As the month of December 1980 began, John Lennon was riding a wave. His comeback album, Double Fantasy, was the number one selling album in the world, and it had two songs that went to number one on the singles charts. He was enjoying not only a resurgence, but his best record sales as a solo artist and since the break-up of the Beatles. He was happily married to Yoko Ono, and they had a five-year-old son named Sean.

On the evening of December 8, 1980, a demented young man named Mark David Chapman, who wanted to be famous, waited outside The Dakota, the famed Manhattan apartment building where the Lennons lived. John and Yoko had spent the evening at a recording studio, and when their limo dropped them off, Chapman called out, “Mr. Lennon!” When Lennon responded, Chapman pumped five bullets into Lennon, who died a few minutes later of his wounds. It was 11:50 P.M.

I attended a concert by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Spectrum in Philadelphia that night. Bruce’s fifth album, The River, had been released that fall, and “Hungry Heart” was somewhere near the top of the charts. I was a 19-year-old sophomore in college. My friends and I drove about 3 hours to the Spectrum from Carlisle, and we saw a killer show. The Boss played for about 4 1/2 hours that night. The concert let out at about the time that Chapman fired the fatal rounds.

Nobody told Bruce Springsteen that John Lennon had been shot, so nothing was said during the show. We were completely ignorant of events when we left the arena to head for the cars.

When we got to the car, all of the Philly radio stations were playing nothing but Beatles and John Lennon songs, and we could not, for the life of us, understand why. Finally, there was a break in the music, and we heard the terrible news. Obviously, that’s a night that is forever burned into my memory, both for the incredible show we saw, and then for the horrific events that we learned of after the end of the show.

John Lennon did not deserve to die. With him died a little piece of my childhood and many of the dreams of a generation.

Rest in peace, John. You’re still missed. It’s hard to believe that 26 years have passed since that night.

Imagine

—John Lennon

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About a month ago, Erik Calonius contacted me to see whether I’d be interested in getting a review copy of his new book, The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy That Set Its Sails. I hadn’t heard of either Mr. Calonius or his book, so I looked it up on Amazon. After doing so, I said sure, I’d love to have a look at it.

Let me begin by saying that this is not a book that I would normally have any interest in reading. As a general rule, the topic of slavery is of almost no interest to me, and I tend to avoid the subject due to lack of interest. However, this particular book sounded like it might be interesting, so I decided to read it. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I’ve been engaging in an e-mail dialogue with Mr. Calonius after receiving the book, and have enjoyed my interaction with him.

Erik Calonius is a career journalist who has had some plum assignments in his journalistic career. The Wanderer is his first book, and he should be very proud of it. The topic got his interest on a visit to Jekyll Island, outside Savannah, Georgia, when he saw an exhibit to the Wanderer. Intrigued, he started looking into it, and decided to tackle a modern telling of the story.

The slave trade was made illegal in the United States in 1820. However, some of the Southern firebrands who were pushing for secession also strongly favored reinstating the slave trade. Charles Lamar, a relative of L.Q.C. Lamar and of the second president of the Texas Republic, led the conspiracy. Lamar and his co-conspirators purchased the Wanderer, a magnificent yacht, and took her to Africa to bring back a load of slaves in 1858. His crew managed to evade the British and American naval vessels patrolling the coast of Africa and safely made it back to the United States.

Even though their purpose was a very poorly kept secret, Lamar and his co-conspirators managed to evade justice through a combination of corruption and bullying. They made witnesses disappear, tampered with evidence, and made it impossible for the government to convict them of piracy (the crime of importing slaves was designated an act of piracy, and carried the death penalty). In three separate trials in 1859, Lamar and his co-conspirators were all acquitted and escaped justice, in spite of the best efforts of the Buchanan administration to convict and execute them.

There was poetic justice: Lamar was killed in action during the Civil War, and the Wanderer, which was seized and sold by the government, ended up in Union service during the war.

The book is well-researched and very well-written, which I would expect of a senior journalist of Mr. Calonius’ credentials. He has brought a topic which would normally not interest me to life with an engaging writing style that almost reads like a novel. The book does have one of my pet peeves: instead of providing specific end note references, they’re lumped together at the end by page, which drives me crazy. If one were interested in further research, or reading the primary sources for oneself, this style of footnoting makes it virtually impossible to do so. I absolutely despise that footnoting style. I suspect that was the publisher’s call–and not Mr. Calonius’–so I can’t necessarily fault him for it.

What I liked best about this book was how it so accurately and amply used the microcosm of this single incident to demonstrate how the agenda of the fire eaters directly caused the Civil War, and how they paid the ultimate price for their calumny. It also demonstrates how the inertia and passivity of the Buchanan administration allowed events to come to a crisis situation. The inactivity of the administration permitted a few fire breathers to flaunt the law for their own purposes, and their actions in doing so directly triggered the Civil War. Ironically, the prosecution of Lamar and his co-conspirators was left in the hands of Buchanan’s attorney general, Thomas Howell Cobb of Georgia, who later became a Confederate general.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and can highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the causes of the Civil War.

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Well, the knee is blown no more. Susan had her reconstructive knee surgery today.

The doctor fully expected to have to remove the hardware from her first ACL reconstruction on that knee in 1989. Having to do so would be more work and would have caused more pain. Fortunately, he didn’t have to remove either of the old screws from her knee and was able to work around them. The transplant was completed successfully, and he repaired the damage to her meniscus. Everything was done arthroscopically and she is already able to put weight on the leg if she’s in her immobilizer.

Everything went fine. She’s upstairs asleep in percocet land at the moment, and will hoppefully be on the road to recovery tomorrow.

Rehab–the really sucky part–will begin in about two weeks.

For everyone who has asked or sent their best wishes, we really appreciate it.

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Please join me in welcoming Michael C. Hardy to the blogosphere. I had no idea that Michael had launched a blog until he posted a comment here. Michael has written several excellent books, most recently, the first book-lengthy study of the May 1862 Battle of Hanover Court House.

Michael’s blog deals with his native North Carolina’s role in the Civil War. Those who know me know of my love of the Old North State, and my interest in those aspects of the Late Unpleasantness that occurred there. Michael apparently launched his blog in October and didn’t tell anyone about it.

Please join me in welcoming Michael to the blogosphere.

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Regarding the plethora of new biographies by historian Ed Longacre, Kevin Levin wrote: “I will say, however, that I tend to stay away from historians who pump out books at a high rate, especially in the area of biography. You can easily distinguish between those biographies that are the result of a careful reading of both the primary and relevant secondary sources. More importantly, you can easily pick out the studies whose authors spent the necessary time thinking about their subject and trying to generate the right questions to ask. When I pick up a biography I want to read a preface that reflects both a careful research and writing process and that involves interaction with fellow historians. In short, I want to read a story of how the historian came to know his/her subject and this takes time.” He concluded by saying, “Perhaps I could have simply said that I am not a fan of production-line history.”

In general, I won’t comment on Ed’s work. I can tell you, however, that Ed’s new biography of Joe Wheeler has been in the works for several years, and that he and I spent a fair amount of time discussing it. In particular, I gave him some material on Wheeler that has never been used in any modern biographical treatment of Wheeler (other than a couple of paragraphs in the epilogue of my book on the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads). At least with respect to the Wheeler bio, I think that Ed has put in his time.

Rather, I want to focus on what I do. I’ve always been a big believer in receiving input from other historians. I’ve always sent my work out for review by people whose opinions I respect. There was a time when I wrote NOTHING that wasn’t read and approved by Brian Pohanka. Today, old friends and cavalry guys J. D. Petruzzi, Bob O’Neill, Horace Mewborn, and Teej Smith read pretty much everything that I write and give me the sort of feedback and fact checking that I need.

In addition, and now that Brian is no longer with us, I try to find experts on particular areas to read things for me, and to give me input. As an example, there are three chapters of my Dahlgren biography which address events between October 1862 and May 1863. Consequently, I was sure to have Frank O’Reilly read the drafts of those chapters for me to make sure that I had the facts correct. John Hennessy currently has the Second Bull Run chapter of the Dahlgren bio. Scott Patchan, another historian whose work I respect, read and commented on an early draft of the Second Bull Run chapter, and is now reviewing the entire manuscript for me.

Finally, as the Dahlgren manuscript marks my first attempt at writing a full length biography, and as there are so many interesting and important issues associated with these events, just today, I decided to ask Ethan Rafuse and Ken Noe if they would be willing to read the manuscript for me and give me some feedback. I’m hoping that they will have time do so, but I understand academic schedules and time constraints, and I’ve told both of them that I will understand if they don’t have time to read the manuscript.

My point is that while I am prolific, I am cautious. The last thing that I would ever want would be to be accused of is cranking out production line history. I never, ever pump stuff out without investing the time into making sure that the work is something I will be proud to have my name on. Because I only write on topics that are of great personal interest to me, I am always willing to invest the effort into making sure that each and every project I tackle is the best product I can produce. The new history of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, which is due out next week, represents twelve years of research and writing on this regiment. I’ve literally looked at thousands and thousands of pages of material in culling out the information that I felt was worthy of inclusion in the book.

In fact, I can’t think of a single book I’ve ever written that had less than five years of work on it (other than the Avery manuscript, which I simply edited and annotated). Everything has represented years of research, walking the battlefields, and trying to figure these things out for myself before committing pen to paper. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And I think that the receptions for my last couple of projects demonstrates that. The day that ceases to be the case is the day that I close the book on my writing career.

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Having grown up in the Philadelphia area, I have long maintained an interest in the American Revolution. Over the course of the past several years, I have stepped up my reading on the Revolutionary War, and have tried to round out my knowledge base.

Due the success of the CWDG forum boards, I decided to start a second set of forum boards, this time, dedicated to the Revolutionary War. Please check them out. They can be found here. I hope some of my regular readers will find the Revolutionary War as interesting as I do, and that some of you will register and post there.

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Susan was supposed to have her ACL reconstruction surgery today. If all had gone according to plan, I would be reporting on the surgery right now.

Unfortunately, the surgery got bumped for a week. Our orthopedist was on call this past weekend, and had a very difficult weekend. He had something like 17 serious fractures to deal with, a number of which required nearly immediate surgery in order to allow the patients to begin the healing process. Consequently, all of his non-essential surgeries for today–including Susan–had to be postponed.

Needless to say, this was NOT happy news. We both wanted to get it over with, so that Susan could be on the road back to having a normal and healthy knee. Sadly, we now have another week of the immobilizer, the crutches, a weak, wobbly knee, and general unhappiness.

Stay tuned. Sadly, there’s another chapter to this saga. 🙁

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Ephrata, Pennsylvania lawyer Larry B. Maier wrote Gateway to Gettysburg: The Second Battle of Winchester, published by Burd Street Press in 2002.

Burd Street is an imprint of White Mane Publishing. For those unfamiliar with White Mane, it’s far from my favorite publisher. For every good book they publish, there are ten really awful ones that had no business being published in the first place. This company is known for using crappy materials (thin, poor quality paper), indifferent production values, and no editing. My biggest complaint about it is that they do nothing to ensure that there is no plagiarism or copyright infringement. I am aware of at least two instances where authors who are friends of mine had their maps stolen and reprinted in White Mane books without their permission and without being paid royalties for the use of the maps. If that’s not bad enough, the management at White Mane takes the position that, by the time that someone finds out about the infringement and does something about it, they don’t care–they will already have made their money from the book. I sent a letter to the publisher on behalf of one of those authors complaining about the theft of my client’s maps, and didn’t even get the courtesy of a response. To me, that sort of attitude–a complete lack of business ethics and a total disregard for the law–speaks volumes for why this company has such an atrocious reputation. I’ve often said–and meant it–that if faced with the choice of never publishing another word again or having White Mane publish one of my books, I would choose never publishing another word again. I’ve heard rumors that White Mane is swirling around the drain, and I can only hope it’s true.

So, we begin with the proposition that Mr. Maier’s book has two strikes against it right out of the box. That’s a shame, but it is what it is.

Prior to the publication of this book, there was one other monograph dedicated to the Second Battle of Winchester. Charles Grunder and Prof. Brandon Beck published a short book on the battle as part of the H. E. Howard Virginia Battles and Leaders Series. Their book is decent, but it lacks depth. With only 85 pages of text, it simply cannot go into a great deal of detail. The best thing about their book is the walking/driving tour at the end of it.

The book itself is disappointing. While the coverage of the battle is reasonably thorough, the scope and depth of the research is disappointing. A review of the footnotes indicates that many of them cite to secondary sources, which indicates that Maier did not do the sort of research that he could have done in order to cover the topic completely. Many of those footnotes cite to the book by Grunder and Beck mentioned above, and not to the primary sources. Conversely, on the flip side, there are footnotes and not endnotes, something that I much prefer.

It also spends too much time discussing Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy. While Milroy is the central player in the drama, the book does not get to the topic of the Second Battle of Winchester for about 100 pages. Given that it’s a 330 page book, it means that about 1/3 of the book is devoted to stuff that doesn’t go to the heart of the subject. I actually blew off much of that stuff.

There are plenty of maps and illustrations, much to the author’s credit. He draws some solid conclusions, but the book fails to give the depth that serious historians crave. In short, this book left me wanting more, and also left me wondering how good it might have been if a real publisher with a competent editorial staff had brought it out, and not the incompetents at White Mane.

As stated in a previous post, the Second Battle of Winchester still has not had a definitive treatment, and continues to cry out for one.

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Susan and I are particularly fond of Asian food. We have a favorite Chinese restaurant that we frequent. The couple who own the restaurant are from Taiwan, and they’re very nice folks. Tonight, after spending seven hours in the car, we decided to go there for dinner.

The owner’s daughter waited on us. She was born here in the United States, but she’s a very quiet, studious sort of girl. She just finished her first quarter of college. While we were ordering dinner, her mother, who also works at the restaurant hurried over to the table and informed us that she had told her daughter that I was an expert on the Battle of Gettysburg. I said that I knew a little bit about it.

It turns out that the daughter, who’s probably still 18 years old, recently went on a camping trip to Gettysburg, and she toured the battlefield for the first time. She indicated that she really loved it, that she found it fascinating, and, when I pressed her, she told me that Devil’s Den was her favorite part of the battlefield. Specifically, she said, “Devil’s Den is just awesome.”

Needless to say, I was astounded by this. This young woman of Taiwanese descent–she’s first generation American–and who’s a studious sort who is considering being a chemistry major, is into Gettysburg! We ended up having a chat about the battle and what was so fascinating about it.

Our NHL team, the Columbus Blue Jackets, just hired a new head coach, Ken Hitchcock. Hitchcock–a Canadian–has won a Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars, and was brought in to bring some discipline and to teach the many very young players on the Blue Jackets how to be successful NHL players. His hiring has met with nearly universal approval among the loyal but greatly unhappy fans of this team.

It turns out that Hitchcock is a Civil War buff. He has a long-standing and well-documented interest in the Late Unpleasantness. That is, of course, appropriate for a team named to honor Ohio’s contributions to the Civil War, and whose logo features a Civil War-style kepi. As a season ticket holder from the beginning of the franchise, this pleases me a great deal.

I never cease to be amazed at how pervasive the interest in the Civil War is, and am likewise amazed at the unlikely places where I find that interest. I can only hope it keeps up.

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After a Thanksgiving trip to visit my parents in Reading, PA, Susan and I returned home this afternoon. We were supposed to be gone until tomorrow, but decided that a day to relax prior to her surgery was important, so we left a day early.

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving Day and that all overdosed on tryptophan.

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