Author Interview---Tom Ryan's Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign

Author Interview: Thomas Ryan   Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign [2015]

CWL:  How many file drawers have you fill with the research that went into Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign {SSSGC} ?  

TR: It is difficult to separate the SSSGC research from my other Civil War research, because in some cases the files are in the same drawers. However, rough estimate for SSSGC would be two file drawers. I also have a full set of the Official Records which takes up a wall of shelving, and several shelves of intelligence-related publications that have been useful in my research.

CWL: on page 6   SSSGC states that Hooker’s background and knowledge called forth the BMI during the early months of 1863.  What in his background allowed for this?

TR: I elaborate on Hooker’s earlier interest in conducting intelligence gathering on pages 60-61, including employing elements of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry in early 1862 to scout enemy forces and track down smugglers and blockade-runners carrying mail, newspapers, and contraband through southern Maryland. He also employed agents in an attempt to halt the smuggling, and used air balloons to observe enemy positions. He also exchanged information about the enemy with Union naval units operating in the area.  This experience in intelligence operations earlier in his career evidently motivated him to create an intelligence staff that became known as the BMI, when he took command of the Army of the Potomac.

CWL: Describe Record Group 393 in the National Archives.

TR: Record Group 393 is a generic designation for the Records of United States Army Continental Commands, 1821-1920 at the National Archives, including various Civil War records. The BMI files fall within that category. 

CWL: How close are you with both Feis and Fishel?

TR: Although Ed Fishel and I worked for the Department of Defense, I did not know him personally. He published his book, The Secret War for the Union, in 1996, I believe some years after he retired from the federal government. However, I admired his perseverance in conducting research over some four decades to produce his monumental study. I consider it the standard in the field.

With regard to William Feis, a professor at Buena Vista University in Iowa, I was pleasantly surprised when his marvelous work titled Grant’s Secret Service became available in 2002. He was one of the few (possibly only) academics who devoted himself to the study of Civil War intelligence. I wrote a very positive review of his book for The Washington Times in May 2002, and commented that there was a need for a “comparative study of opposing Union and Confederate intelligence activities during specific campaigns.” Since no one else took up the challenge, it turns out that my effort some 13 years later fulfills that objective with regard to the Gettysburg campaign.  Professor Feis was extremely pleased about my review of his book, and sent a letter of gratitude at the time. He and I have stayed in touch on occasion over the years; however, distance and his family and university duties limited these contacts. He graciously wrote advance praise for SSSGC.

CWL:  pg 25   Describe how a civilian telegraph operator was chosen and trained to handle the ciphers?  

TR: When Edwin Stanton became Secretary of War in 1862, he took personal interest and control of the U.S. Military Telegraph Service. He specifically determined that telegraph operators would be civilians and only designated operators would be responsible for enciphering and deciphering message traffic. In other words, military commanders had no control over the telegraph operators assigned to their command. These operators functioned independently, and answered only to USMT headquarters regarding their activities and behavior. General Meade experienced this anomaly when he found during the heat of battle at Gettysburg that he could not read or send enciphered messages from and to Washington, because his senior operator named Caldwell decided to take a trip to Westminster without informing Meade and his officers beforehand. This situation was highlighted in OR, 27, I, pp. 74 and 78.

CWL:  pg 31     SSSGC states that Meade’s and Hooker’s of the BMI were different.  What in Meade’s background made it different for him as compared to Hooker?  

TR: Meade’s philosophy regarding the gathering and processing of information was different than Hooker’s , because Meade preferred to control the evaluation of information gathered by different methods, rather than simply depending on the BMI to fulfill this role and produce a finished product, i.e., a report that synthesizes this information into an intelligence report. In this regard, Meade may have been mimicking his former commander George McClellan who acted as his own intelligence officer. McClellan took the raw data from his information gatherers, specifically Pinkerton’s staff, and personally determined its meaning and value as intelligence. We know that McClellan was particularly inept in this regard. Nonetheless, Meade more or less followed in McClellan’s footsteps, and proved on more than one occasion that his method was ineffective. During the latter stages of the Gettysburg campaign, Meade complained about the lack of information about the enemy, yet his intelligence operations personnel were steadily feeding him information about the enemy’s location, strength, and intentions that went unheeded. This is just one of the mysteries in a campaign that also fostered many others.

CWL:  pp 32-33    SSSGC states that Lee began to rely on cavalry more for information gathering since Hooker had increased camp security and information began to drop off from CS scouts and spies.  How did Hooker achieve this?  

TR: Hooker increased security in a number of ways. He clamped down on civilians passing through his lines into those of the enemy, since every civilian was a potential spy for the enemy. He halted the previously common practice of exchanging newspapers with the enemy (the Northern papers tended to report more military-related information than the Southern papers). He issued orders to Northern newspaper editors regarding the type of information that could be printed about his army’s operations. He also insisted that stories carry a reporter’s byline, so that errant reporting could be traced back to its origin. Also, the provost marshal cracked down on any suspected spies in and around the Union army camps.

CWL:  on page 71 and 73       SSGC states that Lee had his own covert operations personnel in Washington DC. Please describe this.  

TR: Lee did not have a high opinion of the information he received from the Confederate secret service operation headquartered in Richmond. This group controlled a number of routes into the North called the “secret line.” There is evidence that Lee decided to establish his own link into the North. This was accomplished by his cavalry commander Jeb Stuart assigning the task to a particularly clever and successful agent by the name of Frank Stringfellow. Briefly stated, Stringfellow made his way into the North, established contacts in Washington and created another “secret line” down which information would travel about the enemy’s plans and movements to Stuart who would pass it on to Lee.  Not much is known about this link, if it in fact did exist; however, there is some indication that it in fact was up and operating.

CWL:   442 pp is a long book.  What did you have to leave out?

TR: Good question. Actually, the book was much longer before the editing process began. To reduce the amount of detail, I moved considerable data into the footnotes. My editor, Tom Schott (who did a marvelous job getting the text ready for prime time) recommended that some of this material be placed back into the text while a good deal of the rest would simply be eliminated  for clarity. As every writer knows, we tend to “own” whatever we write and find it difficult to hit the delete button. Looking back, however, the weeding process was needed, and generally beneficial.

CWL:   Should a biography of George Sharp be written?

TR: I have had that same thought for a number of years, and it is a project that has been on the back burner. I am not certain there is enough information available about Sharpe to merit a full-fledged bio. However, conceivably a combination of the BMI “big three” of Sharpe, Babcock, and McEntee could make for an interesting story. I have also thought that the BMI story could be depicted in the format of a novel — similar to The Killer Angels.  That is, an historical novel that manages to tell the story in a lively and interesting fashion.

CWL:  What findings are in the book that you feel might be contested regarding Lee, Longstreet, Hill, Ewell and Stuart?  

TR: There is actually very little in my book regarding Longstreet, Hill and Ewell, primarily because there was not much to say about them from an intelligence operations point of view. Longstreet of course saved the day for Lee by hiring Henry Thomas Harrison. who brought the news to Lee at Chambersburg that the Army of the Potomac had crossed the Potomac and was not that far away in the Frederick, MD area. But, even that was more about Harrison than about Longstreet. The thing that might be contested is the argument I make about how poorly Lee planned the coordination of Stuart’s three cavalry brigades passing through the Union army on June 25, and Lee’s sending both Hill and Longstreet’s corps across the Potomac without allowing Stuart sufficient time to pass through Hooker’s army safely. Over the years, there has been reams written about these events, but the finger of blame has been mainly pointed toward Stuart. Also, this controversy has almost exclusively focused on the actions of the Confederates involved. My book demonstrates that Stuart likely would have been successful in his attempt to pass through the Union army, except for the timely intelligence sent to Hooker’s headquarters by the signal corps on Maryland Heights and a BMI agent operating under cover in the Frederick/South Mountain area of Maryland. I welcome discussion of these events.

CWL:  How many books do you own regarding SSSGC topic?  

TR: Sad to say, very little has been published over the years regarding intelligence operations during the Gettysburg campaign. In part, Fishel’s book deals with Gettysburg, but does not devote a lot of time to the retreat and pursuit after Gettysburg. Of the Gettysburg historians of note, Stephen Sears’ Gettysburg is the most intelligence knowledgeable. Coddington’s The Gettysburg Campaign was written long before we knew what the BMI was, so it contained much less about intel ops. Allen Guelzo’s recent study deserves all the acclaim it has received, but it also addresses intelligence on a limited basis. William Feis’s book Grant’s Secret Service deals with the period after the Gettysburg campaign had ended. Peter Tsouras recently published a book titled Scouting for Grant and Meade which provides the reminiscences of Judson Knight, the BMI’s chief scout. But, again, this deals with the post-Gettysburg era. Bottom line is that the body of work on SSSGC is still quite slim.

Chained To The Land: Voices From Louisiana's Cotton and Cane Plantations

Chained To The Land: Voices From  Cotton and Cane Plantations From Interviews of Former Slaves, Lynette Ater Tanner, editor, John F. Blair, Publisher, 2014, photographs, maps, 2014, $9.95.

During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers' Project interviewed over 2,200 ex-slaves who lived in 17 states. Most of those interviewed were in the eighties, nineties and a few over 100 years old. Interviews in this book are of Louisiana slaves who worked in a legal environment of state laws of a French tradition. Many of these interviews are not found in the Library of Congress' collection; they are held in the Northwestern State University Archives in Natchitoches, Louisiana.  The Writers' Project in Louisiana was directed by Lyle Saxton. Most of the former slave narrations in this volume were kept in Natchitoches at Melrose Plantation, owned by Cammie henry, who donated the items to the state archives.  Within the book are a few Louisiana slave interviews that are housed by the Library of Congress.

The slaves recollections of housing, food, clothing, weddings, funerals, and relations contain anger, joy, sadness, religious practices and wit. The slaves hailed from eight distinct regions including New Orleans. The collection offers not only memories of the work-a-day world of slavery but also reflections of the personal ties that were found in slave families and church congregations. Interviewees who were children during the Civil War reflect on the loss of fathers who fought with the Federal army, the significance of Abraham Lincoln, and the variety of masters that existed during the era of slavery.

Chained To The Land: Voices From  Cotton and Cane Plantations From Interviews of Former Slaves is accessible to most readers and may be used in both classrooms or living rooms.

New and Noteworthy---Spies, Scouts and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign

Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted  the Outcome of Lee's Invasion of the North, June-July, 1863 Thomas J. Ryan, Savas Beatie LLC,  482 pp.,  70 b/w illustrations, 23 maps, bibliographic notes, bibliography, index, $32.95.

Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign is very likely the first study that compares and contrasts the Confederates' and Federals' work of gathering, using, and misusing strategic and tactical intelligence during the Gettysburg Campaign. Ryan, former U.S. Army and U.S. Department of Defense intelligence analyst, presents an informed and compelling narrative that at times becomes suspenseful though, of course, the reader knows the outcome.

Having published six related articles between 2002 and 2005 in Gettysburg Magazine, the only magazine ever to focus on a single campaign and battle,  Ryan has expanded and deepened his research in the Official Records of the Civil War, primary sources, secondary sources and online sources.In the Forward, Stephen Sears notes that Lee explained the loss at Gettysburg "was occasioned by a combination of circumstances." One of which, Lee stated, was that 'it was commenced in the absence or correct intelligence."  Additionally, Sears notes that Meade, if asked, may have stated that "the battle was won because of the timeliness and accuracy of intelligence."  

Predecessor to Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign is Edwin C. Fishel's 1996 The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence  in the Civil War. It is an extensive rendering of the evolution of Federal intelligence operations during the war.  Until Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign a comprehensive documentation of Confederate intelligence efforts during the Gettysburg Campaign was nearly non-existent.

Ryan offers a nearly hour-by-hour and day-by-day focus on both the Federal and Confederate generals'  efforts to find and describe the movements of the opposing army. Joseph Hooker may be remembered for four positive changes he made to the Army of the Potomac during the spring 1863. He reorganized and centralized the cavalry corps; he added corps badges to the army's units; he vastly improved the system of furloughs; he created the Bureau of Military Intelligence. This unit had its own scouts and interrogated prisoners captured by both infantry and cavalry units. Contrabands and local citizens were systematically questioned. Analytical reports were prepared and placed on the desks of both Hooker and Meade. The Federal Signal Corps 'wigwag' stations reported to Federal headquarters and managed telegraphic communications

Conversely, there was not systematic effort by the Confederate commanders to gather, analyze and place military intelligence in front of the headquarters staff.  Longstreet had his own spies, as did Lee.  Ewell and Hill relied closely upon local residents who were sympathetic to the Confederacy and depended upon maps located in Maryland and Pennsylvania county court houses. Jed Hotchkiss, Thomas Jackson's cartographer was inherited by Ewell but also worked for Lee, during the fall of 1862 and the winter of 1863. Lee was his own intelligence analyst. The Confederate Signal Corps was limited to intra-corps communications and Lee, believing that telegraphic communication was not secure, relied upon couriers.

Ryan's work should not be the first book one reads on the Gettysburg Campaign.  Though the style is accessible to most, readers should have a good background in the strategic and tactical workings of the campaign.   Within each chapter, Ryan divides the text between five and ten brief segments. Frequently these segments introduce elements of intelligence gathering and analysis with which he has practiced in his professional career with the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Defense. 

Some readers may wish for Ryan to have paid a closer attention to Meade's orders after the Grand Assault of July 3. Neither Farnesworth's unsuccessful cavalry charge nor the successful assault of the Pennsylvania Reserves' on Longstreet's lines are addressed. One of the many strengths of Ryan'swork is that he follows the path of the intelligence through the hands of initial collectors, then Hooker, then Halleck, then Stanton, and then Lincoln.  Often, Hooker tells Stanton intelligence that he does not send to Halleck, his immediate commander. As usual, politics permeates the leadership of the Army of the Potomac. The final chapter offers a nice 12 page appraisal of 'The Intelligence Battle.'

Without a doubt,  Thomas J. Ryan's Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted  the Outcome of Lee's Invasion of the North, June-July, 1863 most likely will be considered one of the best Civil War books published in 2015, will be nominated for several annual book awards, and be a winner. 

New and Noteworthy---Civil War Controversies, Questions, Speculations and How To Think About Them

Lee's Lost Dispatch and Other Civil War Controversies, Philip Leigh, Westholme Press, 2015, 215 pp.. 33 illustrations, 10 maps, 2 charts,  chapter bibliographic notes, index, bibliography, $18.95.

Biggest Confederate Error? Biggest Federal Error? Could the war have been preempted in January 1861? How many times was Atlanta burned?  Should Thomas have been chosen over Sherman in Spring 1864? Eleven chapters focus upon controversies with a glace in the direction of alternate histories.  Not far from the mind of the author is the question is 'if one thing had been changed'. Philip Leigh's Lee's Lost Dispatch and Other Civil War Controversies, Philip Leigh offers eleven episodes that challenge readers' understanding of  the significance of particular turning points of the war.

When contemplating alternatives to conventional conclusions and analyses, Leigh invites discussions and debates on the Confederacy's King Cotton diplomacy and fiscal policy, the Federal policy of breech loading and repeating rifles, Buchanan's choice of ships sent to relieve Fort Sumter, Salmon Chase's solutions to the Federal war debt and its relation to his daughter, her husband William Sprague, and money broker Jay Cooke.

Several chapters take relatively new paths. How did Florida become so important to the Confederacy after Vicksburg surrendered in July 1863? In 1864 at Spring Hill Tennessee were Hood, Cheatman and Cleburne victims of behind-the-Confederate lines Union spies? Was Lincoln wrong to keep McDowell's 40,000 troops out of McClellan's hands in June 1862?   Leigh suggests a logical change of one link in the chain of events and shows that much of the Civil War was contingent on a particular person reaching an ill-informed opinion or having a predisposition to dismiss information out-of-hand.

Many readers approach the American Civil with the notion that 'it happened this way' and the causes-and-effects are immutable.  Regarding reasonable possibilities, Leigh gently offers suggestions at the conclusion of most chapters.  These brief remarks offers tips on how to handle evidence, primary documents, gaps in the records, and the possibility of variations of the well-worn path of most Civil War books written for the general audience.  

The narrative style Lee's Lost Dispatch and Other Civil War Controversies is clear and not complexly written.  Most general readers will find it both easy to read and enjoyable to contemplate. Leigh's previous work Trading With The Enemy: The Covert Economy During the American Civil War was similarly accessible and eye-opening.

New and Noteworthy: Lincoln, His Anti-Semitic Friends and His Jewish Friends

Lincoln And The Jews: A History, Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, St. Martins Press, 2015, 272 pp., bibliographic notes, index, profusely illustrated with color and b/w photographs, $40.00.

Having been a manuscript and letter collector for 35 years, Benjamin Shapell's interest has been absorbed by Lincoln more than anyone else. He has found among Lincoln's letters to be jewels 'having a poetic flair and marvelous turns of phrase.'  Portions of his collection has been have been exhibited by the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution,  the New York Historical Society, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. In his collection of Lincoln documents he found Lincoln expressing humility, biblical imagery, compassion and respect for a people and a religion.

Jonathan Sarna, the author of When General Grant Expelled The Jews [2012] and notes that Lincoln  order expelling 'Jews as a class' from his encampments, Lincoln rescinded the order with the caveat "I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners."  The authors have found correspondence between Lincoln and five close Jewish friends and 14 among his associates and supporters. Lincoln appointed or pardoned 48 Jews during the course of his administrations.  They also note that Lincoln also subtly changed his personal statements in response to Jewish sensitivities. As late at 1862 he described America as a Christian nation and a Christian people. By November 1863 he began to utter 'this nation under God.' Additionally, the authors examine anti-Semitism among Americans in general and abolitionists specifically.

Lincoln And The Jews: A History address in the first three chapters Lincoln's upbringing, what he learned about Judaism for his readings of the Bible and traces his earliest Jewish friends and acquaintances in Illinois.  In particular, the authors focus upon the relationship between Abraham Jonas and Lincoln during his campaigns for elective office. The middle chapters recount the role Jews played in the 1860 presidential campaign and during the presidency.  Lincoln's decision to appoint Jewish chaplains and Grant's Order 11 are thoroughly examined.  Issachar Zacharie, Lincoln's foot doctor, along with General Meade and his order to execute  a Jew, two Roman Catholics and and two Protestants at Beverly Ford, Virginia are recounted and explained. The last chapter and the epilogue recount the assassination, the Jewish response to Lincoln's funeral and later memorializing.  Also discussed is Mary Todd Lincoln's 1866 recounting that her husband remarked that he wished to Palestine and Jerusalem after his second term of was completed.

There is much to enjoy in Lincoln And The Jews: A History. The binding allows the thick pages to fall open, the illustrations are exceeding well reproduced, the narrative is accessible to a wide range of readers. There are approximately 150 hand written letters reproduced, numerous broadsides, ledger account books, and other assorted ephemera such as inauguration tickets and bank checks..  There are about 100 photographic portraits and carte d'visits.  Lincoln And The Jews: A History is an informative and handsome book which is reminiscent of the best work offered during the late 20th century by The American Heritage P
ress.

New and Noteworthy: Lens of War--Exploring The Iconic Photographs of the Civil War

Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War , Uncivil Wars Series, J. Matthew Gallman, and Garry W. Gallagher, editors. harcover, 256 pages, University of Georgia Press, $32.95, April 15, 2015 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: University of Georgia Press (April 15, 2015)

From The Publisher: Lens of War grew out of an invitation to leading historians of the Civil War to select and reflect upon a single photograph. Each could choose any image and interpret it in personal and scholarly terms. The result is a remarkable set of essays by twenty-seven scholars whose numerous volumes on the Civil War have explored military, cultural, political, African American, women’s, and environmental history.

The essays describe a wide array of photographs and present an eclectic approach to the assignment, organized by topic: Leaders, Soldiers, Civilians, Victims, and Places. Readers will rediscover familiar photographs and figures examined in unfamiliar ways, as well as discover little-known photographs that afford intriguing perspectives. All the images are reproduced with exquisite care. Readers fascinated by the Civil War will want this unique book on their shelves, and lovers of photography will value the images and the creative, evocative reflections offered in these essays.

Contributors: Stephen Berry, William A. Blair, Stephen Cushman, Gary W. Gallagher, J. Matthew Gallman, Judith A. Giesberg, Joseph T. Glatthaar, Thavolia Glymph, Earl J. Hess, Harold Holzer, Caroline E. Janney, James Marten, Kathryn Shively Meier, Megan Kate Nelson, Susan Eva O’Donovan, T. Michael Parrish, Ethan S. Rafuse, Carol Reardon, James I. Robertson Jr., Jane E. Schultz, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Brooks D. Simpson, Daniel E. Sutherland, Emory M. Thomas, Elizabeth R. Varon, Joan Waugh, Steven E. Woodworth

New and Noteworthy---Resisting Sherman's 1865 Advance Through The Carolinas

Resisting Sherman: A Confederate Surgeon's Journal and the Civil War in the Carolinas, 1865
Thomas Robertson, Savas Beatie Publishing, hardcover, 192 pages, release date: April 19, 2015.

From The Publisher: Despite its fascinating cast of characters, host of combats large and small, and its impact on the course of the Civil War, surprisingly little ink has been spilled on the conflict’s final months in the Carolinas. Resisting Sherman: A Confederate Surgeon’s Journal and the Civil War in the Carolinas, 1865, by Francis Marion Robertson and edited by Thomas H. Robertson, Jr.) fills in many of the gaps and adds tremendously to our knowledge of this region and those troubled final days of the Confederacy.

Surgeon Francis Robertson fled Charleston with the Confederate garrison in 1865 in an effort to stay ahead of General Sherman’s Federal army as it marched north from Savannah. The Southern high command was attempting to reinforce General Joseph E. Johnston’s force in North Carolina for a last-ditch effort to defeat Sherman and perhaps join with General Lee in Virginia, or at least gain better terms for surrender. Dr. Robertson, a West Pointer, physician, professor, politician, patrician, and Presbyterian with five sons in the Confederate army, kept a daily journal for the final three months of the Civil War while traveling more than 900 miles through four states. His account looks critically at the decisions of generals from a middle ranking officer’s viewpoint, describes army movements from a ground level perspective, and places the military campaign within the everyday events of average citizens suffering under the boot of war.

Editor and descendant Thomas Robertson followed in his ancestor’s footsteps, conducting exhaustive research to identify the people, route, and places mentioned in the journal. Sidebars on a wide variety of related issues include coverage of politics and the Battle of Averasboro, where one of the surgeon’s sons was shot. An extensive introduction covers the military situation in and around Charleston that led to the evacuation. 

New and Noteworthy--Soldiering For Freedom: Recruiting, Training, and Using in Combat African Americans

Book Review From Michigan War Studies website:  Review by Donald R. Shaffer of Soldiering for Freedom: How the Union Army Recruited, Trained, and Deployed the U.S. Colored Troops,  Bob Luke and John David Smith

 

"In Soldiering for Freedom, a recent installment in its publisher's "How Things Worked" series, independent scholar Bob Luke and historian John D. Smith (Univ. of North Carolina–Charlotte) attempt not to break new ground, but to familiarize a wide readership with the findings of current scholarship on black soldiers in the Union Army. For the most part, their succinct book admirably achieves this aim."

"The prologue to the volume wisely begins with the assault of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in July 1863. This action is well known to filmgoers from the acclaimed 1989 movie Glory.  The book's five chapters then branch out to provide a wider introduction to the service of blacks in the Civil War."

Full Text of this review is at Michigan War Studies

Forthing Coming Film----The Free State of Jones, March 11, 2016

 First Look: Matthew McConaughey as Civil War Soldier in 'The Free State of Jones', Etan Vlessing, Hollywood Reporter, 03.09.15

The first photo of Matthew McConaughey portraying defiant farmer Newton Knight in writer-director Gary Ross' upcoming Civil War drama The Free State of Jones was released Monday.

The image captures Knight in battle; McConaughey plays a soldier for the Confederacy during the Civil War who becomes disillusioned with the South's cause, flees the battlefield and defiantly declares a safe haven in Jones County, Mississippi. Keri Russell, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mahershala Ali (House of Cards) also star in the film from Robert Simonds' STX Entertainmentthat has started principal photography in and around New Orleans. The Free State of Jones is produced by Scott Stuber, Jon Kilik (The Hunger Games) and Ross. STX, which co-financed with IM Global, will release the film in the U.S. market March 11, 2016. IM Global will release internationally, with Route One Entertainment and Union Investment Partners also on board as co-financiers.    Text Source: Hollywood Reporter

 and

Keri Russell, Mahershala Ali Join Matthew McConaughey in Civil War Drama, Borys Kit, Hollywood Reporter, 02.15.15

Keri Russell and Mahershala Ali, who plays Remy Danton on Netflix’s House of Cards, have nabbed a key roles in The Free State of Jones, the Matthew McConaughey historical drama being directed by Gary Ross.  Robert Simonds’ newly launched film and television studio STX Entertainment is co-financing the project and will distribute. Route One/ Union Investment Partners and Vendian Entertainment are co-financing, with IM Global overseeing international distribution.

The film is currently in preproduction in Louisiana.  McConaughey is portraying Newton Knight, a soldier for the Confederacy during the Civil War who became disillusioned with the South's cause, fled the battlefield, rallied supporters and declared a safe haven in Jones County, an area of southeastern Mississippi in opposition to the Confederacy. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is already on board, set as a slave who became Knight’s common-law wife. Russell will play will Knight’s first wife, who leaves him. When she sees him next, he is married to a slave. Ali will play a runaway slave whom Knight treats as an equal and who tries to rally black people to register to vote. Ali, repped by WME, is also inhabiting the character of Boggs in both parts of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.  Russell is generating praise for her TV work on The Americans and last appeared on the big screen with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. She is also repped by WME.  Text Source: Hollywood Reporter

and

Storyline from Movie Insider: 

A defiant Southern farmer, Newt Knight, and his extraordinary armed rebellion go against the Confederacy during the Civil War. Set during the Civil War, Newton Knight defects from the Confederate Army, bands together with a group of like-minded soldiers, and set out to form their own State known as the Free State Of Jones.

and 

Check for updates at Movie Insider  and for updates at Internet Movie Database.

New---William Cushing Versus The CSS Albemarle: Adventures and Heroics

Commander Will Cushing: Daredevil Hero of the Civil War, Jamie Malanowski, Norton Publishing,  303 pages, 20 b/w photographs, bibliography, index, 304 pp., 2014,  $26.95.

Commander William B. Cushing is best known for his leadership in the sabotage effort which sank the CSS Albemarle during the night of October 27-28, 1864. Born in Wisconsin and raised in western New York provided with a both down to earth view of life and the ability to create fun where every his lived and worked. He was expelled from the U.S. Naval Academy for poor study habits and a surfeit of demerits during his final year. He was forced to resign from the academy just 90 days before graduation. Jamie Malanowski describes Cushing throughout his early years as having a talent for buffoon.

Cushing's friends and relatives in Washington, D.C, lobbied the secretary of the navy who had been in the post for just 16 days.  Gideon Welles met with Cushing and informed him that his appeal would not be accepted. Then came the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the pleading of Benjamin Butler to Gustavus Fox, assistant secretary of the navy. In the emergency of the moment, Cushing reentered the navy as a acting master's mate and joined the crew of the U.S.S. Minnesota. Cushing found opportunities to create adventures. In 1862 Cushing was promoted to lieutenant and later in life to commander. 

The Confederacy's ironclad ram, Albemarle, dominated the frequently contested region of the Roanoke River and its major port, Plymouth.  During the late summer of 1864 considered various plans for destroying the Albemarle; two of the plans were submitted by by Cushing. Cushing's daring plan and heroic execution earned him a reputation and fame that lasted his lifetime.

Malinowski offers a witty portrait of Cushing and his adventures. With some very short captures and some very extensive chapters, he briskly moves the story forward from Cushing's childhood and to his death. Reckless and impatient during his childhood and adulthood Cushing rushed through his own life. The author does not loiter either and propels the narrative forward at a lively pace. Malinowski is a writer and editor who has served eight or more magazines and newspapers.  Most recently he has served as a lead writer for The New York Times' sesquicentennial Disunion column. Additionally he has written novels, biographies, plays, and an HBO film. Commander Will Cushing is a well assembled story which reflects the author's career in the field of magazine writing. 

Commander Will Cushing: Daredevil Hero of the Civil War is, as Malinowski states, a retelling of an exciting story about a remarkable individual whose fame is in this centur beginning to fade. He speculates that Cushing's heroics may have been part genius and part personality disorder. Malinowski outlines this possibility but does not force it down the reader's throat. The book ends with Malinowski reflecting on Cushing's death at age 32 and what another 32 years of life would have brought Cushing.  Commander Will Cushing: Daredevil Hero of the Civil War is accessible and enjoyable for readers of nearly all ages.  Though a benefit to readers would have been the addition of maps of Hampton Roads and Gosport, Virginia and coastal North Carolina.

Forthcoming---For The Union And The Catholic Church

For the Union and the Catholic Church: Four Converts in the Civil War, Max Longley, McFarland Publishing,  35 photographs, notes, bibliography, index, paperback, $45.00. Summer 2015.

Five men joined the Catholic Church in the mid-1840s: a soldier, his bishop brother, a priest born a slave and two editors at odds with each other. For the next two decades they were in the thick of the battles of the era--Catholicism versus Know-Nothingism, slavery versus abolition, North versus South. Much has been written about the Catholic Church and about the Civil War. This book is the first in more than half a century to focus exclusively on the intersection of these two topics.

Max Longley has written books and articles have also explored civil liberties, the theology of judicial oaths, and the Civil War. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

News---The Passing Of A Great Gettysburg Historian

Thoughts On Harry Pfanz, Bert Barnett and the Staff,  The Blog of the Gettysburg National Military Park, February 4, 2015

On the early afternoon of January 31^st, the staff at Gettysburg National Military Park received a jolting bit of news:  one of our own, in a large and treasured sense, had passed.  And while the announcement of the death of Dr. Harold “Harry” Pfanz, while not wholly unexpected, certainly saddened many, it also gave us cause to once again recall the man for some whose very name meant “Gettysburg.”

Personally, from my perspective, as an interpretive ranger fairly new to the battlefield at the time, Dr. Pfanz was a quiet, unassuming gentleman; though one already looked upon with quiet reverence given the recognition earned by his first work, Gettysburg: The Second Day.  I was privileged to meet the good Doctor in the early ‘90’s, during his research on his second work, Gettysburg: Culp’s Hill & Cemetery Hill.   At that moment, he was on his way up to the library in the old Cyclorama building.  A fine scholar of the old school, he invariably carried a number of long yellow legal pads and pencils with him during these research forays. At one point, he related how he had conducted the research for The Second Day, utilizing this long-hand method.  Unstated, but understood, was that in his day he had accomplished all that without the aid of copiers, and (obviously,) without computers.  Quite an achievement; yet he was not satisfied with just one.

Although Dr. Pfanz (“Harry,” to those of us who saw him,) continued, on an infrequent basis, to make research trips in the years that followed, he spoke to all most fluently through his  collective writing on the Battle of Gettysburg.  In 2001, the final work in “the Pfanz trilogy” appeared – Gettysburg: The First Day.   Following the completion of that third volume, his appearances within the park were rare, yet his name was (and is yet) often heard in discussions as staff discussed elements of his research in debate.

While his landmarks in the field of Gettysburg literature are well-known, his private personality shied him away from sharing many other worthwhile accomplishments.  A seriously wounded artillery officer during the Battle of the Bulge, Pfanz later earned his doctorate at Ohio State, prior to becoming a historian for the Army.  In 1956, at the outset of the “Mission 66” expansion, he accepted a position with the National Park Service at Gettysburg, initially choosing to refight the battle that would come to dominate the majority of his later life.
Assigned to St. Louis, Missouri, between 1966 and 1971, at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, he served as the site superintendent when the site’s iconic Arch was opened there in 1968.  He left St. Louis in 1971, travelling to Washington, D.C.  In 1974 Pfanz became the Chief Historian of the National Park Service, functioning in that role until his retirement in 1981.


During the course of his work with the National Park Service, Dr. Pfanz received the Department of the Interior’s Meritorious Service Award, the Special Achievement Award, and its Distinguished Service Award.  Outside the “green and gray,” Harry was actively involved in the affairs of his church, of Phi Alpha Theta (the history honors fraternity) and other organizations.
Harry, however, did not boast any of that.  He was, as we recall, a studious and detailed researcher, quiet and efficient in his way.  Thankfully, his tremendous efforts resulted in landmark works that help us more fully understand the struggle that took place here.  They will remain, but their author has gone.  And I will miss him.

Ranger Bert Barnett

Full Text and Image Source: From The Fields Of Gettysburg

News---As Savannah Georgia's Harbor Is Dredged Confederate Ironclad Will Be Recovered

Divers Begin Recovery of Civil War Ironclad Before Deepening of Channel, Phil Gast, CNN Friday January 30, 2015

 

The deepening of the shipping channel in Savannah, Georgia, won't be dredging up just mud and sand.  It will be raising up a link to the past: an ironclad that protected the city during the Civil War until the vessel met its undignified demise.

For about the next nine months, divers will be working to bring up the CSS Georgia, piece by rusted piece, from nearly 40 feet down in the Savannah River. The $706 million harbor deepening officially began Thursday with speeches and the firing of an old cannon at Old Fort Jackson near the wreck site.

The removal of the CSS Georgia is necessary for the state and federal project, which will see the channel go from 42 to 47 feet so massive cargo container ships can use the port without relying on the tide. While some material from the Confederate vessel was recovered after the war, four artillery pieces, parts of the propeller and propulsion system, a boiler and two casemates, which housed the artillery pieces, remain in the swift, dark waters. One of the casemates is huge: 68 feet by 24 feet.

"She is really in large sections scattered throughout the bottom down there," Julie Morgan, archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Savannah, told CNN. The CSS Georgia didn't have enough power to maneuver and effectively trade artillery rounds with any enemy vessels that might approach from the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, the vessel became a stationary floating battery, bristling with artillery pieces.

CWL:  From a quick internet search it appears that the CSS Savannah and the CSS Georgia are the same vessel.  The first CSS Georgia was a floating artillery platform stationed for a time at Elba Island, then at Fort James Jackson.  The first remnant of the ship was brought up from the bottom of the harbor on November 11, 2013.
 
 Full Text Continued:   CNN, January 30, 2015

Image Source: Deseret News

News---Confederate Weapons Cache May Have Been Found In South Carolina River

Huge Cache Of Confederate Weapons Seized by General Sherman may have Been Found In South Carolina River, Washington Post, January 21, 20155

Drunk and rowdy, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops captured South Carolina’s capital on Feb. 17, 1865. It was nearing the end of the Civil War, and Sherman’s plan was to destroy the state where secession began.  “The truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina,” Sherman wrote to Gen. Henry W. Halleck. “I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her.”

Sherman’s 60,000-man army torched Columbia in retaliation for seceding from the Union. The blaze, which he later blamed on a Confederate general he said left cotton bales in the streets, destroyed a third of the city. Sherman’s troops made off with the Confederate armory. They confiscated cannonballs, rammers, sabers and bayonet scabbards. And, on their way out of town, they dumped whatever they couldn’t carry into the Congaree River.

Amid a massive toxic tar cleanup, historians have found possible evidence of the loot using sonar and metal detectors near the Gervais Street bridge in downtown Columbia, the city’s State newspaper first reported over the weekend. The munitions, if indeed they are munitions, are said to be buried in 40,000 tons of black tar that spilled into the river several years ago from a now-defunct power plant. Historians are trying to find the best way to retrieve the stash, with explosive experts on hand.

“Hopefully, none of it is going to blow up,” Joe Long, curator of the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, told the newspaper. Researchers located more than 200 sites in the two-foot-thick oil sludge as “exhibiting signature characteristics that could be associated with ordnance.”

Full Text is continued at Washington Post, January 21, 2015

News---Union Navy Coat Found In Underwater Debris Of USS Monitor Is Nearly Restored

 Wool Coat That Sank With Civil War ironclad Monitor Is Nearly Revived, Mark St. John Erickson, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2015.

More than 150 years after it sank off Cape Hatteras inside the warship Monitor, a woolen coat discarded by a Union sailor trying to escape the doomed Civil War ironclad is approaching another milestone.

Found inside the gun turret, which was recovered from the Atlantic in 2002, the rumpled expanse of Navy blue cloth had to be chiseled and coaxed from the grasp of the thick marine concretion that trapped it — a painstaking process that took archaeologists and conservators from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and Mariners' Museum several days.

David Krop, director of the USS Monitor Center at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Va., replaces a button on the coat, a double-breasted pilot's jacket. (Jonathon Gruenke / Newport News)

But that was only the start of a decade-long treatment program that included hundreds of hours of tedious yet precise manual labor as conservators used ultrasonic dental scalers to break down the concretions embedded between the fragile fibers.

Now the museum is engaged in the final steps of a $20,000 effort to reassemble some 180 pieces of fabric onto custom-made archival mounts, then put the conserved coat on display inside its USS Monitor Center here in southeast Virginia. And with weeks to go before humidity indicators determine the optimum place for the artifact, the leaders of the effort to bring it back to life say that all the time, money and attention has been more than worth it.

"We've found all kinds of buttons inside the turret — some made of wood, some of glass, some of bone, some of rubber, some even mother-of-pearl. Clearly the sailors were just tearing their clothes off before jumping into the water — and doing it so fiercely that their buttons were popping off," Monitor Center director David Krop said.

"This coat was left behind by one of those sailors — and it gives you a very real, very personal connection to the story of those men and this ship during its chaotic end."
Recognized around the world after its clash with the Confederate ironclad warship Virginia — also known as the Merrimack — in the March 9, 1861, Battle of Hampton Roads, the pioneering Monitor sank less than 10 months later off Cape Hatteras.

Most of the officers and crew escaped the ship, which had just celebrated Christmas. But 16 men were lost when the vessel went down during a frantic, storm-tossed rescue attempt.

Not until 1973 was the wreck found in 220 feet of water — and 25 years passed before Navy divers working with archaeologists from the Newport News-based sanctuary launched the first in a series of summer expeditions that led to the 2002 recovery of the turret.

That's when conservators and archaeologists began the task of excavating and preserving the contents of the revolutionary gun platform, which had flipped upside down as it sank, jumbling its two giant guns and gun carriages, two ill-fated sailors and the rest of its contents together.    Among the most poignant objects discovered as they sifted through the tons of sediment and concretion that had accumulated over 141 years was the coat, which wrapped around several of the Monitor's gun tools — including a rammer and worm — as the sinking vessel descended.

Puzzling that mass apart from the surrounding concretion with small hand and pneumatic chisels was delicate and tedious work.  "It was heavily concreted in a lot of places — and the concretion had grown into the woven fiber structure," senior conservator Will Hoffman said.  From the turret, the mass went immediately into a tub of water — the first of countless baths it would undergo over more than 10 years in an effort to remove the destabilizing chemicals absorbed from the sea.
But long before the conservators freeze-dried the cloth to remove the last traces of its final water bath, the disintegration of the original cotton thread had combined with its long exposure to the sea to pull the garment apart into about 180 pieces. "It looks like it's in great shape," Hoffman said, "but it's actually pretty degraded."

Full Text is Continued at Los Angeles Times.com
Images are from Los Angles Times.com

New and Noteworthy---Sherman's March: How Popular Cultures Fib About The Civil War

Through The Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March and American Memory, Anne Sarah Rubin, University of North Carolina Press, 2014, 300 pp., 20 b/w illustrations, 2 maps, end notes, bibliography, index, $35.00.

Below is a book review written by Krista Kinslow and published January 14 2015 on H-Net.

  In Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March and American Memory, Anne Sarah Rubin presents the many stories that have been told about Union General William T. Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea in late 1864. She is interested in showing how these stories emerged and evolved over time, rather than discerning which are more accurate. Rubin writes that “this project explores the myriad ways in which Americans have retold and reimagined Sherman’s March,” and she examines several groups’ stories about this event, starting with “the participants themselves, including white Southerners, African Americans, Union soldiers.” Drawing on “travel accounts, memoirs, music, literature, film, and newspapers,” she aims to unpack “the many myths and legends that have grown up around the March, using them as a lens into the ways that Americans’ thoughts about the Civil War have changed over time” (p. 4).

The book begins with an overview of the march, setting the stage for Rubin’s analysis. She captures the confusion of the campaign, showing foraging and destruction, but also acts of kindness. She discusses the complicated relationship between the march and African Americans who came into its path. Rubin stresses that the Union army was not wholly made up of abolitionist proponents and showcases events, like the abandonment of black camp followers at Ebenezer Creek, to demonstrate the callous and strategic choices the military made in the context of complicated racial views and the realities of war.

Not surprisingly, different groups told different stories about Sherman’s march. White Southerners saw the march as indicative of Northern excess and rapacity. Rubin focuses on stories told about Southern women hiding their valuables and livestock and Northern soldiers stealing, although she only briefly discusses rape and assault, which is surprising given later accusations of such crimes. In contrast to legends about Sherman’s scorched-earth policy, Rubin points out that a large percentage of buildings were not burned, and Southerners had to come up with creative explanations for unaffected structures. According to Rubin, one of the most common ways to explain a structure’s survival was to link it to the Freemasons, which conveyed a sort of Passover message, in that if the Masonic symbol was displayed, the building was spared. Alongside such conspiracy theories stood stories about Northern kindness, especially tales of soldiers helping women and children. Rubin’s work could have benefited from further analysis of when these stories circulated and whether there was any indication that some narratives were more popular in certain contexts.

African Americans also told stories about the march and were often part of tales spun about it. Stories ranged from the predictable “faithful slave” narratives white Southerners told, to tales of liberation. Throughout, Rubin explains how “Sherman’s March was the epitome of the double-edged sword,” bringing not only emancipation but also “hunger, destruction, and mistreatment” for African Americans (p. 69). Throughout her analysis, Rubin stresses the ambivalence soldiers felt about emancipation, showing that the cause for which Union soldiers fought was more complicated than the view that many Americans continue to espouse. Although such complexity strengthens the book’s argument, more discussion on how black audiences received these stories would have been helpful.

Rubin suggests that “the importance of the March for African Americans seemed to wane over the twentieth century,” but it returned to importance in the 1960s with the intersection of the centennial of the march and the civil rights movement. When John Lewis, newly elected chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), wanted to use rhetoric about the march in his speech for the 1963 March on Washington, other civil rights leaders considered it too incendiary and told him to change it. Reformers seeking peaceful change needed to avoid symbols of conquest and violence, no matter how important they were historically.

Northern soldiers, the “bummers” in the Union ranks, and Sherman himself told stories that focused on the justification of the march. Rubin stresses that nineteenth-century soldiers were different and should not be compared to their twentieth-century counterparts—for instance, Union soldiers reflected on the march in a “light or celebratory fashion” (pp. 97-98). Further, Union soldiers pushed back against the Lost Cause narrative—they wanted to “make sure that their version of the March dominated” (p. 98). This meant spinning tales that emphasized the Union and ending slavery as well as the restraint of soldiers and the triumph of the good over the evils of rebellion and oppression. Rubin notes that Sherman and his march became inseparable in memory and the general worked hard to present his own version of events. His own actions during the aftermath influenced historical memory. In the years just after the war, white Southerners were willing to forget Sherman’s destruction because he advocated for a gentler reconstruction. But in the 1880s, Southern views toward Sherman became much more negative, perhaps because Sherman’s march “was being conflated with the economic challenges of Reconstruction, and a sense of nostalgia for an imagined golden age.” Rubin notes that “Sherman became the symbolic repository for white Southerners frustrations” (p. 132).

Finally, Rubin examines the literature, songs, and movies inspired by the march. These chapters are perhaps the most illuminating and illustrate the divide in interpretations. Rubin joins other recent scholars like Caroline E. Janney (Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation [2013]) in pointing toward a more complicated view of reunion. Rather than seeing it as a process that proceeded linearly, she notes the twists and turns that the rapprochement between the North and South took. For example, in 1902, a Louisville, Kentucky, schoolgirl refused to sing or listen to the Unionist classic, “Marching through Georgia.” The girl was hailed as a Confederate hero because of the incident. “That this sense of sectional grievance persisted even during what historians have told us was the peak of reunionist sentiment, after the Spanish-American War, is telling,” Rubin suggests, before adding that “beneath the placid surface of joint reunions and Southern whites fighting under the American flag again, lay a deep well of animosity” (p. 182).

This study is an excellent addition to the flourishing literature on Civil War memory, and scholars and Civil War enthusiasts will find it interesting. In her commitment to examining the many different stories told about the march, Rubin shows how contested one event can be and how different people work to present their own narratives and construct their own memories of the past.

 Link To Full Text: H-Net