Union General James Harrison Wilson (The Dial Magazine, 1912)Attached is the review from a respected literary journal concerning the autobiography of Brigadier General James Harrison Wilson (1837 - 1925). Under the Old Flag Wilson is today best remembered as the U.S. Army cavalry officer who captured the Confederate President Jefferson Davis in his flight from Richmond. Following the Civil War, where he rose rapidly in the army hierarchy and finished as brigadier general, Wilson continued to play important rolls in the U.S. military; serving during the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion A Review of Two W.W. I Books (The Dial Magazine, 1919)Dial editor Robert Morss Lovett compared and contrasted two very different First World War memoirs in this article: America in France, by Frederick Palmer (1873 - 1958) and Floyd Gibbons' (1887 - 1939) And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight.
Confederate General Johnson Hagood (The Dial Magazine, 1911)A book review from 1911 covering the Civil War memoirs of the Confederate Brigadier General Johnson Hagood (1829 - 1898) who fought many battles during that conflict, most notably Cold Harbor and the battles of Weldon Road and Bentonville. At war's end he surrendered to General Sherman. E.E. Cummings on T.S. Eliot (The Dial Magazine, 1920)A review of T.S. Eliot's (1888 – 1965) second collection, Poems (1919), as reviewed by E.E. Cummings (1894 – 1962) in the well respected magazine of the arts, THE DIAL. It was in this volume that Eliot's well remembered series of quatrains first appeared: "Sweeney Among the Nightingales", "Sweeney Erect" "The Hippopotamus" and "Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service". Cummings at that time was living in Paris and writing his first book, The Enormous Room , which would be published in 1922. The review of that work can be read here. ''Film Cannot Be Art'' (The Dial Magazine, 1927)In this article, a 1920s critic forthrightly states that the primitive state of movie cameras renders them unfit as capable tools with which art can be created. He expands on his remarks by pointing out that 1920s film technology generally will never be able to render thought-provoking plots or articulate narratives until some necessary advancements are made in the field.
Another anti-silent film article can be read here...
-an additional article from the 1920s defaming silent film can be read here...
General Von Ludendorff Defends Himself (The Dial Magazine, 1920)Attached is a review of Von Ludendorff's memoir entitled My Own Story" as it appeared in a much admired journal of the arts.
"'Ludendorff's Own Story' by Erich Friedrich Von Ludendorff gives a G.H.Q. view of the war from August 1914 to November 1918. It has a certain quality of forthrightness which makes its fallacies and mistakes apparent to the reader even when they escape the author. Ludendorff's thesis is that the war was lost because the the army at home had not another Ludendorff to direct it..."
In 1920 the representatives from the victorious nations who convened at Versailles demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm, General Ludendorff and an assortment of various other big shots be handed over for trial - click here to read about it.
A longer review of Ludendorff's memoir from The Nation can be read here.
Click here to read about Ludendorff's association with Hitler.
A Review of Grand Admiral Von Tirpitz Memoir (The Dial Magazine, 1920)The well respected arts journal, THE DIAL, published a very brief notice reviewing the post-war memoir, My Memoirs, by Admiral Alfred Von Tirpitz (1849-1930). The Dial reviewer found the Von Tirpitz' memoir interesting as a psychological study: "My Memoirs, by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz is one of those elaborate vindications which carry the authentic conviction of guilt...If Germany was really, as the Grand Admiral estimates, a sheep in wolf's clothing, a few more memoirs like this will leave no regret about her fate."
Read an article about the many faults of the German Navy during the Second World War...
''The Sunset of the Confederacy'' (The Dial Magazine, 1912)This book review is a wonderful read, punctuated with interesting descriptions of the Civil War's most prominent players. The book in question is The Sunset Of The Confederacy by former Confederate General Morris Schaff (1840-1929), author of The Battle of the Wilderness (1910).
The Struggle for California (The Dial Magazine, 1912)Attached is the The Dial Magazine book review of Elijah R. Kennedy's "The Contest for California in 1861". Kennedy maintained that "a large party in California and Oregon sought to deliver that region to the Southerners" and might have succeeded were it not for the efforts of one Colonel E.D. Baker.
Click here to print American Civil War chronologies. | 
