Civil War books and authors

One of my favorite clients is a local theater company that operates a cabaret. The talent and productions are first-rate, and I really enjoy working with them. The company is called the Shadowbox Cabaret. Imagine Saturday Night Live at its very best, and you will get an idea of what I’m talking about here.

Anyway, a group of us (14, to be precise) went to see the show tonight. One of the guys in the group had asked me to bring him a copy of the Stuart’s Ride book, so I did. One of the fellows in our group was not aware that I was a writer, let alone that I had jointly produced a 400+ page book. When it was handed to him, he took one look at it, and loudly declared, “HOLY CRAP!” The whole group absolutely broke up laughing. I laughed until I cried. My stomach still hurts from laughing so hard.
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I’ve had a lot of comments about my work. Lots of people have critiqued my work. I’ve had a lot of things said about my work–some good and some not so good at all–but I can honestly say that this was a first. I have NEVER had anyone say “HOLY CRAP” about my work before. 🙂

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In addition to everything else on my plate, I am also the president, managing editor, and CFO of Ironclad Publishing. I am also the fulfillment department. In other words, I handle pretty much everything for the company but marketing and the vast majority of the copyediting (although I’ve done some of that, too). As if I don’t already have enough to do, right?

We just came out with a new title. The book is titled The Battle Between the Farm Lanes: Hancock Saves the Union Center; Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, and was written by Dave Shultz and David F. Wieck. Some of you may be aware of Dave Shultz’s excellent little book about the Federal artillery in Pickett’s Charge, Double Canister at Ten Yards: The Federal Artillery and the Repulse of Pickett’s Charge. Dave’s primary focus has always been on the artillery, but he also has a gift for incorporating the artillery’s role into the bigger picture, and the new book proves that beyond all doubt.

The farm lanes in question are the Trostle and Hummelbaugh farm lanes. The book addresses Hancock’s superb management of the fight that hot, dry afternoon, the magnificent stand of the 1st Minnesota infantry, and the hard fighting of the Second Corps that day. Like so much of the other work done by Dave and his former partner, the late Rich Rollins, this book emphasizes the role of the terrain in the development of the fighting. The book is part of Ironclad’s “The Discovering Civil War America Series”, and, like every other book in the series, it incldues a detailed walking/driving tour for those interested in seeing that portion of the battlefield in depth.

The production process takes time. In June, we decided to do a pre-publication special price, and the orders started coming in then. We also ran a fair amount of advertising in the magazines and in The Civil War News, so before we knew it, a whole bunch of orders waiting to be filled. It took about six weeks from the time that I sent the book to the printer until we had finished books, and then those finished books had to be shipped by the printer. In short, I just got three boxes of the books on Friday.

I spent about an hour yesterday doing the necessary bookkeeping, entering all of those orders into Quickbooks so that there is a full and complete record of all of these purchases.

It took Susan and me the better part of two hours and $125 in postage to get all of the pending orders filled. We shipped close to 50 orders today. We had to make two separate trips to the post office, as I missed four orders the first time around. It was a marathon, and, to be honest, I had been dreading it. Now, don’t get me wrong–I love books. I love the publishing process, and I especially love selling them. However, today was a sterling example of too much of a good thing. Hopefully, it’s going to be a while before I have that many orders to fill in one shot again.

Brett Schulte, your copy was one of the ones that I shipped today. I packed that sucker myself.

It still absolutely amazes me the way that books on Gettysburg sell. If it’s Gettysburg, it’s going to fly off the shelves. This book is apparently no exception to that rule.

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Today, I received the page galleys for my regimental history of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, also known as Rush’s Lancers.

I first started gathering material on this regiment twelve years ago, and it took me that long to research and write this new regimental history. My issues with finishing this project are well-documented on this blog, and I need not repeat them again. Suffice it to say that I reached a point where I was starting to think that this project would NEVER be finished.

Fortunately, it is. I signed off on the page galleys tonight, and the book looks really good. With the index, it will have approximately 320 pages, about 20 maps, about 70 illustrations, and relies on about a dozen sets of letters/diaries/memoirs of troopers, as well as numerous newspapers. I’m proud of it–I think it’s some of my very best work. Bruce Franklin of Westholme Publishing, my publisher, has done a great job, both with producing a quality, handsome book, and also with creating some buzz for it in the Philadelphia area.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Brian Pohanka for the completion of this project. Brian was the first one to encourage me to undertake the project, and his wise counsel was invaluable to me. Thanks, Brian. I think you’d be proud.

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While in Gettysburg this weekend, I picked up Joseph W. McKinney’s new book on the Battle of Brandy Station, Brandy Station, Virginia, June 9, 1863: The Largest Cavalry Battle of the Civil War. As a cavalry guy, I was eagerly looking forward to seeing this book in the hope that it would fill a huge gap in the literature. I wish I could say that I came away from reading this book believing that that huge gap has been filled. Sadly, it has not. Nevertheless, I thought I would review it here.

The Battle of Brandy Station was the opening engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign. Fought June 9, 1863 on the fields and hills of Culpeper County, Virginia, Brandy Station was the largest cavalry battle of the American Civil War. It offers a great deal of interest to any student of the Civil War, ranging from tactical lessons to great human interest stories.

Until recently, it has been badly overlooked by historians. Recent efforts have tried to remedy that situation. Historically, the only really work available on Brandy Station was Fairfax Downey’s 1959 book Clash of Cavalry: The Battle of Brandy Station. This superficial and poorly researched book was all there was until 2002, when Richard E. Crouch published his Brandy Station: A Battle Like None Other. Crouch’s book is awful–poorly researched and poorly written. There was, therefore, a huge and gaping hole in the body of Civil War literature regarding this important battle. In October 2006, McKinney’s book was published by McFarland Publishing of Jefferson, North Carolina.

McKinney is a former military officer who lives in the vicinity of the battlefield, which has given him numerous opportunities to visit the ground. To his credit, he has done so at length and clearly has a solid understanding of the terrain. Numerous photographs of pertinent locations taken by him are peppered throughout the book. Likewise, much of his analysis is solid and well grounded. His military background serves him well there.

The rest of the book leaves a great deal to be desired. McKinney depends heavily upon the passive voice–too much so–meaning that the book is very difficult to read. Instead of an engaging and enjoyable narrative, his book is difficult to read and ponderous. It really could have used the services of a good editor. Likewise, the narrative jumps around out of chronological order. Instead, he focuses on covering different aspects of the battle out of sequence, leaving an unfamiliar reader confused about the sequence of events.

The scope of the research also leaves a good bit to be desired. With over 21,000 men involved, there is a wealth of primary source research available. McKinney has covered only a portion of those sources. Notably missing, as one example, is the primary source account of Ulric Dahlgren, one of Joseph Hooker’s staff officers, who played an important role in an early phase of the battle. Dahlgren left an excellent and readily available account, but McKinney plain missed it. It’s one of many notable examples. As another example, I was unable to find a single citation to a critical primary source, The National Tribune, a veteran’s newspaper filled with decades of personal recollections by veterans who fought the Civil War. No modern battle or campaign study can be considered complete without referring to the veritable treasure trove found in the Tribune. In a recent newspaper interview, he indicated that he spent five years researching and writing this book; by contrast, Clark B. “Bud” Hall, the offiical historian of the Brandy Station Foundation, has nearly two decades into researching and writing on this battle. Perhaps McKinney should have invested more time into being more thorough in his research.

The maps are virtually worthless. They contain almost no detail and virtually no terrain features. It is, for instance, impossible to see the many hills and dales that dot the battlefield at Brandy Station, as only Fleetwood Hill and Yew Ridge are depicted. None of the other terrain features are depicted in any fashion. For a large and fluid battle such as Brandy Station, good, detailed maps filled with depictions of terrain features are absolutely essential.

Finally, the price of the book is simply outrageous. At $55 for a book that does not even have a dust jacket, it’s extremely difficult to justify the price for this book.

While this book is a significant improvement over the works of Downey and Crouch, it still leaves a great deal to be desired. The door remains wide open for the definitive work on this seminal battle. One can only hope that Bud Hall will soon finish his decades-long project and finally publish that definitive work.

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I keep talking about the Dahlgren manuscript, so tonight I thought I would give an update on the status of the Rush’s Lancers manuscript. The book is slated for release in November, meaning that there isn’t much time left to get the thing done.

My copy editor has forwarded me the marked up version of the manuscript over the past several days, and I have spent the last two nights reviewing her edits and then answering her queries. Fortunately, she is quite knowledgeable–she knows northern Virginia and lives in Philadelphia, meaning that most of the sits are familiar to her, as are many of the individuals mentioned in the book. She’s done an excellent job of it, and I completed my work on it this evening. All that remains for me to do is to proof the page galleys once the manuscript has been laid out.

That means that doing the page layout is about all that’s left to be done and then the book is ready to go to the printer. I’ve been working on this project since 1994. It’s been an incredibly long haul, with lots of twists and turns, and it’s going to be an incredible thing finally seeing a finished product in print.

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Chaplain Louis N. Beaudrye was the regimental historian of his unit, the 5th New York Cavalry. The regimental history is one of the better ones, but like many, it has its flaws. As a chaplain, Beaudrye didn’t spend much time on the battlefield, and he was also captured during the retreat from Gettysburg, meaning that he spent a stint at Libby Prison and hence wasn’t present for some of the events chronicled in his history of the regiment. That means that it has gaps in the thoroughness of its coverage. Nevertheless, it’s an important source on the Army of the Potomac’s Third Cavalry Division.

There’s also one other small point. The name on the regimental history is “Boudrye”. However, it appears that the proper French spelling of the name is “Beaudrye”, which was apparently anglicized a bit. I have chosen to use the proper French spelling.

Beaudrye was back with the regiment by the time of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid. Two companies of the 5th New York went with Dahlgren’s column to Richmond, while the rest went with Kilpatrick’s column. It was always believed that Beaudrye also accompanied Dahlgren’s column. The regimental history contains a lengthy description of the Dahlgren raid written by a member of the unit, but it’s not attributed. It appears in the middle of the narrative, and everyone has always assumed that Beaudrye wrote it since there’s nothing to indicate that he didn’t. This account contains a detailed description of the last minute or so of Dahlgren’s life, including recounting what was said just before the fatal shots were fired.

Virgil Carrington “Pat” Jones, as one very notable example, cited to the Beaudrye regimental history as a major source in his 1957 book Eight Hours Before Richmond, which is generally considered to be the best and most detailed account of the raid yet published. Jones attributes the account of the last moments of Dahlgren’s life to Beaudrye. So does Duane Schultz in his book The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War.

I discovered last night that these traditional accounts were all wrong. In the 1880’s, an officer of the 5th New York Cavalry named Lt. H. A. D. Merritt, who commanded the advance of Dahlgren’s column during the raid, wrote an account of the raid that was published in The Century Magazine as part of its “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War” series. A four-volume set of what the editors believed were the best articles from the series was published under the title Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. However, Merritt’s article was not included in that collection. It was, therefore, largely lost to history.

In 1996, a descendant of Chaplain Beaudrye published the chaplain’s war diary, which is now out of print. I pulled out my copy last night and discovered the truth: during the raid, Chaplain Beaudrye stayed at Cavalry Corps headquarters at Brandy Station, performing his ministerial duties. He did not accompany the raid. Thus, he could not have written an account of the raid as a primary account. That meant that the account contained in the regimental history could not have been penned by Chaplain Beaudrye. It’s far too detailed to have been written by someone who was not present.

When I realized that, I realized that, while the error is certainly understandable, ALL of the conventional accounts of the raid published to date have misidentified the source of that account of the last moments of Dahlgren’s life. So, I set out to figure out who really wrote it.

In the 1990’s, Peter Cozzens decided to publish more of the articles from the series and came out with a fifth volume of Battles and Leaders. Then, in 2004, Cozzens published volume six of Battles and Leaders. Sure enough, the Merritt article appears in volume 6. I pulled out the book this evening, and…mystery solved. The mystery account in the regimental history is the same as the article in volume 6. Therefore, the author had to have been Lieutenant Merritt and not Beaudrye.

So, in a small way, I have corrected a long-standing but easily made and understandable error. This is the sort of thing that I really enjoy and which makes this sort of historical work fun for me. It made me feel good to fix a historical error and to finally set the record straight. It’s a small thing, for sure, but it’s cool stuff nevertheless. It goes right along with my constant desire to shatter Civil War mythology.

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Yesterday, Dimitri Rotov had a really interesting post analyzing what he views as flaws in military history.

According to Dimitri, the biggest issues are too much reliance on too few sources and carelessness about the origin of a decision, leaving the analysis incomplete and lack in thoroughness. The combination of these two factors leaves Dimitri cold about traditional military history. It really is an interesting analysis.

He gave Mark Grimsley and me a tip of the cap, indicating that he believes that we go farther toward completeness and fairness in our analysis than most, a compliment I appreciate a great deal.

I thought I would touch base on these two issues. I have always prided myself on being extremely thorough in my research. I would prefer to delay the writing of a book in order to make certain that the scope and coverage of what I do is as complete as possible. I much prefer primary sources, and deifnitely prefer unpublished manuscript material as the basis for my research.

At the same time, it’s impossible to get EVERY source. I don’t care how thorough a researcher might be, you will never find everything. There are just too many obscure repositories out there to get every single one, and there are too many things still in private hands to have even a realistic hope of getting everything. Further, there are too many obscure newspapers that are not generally available to get all of the contemporary coverage and soldier letters published in them. All you can do is to give it your very best shot and then say “enough, and if someone can take what I’ve done and do a better job, more power to them.” I reach that point with every project I undertake. And sometimes, stuff turns up unexpectedly and at the last moment, as it did with those two sets of letters that I had to incorporate into my history of Rush’s Lancers.

With respect to Dimitri’s second point, I think that going into projects with preconceived conclusions is a very bad idea. With the exception of my Sheridan bash, which was written as a legal brief that took an advocate’s position, I have always permitted the evidence to take me where it would. Anything less is intellectually dishonest and fails to give the coverage necessary to address the situation accurately and completely.

As to the issue of failing to recognize the origin of decisions, I try to follow the principles of Ockham’s Razor (also known as the principle of parsimony) wherever possible: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Put more succinctly, keep it simple, stupid (also known as the KISS Principle). I admit that I have done a poor job of following my own rules with respect to the Dahlgren debate on what Lincoln knew and when he knew it, but beyond that, I do my level best to keep it as simple as possible and to try not to overly analyze things when I’m doing my historical work.

Thanks for a most interesting and thought-provoking post, Dimitri.

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Today, I received an invitation to join the Military Writers Society of America. Here’s how the Society web site describes its mission:

We are an association of more than five-hundred authors, poets, and artists, drawn together by the common bond of military service. Most of our members are active duty military, retirees, or military veterans. A few are lifelong civilians who have chosen to honor our military through their writings or their art. Our only core principle is a love of the men and women who defend this nation, and a deeply personal understanding of their sacrifice and dedication.

Our skills are varied. Some of us are world class writers, with many successful books. Others write only for the eyes of their friends and families. But each of us has a tale to tell. Each of us is a part of the fabric of Freedom. These are our stories…

The good folks at Savas-Beatie arranged the invitation, which I gladly accepted.

Please check out the MWSA. Theirs is a worthy mission. Honoring the men and women who have served this country is always an admirable goal.

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I got the new issue of North & South magazine today. It contains an article on the mystery of what Lincoln knew and when he knew it with respect to Ulric Dahlgren’s role in the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid. The article was written by Prof. David E. Long of East Carolina University.

I have been aware of this article for quite some time. David spoke to our Civil War Roundtable last year, and we spent some time together discussing the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid. Between his CWRT talk and our private discussions, David laid out his theory in detail, although I’d never seen it spelled out in writing. David contacted me about eight weeks and asked if I would be willing to read and comment on the thing before it was actually published. I said sure, but for reasons that I don’t quite understand why it never materialized. He never sent it. Today was the first time that I read it.

It says precisely what I expected it to say: that Lincoln not only knew, but that he specifically ordered the assassination of Jefferson Davis, and that Ulric Dahlgren was his hand-picked instrumentality for accomplishing the objective. While David is now a history professor, he spent a number of years practicing law (here in Columbus, ironically enough), and the article is written as if he is making legal arguments.

However, David faces the same lack of specific evidence that I did, and his arguments are based solely on circumstantial evidence, as there is no direct evidence whatsoever for any of us to rely upon. He argues that Ulric Dahlgren became a trusted confidant of Lincoln, and that Lincoln used Dahlgren as a mole in Army of the Potomac headquarters. When the time came to implement this plan, Dahlgren got the job as the leader of the raid.

According to David’s theory, Kilpatrick’s column was the diversionary column, while Dahlgren’s column had the primary responsibility for executing the plan. He correctly points out that conventional interpretations of these events have it the other way around, and argues that the White House actually created a veil of deception to create the illusion that the raid was the brainchild of Kilpatrick in the minds of the public.

Just after the end of the Battle of Chancellorsville, Dahlgren proposed a raid on Richmond from the southwest if the Confederate cavalry went on a raid. The plan was rejected because Joseph Hooker felt it was too risky. David correctly points out that none of the prior published histories of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid have connected the proposed 1863 raid with the 1864 raid (although I discussed it in my 2003 book The Union Cavalry Comes of Age, and I also discuss it at length in the biography in two places). In his mind, it’s proof positive that Dahlgren was the driving force behind the plan to assassinate Davis and his cabinet.

He addresses the validity of the Dahlgren Papers and concludes that they were authentic, a conclusion I wholeheartedly support. However, the authenticity of the documents doesn’t reach the point of proving that Lincoln knew.

David is working on a book-length treatment of these events. I gave him some material on Ulric Dahlgren that he hadn’t seen, and I will be interested to see how he uses it in the book when the time comes. I’m not sure what the status of the book is, but I’m looking forward to reading it when it’s done. It’s got to be better than Duane Schultz’s The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War, which is such a stretch that I can’t even begin to suggest that he’s drawn valid and supportable conclusions.

I’m glad that I finally got to read what I’ve been hearing about for a long time. I remain unconvinced. While I respect David’s scholarship and his enthusiasm for the subject, the fact remains that the only evidence is purely circumstantial, and in my lawyer’s mind, when you add it all up, it doesn’t constitute sufficient evidence to meet the burden of proof to convict Lincoln of complicity in the conspiracy. I continue to believe that Lincoln did not know, and that Stanton was the driving force behind this episode, not Ully Dahlgren or Abraham Lincoln.

I also still beleive that there’s at least a 50-50 chance that Dahlgren was just cowboying when he went off on his raid. I think it’s entirely possible that he was acting “off the reservation”, as the expression goes.

I repeat what I’ve said previously: the evidence is not persuasive one way or the other, and we will never know the truth. Which makes it a fascinating controversy to explore again and again. I know that it intrigues me.

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Tonight, I finished the third pass at the Dahlgren manuscript. The next step, which begins tomorrow, is to plug the changes into the computer, and then it’s ready to be circulated to a few friends for review and comment. I’m finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I will have all of the changes entered into the computer by the end of the week, and then it goes out. I’m looking forward to taking a bit of a break before launching into the next project. Stay tuned.

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