th Wisconsin Infantry, a three-year regiment, and served there until appointed to division command in 1863. His story, which he never intended to publish, is not filled with glory or patriotic fervor, but with personal observations, opinions and criticisms of the men serving the Union cause with him. Two officers in particular Paine had absolutely no use for. One was Major General Benjamin Butler, Department Commander, and the other was Brigadier General Thomas Williams, Paine's immediate superior.

Butler, he saw as an incompetent political general serving solely for personal gain and covering up the incompetence of other officers. Williams he hated with a passion, describing him as an “imbecile, drunken, malignant, cowardly, traitorous blockhead” - amongst other things. Williams, a well-educated West Point graduate with over twenty-five years active service, was a demanding professional who, perhaps, served too long as aide-de-camp to General Winfield Scott, would never win the hearts, much less the minds, of volunteer soldiers. Well respected by his superiors but hated by his subordinates, Williams was killed in action leading the 21^st Indiana Infantry at Baton Rouge. One wonders where this hatred comes from – Williams had Paine placed under arrest for failing to turn out runaway slaves from his camps – but such honest revelations speaks volumes in understanding the dynamics of the army's higher commands. Released from arrest by Butler after Williams' death, Paine is caught up in controversy himself over the burning of Baton Rouge.

Paine's most interesting contribution to our better understanding the literature of the Civil War is his description of the operations of his regiment in southeastern Louisiana – the Bayou Teche campaign and the siege of Port Hudson. Such small-unit operations receive little attention, both from the participants and historians, making Paine's well worth reading. Port Hudson, the longest siege in American history and one not without its casualty lists is also described up to the time he was wounded, resulting in the amputation of his leg.

Wisconsin Yankee is subtly edited by Dr. Samuel Hyde, Jr; outside of an interesting introduction and more than adequate annotations provided as endnotes, the reader hardly knows he's there. This allows the book to speak for itself in a smooth narrative arranged chronologically. It is a useful addition to the ranks of Civil War memoirs. David Lee Poremba. Windermere, Florida.