Civil War books and authors

Benjamin F. Cooling, who has written two very good books on Early’s Raid on Washington, left the following comment on my blog this morning:

Am curious – why do you think the project is worth doing – your seventeen page bibliography suggests that it has been done over and over and over. Even I am postholing Fort Stevens and a new biography of Wallace looms with Gary Gallagher presumably still working his Early biography. Fred Ray has done the sharpshooters, the Ohio 100 dayers story has been done. The arcane and obscure belong to the NPS on site for their interpretation and Ed Bearss gave them a good basis awhile ago – his flock publishing the government study. So, what gives with your curiosity?

While I think the tone of the question left a bit to be desired, it’s a valid question. Let me begin by saying that I completely understand being territorial about a topic, and Dr. Cooling has done a great deal of work on these topics. Consequently, I can appreciate his being territorial about it. Having said that, though, just because one has done work on a topic doesn’t make it one’s exclusive territory.

J. D. responded thusly:

Mr. Cooling,

Honored to hear from you! Well, to be quite honest, it’s often been said that Jeb Stuart’s ride to Gettysburg, and the retreat from Gettysburg, had been told and done to death.

Regardless, when we began gathering sources for each of those stories, they began to shape the events much more fully than before. In the event of Jeb’s ride, we began developing a perspective on his decision-making that hadn’t yet been explored. And previously there had been precious little ever put together on the fights at Fairfax Court House or the shelling of Carlisle. We discovered a good amount of material on the battle of Hanover that completely changed the interpretation of it. And a mountain of primary source never used in telling the fight at Hunterstown came to us. No book had ever fully told the story of the resulting controversy of Stuart’s ride and performance until our 3 chapters on the subject.

Our book on the Gettysburg Retreat developed the same way – Brown’s masterful study didn’t fully tell the story of the 22 fights and skirmishes from July 4 – 14, and no book yet fully explored Meade’s decision-making.

In the case of Jube’s Raid, we have combed all present and past works, including your own, and we determined to put our twist on it – telling the narrative in the context of all else that was taking place. There is yet much to be said about the Johnson-Gilmor Raid, and the fight at Ft. Stevens still hasn’t received a modern study. Judging by the amount of material we’ve gathered, we see the door open to tell this story just as we explored Jeb’s ride and the Gettysburg retreat. We are building on the wonderful work you and others have done, to lay the groundwork for such a study as ours.

I think I speak for Eric as well when I say we’d be honored if you would be involved as we work through the project, and give us your thoughts and critique as we get closer to putting it together.

Best regards,
J.D. Petruzzi

J.D.’s points are valid. Who says that more books about Pickett’s Charge are needed? But yet, they keep coming. The reason why is because the author obviously believes that he or she has something worthy of adding. Given the fact that there are very few campaigns or battles that have not been written about, using Dr. Cooling’s logic, no new Civil War books would ever be published. Clearly, that’s not the case.

We’re pursuing this project because we think we have something worthy to add. With all due respect to Dr. Cooling’s work, we’ve already turned up a number of sources that he never used–and which have never been used in any other published treatment of the battle–and those new sources add to and help to evolve the interpretation. Many of them deal with the stand by the 100 days men, and I disagree with Dr. Cooling’s assessment that what there is to be done with their fight has been written.

We’re likewise pursuing this project because we believe that we bring a certain amount of credibility to our tactical studies, and we believe that we can, and will, produce a book that will not only be different from Dr. Cooling’s but which will add to the body of knowledge by incorporating sources that he did not use. By just one example, we have located a set of papers formerly belonging to Lt. George Davis, of the 10th Vermont Infantry, who was awarded a Medal of Honor for his valor at Monocacy, that have never been used in any other published treatment of the battle by any other author. We will be using this material, which includes post-war correspondence with many officers engaged in the battle including brigade and division commanders.

Similarly, I have never seen any evidence that Davis’ Medal of Honor file from the National Archives has ever been used, or that the file of the other winner of the Medal (also from the 10th Vermont) has been used in any treatment of the battle. We’ve already made arrangements to obtain copies of those files, and will make use of them in our work.

Those are just a couple of examples. So, the answer is that while J. D. and I both have a great deal of respect for the work that Dr. Cooling has done in the past, he does not “own” this battle, and it does not mean that there isn’t room for a new and different treatment of these events.

And, to answer the question posed at the end of Dr. Cooling’s comment, I have maintained a fascination with these events since my first visit to the Monocacy battlefield in 1992 (and which prompted me to purchase Dr. Cooling’s first book on the raid since there was no interpretation on the battlefield other than the monuments placed by the veterans), and this project is a natural extension of that long-standing fascination.

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On July 11, 1864, Confederate staff officer Charles Blackford wrote to his wife,

The sinking of the Alabama gives us great concern, and we are very anxious to hear from Early. I fear he has undertaken more than he can do with his small force, and he is likely to come to grief.”

From that, J. D. came up with a great title for our project, which I unveil here:

Likely to Come to Grief: Jubal Early’s Washington Raid, the Battle of Monocacy, the Johnson-Gilmor Raid, and the Fight at Fort Stevens

I like it.

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I wanted to introduce some of you to one of my favorite niche publishers, Tony O’Connor’s Vermont Civil War Enterprises. Tony lives in Newport, Vermont, and has created a nifty little niche for his business. Tony publishes books only on Vermont’s contributions to the Civil War.

Tony produces a really high quality book. Some are leather bound, and others are well bound in fabric with gold lettering. His offerings run the gamut from replica reprints of long out of print works, such as regimental histories and the reports of the Reunion Society of Vermont Officers to new works, such as a very nice regimental history of the 3rd Vermont Infantry of the Old Vermont Brigade. The books are not inexpensive, but they’re high quality and they’re definitely worth owning.

If Vermont’s contributions to the Civil War are of interest to you, then Tony O’Connor’s website is definitely a place for you to visit and for you to indulge your book addiction.

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Having decided that we were going to take on the Monocacy project, I’ve immersed myself into the process of gathering research ideas and sources so as to develop our research strategy. Doing so is not only wise, it saves a lot of aggravation because we lay out a roadmap and then follow it to its conclusion. Of course, things always turn up unexpectedly and have to be dealt with, but for the most part, we try to stick to the plan.

Today, I spent some time going through the reference bibliographies of the U. S. Army’s Heritage Collection Online, looking for sources to use in the course of researching the Monocacy project. As I made my way through the many Virginia regiments that made up Early’s army, I noted that one of the available sources was through a self-publishing venue called Lulu.com. There are others, but Lulu is the only one of these companies that I have ever used.

Lulu provides an opportunity for authors to self-publish their work without having to incur the cost of printing, etc., as Lulu is a print-on-demand publisher (“POD”). The company charges nothing for the actual publishing of the work since it’s all POD. The company charges $100 for a POD author to use the company’s distribution network, which is pretty much limited to the Lulu.com website. Editorial services are available for a fee, but my guess is that a lot of things get published there without the benefit of an editor’s services. You lay out your own work by following the templates that they recommend, send a PDF, and voila: you’re a published author.

Clearly, there is nothing like peer review of the work. Nobody vets this stuff to see whether it is historically accurate, or whether it’s worthy of publication. Companies like Lulu.com certainly democratize the publishing process, but, at the same time, they water it down by allowing anything to get into print irrespective of whether it’s worthy of publication. Personally, I find it difficult to take Lulu.com’s offerings seriously just for that reason. I guess it takes a case-by-case assessment to determine whether something is worthy or not. The particular volume that I was contemplating today is a set of soldier letters, so I have to imagine it might be worth investing in, simply because it’s difficult to screw up the transcription of someone else’s written words. However, I would have to think long and hard about one of their titles if it involved interpretation and analysis because I would not have any confidence that the work was reliable.

In fairness, Lulu.com does offer one extremely valuable service, and it’s one that I have utilized. For those willing to do the work to scan a public domain work that’s long out of print, Lulu.com’s POD model makes it possible to bring back books that otherwise would not pay to bother with. Virtually the entire catalog of Twin Commonwealths Publishers is done this way. The owners of Twin Commonwealths have scanned any number of extremely rare out-of-print works and made them available for purchase through Lulu.com’s POD model. I’ve purchased a couple of them, and they’re worth owning. For that sort of application, I can recommend the likes of Lulu.com.

Also, something like Lulu.com might be a fabulous way to keep the H. E. Howard Virginia Regimentals Series alive. It would make the books readily available to anyone who wanted them, but would not require the publisher to maintain any inventory. It seems to me that this would be a win-win resolution. I wonder if anyone has discussed this option with Harold Howard…..

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In the 1980’s, a publisher from Lynchburg, Virginia named Harold Howard undertook a magnificent–and pretty much unparalleled–project when he decided to publish a history of EVERY regiment, battalion, or battery fielded by the Commonwealth of Virginia during the Civil War. The scope of the project is really pretty staggering. The series itself is a mixed bag. The books are of mixed quality. Some are definitely better than others, and some are really bad. Fortunately, they were always very affordable, with many of the volumes priced at $19.95.

There are a number of gripes that spread across the spectrum of the series. The production values are inconsistent at best. There is almost no detail in the history section of each book, and there are no footnotes. As research resources, they leave a great deal to be desired. Few of the maps are original, and most of them appear in more than one volume. They contain very little detail. The duplication of photos is pretty shoddy–they’re universally very dark and often hard to make out.

The best aspect of the series is that each volume contains a complete regimental roster, and those rosters often contain extremely useful information. I don’t know this specifically, but I’ve heard this several times from several sources, which is that the information contained in these regimental rosters came from the extensive files accumulated by Bob Krick.

In spite of everything, the series is unique–there is nothing else like it. Overall, the series is useful and has been a worthy addition to the body of knowledge.

Today, in corresponding with Clayton Thompson, one of the booksellers I regularly deal with, I learned that Mr. Howard has allowed nearly 60 of the titles in the series to go out of print, and that many of the remaining titles are in very low stock. In short, the series will be extinct before much longer. For those who are interested in adding volumes from the series to your libraries, I highly recommend that you move quickly to do so.

Personally, I think it’s sad. As I said, it was a unique and groundbreaking series that has added a lot to the body of knowledge, and I hate to see it drift away.

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For years and years, there was only one full-length biography of Wade Hampton, written in the 1940’s by Manly Wade Wellman titled Giant in Gray: A Biography of Wade Hampton of South Carolina. Although it was an early biography and clearly biased toward the Southern perspective, it nevertheless gave full coverage to both Hampton’s military career during the Civil War as well as his long-running post-war political career. This book’s weaknesses are its obvious lack of objectivity, and its failure to take advantage of unpublished manuscript material.

The last few years have seen a sudden explosion of new biographies of Hampton. The first one, by Ed Longacre, is titled Gentleman and Soldier: A Biography of Wade Hampton, III. Longacre’s biography, published in 2003, provides the best coverage of Hampton’s military service of any of the books. It’s well written and well-researched (I gave Ed some material for the project). Its coverage of Hampton’s political career is not as strong, which is this book’s weakness. The second one, by Walter Brian Cisco, titled Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman, was published in 2004. Like Wellman, Cisco is a Southerner, and his book is a bit controversial. It has some focus on Hampton’s military career, but its primary focus is Hampton’s political career, examined in exhaustive detail. Unfortunately, Cisco is a Southern apologist, and his book’s most significant flaw is that it fails to recognize any of Hampton’s human foibles (note: I reviewed the manuscript when the publisher was deciding whether to accept it for publication and blurbed it on the dust jacket, something that I now regret a bit, as I have since learned that there are inaccuracies in it). In short, if you combined the strengths of Longacre’s book and the strengths of Cisco’s book, you would have the perfect biography of Hampton.

Robert K. Ackerman, a retired history professor, is the latest to pitch into the fray. His new biography of Hampton, published by Hampton’s alma mater, the University of South Carolina Press, earlier this year, is titled simply Wade Hampton, III. This book has the advantage of having been written by a trained, seasoned academic historian, and it reads well. The problem with Ackerman’s book is that its coverage of Hampton’s military career is superficial at best. In a 340 page book, only about 30 pages are devoted to Hampton’s Civil War career, and the rest to his political career. The coverage of the Battle of Trevilian Station, Hampton’s finest moment in command of the Army of Northern Virginia’s Cavalry Corps, gets three sentences. There is not a single map to be found anywhere in the discussion of Hampton’s Civil War service, and no detail to speak of, either. Although it does address the impact of the combat deaths of Hampton’s son and brother on the general, it doesn’t give any detail upon which to evaluate the impact Hampton had on the Confederacy; arguably, Hampton’s victory at Trevilian Station bought the Confederacy another eight months of life, but there is no mention of this to be found.

The good news is that this book does provide the most fair and balanced coverage of Hampton’s post-war political career yet written. As just one example, it provides the best discussion of the falling out between Hampton and one of his erstwhile followers, Martin W. Gary, of the four published books. It also gives some of the best coverage and discussion of the relationship between Wade Hampton and his true protege, Matthew C. Butler. For that, it is worthwhile. However, I find it interesting that, unlike the other three published biographies of Hampton, the choice of cover art for the book is not Hampton as soldier, but rather a painting of Hampton in very old age. That probably says more about this book than anything else.

Thus, the door remains wide open for the definitive biography of Wade Hampton. Fortunately, there is one yet to be published in this barrage of Hamptonmania. Prof. Rod Andrew, Jr. of Clemson University has his book, Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer, due out next. Rod’s book will be published by the University of North Carolina Press next April. I gave Rod a fair amount of material for use in his book and also spent some time discussing things with him while he was writing it. Knowing the biography series published by the University of North Carolina’s Press, I am very hopeful that Rod’s book–the last of the four–will end up being the most comprehensive of all and will give both aspects of Hampton’s life the coverage that they deserve.

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Well, you’ve heard me talk about the retreat book plenty here. Sorry to keep banging away at it, but the book now has an official write-up on Amazon.com and on the distributor’s web site. Here is the write-up:

ONE CONTINUOUS FIGHT
The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863
Eric J. Wittenberg, J. David Petruzzi, & Michael F. Nugent

A long time student of the Gettysburg Campaign, Michael Nugent is a retired US Army Armored Cavalry Officer and the descendant of a Civil War Cavalry soldier. He has previously written for several military publications. Nugent lives in Wells, Maine.

Ted Savas writes a pretty good book description. 🙂

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This past summer, I helped to lead a tour of the Overland Campaign with Gordon Rhea and Bobby Krick. As a consequence of writing my study of Sheridan’s second raid and the Battle of Trevilian Station, I learned a great deal about cavalry operations during the Overland Campaign. I’ve continued to study those actions and to learn more as I go.

While out walking the fields with Gordon and Bobby, and, in particular, while visiting the battlefield at Cold Harbor, I had a bit of a revelation, and that revelation serves as the cornerstone of my book idea. The combination of terrain features and technological advances meant that cavalry tactics had to change dramatically, because the terrain covered by the Overland Campaign most assuredly was not amenable to classic mounted operations. Further, the firepower of the 7-shot Spencer carbine (and the few Henry rifles scattered throughout the Union cavalry) meant that cavalry tactics had to evolve, often on the fly.

Nowhere is that process of evolution more obvious than it was during the period between May 26 and June 3, 1864. The Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps, just back from the May Richmond raid, fought hard, grinding fights almost every day, usually fighting dismounted. This period included the Battles of Haw’s Shop, Old Church, and Matadequin Creek, were later remembered by many veterans as some of the most difficult of the war. The high point of this period occurred on June 1, when Sheridan’s horse soldiers seized and held the critical road junction at Cold Harbor, withstanding heavy attacks by Maj. Gen. Robert Hoke’s Confederate infantry division. The superior firepower of the Spencers made it possible for the outnumbered Federal horsemen to hold that crucial position long enough for reinforcements to come up and relieve them.

This period also marked the ascendance of Wade Hampton to command of the Army of Northern Virginia’s Cavalry Corps. Hampton lacked the sense of fun demonstrated by his late predecessor, Jeb Stuart, but the big South Carolinian was the right man in the right place. Hampton demonstrated tactical genius, as demonstrated by the whipping he administered to Sheridan at Trevilians. I’m not persuaded that Stuart could have made the changes necessary to counter the evolving tactics, whereas Hampton was uniquely qualified for that role, and he filled it very effectively.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a tactical study of these actions will demonstrate the evolution of dismounted cavalry tactics in a way that has never been done previously. Both Gordon and Bobby agreed with me, and I’ve been chewing on doing this as a book length study since. I think i’ve decided to to tackle the project, and will put it on my list. It should be an interesting one. I’ve spent a fair amount of time at Haw’s Shop and Cold Harbor, but I’ve never done anything more than drive by the Matadequin Creek and Old Church battlefields, so I will need to spend some time there. Bobby’s already agreed to show me around, and I will definitely take him up on it.

Stay tuned.

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Ted Savas is working on our retreat manuscript, getting it ready for publication. Apparently, superscripts wig out his software. Unfortunately, Word takes things like 2nd and makes the “nd” a superscript. We had to get rid of all of those superscripts for Ted. JD took the first cut at the 1200 or so endnotes and more than 800 entries of the bibliography, and I just finished taking the second run at them. It’s mind-numbing, dull work, but it’s stuff that has to be done. It took me the better part of two hours to get through all of it, but I did.

This is the sort of formatting work that I really and truly hate to do. It’s right up there with doing an index on my list of things I hate to do, but it has to be done, and it had to be done early in order to avoid any delays in what is already a short production timetable to get this book out in May.

The best part about it is that the job is now finished. 🙂

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Having finished the retreat book–I sent the illustrations and some of the maps to Ted Savas on Thursday, and JD sent the rest out the same day–and having finished the Dahlgren book and found a home for it, I’m regularly being asked what next?

I thought I would take a moment to answer the question. First, and foremost, I have a couple of articles to finish up. We’re doing an article on Monterey Pass for next year’s Gettysburg edition of Blue and Gray magazine, and we’re also wrapping up an article on Lt. Col. Benjamin Franklin Carter of the 4th Texas Infantry, who was mortally wounded during the fighting for Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, and who then had quite an ordeal. That article will be submitted to Gettysburg Magazine. Finally, I need to finish the article on Capt. William H. Boyd of the 1st New York (Lincoln) Cavalry for Gettysburg Magazine that I started earlier this year and then set aside to finish up these other projects.

When those are done, which should be shortly, I then have a project under contract with Westholme Publishing for a tactical study of John Hunt Morgan’s great Indiana and Ohio raid of 1863. The research is pretty much done, but I have one more battlefield to visit. I’ve driven the entire Ohio route, and have walked the Buffington Island battlefield several times.

Finally, JD and I have our three-volume study of cavalry operations in the Gettysburg Campaign to assemble.

I’d have to say that that’s enough to keep me busy for a while…..

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