Civil War books and authors

The work I do serves two purposes. First, and foremost, it scratches my teaching itch. It’s how I fulfill my need to write, which is something of a compulsion.

It’s also intended to be something of a money-making venture. Now, I fully understand that my work is never, ever going to make any bestseller list. At the same time, doing the research, acquiring illustrations, and paying cartographers costs money. Sometimes, it costs a LOT of money. The upshot, therefore, is that I have to at least be able to break even in order for me to be able to justify the expenditure to Susan. In a perfect world, I even get to make some profit. Hopefully, I will be able to collect some decent money from the sales of the Stuart’s Ride book, which has sold very well.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to spur sales of my other titles. I’ve been talking to some web developer types about how to do just that. We’re slowly but surely coming up with some ideas about how to do this. It’s clear that I am going to have to spend some money to make some money, and I am not opposed to doing so if it appears that there will be a worthwhile rate of return for doing so.

Ultimately, there will be some changes coming to this particular web site. However, this blog will continue to exist no matter what and no matter what changes do occur. Please stay tuned.

In the interim, if anyone has any ideas about how best to drive sales of books, I will be more than happy to hear them. And thanks for your time and for continuing to indulge my rantings.

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I’ve long maintained a deep and abiding interest in Hubert “Leatherbreeches” Dilger. As a student of the Eleventh Corps, I’ve had a chance to study Dilger’s actions at both Chancellorsville and Gettysburg in some detail, and I’m convinced that there was probably no better company level artillery officer on either side during the Civil War than Dilger. Dilger’s stand in the Plank Road at Chancellorsville–just his six Napoleons against Jackson’s whole corps–is one of those wonderful stories that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Dilger was awarded a Medal of Honor for that stand, and rightly so.

He probably also should have been awarded one for his work at Gettysburg on the first day, also. His performance that day was just as spectacular. At one point, he personally sighted a gun, pulled the lanyard, and said, “I”ve spiked their gun for them.” The Confederate OR’s talk about how a Confederate gun on Oak Hill was put out of commission when it was struck on the muzzle by a Union artillery shell. That would have to be the shot fired by Dilger.

Legend also has it that Dilger fired the shot that tore Bishop Leonidas Polk apart on Pine Mountain during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. Some recent evidence suggests it wasn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Dilger did fire that shot–he was that good an artillerist.

After the war, Dilger settled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he raised a large family. One of his sons, Anton Dilger, although born in Virginia and a U. S. citizen, went to college and medical school in Germany. Anton spent an idyllic childhood on the family farm in Virginia. Like his father, Anton was a superb horseman. Anton Dilger, physician, U. S. citizen, and fiercely loyal to the Fatherland, became a useful tool. He was recruited by the German government and sent back to the U. S. to act as an agent provacateur.

Taking up residence a scant six miles from the White House, Anton Dilger’s task was to develop and implement a campaign of biological warfare against his own country. Specifically, he was sent to the United States to engage in germ warfare against his countrymen. His target would be the horses and cattle supplied to the Allied armies by the then-neutral United States, and Dilger set about cultivating anthrax bacteria and Pseudomonas mallei, the germ that causes glanders, a crippling equine disease. Fortunately, Dilger’s scheme failed and his plot was unsuccessful. He died of the Spanish flu at age 34 during the global pandemic of 1918.

Anton Dilger’s nefarious scheme has been documented in a new book by a journalist named Robert Koenig titled The Fourth Horseman: One Man’s Secret Campaign to Fight the Great War in America. I first learned about this book from a post on David Woodbury’s blog (thanks for making me aware of this book, David) and ran out and bought a copy. I’m working my way through it.

It’s really a fascinating read. Koenig focuses on German issues, and writes well. He made good use of surviving members of the Dilger family, and has done a good job of telling the story. His Civil War materials are not entirely accurate; he relied on a biography of Hubert Dilger written by one of Leatherbreeches’ great grandsons, and it’s not particularly accurate in its telling of the story of Dilger’s Civil War service. If you can get beyond that–and I highly recommend doing so–it’s a fabulous story and filled with lessons that have to be learned. That a foreign agent could do this kind of work–and nearly succeed–literally in the shadow of the White House is a terrifying prospect at best. And that the son of a true American hero–a Medal of Honor winner–could act as a saboteur for a foreign government is even more unfathomable.

I highly recommend this book. It’s filled with important but chilling lessons with an amazing connection to the Civil War.

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Yesterday, I got a call from JD, asking me if I had received a letter in yesterday’s mail accusing us of plagiarism of our work on the charge of the 1st Delaware Cavalry at Westminster, Maryland on June 29, 1863. Specifically, we were accused of plagiarising an unpublished manuscript on these events written by correspondent, submitted to the Carroll County, Maryland Historical Society, but never published by them. Neither JD nor I had ever even heard of the manuscript, let alone seeing it. In short, we’ve been accused of stealing from a manuscript we’ve never seen.

Neat trick, eh? I’ve often wished that I was good at mind-reading; I know my wife wishes I was a mind-reader when it comes to her. 🙂

However, it’s never been one of my talents, and try as I might, I am utterly unable to read long distance by osmosis–and take verbatim–pieces of a manuscript that I not only have never seen, but had never even heard of prior to reading this individual’s letter. The basis for the claim was our using the moniker “the John Burns of Westminster” to describe civilian Francis Shriver, who joined the 1st Delaware Cavalry in fighting Fitz Lee’s Virginians, and because we made use of several unpublished manuscript sources.

Well, a descendant of Shriver wrote a book about his family’s role in the Civil War that was published by Heritage Books of Westminster, Maryland, and we got that particular moniker from Shriver book. As for the unpublished manuscript sources, well, let’s see….there is a copy of one of them in the archives of the Gettysburg National Military Park, which is where we discovered it. I found another by doing a Google search and then having a friend go to the Winterthur Museum and Gardens in Delaware to go get the manuscript material for me, and the final material came from another published source.

So, here’s the deal: we got all of our sources from fair and legitimate sources. Neither JD nor I have ever even heard of this manuscript, let alone having seen it. It is, therefore, entirely impossible for us to have plagiarized something we’ve never even seen. Needless to say, receiving this letter really pissed us both off. We combined forces to draft a response that is firm, professional, but quite insistent that we did absolutely NOTHING wrong.

We’ve both come to the conclusion that this guy–who claims to have spent forty years researching these events–is really pissed that we stole his thunder by publishing a well-respected account of the episode and beat him to the punch. All I can say is that it’s not our fault that the Carroll County Historical Society elected not to publish his manuscript–and there must be a reason for that–and that he’s angry that someone else is getting the credit for conducting good scholarship and writing a good account that made its way into print. So, instead of accepting that he might have had something to do with his own failure, it must, therefore, be our fault and we must have plagiarized a manuscript we never saw to do so.

Needless to say, this really pisses me off. I guess it’s the price of doing this sort of work, doing it well, and stealing someone else’s thunder in the process.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s not my fault. Get over it.

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This afternoon, I had an e-mail from Bruce Franklin, the owner of Westholme Publishing, this afternoon regarding my Rush’s Lancers book. Bruce has been working hard at promoting the book, and has done a fine job of it so far. He gave me the best news of all so far today–the Pennsylvania Cable Network “PCN” wants to interview me about the Lancers for inclusion in their Pennsylvania Books program. The shows are one-hour long interviews with authors of books about Pennsylvania that air on Sunday nights.

It’s a real honor for my work to have been included in this series, and I’m very excited about the prospect of participating. In March, I will heading to PCN’s studios in Harrisburg, where I will film my hour-long interview. As the air date draws closer, I will advise those of you who can access PCN and who might have an interest in watching the program.

I think I might even wear a suit and tie for that one. 🙂

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Fellow barrister Jack Dempsey wrote this morning to ask me how to obtain a copy of the book from which I transcribed all of those reports on the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. I answered his question–Jack, I hadn’t realized you were a fellow member of the bar until you wrote–and then figured that I ought to share that information with all of you. Thanks for writing.

There is a company from Salem, Massachusetts called Higginson Books, which does print-on-demand (“POD”) reprints of local history books and genealogies. Several years ago, they also got into the business of doing POD reprints of rare regimental histories and memoirs. Higginson created a new division, called Ward House Books.

Ward House has a vast selection of regimental histories, including some that are EXTREMELY rare. Three examples will do. The history of the 8th New York Cavalry was written by Henry Norton, and it’s quite rare indeed. Ward House offers a POD reprint of it. I’ve only ever seen two copies of the regimental history of the 19th New York Cavalry, also known as the 1st New York Dragoons, and Ward House offers a reprint of it. The regimental history of the 6th New York Cavalry is one of the rarest of all, and Ward House offers it, too. At this point, I probably have something close to two dozen of the Ward House reprints.

The books themselves are well enough done, but they’re not going to win any beauty contests. From my perspective, that’s okay–I buy them to use them in my work, not for their pretty appearance. Ward House books have a no-frills cloth library-style binding, and the books are exact replica reprints of the originals, even including pencil marks, etc. The books are printed on acid-free paper, and are reasonably priced. Once or twice per year, Ward House has a major sale–25% off list prices–and, unless it’s something that I really need right then for my work, I usually wait for the sales to roll around to order books. Because the books are POD, it typically takes three weeks or so from the time an order is placed until the book ships, but it’s well worth it. It means that I now own copies of regimental histories that used to require a special trip to Carlisle to use.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Ward House’s replica reprints to anyone who’s interested in regimental histories, and I can likewise recommend Higginson’s local histories and genealogies to anyone interested in those topics, too.

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For those of you not familiar with the works of Roger D. Hunt, I thought I would take an opportunity to introduce you to some of the most valuable reference works on the Civil War out there.

Roger D. Hunt (along with his late friend and collaborator, Jack Brown) has specialized in compiling the biographies, necrology, and photographs of the Union brevet brigadier generals and regimental colonels. In the capacity, Roger has published three books to date. Each one of these books is one of the most useful resources in my library.

The first book was titled Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue, which is an alphabetical compilation of every Union brevet brigadier general. The book includes a brief biographical sketch of each officer, the date of his death and place of his burial, and for about 95% of them, a photograph.

When he finished that work, Roger started on an even more ambitious project: documenting the regimental commanders of every Union regiment. The series is titled Colonels in Blue: Union Army Colonels of the Civil War. To date, two volumes have been published. The first, published in 2001, covers the New England states. The second, devoted just to the regiments of the State of New York, was published in 2003. The books follow the same format as Brigadier Generals in Blue, with the primary difference being that there is often more than one photograph included for the regimental commanders being profiled. These two books were published by Schiffer Books. These two volumes are oversized, and were published on Baxter paper. My only real complaint with them is that they were expensive, at $59.95 per book.

However, Schiffer apparently decided that there is not a sufficient market for these books, because it’s not going to be publishing any more in the series. It’s too bad, because the volumes published to date are handsome, well-done books. Since it’s been several years since the second book was published, I assumed that there would be no more.

I spoke to Roger this evening, and he told me some very good news. Roger informed me that Stackpole Books will be publishing the next volume in the series, which will cover the Mid-Atlantic states, including my home state of Pennsylvania. I will eagerly await its publication.

Roger Hunt has done some spectacular work on these officers, and I commend his work to you. He’s also a real gentleman, someone who is always willing to help and who is always willing to share the fruits of his labors. I called him a couple of days ago to ask his assistance on tracking down some information on the ever-elusive Col. William H. Boyd of the 21st Pennsylvania Cavalry, and, as always, Roger responded promptly, and with precisely the information I was looking for.

It’s also worth noting that Roger has amassed an awesome collection of images, and that he has donated most–if not all–of them to the United States Army Military History Institute’s photographic archive. Many of these images are not available elsewhere, and have been made available to researchers like me through Roger’s generosity. I doubt that there are many good recent Civil War books out there that don’t include at least one of Roger’s photos. His photos grace the pages of many of my books.

In my humble opinion, no serious Civil War library should be without these books, and I cannot say enough good things about them.

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When I was working on my study of the fighting on East Cavalry Field at Gettysburg, I came across a tantalizing little tidbit. It has intrigued me for a long time, and it was, until last night, a source of great frustration for me.

If you look at the report of George A. Custer that’s included in volume 27 of the Official Records of the Civil War, it contains little useful information and is really only an itinerary of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. The same thing is true of the reports of the regimental commanders of Michigan Brigade. I think I know why. Custer’s personal possessions, including all of his papers, were captured at Trevilian Station in June 1864, and it’s possible that his actual report of the East Cavalry Field was lost.

Most of the regimental reports were actually published in an article by a correspondent of the New York Times named E. A. Paul in August 1863, and those can be found. However, it doesn’t appear that the portions published in Paul’s article are the entire reports, but rather pieces of them.

A teasing, tantalizing tidbit of a more detailed report can be found in an earlier biography of Custer, by Frederick Whittaker. It’s only a portion of this report, and there are no clues where the rest of it might be found. I spent several years searching for the thing, and had to content myself with the fragment when I did my study of East Cavalry Field. I published the fragment as an appendix to one of my two volumes of the writings of Bvt. Brig. Gen. James H. Kidd of the 6th Michigan Cavalry.

I actually gave up on finding the thing, and never figured I would find it. Until last night.

Last night, I was looking at some of my materials to cobble together one of my profiles of forgotten Union cavalrymen, and I pulled down the reprint of John Robertson’s Michigan in the War, a book published by the State of Michigan to commemorate its contributions to the Union victory in the Civil War. Each regiment and battery raised by Michigan has a brief history included in the book, and there is one for the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. When I looked at the entry for the Michigan Cavalry Brigade last night, what did I find? The full report by Custer, as well as the full reports of the commanders of the four regiments of the brigade. Never mind that I’ve owned a copy of this book for about five years. Never mind also that I’ve looked at parts of it extensively. I just never bothered to look at the section on the Michigan Brigade.

So, there it was, hiding right in front of my eyes, right there in my own library, just waiting to be found. It was, of course, totally fortuitous that I found it, as I really wasn’t looking for it at all. So far as I know, no modern treatment of the fighting on East Cavalry Field has ever used the entire report, and none have used the detailed reports of the regimental commanders. Certainly, Carhart didn’t use this material when he failed to do thorough research in writing his intellectually dishonest, festering pile of turds.

So, in the hope of promoting the public interest and making sure that this information is, in fact, made generally available, for the next several days, I will be using this blog to post these five reports verbatim here. Stay tuned. I hope you will find them interesting.

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After a brief stint as a lieutenant in the Austrian 10th Hussars, Louis Edward Nolan was commissioned a cornet in the King’s 15th Hussars, and later purchased his lieutenancy in 1841. He eventually became his regimental riding master and purchased his captaincy in 1850. He spent the next several years studying cavalry tactics and logistics throughout Europe, and wrote two important and well-regarded treatises–one on remounts for the cavalry, and the other a study of cavalry tactics and history. The second book was published in 1853.

Captain Nolan carried the fateful order from Lord Raglan to Lord Lucan to charge a battery of artillery at the Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War in 1854. That set into motion a series of events that led to a monumental error being committed and the wrong battery being charged by the Light Brigade. Nolan was killed during the charge, and is one of the scapegoats for the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Westholme Publishing has just brought out a brand new edition of Nolan’s 1853 classic Cavalry: Its History and Tactics. The book has an excellent and informative new introduction by Prof. Jon Coulston of St. Andrews University in Scotland.

For those interested in the evolution of American cavalry tactics and doctrine, this book is a must-read. Nolan’s text became one of the principal treatises on doctrine and tactics for the mounted arms of the British and American armies. Philip St. George Cooke incorporated some of those tactics into his 1860 treatise on single-rank cavalry tactics. For those interested in the Charge of the Light Brigade, the history of mounted operations, and the evolution of tactics, this book is indispensable.

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While at Barnes & Noble today, I finally had a chance to get a look at a book I’d heard about and which held a certain amount of interest for me due to its subject matter. I’d heard that George Walsh had a new book out titled Those Damn Horse Soldiers: True Tales of the Civil War Cavalry. The book is intended to be a one-volume study of Civil War cavalry operations. I had high hopes for it.

Instead, what I got was EVERYTHING that I hate most about Civil War books. The book is VERY broad brushstrokes overview, attempting to cover all Civil War cavalry operations in 480 pages. It covers the period 1862-1865, and tries to cover all theaters of the war. That, by definition, means that the book cannot provide the sort of detailed examination that I would otherwise expect out of this kind of a book. The discussion of the Battle of Brandy Station covers a total of six pages. A fourteen hour long battle that was the biggest cavalry battle ever fought on the North American continent, and it gets six pages. There is no depth and no analysis. It’s just a narrative. I guess that’s okay, but there is absolutely no substance to the book.

The book has no bibliography. That, in and of itself, precludes it from the list of books I would ever considering purchasing. The lack of a bibliography permits the author to hide the lack of substantive research since there’s no recital of what sources were reviewed. The last book I reviewed that had no bibliography was Carhart’s festering pile of turds. I had the same reaction then, too.

I had a chance to take a look at the end notes. They’re quite spare, and what notes there are cite mainly to secondary sources. More than half of them cite to secondary sources. The rest are to readily available published primary sources such as the Official Records, the Southern Historical Society Papers and other similar sources. There were no references to any unpublished manuscript material whatsoever or to any newspaper sources. Few of the published primary sources are particular rare or difficult to find. In short, it is clear that the author did almost no research of any depth, and that what research he did was shallow at best.

There is not one single map in the book. Given the fact that it addresses several dozen actions (albeit not in any depth), unless the reader is familiar with those actions on his or her own, the readder will get absolutely no guidance or assistance in understanding these events from maps. In my humble opinion, books can never have enough maps, and the failure to include them is indicative of either extreme cheapness on the part of the publisher, laziness on the part of the author, or, worse yet, a combination of the both.

Finally, there is not a single illustration anywhere in the book. Again, given the numerous personalities who pop in and out of the story along the way, being able to match up a face with the name is an extremely useful and helpful thing, but there’s not a single illustration to be found. Again, that represents either chintiziness on the part of the publisher, laziness on the part of the author, or some very unpleasant combination of both.

Another thing interested me. There are five blurbs on the back of the dust jacket. Two of them pertain to other books by the same author. The other three are about this book, but none of them are by anyone known or recognized as an authority on the Civil War. One of them is by the novelist Steven Coonts, best known for writing techno-thrillers. I have never heard of the other two blurbists. That nobody know as being a Civil War expert was asked to endorse this book ought to tell you everything you need to know about it.

Save your money. Don’t buy this book. If you want an overview of Civil War cavalry operations, your money will be better spent on Samuel Carter’s excellent 1982 book The Last Cavaliers: Confederate and Union Cavalry in the Civil War or Stephen Z. Starr’s classic three-volume set, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War

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We stopped by Barnes & Noble earlier today, largely because we got a coupon we wanted to take advantage of using. I took the opportunity to check the magazine section and got a very pleasant surprise.

The new issues of America’s Civil War and Civil War Times came out pretty much simultaneously. Our work is featured in both.

Civil War Times features an article by JD and me on the charges of the 11th New York Cavalry (Scott’s 900) at Fairfax Court House and the 1st Delaware Cavalry at Westminster, MD that delayed Stuart’s march to Gettysburg by a full day between them. The article is the cover article for the magazine and gives our work a real spotlight. The article is extracted from two chapters of our book.

America’s Civil War includes a review of Plenty of Blame to Go Around by old friend Jeff Wert. It’s the featured review for the issue, and there’s a large, full-color image of the dust jacket. Fortunately, Jeff liked the book and gave it a very favorable review.

So, between the two magazines, it constitutes an embarrassment of riches for us, and will, undoubtedly, sell a few more books for us. The next issue of Gettysburg Magazine which is presently at the printer, includes an article by JD and me on Corbit’s Charge at Westminster, MD on June 29 that is THE most detailed treatment of that episode ever published (it has stuff in it that the book does not include), so that will be yet another showcase for the book.

We’ve been very fortunate to get so many good showcases and to have received so many wonderful reviews. Our publisher has already told us that a third hardcover printing of the book is in the works, so we’re very fortunate indeed.

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