Forthcoming Film And Book--- 12 Years A Slave: An Autobiography; This Is Not Another Django

The forthcoming film 12 Years A Slave is based upon the incredible but true autobiography of Solomon Northrup of freedom, enslavement and escape. 12 Years a Slave was published in 1853 and reveals that a free black man was kidnapped in Washington D. C. in 1841 and worked on Louisiana plantations for 12 years before his release.   In antebellum America, Northrup lived in upstate New York, was kidnapped and then sold into slavery. Northrup was purchased by a cruel master but experienced unexpected kindness from a variety of sources. Northrup's constant struggle is stay alive as a slave and retaining his dignity as a human being. A chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist changes Northrup's odds of leaving slavery and returning to his home and family.

Actors you may recognize include Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, and Benedict Cumberbatch. The trailer is located on MovieWeb. The full cast list, screenwriters and other credits are located at the Internet Movie Database.  The screenplay is written by John Ridley who wrote the screenplay for Redtails and Three Kings. 

The book is available at Amazon.com is hardcover, paperback, audiobook,and Kindle editions.

Also, in August 2013 Praeger Publishing will offer an annotated, 238 page edition of the autobiography.  The following text is provided by the publisher.

Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years A Slave provides a compelling chronological narrative of Northup's entire life, from his birth in an isolated settlement in upstate New York to the activities he pursued after his release from slavery. This comprehensive biography of Solomon Northup picks up where earlier annotated editions of his narrative left off, presenting fascinating, previously unknown information about the author of the autobiographical Twelve Years A Slave.

This book examines Northup's life as a slave and reveals details of his life after he regained his freedom, relating how he traveled around the Northeast giving public lectures, worked with an Underground Railroad agent in Vermont to help fugitive slaves reach freedom in Canada, and was connected with several theatrical productions based upon his experiences. The tale of Northup's life demonstrates how the victims of the American system of slavery were not just the slaves themselves, but any free person of color—all of whom were potential kidnap victims, and whose lives were affected by that constant threat.

Off Topic---No Easy Day: The First Hand Account Of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy Seal, The Firsthand Account Of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer, Dutton Publishing, 316 pp., 24 illustrations and maps, list of confirming sources, 2012, $21.95.

Mark Owen is a pseudonym of former member of the U.S. Navy's Special Warfare Development Group [Seal Team Six]. No Easy Day is similar to the oral history work of Studs Turkel, a Chicago newspaper feature writer and bestselling author.. Kevin Maurer, an embedded writer with U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, is the co-author of the book.   Owen describes his career and several of his Seal Team Six mission.   The mission that killed Osama Bin Laden is described in the latter half of the book, which was written and published without clearance from the Department of Defense. After the September 2012, the identity of the author was revealed to be Matt Bissonnette and the Department of Defense confirmed this.

Bissonette describes his early in Alaska, his long desire to be a SEAL and  the rigors of  his admission to Seal Team Six. His work in  several operations, including the Maersk Alabma hijacking rescue, is described as well as the camaraderie, professionalism, and dedication of the team's members. Owen's participation in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden is offered from a boots-on-the-ground perspective and is quite similar to the film Zero Dark Thirty.  Furthermore the emotions, sights, smell and tremors of the events are delivered with a brisk and compelling narrative style.

New and Noteworthy---Guelzo's Gettysburg: Compelling, Clear And A Bit Controversial

Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, Allen C. Guelzo, Knopf Publisher, 652 pp, 44 maps, 22 illustrations, bibliographic notes, bibliography, index, $35.00.

1863 in the Civil War was a year of turning points, such as the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, the battle Gettysburg, and the sieges of Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Readers may think that publishers would overwhelm the marketplace with related books, yet it is not so. No other Civil War battlefield park is visited as much as Gettysburg and this year there is only one book that takes up the challenge to comprehensively present the battle. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion meets the challenge. Written in a style that is friendly for general readers, Guelzo’s work also meets the standards of scholars.  It is a remarkable achievement.

At Gettysburg College, Allen C. Guelzo serves as the Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War Era as Director of the Civil War Era Studies Program, and is the author of 11 books of Lincoln, emancipation, the Civil War and American Christendom. In Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, he sets forth the story in a clear, concise and compelling manner. From the conception of the campaign in the minds of Confederate military leader Robert E. Lee and Confederate Presiden Jefferson Davis through President Lincoln’s delivery Gettysburg Address, Guelzo looks at the campaign and battle from several interesting perspectives. 

Those who are only familiar with Gettysburg because of a school visit or the film Gettysburg will be comfortable with Gettysburg: The Last Invasion.  Guelzo’s account is straightforward and does not require extensive familiarity with the battle. Those who have read Noah Trudeau’s 2002 Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage or Stephen Sears’ 2003 Gettysburg will be delighted by the amount of new information and perspectives in Guelzo’s work.

One of the enjoyments of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion is the constant attention Guelzo gives to individual combat soldiers, commanders, and civilians. There is rarely a paragraph that does not contain direct remarks from participants. Describing the fighting during the morning and afternoon of July 1, Guelzo offers the testimony of many soldiers and seven civilian witnesses.

At the college, student Martin Colver watches an artillery barrage from a third classroom window and is interrupted by a professor leading blue coated signalmen with flags and telescopes to the cupola. The college’s president Henry L. Braugher resigns himself to the failure of students to maintain attention during his lecture and dismisses them; soon a cannonball strikes the cupola where the signalmen are.

Guelzo offers new and interesting remarks regarding a variety unique circumstances. He describes the non-combat duties performed by Africans Americans in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Guelzo estimates the changing fog of war by calculating the time it takes to transmit an order from the division commander to the brigade commander, then to the regimental commander. Confederate troops’ discipline included their viewing five executions for desertion after the invaders crossed the Potomac River and enter Maryland.  Looting the dead and wounded occurred during the battle. After a successful attack, enemy corpses with their trouser pockets turned out immediately appeared. While being assisted away from the firing line, mortally wounded North Carolina colonel Henry Burgwyn nearly had his vest pocket watch stolen by a South Carolina lieutenant who is helping him off the field.

Overall, the author drives his narrative forward with taut observations of the soldiers. Rebels “fell all over themselves with laughter” when they discover that Pennsylvanians believe there are secret handshakes and facial expressions that will spare them the invaders’ deprivations. Federals soldiers along the roads “began to straggle and brigades leaked clots of exhausted soldiers”. Federal army commander George Meade remained cordial with corps commander John Reynolds “but privately his letters curdle with envy” when Reynolds received a promotion in 1862.

Wisely Guelzo does not attempt to definitively answer contentious problems.  Did Confederate cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart lose the battle by “galloping off on a senseless joy-ride” as the invasion began?  Did Confederate corps commander Richard Ewell lose the battle because he lacked the energy and the ruthlessness to drive the Federals off Culp’s Hill during the evening of July 1?  The author puts forward his reply to these and other questions. Guelzo believes that both reason and self-interest contend for readers’ opinions on these questions. He is not argumentative; he states his case on moves on.

The author takes full advantage of a pair of remarkable resources. Gettysburg is the only battle to have its own magazine.  Gettysburg Magazine, founded in July 1989, has published 47 issues of new scholarship on the battle and campaign. In its 24 years, it has offered troves of recently found diaries, reports, and changing interpretations on topics such as African Americans in the Gettysburg campaign, cavalry battles surrounding the main battlefield, the gathering of military intelligence and the farmstead hospitals.  Also, Gettysburg National Military Park regular presents a scholarly seminar and publishes the conference proceedings which Guelzo regularly cites.

Both George Gordon Meade's and Robert E. Lee's backers may disagree with Guelzo's conclusions.  He believes that Lee never had a clear grasp of the terrain and the tactics to deal with an enemy and  Meade was reluctant to fight on July 1, 2, and 3. Also, the July 3 cavalry battle, Farnesworth's Charge and the advance of the the Pennsylvania Reserves brigade after the Grand Assault are described as fully as they may have been. Guelzo does provide insights into the Virginia clique in the Army of Virginia and to the Peace Democrat generals of the army of the Potomac.

Gettysburg: The Last Invasion is enjoyable, not only for its scholarship but also for its storytelling. “The sun soon came up, a dim blood-red disc behind the clouds on the eastern horizon” is reminiscent of the best writing in Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage.  Suspense is still found in the familiar story of Gettysburg. “So, rather than wait to be hunted by the Yankees . . . Lee would go hunting himself for the climatic victory he had always wanted”  writes Guelzo.  Gettysburg: The Last Invasion is indeed a remarkable achievement. 

Portions of this review appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 30, 2013.

New and Noteworthhy---Fredericksburg On The Other Foot: GIS Reveals What Lee May Have Seen At Gettysburg

A Cutting-Edge Second Look Ath the Battle of Gettysburg: New Technology Has Given Us The Chance To Re-Examine How The Civil War Battle Was Won And Lost, Anne Kelly Knowles, June 30, 2013.

 

The technological limits of surveillance during the American Civil War dictated that commanders often decided where to deploy their troops based largely on what they could see. We know that Confederate general Robert E. Lee was virtually blind at Gettysburg, as his formerly brilliant cavalry leader J.E.B. Stuart failed to inform him of Federal positions, and Confederate scouts’ reconnaissance was poor. The Confederates’ field positions, generally on lower ground than Yankee positions, further put Lee at a disadvantage. A striking contrast in visual perception came when Union Gen. Gouvernour K. Warren spotted Confederate troops from Little Round Top and called in reinforcements just in time to save the Federal line.
 
What more might we learn about this famous battle if we put ourselves in commanders’ shoes, using today’s digital technology to visualize the battlefield and see what they could see? Our team, which includes myself, researcher Dan Miller and cartographer Alex Tait, have done just that. Alex recreated the 1863 terrain based on a superb map of the battlefield from 1874 and present-day digital data. Dan and I captured troop positions from historical maps. Our interactive map shows Union and Confederate troop movements over the course of the battle, July 1 – 3, 1863. Panoramic views from strategic viewpoints show what commanders could – and could not – see at decisive moments, and what Union soldiers faced at the beginning of Pickett’s Charge. You will also find “viewshed” maps created with GIS (Geographic Information Systems). These maps show more fully what was hidden from view at those key moments.

Altogether, our mapping reveals that Lee never had a clear view of enemy forces; the terrain itself hid portions of the Union Army throughout the battle. In addition, Lee did not grasp – or acknowledge – just how advantageous the Union’s position was. In a reversal of the Battle of Fredericksburg, where Lee’s forces held the high ground and won a great victory, Union General George Meade held the high ground at Gettysburg. Lee’s forces were spread over an arc of seven miles, while the Union’s compact position, anchored on several hills, facilitated communication and quick troop deployment. Meade also received much better information, more quickly, from his subordinates. Realizing the limits of what Lee could see makes his decisions appear even bolder, and more likely to fail, than we knew.

Text Above,  Source and Website for the GIS Panoramas:  Smithsonian History and Archaeology

 

New---North Carolina's Life Line of the Confederacy: The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad

The Wilmington & Weldon Railroad in the Civil War, James C. Burke, McFarland Publishing, illustrations, maps, charts 275 pages, paperback. 2013. $35.00

Review by Alan Lamm; Published on H-War (June, 2013)  Text Source: H-War

James C. Burke has had a long interest in the story of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad. His first book on the topic, published in 2011, was entitled The Wilmington & Raleigh Rail Road Company, 1833-1854. It focused on its founding and early development. The book being reviewed here, The Wilmington & Weldon Railroad in the Civil War, continues to trace the story of the railroad during the Civil War years.

 

The Wilmington & Weldon Railroad has been called the “lifeline of the Confederacy” especially during the last years of the war. Burke, however, shows that the story of this railroad line is much more complex. He demonstrates that the railroad not only transported badly needed supplies from the port city of Wilmington to Robert E. Lee’s Army of North Virginia, but also served as an important link to other railroads that were bringing in supplies from other areas of the Confederacy.

Burke shows that the railroad achieved much and deserves its “lifeline” title, but it was also plagued with numerous problems. For example, different sized railroad gauges used by trains coming from other Southern states caused some problems. Having to unload and reload food in order to change trains often resulted in food left piled up for days and spoiling while Lee’s army starved. Other challenges included several Union raids, such as those launched by Major General John G. Foster’s forces from New Bern, North Carolina. The tracks were repaired fairly quickly, but the raids demonstrated the vulnerability of the railroad. The greatest problem, however, was the fact that the railroad was simply not designed to handle the large volume of goods and soldiers that a war demanded.

 

There are many strengths and some weaknesses in this book. On the one hand, Burke’s uncovering of the railroad acting as a conduit for supplies from across the South has already been mentioned. Burke also dug deep into records and primary sources making this a very well-researched book. On the other hand, his fondness for numbers and details--the amount of food, clothes, soldiers, etc., transported--sometimes lacks a human element. What would have made the book a better read, perhaps, is greater focus on the personalities involved, such as S. L. Fremont who took over leadership of the railroad after the untimely death of President William S. Ashe. Fremont was a key force in keeping the railroad going despite all of its challenges. Then, too, the book sometimes drifts off into a history of the city of Wilmington and the problems it faced during the war, which is interesting but is a bit off target. Nevertheless, this book is very well-researched and provides a solid and insightful picture of the impact of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad on the American Civil War.

 

Text Source: H-War

 

New---Arkansas Late In The Civil War: The 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, April 1864-1865

Arkansas Late In The Civil War: The 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, April 1864-1865, David E. Casto, History Press, 128 pages, bibliographic notes, maps, photographs and sketches, $19.99.

Arkansas Late In The Civil War: The 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, April 1864-1865 is another blessing of the sesquicentennial; a well researched regional history of a topic that needs spotlighted. Mark K. Christ's Civil War Arkansas, 1863: The Battle for a State clearly offered the major issues and personalities of the war; David Castro's study of the 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry offers a micro-study one cavalry regiment during one year.  

In 1864 U. S. Grant ordered department commandeer Major General Frederick Steele to send 12,000 Federal troops from Arkansas to Louisiana to participate in the Red River Campaign and its Arkansas segment, the Camden Expedition.  The remainder of the infantry was to stay in stockades while the cavalry were ordered to patrol central Arkansas protect the state from raiding rebels. The 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, along with others cavalry regiments spent nine battling CSA general Jo Shelby's raids on the fertile river valleys Arkansas' borders communities. 

Throughout the summer of 1864, Confederate strength in northeast Arkansas steadily grew.  Many men who had either deserted from their previous commands or become separated were returning to the Confederate army and cavalry. New Confederate units such as the 45th through the 48th Arkansas Mounted Infantry Units were created in the spring and summer of 1864. The Federal unit, 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry was organized in August and September 1862. It fought in the Battle of Prairie Grove [December 7, 1862] and may have engaged in a massacre of nine Confederate sympathizers at Huntsville [January 10, 1863].  The 8th Regiment took part in the capture of Little Rock in September, 1863.

Casto's history begins in April 1864 with declarations from primary sources that describe the 8th Missouri as being a 'hell roaring' regiment that is 'without fear.'  The White River and the Arkansas River were crossed frequently by the regiment and it became adept at tracking Rebels in pelting rainstorms and on sun baked plateaus.  Throughout the year, the 8th Missouri Cavalry gave better than they usually got.  The remained in Little Rock until March, 1864 and then were ordered to Duvall's Bluff, Arkansas. They spent the remainder of the war securing Arkansas, during which time they engaged Confederate forces and guerrillas bands in several skirmishes but without any major battles. They mustered out of service on July 20th, 1865.

Casto relies on both the Official Records of the Civil War and numerous letters, diaries and newspapers and offers a narrative that covers the major issues and the local history of Arkansas. With a clear and concise style, he presents the 8th Missouri Cavalry as conscientious soldiers who are mindful that there are enemies in uniform and enemies without uniforms, which is much like American wars from Viet Nam to the present.

On The Road---The Rosecrans/Wheeling [WV] Ambulance

The Wheeling or Rosecrans ambulance wagon was built in the Government workshops after a design of General W. S. Rosecrans, U. S. A. It was lighter than [others and] could be readily drawn by two horses, and would accommodate eleven or twelve sitting or two recumbent and two or three sitting patients. Two cushioned benches were attached to the two sides of the interior of the wagon, running along its whole length.

From the edge of each of these benches, fastened by hinges, depended a cushioned seat the length of the benches. These seats could be readily brought on a level with the benches, and when thus elevated could be securely fixed by iron feet, folded in the suspended seat. For the ends of the iron feet receptacles were fitted in the floor of the wagon. When both seats were raised they met, in the middle of the carriage and made one continuous bed for two patients.

When only one seat was raised it formed a bed for a recumbent patient, while the other bench, with its suspended seat, allowed space for at least four sitting patients. A water-tank, capable of holding five gallons, was stored away under the seats in the rear end of the ambulance wagon; not unfrequently stretchers took the place of one of the water-tanks. In front of the benches a transverse seat, accommodating the driver and two or three patients, was provided.

Under the seat was a box for medicines and other articles for field use. Accurate specifications for the building of this ambulance will be found on page 59 of the Report of a Board of Officers . . . . The body of the wagon rested upon four elliptical springs, two placed, transversely (one on the front and one on rear axle), and two on the rear axle running longitudinally. A frame of light wood, with canvas cover, protected the patients against the inclemencies of the weather, and on the sides curtains of canvas could be closely buttoned to the top and the body. At the rear of the wagon was a step to assist patients and bearers in lifting in the wounded. The weight of the wagon was between seven hundred and eight hundred pounds.

Text Source with edits: Civl War Home.com
Photograph Souce: Civil War Librarian LLC and June 20, 2013

The photographs of a reproduction Wheeling Ambulance. It was built in Rayland, Ohio and on exhibit on Rest Stop #1 on Interstate 70 in West Virginia about 3 miles from the Pennsylvania line. From autumn to spring, the ambulance resides in the Pry House barn, Antietam National Military Park.  During the summertime, it returns to the owner who lives in Rayland, Ohio.

New---The Battle of West Point Bridge, Mississippi Clearly and Concisely Presented

The Battle of West Point: Confederate Triumph At Ellis Bridge, John McBryde, History Press, 128 pages, maps, photographs, illustration, appendices, bibliographic notes, bibliography, $19.99.

William T. Sherman's early 1864 Meridian Mississippi Campaign in some ways prepared him and his troops for the late 1864 Savannah Georgia Campaign.  From February 3–20, 1864, Sherman and the Army of the Tennessee marched from Vicksburg in western Mississippi to Meridian in eastern Mississippi. The primary purpose was to destroy Meridian an important railroad hub, the location of an arsenal, a military hospital, and a prisoner of war camp.  Since the capture of Jackson, the state's capital, Meridan held important Mississippi state offices.

Sherman planned to take Meridian and possibly advance further east to Selma, Alabama or south to Mobile, Alabama. He  ordered Brigadier General William S. Smith and 7,000 cavalry to leave Memphis, Tennessee and to Okolona, Mississippi and follow the route of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad to Meridian.  Smith cavalry met the troopers of  Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest at West Point, Mississippi.   He forced Smith to begin to retreat back into Tennessee. Forrest followed Smith's retreat. Forrest caught Smith and his troops at Okolona, Mississippi  and forced them to retreat even more quickly.  Smith's coverage of Sherman's left flank failed though Smith troops were a magnet for CSA resistance and Forrest did not impede Sherman's advance nor his retreat.

John McBryde's The Battle of West Point: Confederate Triumph At Ellis Bridge, focuses upon the February 21 one as a precursor to the February 22 Battle of Okolona. On the banks of the Chuquatonchee Creek which is crossed by Ellis Bridge, Smith's 7,000 exhausted troops met Forrest's fresher and more experienced 2,500 cavalrymen.  Citing primary sources of troopers and civilians, McBryde's account is concise, well-paced and well organized. He offers ten pages of civil accounts of the engagement.  The period and modern photographs, the officers' photographic portraits and post-war sketches are appropriate and clarify the text. McBryde's narrative is clear and is a fine example of local history well done.

New and Noteworthy---Loyal Americans Becoming Confederates: Lee, Ramseur and Early Viewed By Gary Gallagher

Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty by Gary W. Gallagher, University of Georgia Press and Mercer University Press, 152 pages; $59.95 hardcover, $18.95 paperback [May 1, 2013]

Description From the publisher:

In Becoming Confederates, Gary W. Gallagher explores loyalty in the era of the Civil War, focusing on Robert E. Lee, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, and Jubal A. Early-three prominent officers in the Army of Northern Virginia who became ardent Confederate nationalists. Loyalty was tested and proved in many ways leading up to and during the war. Looking at levels of allegiance to their native state, to the slaveholding South, to the United States, and to the Confederacy, Gallagher shows how these men represent responses to the mid-nineteenthcentury crisis.

Lee traditionally has been presented as a reluctant convert to the Confederacy whose most powerful identification was with his home state of Virginia—an interpretation at odds with his far more complex range of loyalties. Ramseur, the youngest of the three, eagerly embraced a Confederate identity, highlighting generational differences in the equation of loyalty. Early combined elements of Lee's and Ramseur's reactions—a Unionist who grudgingly accepted Virginia's departure from the United States but later came to personify defiant Confederate nationalism.

The paths of these men toward Confederate loyalty help delineate important contours of American history. Gallagher shows that Americans juggled multiple, often conflicting, loyalties and that white southern identity was preoccupied with racial control transcending politics and class. Indeed, understanding these men's perspectives makes it difficult to argue that the Confederacy should not be deemed a nation. Perhaps most important, their experiences help us understand why Confederates waged a prodigiously bloody war and the manner in which they dealt with defeat.

Focuses on the competing allegiances of Robert E. Lee, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, and Jubal A. Early.

Blurbs:

Once again, Gary Gallagher, the master essayist on the Civil War, has given us wonderful food for thought on the nature of Confederate nationalism. Through three cross-generational test cases—R. E. Lee, Dodson Ramseur, and Jubal Early—Gallagher penetrates the thicket of state versus national loyalty in the Confederacy and emerges with some fascinating insights about the nationalizing power of slavery and the war and the persistence of Confederate national sentiment in the postwar years."—Joseph T. Glatthaar, author of Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee

"These three powerful portraits, painted with bold strokes and evocative detail, bear the unmistakable marks of Gary Gallagher's mastery of the historical craft. The decisions made by these men help us understand the decisions all white southerners faced in the era of the Civil War."—Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863, winner of the Bancroft Prize

"In this slim volume, based upon his 2011 Lamar Lectures delivered at Mercer University, Gary W. Gallagher offers major new insights into how we should understand the Civil War soldier and his core motivations. . . . At one level, Gallagher offers valuable interpretive capsule biographies of the lives of three celebrated Confederate officers: Robert E. Lee, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, and Jubal A. Early. Even readers familiar with all three men will find new nuggets in each chapter. But in a broader sense, Becoming Confederates proposes a template for assessing the behavior of the Civil War participants, both military and civilian."—Matt Gallman, Civil War Monitor

"While Gallagher’s examinations of this trio of men are interesting enough, it is the broader argument for which they serve as a base that is the true value of the book: namely, that the Civil War was not a conflict between regional entities (i.e., North vs. South), but rather between fleshed-out nations—'the United States versus the Confederacy'. . . . An excellent addition to Civil War scholarship." —Publishers Weekly

The Author:

Gary W. Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. He is the author of many books on the Civil War, including most recently The Union War and Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War.

CWL: Gary Gallagher is among the top five prolific Civil War historians today. His writing style is clear, concise and primary source based. His CSPAN 2 and CSPAN 3 appearances are available online. Gallagher's two Teaching Company courses, The Civil War and Lee and His Lieutenants are notable.

Forthcoming---America's Longest Siege: Charleston, South Carolina's Slavery, Siege and Surrender

America's Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery And The Slow March To The Civil War, Joseph Kelly,  Overlook Press, 384 pp., $28.95.   June 27, 2013.

From The Publisher: In 1863, Union forces surrounded the city of Charleston. Their vice-like grip on the harbor would hold the city hostage for nearly two years, becoming the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. But for almost two centuries prior, a singular ideology forged among the headstrong citizens of Charleston had laid a different sort of siege to the entire American South--the promulgation of brutal, deplorable, and immensely profitable institution of slavery.

In America's Longest Siege, Joseph Kelly examines the nation's long struggle with its "peculiar institution" through the hotly contested debates in the city at the center of the slave trade. From the earliest slave rebellions to the Nullification crisis to the final, tragic act of secession that doomed both the city and the South as a whole, Kelly captures the toxic mix of nationalism, paternalism, and unprecedented wealth that made Charleston the focus of the nationwide debate over slavery. Kelly also explores the dissenters who tried--and ultimately failed--to stop the oncoming Civil War.
Exhaustingly researched and also compulsively readable, America's Longest Siege offers an insightful new take on the war and the culture that made it inevitable.

From the Invitation To Book's Launch Party at the Old Slave Mart, Charleston, SC on June 26: America's Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery, and the Slow March toward Civil War, begins and ends with the Union's siege of Charleston, the longest in modern warfare until Hitler's attack on Leningrad. But it also tells the story of the evolving ideology of slavery from the colony's founding through the Civil War, focusing on key moments of change: the Stono and Vesey rebellions, the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, and the Nullification Crisis. Taking seriously the founding fathers' expectation that slavery would die a gradual and natural death in the new republic, the book reveals how the hard and determined work of a relatively few South Carolinians sustained slavery against the odds, through chicanery, torture, the politics of intimidation and fear. 

This talk will narrate one chapter in the moral history of the nation: how John Rutledge and the Pinckneys, contrary to the conscience and wishes of most delegates, connived to protect slavery in U. S. Constitution. Joe Kelly has been a professor of literature at the College of Charleston since 1992. His interests range from modern Irish literature and nationalism to the history of American Southern ideology. His archival research has been supported by NEH and Mellon fellowships. His first book, Our Joyce: From Outcast to Icon, uncovers the manipulations of this monumental figure of modern literature by liberals and conservatives in the American culture wars. His popular introductions to literature, W. W. Norton & Company's Seagull Readers series, are entering their 3rd editions. America's Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery, and the Slow March toward Civil War, is his first foray into narrative history. He earned his Ph. D. in literature with a minor in history from the University of Texas at Austin.

CWL: Steven Channing's 1974 Crisis of Fear: The Secession Crisis In South Carolina was a hallmark study while I was in graduate school; Channing's work has been in print continously for nearly 40 years and has stood the test of time and scholarship.  Stephen Wise's 1994 Gate of Hell: The Siege of Charleston, 1863 offers a fine, detailed account of the seige and the struggles of the troops and their commanders on both sides.

News---20 ' Long, 20' High, 6' Diameter: Rodman Canon, Wonder of the 19th Century, Reproduction Exhibited In Pittsburgh

Heinz History Center To Display Copy Of Huge Fort Pitt 1864 Cannon,  Len Barcousky, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette June 10, 2013

 

Fabricating a full-size reproduction of a 20-inch Rodman cannon required the help of a 21st century 3-D computer modeling program. The artisans at LF Creative Group needed about two months to complete the job. "It takes amazing technology to make this kind of copy," LF Creative partner Travis Gillum said. "What is more amazing is that workers were able to make something this big in the 1860s."

The barrel of the Rodman reproduction is about 20 feet long and about 6 feet in diameter at its widest point. When mounted on its iron carriage, the artillery piece will stand about 20 feet tall. The model will serve as the centerpiece of the 9,000-square-foot "Pennsylvania's Civil War" exhibit that opens June 22 at the Heinz History Center. The original 20-inch Rodman cannon was cast in 1864 at the Fort Pitt Foundry, That manufacturing plant was located on the banks of the Allegheny River, just across Smallman Street from the history center. The "20-inch" refers to the interior diameter of the weapon's bore.

The giant gun was built according to a design developed by U.S. Army ordnance officer Thomas Jackson Rodman, the one-time commander of the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville. Rodman's cannons were made of cast iron and cooled from the inside out by water flowing through the center of the mold. The metal shrank inward as it cooled, producing a stronger barrel far less likely to blow up while being fired. Rodman developed several other military innovations, according to Andrew Masich, president of the Heinz History Center. "He perfected a bullet-making machine that used compression rather than casting," Mr. Masich said. "It allowed workers to crank out thousands of bullets per hour, each uniform in weight and size."

Rodman also designed new cartridges for use in breech-loading, rather than muzzle-loading, weapons. Because they offered increased strength and safety, Rodman cannons could be made much larger. Charged with 200 pounds of gunpowder, the 20-inch Rodman could fire a half-ton ball 4 1/2 miles. The barrel of the smooth-bore, cast-iron artillery piece weighed more than 58 tons and required a special railroad car to transport it to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Its original role was to protect the Verrazano Narrows entrance to New York's upper bay. While it no longer keeps watch over the harbor, the cannon remains near its original location in a small park. The only other cannon Rodman made this size is at Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, N.J. The model of the Rodman cannon is one of the largest single pieces that the Ohio-based LF Creative Group ever has produced, Mr. Gillum said. With a foot in several different worlds, LF Creative does work for both museums and theme parks, he said.

. . .  Full Text Continued at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 10, 2013

New and Noteworthy---How Soldiers Die In Battle

The following is a portion of a book review written by Andrew Burtch, Canadian War Museum, published by Michigan War Studies, June 13, 2013.

The Last Full Measure: How Soldiers Die In Battle, Michael Stephenson, Crown Publishing, 464 pp., 2013, $28.00.

In The Last Full Measure, Michael Stephenson combines a compelling, encyclopedic analysis of the history of warfare with firsthand accounts of battlefield carnage. The finished product is accessible, informative, convincing, and moving. It forgoes any discussion of the geopolitical and strategic elements of warfare to get at what Stephenson defines as the core of military history—killing and dying. Whether inflicted by fire-hardened sharp sticks, swords, axes, arrows, musket balls, high velocity rounds, cruise missiles, or IEDs, violent death links soldiers across the centuries.

Stephenson states his central thesis in a discussion of combat in the Pacific during the Second World War: "The fighting ... reminds us that combat is a bloody gutter-slop: nasty, brutish and short—an abattoir that is only later cleaned up, perfumed, and decorated with the laurel crown of history" (262). He also dismantles the myth of the "Western Way of War," characterized by heroic man-to-man confrontations on the battlefield, by highlighting accounts from the sharp end, where "the last sound from the lips of the stricken is not so much the rousing call 'for the motherland' as the heartbreaking cry for mother" (xii–xiv).

. . . .

The book has no formal conclusion, perhaps because wars and their aftermaths are still ongoing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and any attempt to assess definitively their outcome or meaning would quickly be outdated. But Stephenson misses an opportunity to use his considerable store of evidence to answer a question he raises at the close of his Civil War chapter. If war is such a devastating experience (in General Sherman's words, if "war is hell"), why does it continue to exist? Why is it that a man like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., wounded and thoroughly disillusioned, resigned his commission, yet less than twenty years later, "Like some American samurai, … discovered a fervent belief in the mystical importance of a warrior's unquestioning obedience unto death" (165).

Why, in short, do men so easily forget the atrocities of past wars just in time for the next one? Of course, many historians have fruitfully explored the meaning and memory of death and the heroic ideal after the battle, but we are left to wonder about Stephenson's thoughts on the subject.
This book is a thoughtful, respectful treatment of a difficult subject. Its author deftly balances personal, sometimes extremely graphic accounts of death and mutilation with enlightening historical analyses, steering clear of the purely anecdotal war stories or "pornography of violence" that John Keegan warned against. I recommend The Last Full Measure to both scholars and general readers with any interest in military history.

The full text of the review is found at Michigan War Studies, June 13, 2013

New And Noteworthy---Chancellorsville NPS Guide Tours on Video: Jackson's Flank Attack and The Wounding of Stonewall Jackson

Civil War Battlewalks---The Battle of Chancellorsville: Jackson's Flank Attack and Civil War Battlewalks---The Battle of Chancellorsville: Wounding of Stonewall Jackson, Frank O'Reilly, Pennsylvania Cable Network, 2006. $19.95 each.

Both battle walks occur within the National Park Service's Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania National Military Park and both tours are given by Frank O'Reilly, one of the NPS historians that work in the park. He is the author of The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War On The Rappahannock. O'Reilly's in depth familiarity with the story and ground of the Battle of Chancellorsville is evident in both segments. He concisely covers past and present interpretations of the events and offers his own evaluation of the evidence. 

The Battle of Chancellorsville: Jackson's Flank Attack is 49 minutes in length and The Battle of Chancellorsville: Wounding of Stonewall Jackson is 40 minutes in length.  The Pennsylvania Cable Network has long filmed the battle walks of the NPS historians at Gettysburg National Military Park. PCN's expertise continues to be evident as it starts to work in Virginia.  There are no shaky cameras, no sun flares, and no editing distractions.  While viewing the tours, a map such as the Earl McElfresh's watercolor map of the terrain at the time of the battle is recommended by CWL.

News: Kick Starting The Angels Of Our Nature: A Film Set In The Civil War

Angels of Our Nature film's producers describe their effort as a short film that follows a Civil War sketch artist who meets his long lost twin brother on the opposite side of the war.  The film is to be created in Mississippi. Angels of Our Nature about the early days of the war. Battle sketch artist Cale Bacall travels with a regiment of eager yet inexperienced Confederate soldiers into hostile combat, where he must come to terms with his own conflicting ideologies on war and death at the hands of his fellow countrymen.
Cale Bacall's loyalties are complicated, however, when he recognizes a long lost face from his past, fighting for the Union. It is the face of a cunning and battle hardened soldier who he hasn't seen since he was a young boy -- his twin brother.

They cite The National Geographic's article on Civil War battlefield sketch artists as the inspiration for the story line.  Investments from $5 to $10,000 are appreciated and will be rewarded with items such as autographed storyboards, autographed scripts, autographed posters, DVD copies of the film and screen credits. Angels Of Our Nature's creators discuss the film and its inspiration at the Kick Starter website. 

 

New and Noteworthy---The Gettysburg Campaign: Numbers, Losses, Strengths, Maps, Synopses In Color

The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses; Synopses, Orders of Battle, Strengths, Casualties and Maps, June 9-July 14, 1863, J. David Petruzzi and Steven A. Stanley, Savas Beatie Publishing, 210 pp., 42 maps in color, 10 charts, $32.95.

Q: Of what does the Gettysburg Campaign consist?
A: 16 battles, 23 skirmishes, 3 fights 1 siege, and 1 raid

One of the more attractive, useful and informative reference books of the sesquicentennial is now available from Savas Beatie Publishing and authors David Petruzzi and Steve Stanley. The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses; Synopses, Orders of Battle, Strengths, Casualties and Maps, June 9-July 14, 1863 presents over 40 color maps and synopses of 44 engagements occurring in June and July during The Pennsylvania Campaign.

With clear writing and interesting anecdotes, each engagement is described in a brief synopsis.  Offered immediately after the synopsis is a listing of the units engaged, their commanders, the number of soldiers entering the engagement, and the number of killed, wounded in missing.  The narrative style of the synopses is accessible and engaging. The bar graphs are clear and offer important visual comparisons of strengths and losses. The four Battle of Gettysburg bar graphs show July 1, July 2, July 3 and the total casualties; the colorful graphs are compelling. Those leading groups that discussing the campaign will find the ten bar graphs very useful.

Photographs of the major commanders in engagement offered within each synopsis; the majority are from the Library of Congress. Several are images from historical societies and the author' collections. Striking are the images of Captain Robert Bell commander of  the Independent Adams County Cavalry and Colonel Jacob G. Frick commander of the Wrightsville and Columbia defenses.

The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses; Synopses, Orders of Battle, Strengths, Casualties and Maps, June 9-July 14, 1863, J. David Petruzzi and Steven A. Stanley is essential for most readers of The Pennsylvania Campaign and The Battle of Gettysburg.  Those taking the battlefield guide exam will likely keep within arm's reach The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses.

News---Environmental History: A New Lens Through Which To View The American Civil War

ASU Professors To Write Book On Civil War From New Perspective, Appalachian State University News Service,  May 29, 2013.

With more than 55,000 books in print about the Civil War, one might assume that there is no new information to be gleaned about the event that separated states, communities and families.  But there is a topic that has received scant attention — the environmental history of the Civil War.

Professor Timothy Silver and associate professor Judkin Browning from the Appalachian State University Department of History have aligned their academic interests on a project that has received a $100,000 collaborative research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Silver is an environmental historian and the author of “Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America” (University of North Carolina Press) and “A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800” (Cambridge University Press).

Browning is a military historian and the author of “The War Begins Anew: The Seven Days’ Campaign, 1862” (Praeger Publishers) and “Shifting Loyalties: The Union Occupation of Eastern North Carolina” (University of North Carolina Press), as well as other books about Civil War leaders and military campaigns. “Essentially, we plan to recast the Civil War as an environmental event and not so much as a military conflict,” Silver said.  The book will illustrate the war’s disruptive influence on the relationships between people and nature and how natural factors, such as disease, malnutrition and weather, helped shape the course of the war, according to information from ACLS.

“I have always been interested in how war disrupts or changes the relationship between people and the environment,” Silver said. “The Civil War is the only semi-modern war fought on American soil and arguably, I think, the second largest movement of people and animals in American history — the first being Europeans colonizing the Americas.”
The historians will document how the large-scale movement of troops and animals changed communities and towns, including the effects of disease outbreaks, such as measles and typhoid in humans and diseases that affected animals, such as hog cholera and glanders in horses. Silver said that Union and Confederate soldiers accused each side of releasing diseased horses in an effort to infect their enemy’s herds.

Silver and Browning will turn to rosters, soldiers’ diaries and letters, and published materials for their research.  “We like to say our sources are hiding in plain sight,” Silver said. “The great thing about working on the Civil War is that it’s the most written about event in American history. A surprising number of sources have been published or are available digitally. We are using sources that a lot of historians have used before but never really looked at through the lens of environmental history.”

As a military historian, Browning has many examples of battles that were determined in some ways by the weather. For example, the largest battle in Kentucky might not have happened if it had rained more in the area during the summer and fall of 1862.
The full text is continued at Mountain Times.com

CWL: The American Civil War's environmental history has been addressed within the past five years. Most notable is Lisa M. Brady's fine War Upon The Land: Military Strategy and the Transformation of Southern Landscapes During the American Civil War [2012], Kate Nelson's exceptional Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War [2012] and Kelby Ouchley's encyclopedic Flora and Fauna of the Civil War: An Environmental Reference Guide [2010]

 

Challenged Story----Descendant of POWs on Stamp: Is It Family Folk Lore?

Following is a portion of the discussion regarding the barber's declaration that the three Confederate POWs in the famous photograph are his relatives. 

This discussion is on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's webpage for the article.

Here is a portion of the discussion:

Eric Lindblade · Part Owner at Green Bay Packers

"Simply put this story does not add up with the historical records we have:

        I pulled the service records for all three (and looked them up in the NC Troop roster) and theyall come from the same region of North Carolina (Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes Counties). Only one minor problem, the Andrew who is mentioned as being a member of the 30th NC was wounded in the right lung at Chancellorsville and died of wounds on June 19, 1863, almost an entire month before the battle of Gettysburg.

In addition to that the ages of the men make the story a bit difficult, Andrew was listed as being 21 years old when he enlisted on September 21, 1862, Ephraim Blevins is listed as 18 years old at the time of his enlistment on August 15, 1862. Somewhat difficult to be the father when you are only separated by three years.

This does not mean one or two could not be identified, but I am still very skeptical of this, especially with the identification of Andrew Blevins."

• Bryant Henderson · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  

  "Re Andrew Blevins of the 30th NC: Even in the case that his wounding at Chancellorsville and subsequent death on June 19 MIGHT POSSIBLY have been erroneous, the 30th NC Regiment of Ramseur's Brigade did not take part in the Confederate assault of the third day at Gettysburg. They had been positioned in what was called "long lane" opposite the bend in the federal lines below Cemetery Hill. They did not fight at Gettysburg after the first day, out on the Forney Farm at Oak Hill."

   

  Eric Lindblade · Part Owner at Green Bay Packers
• "There is only one Andrew Blevins listed on the rolls of the 30th NC. Each one of these men are listed as being in three separate regiments, in three separate brigades, in three separate divisions in the Army of Northern Virginia. That to me is another of the red flags of this story. I do not believe anyone has claimed that these men are survivors (or if they have I missed it) of Pickett's Charge (of the three regiments only the 37th NC took part). Sadly I would have loved for this story to be true, but there are just too many holes in the historical record that do not match up with the story from Mr. Dollinger."

News----Gettysburg POWs' Photograph On US Stamp Recognized By Descendant

 A Postal Service Event In Gettysburg Features A Descendant of Rebels In A Famous Stamp  Photo, Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 23, 2013.

Ever since 1949 -- when he was only 10 years old -- Clate Dolinger of southwestern Virginia has known that the three Confederate soldiers in a famous Civil War photo taken in July 1863 were his ancestors. "The soldier on the right is Andrew Blevins, and he was my granddaddy's granddaddy," he said in a cell phone interview Wednesday. "The one on the left is his son, Ephraim Blevins, and the one in the middle is my grandmother's great-uncle, John Baldwin."

Mr. Dolinger spoke to a reporter while making a six-hour drive from his home in Pembroke, Va., to Gettysburg, Pa., where today he will speak at a news conference held by the U.S. Postal Service as it unveils a new postage stamp honoring the battle of Gettysburg and, in particular, a part of it called Pickett's Charge, fought July 3, 1863. The stamp shows Southern forces under Gen. George Pickett trying unsuccessfully to dislodge Union forces from a hilltop stronghold.

On the back of each sheet of Gettysburg stamps will be the photo taken by famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, showing the three Confederate soldiers related to Mr. Dolinger. They were taken prisoner on the battle's last day. The photo shows them carrying extra bedrolls but without weapons. They shuttled to various prison camps and often were put on burial detail.
"Humiliated and knowing they would be transferred to a POW camp, they collected extra clothing and blankets from the dead, to prepare for their internment," Gettysburg officials said in a news release. The three Southerners weren't released by Northern officials until after the war ended in April 1865.

Mr. Dolinger said he stopped into his local post office a couple weeks ago and saw a sheet of the new Pickett's Charge stamps, with the photo of his family members on the back.
"I told the postal clerk that I wanted five sheets of these stamps," he said. "She said why, and I said, 'Because that's my kin.' She said, 'The men in the photo are your people?' and I said yes. They were drafted into the [Confederate] army and they had to go."

The Virginia postal official called Washington, D.C., and told them about Mr. Dolinger, and he was invited to speak at today's stamp ceremony. Mr. Dolinger, now a 73-year-old barber, is still cutting hair every day for only $4 a head.  Full Text Continued At Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 23, 2013

Forthcoming and Noteworthy---Jonathan Letterman, Surgeon in Blue and Pioneer of Battlefield Emergency Care

Surgeon In Blue: Jonathan Letterman, The Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care, Scott McGaugh, Arcade Press, 30 black and white photographs,bibliographic notes, bibliography, index, 340 pp., hardcover, $25.95. 2013, Available July 1.

From the publisher: Jonathan Letterman was an outpost medical officer serving in Indian country in the years before the Civil War, responsible for the care of just hundreds of men. But when he was appointed the chief medical officer for the Army of the Potomac, he revolutionized combat medicine over the course of four major battles—Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg—that produced unprecedented numbers of casualties. He made battlefield survival possible by creating the first organized ambulance corps and a more effective field hospital system. He imposed medical professionalism on a chaotic battlefield. Where before 20 percent of the men were unfit to fight because of disease, squalid conditions, and poor nutrition, he improved health and combat readiness by pioneering hygiene and diet standards. Based on original research, and with stirring accounts of battle and the struggle to invent and supply adequate care during impossible conditions, this new biography recounts Letterman’s life from his small-town Pennsylvania beginnings to his trailblazing wartime years and his subsequent life as a wildcatter and the medical examiner of San Francisco. At last, here is the missing portrait of a key figure of Civil War history and military medicine. His principles of battlefield care continue to be taught to military commanders and first responders.

Text Source:  Arcade Press

CWL:  From a review copy---the bibliographic notes run from about 20 to 50 for each chapter and range from the December 1865 Atlantic Monthly essay on the Gettysburg Battlefield, a 2004 PhD dissertation on Letterman's development of a battlefield evacuation system and Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Phil Lechak's  A Blue and Gray Sea of Misery [unpublished]. McGaugh spent a full day with 'brogans on the ground' with Lechak. Also, McGaugh has found a rare photograph of  the home in which Letterman was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania [three miles from CWL's house].

There are four chapters on four battles; Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Other chapters focus on Letterman's July 4 1862 rise to command on  of the Army of the Potomac's medical service and his service of coroner for the city of San Francisco. The book's spine is firm and the text block falls open easily.  CWL is anxious to begin Surgeon In Blue: Jonathan Letterman, The Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care.

New and Noteworthy---The Civil War In 50 Objects?

Bernard von Bothmer: Review of Harold Holzer's "The Civil War in 50 Objects" (Viking, 2013) published at History News Network, May 19, 2013

From the HNN review: "The task of choosing 50 objects was a difficult one, given the enormous amount of artifacts the Society has from the time period. In The Civil War in 50 Objects, distinguished Civil War scholar Harold Holzer strikes a fine balance between political, social, cultural, military, and economic history, discussing a wide range of paintings, letters, weapons, photographs, woodcuts, uniforms, drums, diaries, petitions, drawings, and documents. There is something here for any student of the Civil War. And by distilling the conflict to a manageable number of objects, described in chronological order, Holzer gives the era a sense of clarity, allowing one to walk through the conflict’s key events and themes.

"The writing is engaging, lively, gripping, and riveting at every turn, with wonderful dramatic pacing. Chapters are filled with countless touching tales that link the objects with the era’s larger history.

"Holzer ends nearly each of the brief 50 chapters with a wonderful story, nugget, or turn of phrase. Among them: a slave that returns to a plantation and, during a brawl, killed his wife’s excessively cruel former master; an artist whose work during the war changed from stereotypical views of blacks towards a sympathetic portrayal of their plight is described as “in the space of just three years … also liberated” (15); the tale of a New Yorker who fought for the Confederacy and died in action -- on April 14, 1865; a painting that was reassembled in time for the New-York Historical Society recent reopening after extensive renovations -- on November 11, 2011, Veteran’s Day; the Georgian who stated that “If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong,” prompting Holzer to write: “By war’s end, the 200,000 or so African American men in arms proved [his] point” (158); though northern newspaper accounts after the Battle of Gettysburg were full of optimism, “In fact, the war was only halfway over” (188); Holzer’s outrage that “none of the rioters who plundered and torched the Colored Orphan Asylum” during the 1863 New York Draft Riots “was ever brought to justice” (214); an amusing list of predictions from the 1864 Metropolitan Fair of New York about life in the city in 1964 that would actually come true. When Lee at his surrender met Grant’s military secretary, Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, Lee reportedly paused, and then said “I am glad to see one real American here,” to which Parker responded, “We are all Americans” (315)."

The author of these remarks is Bernard von Bothmer is an adjunct professor of history at the University of San Francisco and Dominican University of California.

For the complete review go to History News Network