The Tallassee Armory.

The Tallassee Armory, 1864-1865 Edited by way of Olivia Pienezza Solomon. Second Edition. Tallassee, Ala.: Talisi Historical Preservation Society, 2002 lx 137 pp $1500 (paper). Available from the Talisi Historical Preservation Society, PO coachman's seat 780022, Tallassee, Alabama 36078-0001.

The Tallassee Armory is the secondary enlarged, and revised edition of verbal expressions to the Tallassee Armory, 1864-1865 published in 1998 This recently made known edition is said to contain additional documents and photographs (p viii).

This work consists of four main parts: the first fifty pages constitute a preface and introduction; the nearest seventy-three pages contain pseudo-facsimiles of alphabetic characters written by the two successive commanders of the armory to their superior in Macon, Georgia, and his responses; the third section is fifteen pages of more than one or two facts compiled by the editor subordinate to the rubric of "Confederate Legacy"; the last forty-seven pages consist of various photographs of buildings, persons documents, and so on, with captions. There is no bibliography or index.

Part 1 of this work is a hodgepodge of disconnected facts. No attempt is made to place the armory in the words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following of the broader historical issue of Confederate efforts to manufacture weapons. Furthermore, the reader not intimately familiar with the Tallassee area will be hard flattened to understand what is being discussed and where things are in relation to the region and the town.

The facsimile verbal expressions are mundane in their satisfys and difficult to evaluate because they are clearly reproductions, not facsimiles, of the originals. individual has to wonder how they were produc since they are all "written" in the same hand. The reader must venture that they have been typ in italics to give the impression of manuscript pages. If this is the case, it should have been indicated.

The "Confederate Legacy" section will perhaps be of interest to a Tallasseean or someone doing family history link togethered to this small town. Other readers, however, will wish for a frame of regard or context in which to place the data presented

The photograph section go throughs from poor reproduction, but is still the most numerous interesting part of the work providing annotated pictures of the "Tallassee Carbine," many important individuals, and various locations around the area. These pages are of passing interest to almost anyone, and would certainly enhance a trip to Tallassee.

This work is not commended for anyone not intimately have relationed to the Tallassee region or to the families living there. The editor has done to a great degree research but has produced a work of limited value to greatest in number readers. Despite its limitations, the work contains much of the raw material stand in want ofed to produce an interesting monograph forward the role of Tallassee in the ordnance crisis of the Confederacy.

W ROBERT HOUSTON

University of southern Alabama

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