Research and Writing

Dana B. Shoaf is the editor of both America’s Civil War and Civil War Times, and he faces a big task. First, and foremost, it’s a big challenge to find sufficient quality content to fill 12 issues per year of two different magazines. Second, the two magazines have slightly different focuses.

The biggest challenge he faces is finding material that will appeal to the masses but which maintains some scholarly credibility. Dana recently gave a talk on the subject. From yesterday’s issue of the Hagerstown Herald Mail newspaper:

Historian: Articles should appeal to masses

By ERIN CUNNINGHAM
APRIL 20, 2009
erinc@herald-mail.com
HAGERSTOWN — What do Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Sex Pistols have to do with the Civil War?

Not much, but to Dana Shoaf, editor of the Civil War Times and America’s Civil War magazines, their stories are connected to the history magazine business.

Shoaf told an audience of about 30 Monday at Hagerstown Community College’s Kepler Theater that the brothers who created the Mr. Olympia contest — which Schwarzenegger won seven times — bought the publishing group that owns Civil War Times and other magazines three years ago after selling their weight-lifting magazines for $250 million.

Shoaf also told the crowd gathered Monday for HCC’s annual Kreykenbohm lecture series that the touring philosophy of the Sex Pistols, an English punk rock band that formed in the 1970s, held some lessons for what he said was the need for history magazines to reach a broader audience.

The Sex Pistols began touring in dive bars in the deep South that typically catered to a country-western crowd, instead of their usual punk bars. The Southern audiences often threw bottles at the band.

Shoaf said the band’s philosophy was, “You must go where you need to to convert the masses.”

That is what Shoaf argued for during his talk Monday, titled, “When Worlds Collide: The Problems of Academics and Popular Civil War Magazines.”

“The problem with academic historians is they are not reaching a wide popular audience,” Shoaf said.

He said there is a need for factual, well-researched historical articles that are moderately priced and appeal to the masses.

Shoaf said that in his business, people often are reluctant to read social history because they think it is boring. They want articles about battles, but Shoaf said they like social history if they aren’t aware that’s what they are reading.

He gave an example of an article on the depiction of Abraham Lincoln’s face by the press.

“At first it was unflattering, but over time, as the war went on, the depictions became more realistic as people gained more respect for him,” Shoaf said. “That’s social history.”

Shoaf has taught American history at HCC and Northern Virginia Community College, worked for Time Life as a writer and researcher, and published a number of articles and book reviews about the Civil War, according to Joan Johnson, HCC’s chair of English and Humanities. Shoaf also is a board member of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation.

Dana’s point, I think, is well taken. A few years before the magazine group was sold to the Weiders, the prior owner, Primedia, tried out a very well-respected scholarly journal called Columbiad, but nobody bought it, and it quickly died. It was the closest thing to a purely academic journal available generally. North & South magazine tries to cross into both realms, as it offers a mass appeal presentation, but includes more scholarly pieces and includes footnotes with its articles. North & South, however, is very poorly run and only appears sporadically any more. Thus, Dana’s publications are the only ones available regularly, and while he does a great job with them, I do wish that they included footnotes. I think it would lend a little more credibility, but management steadfastly refuses to include them.

This is, of course, nitpicking. Dana does a great job, and I don’t envy him the task of running two mass-market magazines at once. Keep up the good work, Dana.

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I haven’t said anything about this publicly, because I wasn’t sure precisely what I was going to do with it. One thing I’ve learned about myself is that the best way for me to REALLY learn something is to research and write about it. Last year, after leading a tour of the Battles of Kelly’s Ford and Brandy Station for a busload, I realized that I didn’t know Brandy Station quite as well as I wanted. Consequently, I decided to do some more research on Brandy Station and to write about it in more detail than I’ve ever done previously.

My book The Union Cavalry Comes of Age: Hartwood Church to Brandy Station, 1863 contains three chapters, totaling about 21,000 words, on the Battle of Brandy Station. It provided me with a good starting point, so I decided to expand on it and turn it into something more substantial. After several months of work, I’ve now got about 65,000 words on the Battle of Brandy Station. I’ve actually been working on this on and off since September or so, although it hasn’t been much at all recently because of the completion of the baseball project.

The idea is to do something very similar to my book Protecting the Flank: The Battles for Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field, Battle of Gettysburg, July 2-3, 1863. That book contains a 65,000 word tactical treatment, lots of maps and illustrations, and a detailed walking/driving tour. Steve Stanley, the superb master cartographer who does the maps for the Civil War Preservation Trust, has, with the blessing of the CWPT, given me permission to use his excellent maps of the battle in the book.

What this project is NOT intended to be is the definitive work on the Battle of Brandy Station. My friend and mentor Clark “Bud” Hall has been working on that for a long time, and what I’m doing is not intended to compete with what Bud’s doing. If anything, I hope that what I’m doing will whet readers’ whistles for Bud’s project, which is nearing conclusion. Indeed, I intend to steer readers to Bud’s book. I’m hoping to donate at a portion of the royalties/proceeds to the Brandy Station Foundation for a fundraiser, and I expect that it will be sold in the BSF’s little gift shop at the Graffiti House so that the BSF can garner the profits from the sales of the book.

Bud’s reviewing the manuscript for me now, and I have yet to put together the tour. I’m planning on doing that this spring when I go to visit Bud in Virginia. Since it’s been so well received with One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863, I intend to include GPS coordinates in the tour. The problem is that a significant portion of the Brandy Station battlefield remains in private hands and is not generally accessible to the public, which means that I will only be able to include a partial tour.

The thing should be finished in the next couple of months. I need to find a publisher for it. It would be a natural for Ironclad Publishing’s Discovering Civil War America Series, but we’re already backed up by four books, and with the publishing business being the way it is at the moment, it’s going to be quite a while before we could publish it. I also don’t want to use Ironclad as my own vanity press. Consequently, I am looking for a publisher for this work, and I welcome any suggestions that any of you care to make. Please feel free to pass on any suggestions.

In the meantime, I will keep everyone posted as to the progress of the completion of the project and the hunt for a publisher.

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As Michael has pointed out, the working draft of the baseball book is finished. We now have a complete draft finished. It’s 385 pages and almost 190,000 words in length. We had a great time putting it together, and now it’s time to find a publisher for it, which we’re getting ready to begin doing. I’m just tickled that it’s finally done.

And it also means that I can get back to my normal routine and resume regular posting about the Civil War.

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The primary reason for the lack of posts the past couple of weeks has been my being tied up finishing up my portion of the baseball project. I’ve been working hard at finishing up the last six team profiles, and now have four of those last six finished. I’ve got two to go, and then the manuscript is finished. I have yet to tackle the 1991 Cleveland Indians and the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who lost 119 games and then went to the World Series three years later.

Along the way, I’ve discovered some nifty trivia that made its way into the book. Try this one on for size. On August 18, 1960, right handed pitcher Lew Burdette, who was a very effective major league pitcher for 22 years and who won more than 200 games in the majors, threw a no-hitter against the Phillies, 1-0. Burdette, then pitching for the Milwaukee Braves, scored the game’s only run. He won 19 games that season. Twenty-eight days later, on September 16, Braves ace Warren Spahn, probably the greatest left handed pitcher to ever toe the rubber, no-hit the Phillies again, winning 4-0 with 15 strikeouts. It was Spahn’s 20th win of the season.

Thus, two different Milwaukee Braves pitchers twirled no-hitters against the Phillies 28 days apart. It had never happened before, and it hasn’t happened since. I found this nifty little tidbit last week, while doing some digging for material on the Boston Braves.

Anyway, this sort of thing is what’s been keeping me occupied. As soon as I finish up the Indians and the Tigers, the manuscript is complete. At last. I expect to finish up this week for sure.

Once it’s done, I should resume more regular posting. In the meantime, please hang in there with me.

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J.D. has an excellent post on his blog today titled “The Forest From the Trees”, which does the best job of explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing with our trilogy on the Gettysburg Campaign I’ve yet seen, my own words included. I commend it to you.

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Since J. D. let the cat out of the bag by describing our next book on the Gettysburg Discussion Group today, I might as well announce it here.

We’ve decided to push back the Monocacy study a bit in order to complete our trilogy on the Gettysburg Campaign. As one reviewer of One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863 properly noted, the Gettysburg Campaign really didn’t end until the armies returned to the Rappahannock River and the positions that they occupied before Lee’s advance in June 1863. We addressed the period from July 14-31, 1863 in a very cursory and very brief overview in the epilogue to One Continuous Fight.

We have decided to go ahead and do a book-length sequel to One Continuous Fight that covers this period in detail for the first time. Actions covered will include David M. Gregg’s cavalry fight at Harpers Ferry on July 15, the cavalry fight at Manassas Gap/Wapping Heights on July 18, 1863, the large-scale infantry engagement at Wapping Heights between three corps of the Army of the Potomac’s foot soldiers and the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, the pursuit through the Loudoun Valley, following the same route as that used by George B. McClellan in November 1862, and coverage of the August 1 cavalry fight at Brandy Station. So far as I can tell, none of these actions have ever enjoyed any sort of a detailed treatment. Hence, it appears that we’re going to be plowing new ground again here.

Our purpose in doing this book is to disprove, for once and for all, the myth that George G. Meade was passive and lacked vigor in his pursuit of Lee. In fact, once Lee’s army got across the Potomac, Meade became hyper-aggressive, so much so that Halleck eventually had to order Meade NOT to attack and to hold his position once the draw-down of force to put down the New York draft riots began. We will show, once and for all, that Meade’s pursuit was aggressive but yet prudent, and that Lee’s masterful handling of the retreat of his army is really the factor that prevented Meade from bringing him to bay in a decisive battle on ground of Meade’s choosing.

The working title is For Want of a Nail: The Retreat and Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 15-August 1, 1863, and this book, like the rest of the trilogy, will be published by Savas Beatie. Phil Laino (who does the excellent maps that appear in Gettysburg Magazine) will be doing our maps this time, and we will again feature a driving tour with GPS coordinates. Once it’s complete, we will then tackle the book on Early’s 1864 raid on Washington, D.C.

We will keep you posted as to progress.

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This evening, I have posted a new article here on the site. The article deals with one of my favorite figures of the American Civil War, David Frakes Day, Medal of Honor winner, fearless scout, and scoundrel. I first discovered Day while researching and writing my book The Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads and the Civil War’s Last Campaign, and became fascinated by his story. This article was originally written for publication, but I’ve instead decided to post it here. Enjoy.

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Those of you who read this blog regularly know how much I love baseball, and you also know how much I love the Philadelphia Phillies.

As some of you may know, Michael Aubrecht and I are working on bringing to fruition an idea for a book on baseball that I cooked up in 1974, when I was 13. I came up with the idea of doing a study of the worst teams in the history of Major League Baseball, which I wanted to call The Losers. I picked out some teams and thought it would be fun to do the research for a project like this. I even wrote a letter to Joe Garagiola, then a star announcer for NBC, asking for permission to quote from his book, Baseball Is a Funny Game. I still have his letter denying me that permission tucked inside an album full of sports autographs I’ve had since childhood.

I wanted my project to be celebration of the very worst teams in the history of Major League Baseball, a lighthearted look at the worst that the National Pastime has had to offer. My problem was that I was only 13 years old when I came up with this concept, and I had absolutely no idea what was involved in researching and writing a book like this.

Consequently, I stored this idea away years ago, never figuring I would ever get a chance to do anything about it. I just didn’t have the resources or knowledge how to do that sort of research, and I always had other projects. I continued to harbor the hope that I might someday find a way to bring the project to fruition, but with each passing year, the likelihood of doing so grew less and less.

I met Michael Aubrecht as a consequence of our mutual interest in the American Civil War. I knew that Michael had done a great deal of writing on baseball over the years for Baseball Almanac, and I also knew that he knew how to do this sort of research. In the course of a few exchanges of e-mails some months ago, I mentioned my idea for a study of the worst that Major League Baseball had to offer to Michael, who fell in love with the concept once he learned more about it. That clinched it. After further discussion, we decided to find a way to bring my long-dormant dream to fruition.

Here’s a taste of the project. This is a piece that I wrote for the book on the 1930 Philadelphia Phillies, which was one of the teams that I identified in 1974:

The Philadelphia Phillies called tiny Baker Bowl home during the 1930’s. The little stadium featured tin-covered outfield fences, meaning that baseballs rebounded off them with a loud “boom”. The tiny bandbox featured a right field fence that loomed only 272 feet away from home plate, meaning that it was a hitter’s paradise. A routine pop fly would end up a home run in the nearby right field stands. And the 1930 Phillies could hit. They took advantage of new baseball that featured a hitter-friendly resilient core and flatter seams. Featuring future Hall of Fame leftfielder Chuck Klein, the 1930 Phils posted a team batting average of .315. Every regular position player on the team hit at least .282 that season.

Klein had a monster year. He hit .386, with 250 base hits, including 59 doubles and 40 homers. He scored 158 runs and drove in a staggering 170. Right fielder Lefty O’Doul, a failed pitcher who had been converted to the outfield, nearly matched him. O’Doul hit .383, with 202 hits, 37 doubles, and 22 homers. He scored 122 runs and drove in 97. Third baseman Pinky Whitney hit .342 with 207 hits and 117 RBI’s. The team scored 944 runs and just pounded the ball all over their friendly little ball park. This Phillies team set franchise records for hits, singles, doubles, total bases, runs, and runs batted in, all of which still stand, nearly 80 years later.

With that kind of offense, one would think that the Phils would have won the National League. Wrong. This team posted a 52-102 record and finished dead last. Why? Because opposing teams hit a staggering .350 against what has to be the worst pitching staff in the history of Major League Baseball. The team ERA was an incredible 6.71. The Phillies also made matters much worse by leading the National League with 239 errors, 23 more than the next worse fielding team. The wretched pitching and awful fielding combined for a total of 1,199 runs being scored against the Phillies that year, a record for wretchedness that stands to this day. The Phightin’ Phils would regularly score 10 runs a game and still lose.

“Fidgety Phil” Collins was the only member of the pitching staff to have a decent season, posting a 16-11 record and an ERA of 4.78. The right-hander was the only hurler with an ERA less than 5.0. Supporting him was righty Claude Willoughby, who went 4-17 with a ghastly ERA of 7.59. Willoughby gave up a staggering 241 hits in only 153 innings. Southpaw Les Sweetland posted a 7-15 record with an ERA of 7.71. He surrendered 271 hits in 160 innings. Right-hander Ray Benge went 11-15 with a 5.70 ERA. Righty starter Hap Collard was 6-12 and 6.80, and right handed relief pitcher Hal Elliott was 6-11 with a 7.67 ERA, meaning that he gave up least one run in every relief appearance that season.

Even Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, one of the greatest pitchers to ever toe the rubber, put up terrible numbers in his final major league season. Alexander, who had gone 31-10 with a 1.22 ERA for the National League champion 1915 Phillies, was now 43 years old and clearly at the end of the line of a glorious career that featured a record of 373-208 and a guaranteed spot in the Hall of Fame. In 9 appearances in 1930, Alexander went 0-3, with an astronomical 9.14 ERA. The ancient righty gave up an unfathomable 40 hits in just 22 1/3 innings. He wisely retired after 19 years in the major leagues before further tainting his otherwise magnificent career.

It’s difficult to imagine a pitching staff much worse than the one employed by the 1930 Philadelphia Phillies, which proved, beyond doubt, that a winning team needs quality pitching and not just unlimited offense. Indeed, the incendiary 1930 Phillies staff richly deserves the hard-earned title of worst pitching staff in the history of Major League Baseball, establishing a record for wretchedness that will probably never be eclipsed.

I have to admit that I’m having an absolute blast working on this, and Michael is doing a great job with his portion. Michael has a taste of one of his contributions in his blog entry of December 3. Check it out. Here’s a link to a basic site that Michael designed to describe the project and to update on its status.

I think that the final product will be great fun to read. I will keep you posted as to its progress.

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Every once in a while, I get into a rut where I just don’t feel like writing, especially not writing something new. These spells come and go. They usually last a few months and then something comes along to shake me out of my malaise.

I seem to be deeply mired in one of those periods just now. I just can’t seem to be able to motivate myself to undertake writing anything new. The thought of the process of pulling this stuff together to construct a new narrative is very offputting at the moment. I think abut it, and I just don’t want to do it. I think that the fact that we haven’t had a vacation since May 2006 probably factors into this heavily. I’m tired and on the verge of being burned out, and I desperately need some down time.

Fortunately, I’m going to get that in about three weeks. Susan and I will be spending the first full week of October in the Outer Banks with some friends, and I suspect that I will end up with a much-needed attitude adjustment once we get there and I get away from the practice of law for a few days.

Hang in there with me. I’ll be back working on another book again soon. It’s just a question of when.

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Last week, I unexpectedly received an e-mail from a fellow named Paul Stokstad. Mr. Stokstad was writing to invite me to join Newspaper Archive.com, his employer. Let me say thank you to Mr. Stokstad for the free membership, which was most unexpected, but gratefully accepted.

I’ve had a chance to noodle about the site a bit and to do a few searches. There are thousands of old newspapers digitized here, meaning that this is an incredibly useful research tool for anyone interested in researching historical newspapers, as I often am. There are lots of really obscure papers here that are not available anywhere else, meaning that I will be able to tap resources that I’ve never accessed previously. I have to admit, though, that I was genuinely shocked that there is not a single Philadelphia newspaper available in the database, which was really surprising. With all of the really obscure papers available, you’d think that the newspapers of a major city would be there, but there’s not a single one available.

The site is user-friendly, and it has a powerful search engine. This is a site where I expect to spend a LOT of time over the coming months, and I commend it to you.

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