Senator Broderick would have given anything for a mulligan. . .

Congratulations to the American team for a great victory in last week's President's Cup. I've never been one to watch a lot of golf on television, but I tuned in a few times for this one, since it was held at Harding Park in San Francisco, where once upon a time a played a few rounds myself.

What's the Civil War connection? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. This area—what is now Harding Park and Lake Merritt—was also the scene, 150 years ago, of one of the country's great, antebellum showdowns pitting pro- and anti-slavery forces against one another in murderous rage, fully a month before John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. Every lie was in the rough back then.

In a more famous scene of Southern honor avenged, Senator Charles Sumner eventually recovered from the brutal attack against him in the Senate by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. But California Senator David C. Broderick would not survive his showdown with former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, the pro-slavery David S. Terry, along the shoreline of Lake Merritt. Indeed, Broderick became the first sitting senator to die in a duel.

Broderick, and the other California senator at that time, William Gwin, were both Democrats, but represented the two sides of the Democratic coin that would so severely split the party on the 1860 ballot (even more so, the California Democrats had a faction that was decidedly anti-slavery, with Broderick its chief representative). Terry, a close political ally of Gwin's, denounced Broderick as a wayward Democrat who pledged allegiance to the "wrong Douglas" (Frederick Douglass, the black Republican, rather than Stephen Douglas, the Little Giant of the Lincoln–Douglas debates). Broderick weighed in with some choice comments in return, effectively calling Terry a crooked judge, and a "miserable wretch." Read all about it in this brief entry by the Senate Historian.

Fighting words, you say? Indeed. Terry insisted upon a public retraction. When that was not forthcoming, he demanded satisfaction at ten paces, and Broderick accepted the gentlemanly resolution. The San Francisco Bulletin wrote on that day, "We cannot refrain from indulging, once more, in some expressions of sorrow and disgust at the barbarous practice of dueling which still seems to be tolerated among us."

Witnesses described Terry as calm and measured, and Broderick as stiff and uneasy. At the fateful moment, due to nerves or a hair trigger, Broderick's gun fired prematurely into the dirt. Terry then fired into Broderick's breast in an area he said at the time would not be mortal. He was mistaken about that. Eyewitness James O'Meara wrote:

At nearly 7 o'clock that fated Tuesday morning, every other procedure of the awful scene having been adequately performed according to the articles, Mr. David Colton, the second of Mr. Broderick, upon whom the painful duty had been imposed, put the dread question, preliminary to the "word," "Gentlemen, are you ready?" Instantly the response came from Judge Terry, "Ready," in firm, natural tone of voice, and without play of feature or movement of muscle. Mr. Broderick did not respond at once, but again occupied a few moments in adjusting his pistol. This done, evidently to his satisfaction, he spoke the word "Ready," accompanied by a gesture and a nod, as of assent to Mr. Colton. Then came the "word," "Fire-one-two." The pause between the words was as that between the striking of the hours of "the cathedral clock," as a critical observer described it. Almost at the "one," Mr. Broderick fired. The ball from his pistol entered the ground just nine feet from where he stood, in a true line with his antagonist. Judge Terry fired before "two" had been uttered. A slight show of dust upon the right lapel of Mr. Broderick's buttoned coat gave token where the ball had struck.

Reportedly, Broderick's death made him a martyr in the nascent anti-slavery movement in California, and further polarized the growing Northern and Southern factions in the state. Terry was arrested and tried, but eventually acquitted, freeing him up to put his money where his mouth was, and take up arms for the South.

Justice Terry, the younger brother of Benjamin Franklin Terry of Terry's (Texas) Rangers fame, would go on to serve in Confederate forces, was wounded at Chickamauga, then spent the balance of the war in the backwaters of Texas. He survived the war, but his sense of honor led to his untimely demise nonetheless. Thirty years after he killed Broderick, Terry accosted an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in Lathrop, California, and was fatally shot by the judge's body guard.

Left: Senator David Broderick

For some good photos of the Broderick–Terry duel site, go here.

San Francisco's Anchor Steam brewery has an excellent account of the duel, including a full length version of O'Meara's report here. A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle remembered the event.

This blog on San Francisco's western-most neighborhoods commemorates the duel on a page entitled "Guns and Golf."

Right: Judge David Terry

Sharlene Perez de-cluttered her closet and ended up depositing $130,000.

Read all about it in the L.A. Times. I wonder how much I can get for my mint condition Evansville Triplets rain poncho? You can't get those anymore—the independent Otters supplanted the Triple-A Detroit Tigers farm club long ago. I am now taking bids.

Sharlene pulled down a box of guns from the closet, nearly forgotten there after the death of her husband, who had received them as a gift. They were Navy Colts with ivory handles, presented to Colonel William C. Brown, elected to command the 35th New York Infantry in the Civil War.

"it is easier to turn a historian into a map drawer than an artist into a historian."

Been reading entries at the welcome new blog, The Trans-Mississippian, and was interested to see an interview with Donald S. Frazier, who's done such good work on the T-M and the war in the Southwest. Like Drew Wagenhoffer at Civil War Books and Authors, I very much admired Frazier's, Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest See Drew's review of Frazier's latest, Fire in the Cane Field: The Federal Invasion of Louisiana and Texas, January 1861–January 1863 here—the first of a four book series (The Louisiana Quadrille).

What especially caught my eye in the Frazier interview was the fact that he draws his own maps (highly praised in the aforementioned review by Drew). Like Frazier, I learned Adobe Illustrator initially to draft maps for Civil War Regiments journal—it's a great way to go, but mastering the software was not a cakewalk. Indeed, if you're like me, you'll learn just enough to be proficient and to handle specific needs, leaving the vast power and capabilities of the program largely untapped. I wrote about my early map-making adventures back in a 2007 blog entry here.

Frazier has some terrific advice for authors considering doing their own maps (excerpted from The Trans-Mississippian):

[The Trans-Mississippian]:
Your book features a number of your own maps. What advice do you have for aspiring mapmakers?

[Dr. Frazier]:
Learn Adobe Illustrator. It’s not a real mystery on how to make maps, you just have to be prepared for a bit of a learning curve. I have drawn more than 2,000 maps for various clients world-wide. I discovered it is easier to turn a historian into a map drawer than an artist into a historian. Geography and landforms are the canvas upon which history is painted. You understand how humans interact with terrain, and you will have an instinct for what is important to show on a map. Also, if the place appears in your index, try to make sure at least one map in your book has it located.

An artist, and slave

Dave, a slave, was born in 1801 and as a teenager was put to work in a pottery near Edgefield, South Carolina, making stoneware vessels such as jugs and pitchers. Learning to read and write along the way, Dave signed his work, and inscribed it with bits of verse. For over seventy years he created beautiful pieces that are now sought by and exhibited by museums.

Now, a descendant of one of Dave's owners, has written what looks to be an intriguing and moving chronicle attempting to piece together the story of Dave's life. I can't get enough of these kinds of explorations and personal discovery, and have ordered a copy of Carolina Clay this evening. I'll report back once I've delved in.

Author Leonard Todd is connected to Dave by way of his mother's father's mother's father, a principal owner of Dave at one time. There is a nicely-constructed website promoting the book and the story here, chock full of information on Dave, his pottery, his poems, and the author's personal discovery of a family history comprised of "a long and complex intertwining in which members of my family purchased blacks, whipped them, slept with them, sold them away from one another, tried to prevent them from voting, and perhaps sometimes loved them deeply. Certain of these blacks supported my forebears with their labor, bore their children, murdered them in anger, killed themselves in protest against them, and perhaps sometimes loved them deeply."

That passage alone suggests the author wrote an unflinching account of what he learned, enough reassurance for me to order the book sight-unseen, without fear of enduring an apologist rendering of family legend.

According to the Washington Post's "A House Divided" blog, the author and Smithsonian curator Bonnie Littenfeld will show images of Dave's pottery and discuss his work at a lecture Oct. 14 at 6:45 p.m. (part of the Smithsonian Resident Associate's Prograg). Code 1L0-006. Call 202-633-9467 for reservations.

Amsterdam Acoustics - Dead Confederate : The Rat

Dead Confederate. Unplugged.

The Oxford American, the Southern Magazine of Good Writing surveyed 134 Southern writers to ask them to name the best Southern novels.

I'm not sure what parameters were used to define Southern writers, or Southern novels, but there's no call for nit-picking.

Here are the top ten titles mentioned.

1: Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936)
2: All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren (1946)
3: The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (1929)
4: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1885)
5: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (1960)
6: The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy (1961)
7: As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner (1930)
8: Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison (1952)
9: Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor (1952)
10: Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

It's interesting that the newest novel on the list is nearly 50 years old—I suspect there would be a similar result for the best American novels at-large. That is to say, it will be 50 years before some of the best novels of today are recognized as having multi-generational staying power. Or maybe not. Other than the Twain novel, all of these were written in a 31-year span. Was it a golden era that won't cycle around again for another century or more?

Five of the ten were written before the Second World War, when Civil War veterans still roamed the Earth. Several of these were fairly predictable, though I was surprised to see Wise Blood ranked so high. Long fiction was not considered O'Connor's strong suit, and I always thought of Wise Blood as an interesting (difficult) but not monumental work. I love O'Connor, and feel moved to revisit that work. As I prepare to close out my forties, it's pretty clear to me that everything I read in my teens and twenties could be re-read now as if for the first time.

I see Drew's favorite Walker Percy novel comes in at number six. I have this on my bookshelf, and have started it twice. Will have to give it another go. I confess I knew nothing about number ten, and had to look it up after reading this list. Apparently Oprah even produced a TV movie adaptation, starring Halle Berry. I never heard of that either.

How many of these have you read?

I'm back with my brood from 9 days of camping atop the Medicine Lake Shield Volcano

—the largest and probably least known volcano in all of the Cascade range (least known because shield volcanoes do not conform to the classic volcano shape, like Mt. Shasta seen beyond Medicine Lake in the photo above). It is breathtakingly rugged and desolate country, even today, but history tells us that no place in America was too remote or god-forsaken to preclude a prolonged and expensive Indian war.

My fascination with the Modocs and the Lava Beds continues to grow, and I've come back wondering why so little has been written about E. R. S. Canby. Maybe a little more reading on my part will answer that question. Maybe there is more out there than I realize, beyond the 1959 biography, and pieces in various periodic literature.

Far West tribes, too, are given short shrift in the literature. Two Lakota chiefs, a Hunkpapa and an Oglala, will be forever remembered for their part in the death of a vainglorious lieutenant colonel in Montana, but the Modoc who killed the only general to die in the Indian wars, and who did so reluctantly, falls short of the threshold of most general histories of westward expansion. East Coast media bias.

More on that later.

Melancholy, Scot and Robin, The Who, President's Wall, Brave Ulysses

MELANCHOLY
This is the painting that hangs over my computer (my poor digital photograph does not do it justice). I enjoy staring at in it from time to time as I withdraw from the keyboard, sit back, and take a breath. There's something mesmerizing about Grant's countenance. Images of him are weighty, with a wisp of melancholy that is always felt, if not intended.

SCOT & ROBIN
This is a rare, one-of-a kind portrait. It was painted by a street artist in South Korea—commissioned by my good friend Scot Halpin and his wife Robin. Scot handed the man a small photograph of Grant, and returned a couple days later to pick up this stunning painting. Scot, who passed away about a year and a half ago, was an important person in my life, and his untimely death makes the Grant painting all the more cherished. Scot was not a Civil War buff, but he knew about my interest and surprised me with this gift. I have other reminders of Scot—including a few of his own paintings—but the Grant portrait speaks to me every day. Usually, it's very polite, but sometimes it's sarcastic.

I will dedicate another bit of writing to Scot, as this may not be the best venue, but suffice it to say he—more than anyone in my life other than Jerry, my eternal Berkeley Writers Club compatriot—and Robin—inspired me to never give up the dream that artist's dream from a young age, and which the world and life conspire to squelch every day in every way. He, more than anyone I have known before or since, lived the life, and walked the walk—making his way in this world as an artist, a musician, a free thinker. He, more than anyone, served to remind that creating art will always matter more than the reasons we all come up with to put it off, or let it go. What I've been putting off, among other things, is writing. But I've not let go, and am excited more about it now than ever.

Robin has begun an ambitious and fantastically beautiful project to post one of Scot's paintings, and a piece of his musical legacy, more or less every day for a year. See her tribute site here.

THE WHO
Robin's blog was highlighted at The Who's official web site, where the band expressed their condolences, and recounted the night in 1973 when then 19-year-old Scot Halpin was recruited from the crowd at the Cow Palace in San Francisco to finish the set for a passed-out Keith Moon. Scot was Rolling Stone's "Pick-Up Player of the Year." You can see video of Scot's great Who adventure on YouTube. TimesOnline published this obit. Scot's 15 minutes of fame.

PRESIDENTS' WALL
I'm not a collector of presidential portraits—or at least, I didn't set out to be—the Kennedy photo (left of Grant) was something I glommed onto when my parents died, and is inscribed to my father. The Lincoln photo (right of Grant) is a print of that beautiful glass negative fragment. The Production Director gave that to me after it was used on the cover of a Stanford University Press catalog. We had these images scattered around the house, and it was my wife's idea to collect them together on one wall. Now I love to scrutinize them in quiet moments (with my kids, that means the middle of the night)—they are inspirational figures all.

GRANT
I'm no Grant groupie, and it would never occur to me to take an ad out in the Civil War News to attack Grant detractors, but I'll say unabashedly that he is the Civil War-era figure that I have always gravitated toward in my reading, and that I never tire of studying. Some of my long-time Civil War correspondents will see this as validation of a certain bias, and it's true I believe he was the preeminent general in a war well-stocked with intriguing and successful officers.

He was a small, unassuming man (hmmm, just like me). A failed farmer, an officer who had given up on a military career. By 1854, having risen to the rank of captain, he resigned from the army—a dead end road—and went to work as a clerk in his father's leather shop. In other words, he was pretty ordinary.

When the war started, he struggled to get a commission, finally getting command of a regiment as colonel of the 21st Illinois in 1861. In relatively short order, he was commanding armies. By the end of 1863 he was promoted to Lieutenant General, the first to hold that rank since George Washington, and placed in charge of all United States forces. By 1868 he had completed the transition from anonymous small town store clerk to President of the United States (but he was not the shortest president—in your face, Madison!)

I'm inspired by Grant's calm demeanor, which sometimes showed cracks, to the point of weeping (hmm, just like me!), and his seemingly unambitious rise to the top. He was an enigma to many, a man who gave few hints of potential greatness, then achieved spectacular things. I love that he wore "the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general," rather than the full regalia to which he was entitled. To me, that captures a quintessential American spirit, one that disdains ostentatiousness, even in a regimented military culture. He was a brilliant warrior, and a kind and gracious victor. And he left us the best memoirs of any officer on either side of the Civil War.

I've looked at a lot of Grant photographs, and am confident that this is the one from which the South Korean artist created such a beautiful painting. It's nearly the only Grant image I can find where he seems to be looking directly at the camera. The buttons, the ear, the tufts of hair sticking out, the precise pattern of the white underneath the chin and on the collar, the just visible star on the top of the shoulder strap—all seem to be spot on.




Thanks anonymous South Korean painter.
Thanks Ulysses. And thank you, Scot.

A final comment about LSU Press's bacon being pulled out of the fire, at least momentarily. . .

I should have mentioned, given my own experience, that the "good news" about university press's surviving rounds of severe cost cutting is pretty bad news to the people who lost their jobs. LSU reportedly cut about ten positions from their staff. News stories of staff cuts at companies across the board are so commonplace now it hardly warrants mention (University of Missiouri Press? Half its staff. University of New Mexico Press? Employee revolt!).

On the bright side, visit Drew Wagenhoffer's Civil War Books and Authors blog to see mention of some of the intriguing new (Civil War-related) university press releases, and previews of other interesting titles coming down the pike. Our cherished scholarly press's are still doing what they do best, with the staff remaining.

The book I'm most excited about seeing is another in the University of Tennessee Press's incomparable "Voices of the Civil War Series," entitled In the Shadow of the Enemy: the Civil War Diary of Ida Powell Dulany, co-edited by my good friend Steve Meserve. I felt gratified to be able to contribute two maps to the project. All of the books in that series (series editor Pete Carmichael) are works of art in every way: editing, design, composition, manufacturing.

good news update to yesterday's post. . .LSU Press lives to publish

Apparently I got in on this story right at the tail end of the two-month period of uncertainty over the Press's fate. Prompted by bibliophile Drew Wagenhoffer, I collected some timely updates to the LSU Press saga. News items from last week, and this week report that the Press has survived, less $100,000 from the mother ship.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports the story here. Press Director Mary Katherine Callaway says they need to retool, but is optimistic. The Press will now be able to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year. Just to be safe, BYOB.

"I dust a bit," Ignatius told the policeman."

"In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip." — John Kennedy Toole
(A Confederacy of Dunces)

It's no secret that the world of publishing is undergoing a transformation in the digital age, and no market sector is unaffected. Times are especially tough for university presses, who often rely on subsidies from cash-strapped universities to continue their noble work. I learned about these pressures firsthand, five years ago, when my position was eliminated at Stanford University Press after a nine-year run. Years earlier, the press itself barely survived the chopping block. In the late 90s, when then-Provost Condoleeza Rice backed a plan to let SUP be absorbed by Oxford Press, only the staunch resistance of certain faculty saved the day.

Some presses faded away during that period, and quite a few more are unlikely to weather the current storm. I'm saddened to see that LSU Press, one of the most prolific publishers of Civil War titles, has reached a budgetary crisis that could conceivably spell the end of the company. In its storied history, LSU Press has won more Pulitzers than any other academic publisher (four), and remains the only university press to win Pulitzer Prizes in the categories of fiction and poetry. The publication of A Confederacy of Dunces, a brilliant and deeply American novel, is one of the great success stories in all of publishing (here's a shout out to brother Woody, who gave me a copy of this book right after I got out of college and landed in San Francisco).

To the staff at a typical university press, it seems irreconcilable that an institution spending large fortunes on athletics can't find the relatively minuscule funding needed to keep a small press operating. But things are never quite so simple. Big-time athletic programs ordinarily generate revenue for the school, but academic presses rarely do.

Ted Genoways, editor of the the Virginia Quarterly Review, wondered whether LSU wants "to be known as someplace that supports the history and culture of your region or some place that has fantastic outside linebackers?" But LSU's chancellor, Michael Martin, offers the compelling rejoinder that "in some respects, the press has been saved by the outside linebackers -- up to this point."

I am a big fan of university presses. I love the notion of disseminating knowledge just for the sake of it. I love the fact that history manuscripts are, usually, carefully vetted. I appreciated that some university presses continued to produce books meant to last, as if they were sacred objects, resisting some of the production short-cuts (e.g., cardboard for cloth) that would enhance the bottom line. I love the idealistic perspective that, sometimes, the importance of a particular book might carry more weight than it's projected profitability, when deciding whether to publish.

Of course, that's no way to run a business -- even university presses need customers. When once, one good-selling title could float the boat for a handful of obscure monographs, the pressures of a weak market have made that an unaffordable luxury. As for the production values that created "sacred objects" -- they have necessarily been going out the window, or are being compromised through belt-tightening. Print-on-demand technology is an irresistible solution to small presses looking to keep a long list of slow selling books in print. The only thing certain is that the old models of production and distribution no longer work, and the very mission of the university press needs to be re-thought.

I would hope the prestige alone of a press like that at LSU would spare it from oblivion, but in an era when everything from General Motors to California is bankrupt, any money-losing concern is a candidate for closure. Here's hoping LSU emerges from the crisis, and maybe leads the way for others following close behind. Read more about the bleak future of university presses in this Philadelphia Inquirer article (speaking of industries with bleak futures).

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
-- Jonathan Swift

Kenneth M. Stampp, R.I.P.

another giant in the field passes

Celebrated Historian Altered Understanding of Slavery

By Adam Bernstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Kenneth M. Stampp, 96, a historian who helped transform the

study of slavery in the United States by exposing plantation owners as practical businessmen, not romantics defending a noble heritage, died of heart ailments July 10 at a hospital in Oakland, Calif. He had vascular dementia.

His death was confirmed by the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught from 1946 until retiring in 1983.

The full WaPo obit can be read here.

introducing Woodbury Historical Tours

Lee's Retreat, and the Surrender at Appomattox
August 7 and 8,
with Ron Wilson and Patrick Schroeder
2 days of tours, includes lunch, and Saturday dinner with speaker $250 : 20 seat limit : HQ: Farmville, VA
See more info and itinerary HERE:

Unseen Appomattox
August 22, with Patrick Schroeder
includes lunch $125 : 20 seat limit :
HQ Appomattox, VA
See more info and itinerary HERE:

[photo above: former and current Appomattox National Historic Park chief historians Ron Wilson, left, and Patrick Schroeder]

Hoodistas go off the deep end

I noticed in the last issue of Civil War News that a group of John Bell Hood worshipers, the John Bell Hood Historical Society, actually took an ad out to denounce historian and author Wiley Sword. Why? The reason given in the attack ad is because Sword called Hood's memoirs inaccurate and unreliable.

Hmmm. As the kids say, "duh!" Where have these people been? One of the first things any earnest student of the war discovers is that Hood's autobiography is a self-serving, wildly distorted rewriting of history meant to exonerate himself at the expense of others, mainly at the expense of General Joe Johnston. It is one of those primary sources so compromised by inaccuracy, misrepresentation, and tortured rationalizations, that competent historians would never consider citing it to substantiate any assertion that wasn't already thoroughly corroborated elsewhere.

To the members of the John Bell Hood Historical Society, those aren't just fighting words, they are part of an "unholy Jihad." To wit, quoting from the web site devoted to attacking Mr. Sword, "As Sword did in his acclaimed 1991 book, Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, in his latest effort he engages in an unholy Jihad against Gen. Hood, filtering from historical records any and all documented evidence that does not support his biased, agenda-based premise."

I'm no expert on radical Islam, but wouldn't an "unholy jihad" translate to an "unholy holy war"? Is it fair for me to refer to the members of a "historical society" as "worshippers"? Yes, when they respond to perceived criticism of their hero with words like "desecration" and "unholy."

But there are any number of things the Hoodites object to in at the two Sword titles mentioned above. They don't like Sword's comment that Hood was ambitious. Aren't all officers ambitious, they ask disingenuously, seemingly oblivious to Hood's shameless power grab before Atlanta, seeking to discredit Johnston and to get Hardee passed over for promotion.

Likewise, they take Sword to task for such egregious assertions as, “. . .young Hood struggled with the academic curriculum [at West Point], winding up forty-fourth in his class of fifty-two upon graduation in 1853.” Now what, you may ask, is the objection? The Hoodites think it unfair of Sword not to have mentioned that Hood's class originally had 93 cadets, and that 41 of them dropped out. Some representative of the historical society writes, "It would be more fair and accurate to view Hood as ranked 44th out of 93 original cadets in his class." Nevermind that the 41 drop-outs are not part of Hood's graduating class. They don't rank non-graduating cadets. What would be the point of that? How ridiculous that the Hoodites feel they must add 41 to the rolls in order to mitigate Hood's pedestrian academic record.

The "Sword Exposed" website is a long exercise in nit-picking, rationalization, and selective highlighting of comments from contemporaries that compliment Hood. For example, the site challenges Sword's assertion that Hood's "decision to sacrifice the lives of so many in an unlikely military gambit was condemned as ‘murder’ by some of his men.” To counter that, the site admits that some men did feel that way, and then quotes Sam Watkins from Co Aytch: ". . .We all loved Hood, he was such a clever fellow, and a good man. . . Poor fellow, I loved him, not as a general, but as a good man. . ." So where's the contradiction? If anything, Watkins is validating the notion that the men did not consider Hood a great general.

It's one thing to take issue with a historian's work. By all means, put up a web page and point out your problems with it. There's nothing wrong with hard-hitting book reviews, as long as they are honest, substantiated critiques, but acting as apologist destroys credibility. For a self-described historical society to take out an ad in response to "desecration"—disagreements with an author—is just embarrassing. Sort of in the same way that Hood's book, Advance and Retreat, is an embarrassing entry in the realm of Civil War memoirs. At least Hood's book generated proceeds which helped care for his 11 orphans, and that is a positive good. Conversely, what's the value of a historical society that engages in character assassination against Civil War historians?

A brief follow-up to the query posted here last Saturday

-- whether our 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant, visited California suffragette Sarah Wallis's (Mayfield, now Palo Alto) farm in 1877: Mary Lyon, author of this article on Sarah Wallis for "California Historian," pointed me to several of her sources, including Unsettling the West: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby in Frontier California (Santa Clara University, 2004), page 314.

Next, we'll see what Dorothy Regnery's article in The Californian offers by way of substantiation. Separately, I'll query Grant authority Brooks Simpson on the chance that he can resolve the question in one fell swoop.

"worry-ye-not, fans of ponchos, big hats and spitting, 2009 just might be your year"

At last, a FPS game featuring Confederate deserters who head off to defend their home in Georgia and end up being chased through the greatest cliches of the Wild West. With Gatlin guns to boot.

How to summarize? This review captures the essential script: "Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood tells the story of how Ray McCall -- the bible-wielding, gun-toting psychopathic Reverend from the first game- goes from Confederate soldier to man of the cloth by way of outlaw. Beginning in the fire and brimstone of the American Civil War trenches, Ray and his younger brother Thomas desert the Southern army in order to return home and protect their family. This leaves their psychotic commander, Barnsby, desperate for blood, pursuing Thomas and Ray -- along with youngest brother, Priest William -- across the country."

It's not your father's video game. That would probably be Pong. Read all about it here.

Did President Grant really visit Palo Alto in 1877?

or is it similar to claims that "Washington slept here"?

I went for a walk in the neighborhood the other night, specifically to get a picture of a historical marker about 1/4 mile from my apartment. In 12 years here, oddly enough, I never got around to visiting this marker until this week—odd, because I am a little bit obsessive about seeing every marker I pass by, or am in proximity to. In fact, I thought it was on another block of La Selva, probably hidden from easy view, and never took the time to investigate further.

California Registered Historical Landmark marker number 969 reads:

Sarah Armstrong Wallis (1825–1905) was a pioneer in the campaign for women’s voting rights. In 1870 she was elected president of California’s first statewide suffrage organization which in 1873 incorporated as the California State Woman Suffrage Education Association. The home she built on this site, Mayfield Farm, was a center of suffrage activities attracting state and national leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ulysses S. Grant

Some articles, like this one in "California Historian," state that Wallis "entertained President U.S. Grant there in 1877." Grant would have left office in March of 1877 (inauguration in those days did not occur until around March 20), so I assumed a visit would have occurred in the early months of the year. It did not dawn on me right away that, of course, even after he left office people would still refer to him as "President" Grant. There is also the fact that Grant left for a European tour soon after leaving office, which narrows the window for a West Coast visit still more.

I spent a good deal of time last night searching digital archives of early California papers, in particular the Daily Alta California, and the Daily Call, which, it seems, almost certainly would have recorded a visit by Grant to the Bay Area in 1877 (given the amount of reporting on Grant in general). I also searched my limited personal library of Grant-related material for any mention of a Mayfield visit. My cursory searches yielded nothing.


By chance, yesterday I commented on Kevin Levin's blog entry about his reading of a new work on Grant, Joan Waugh's, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth. Specifically, I asked Kevin if Waugh's work spends "any time on women’s support for Grant in 1872 (Susan B. Anthony was arrested after voting for him him that year)? I’m looking for references to President Grant’s visit to the West Coast at the tail end of his 2nd term, when he apparently met with California suffragette Sarah Wallis."

Intriguingly, this prompted a response from one Bob Pollock, a ranger at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site: "David, Your question has sparked interest among the park rangers here at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. We are not aware of a trip by Grant to California in 1877 and it seems unlikely. He left office in March, and boarded a steamship at Philadelphia in May to go on his around the world trip. It seems more likely that if he met Sarah Wallis it would have been in 1879 when he and Julia conclude their travels by arriving in San Francisco. We are going to look into this some more."

I'll address that here in the hopes that Bob will weigh in and help shed more light on the matter. My neighborhood historical marker just got a lot more interesting on this steamy June Saturday.

Bob, my source for it is simply the marker itself (and one article), though I will now email the long-time historian for the neighborhood association in the hopes of uncovering something substantive. One encounters passing reference to Grant's visit in any number of articles, but I suspect they're all relying on the same source—probably the marker, or a database of marker text. One contributor from the Palo Alto Historical Association avoided reference to Grant in his essay on Sarah Wallis. The aforementioned "California Historian" article specified the 1877 visit. Maybe that was just a typo.

I hope we can establish Grant's visit to Sarah Wallis, a spectacular historic figure in her own right (more on her in a subsequent blog entry). The mansion Wallis built burned to the ground in 1936, and the area is now the quiet residential area of Barron Park. Few old growth redwoods remain, but a few of those magnificent trees in the neighborhood appear to be old enough to have witnessed a visit by the old general.

(image at top is entitled "Res of Mrs. Sarah Wallis, Mayfield, Santa Clara, Co., Cal., from the David Rumsey Map Collection. Mayfield is part of what makes up Palo Alto).

Just for fun, visit this 2006 blog entry on a California tree named for General Grant (along with the Lincoln and Sherman trees).

Dead on June 25th

NEWSPAPERS RACE TO REPORT THE SHOCKING STORY

Before Wolf Blitzer was interviewing holograms, before news apps for the iPhone, before Twitter, there were just newspapers.

George Custer, "the boy general" of the Civil War, was 36-years-old when he overreached on June 25, 1876, on the eve of the nation's centennial celebrations. Two newspapers broke the story, the Bismark (Dakota Territory) Tribune, and the Helena (Montana Territory) Herald.

Marcus Kellogg, a correspondent with the Tribune, was "embedded" with the Seventh Cavalry, and killed along with Custer's men. The last dispatch he sent, dated June 21, included this update, "We leave the Rosebud tomorrow. . .and by the time this reaches you we will have met and fought the red devils, with what result remains to be seen."

The famous headline in the special edition of the Tribune on July 6 reported: "Massacred: Gen. Custer and 261 Men the Victims." According to the paper, "The body of Kellogg alone remained unstripped of its clothing, and was not mutilated" (other sources describe his corpse as scalped, and missing an ear). This 2,500-word account, incorporating Kellogg's notes, was the first fully-detailed reportage.

Consider that. Ten days passed before the premier newspapers in the East were reporting the story. By contrast, events during the Civil War, from far-flung battlefields, could be telegraphed nearly instantly. The first trans-continental telegram was sent from Sacramento to Washington in 1861, 15 years before Custer's last stand. But reporting from Montana was another "story" altogether. It was a journalistic black hole.

[at left: intrepid reporter and casualty of war, Marcus Kellogg]

Five days after the battle, the steamboat Far West, loaded up with wounded, Kellogg's notes, and Myles Keogh's horse "Commanche" -- sole survivor from Custer's contingent -- began the 700-mile river journey to Fort Lincoln at Bismark, North Dakota. The Far West arrived with news of the battle on July 5th, and Tribune editor Clement Lounsberry went to work on the story. According to the State Historical Society of North Dakota, "there was only a single telegraph line between Bismark and St. Paul at that time, and the only way to keep the line open was to keep transmitting. So, whenever Lounsberry fell behind, he had the telegraph operator transmit lines of scripture from his pocket Bible. It reportedly took Lounsberry and the operators 24 hours to finish, and the total bill for the transmission came to more than $3,000. The following day, the New York Herald ran a 14-column story about Custer's demise."

"Seven Civil War Stories You Didn't Learn in High School"

Seeing the headline of this Wall Street Journal article piqued my interest. I was hoping to find some new tidbit, some edgy new interpretation, or at least some really intriguing twists on commonly-known stories. Instead, the Seven Civil War Stories presented in the Journal are rather pedestrian. Go to the article itself to see a couple paragraphs of detail on each of these entries, but here's the actual list:

1. Lincoln's First Solution to Slavery Was a Fiasco
2. Hungry Ladies Effectively Mugged Jefferson Davis
3. The Union Used Hot Air Balloons and Submarines
4. "Dixie" Was Only a Northern Song
5. Paul Revere Was at Gettysburg
6. Mark Twain Fired One Shot And Left
7. The Armies Weren't All-Male

I went to high school in Iowa, and I have to confess, I can't recall studying the Civil War at all. I'm sure we must have somewhere along the line, but most of what I learned about that era came from my own reading of books lying around the house. Specifically, some American Heritage volume or another, various Bruce Catton books, and probably something by Henry Steele Commager. I’m virtually certain, however, that we read Mark Twain’s, “A Private History of a Campaign that Failed” in the classroom [a few years ago I posted a blog entry on that brilliant piece here, with a link to one online version of the story].

High school history covers a lot of ground in short order, but trivia has it's place. If my teachers had employed a few more attention-grabbers, I might actually have some memory of those classes. These days, anyone who reads a good single-volume history like McPherson’s, Battle Cry of Freedom, will come across pretty much everything on the list above: ill-fated colonization efforts, the bread riots, Lowe’s balloons and early submarines, the roots of Dixie, or that some females passed themselves off as males and melded into the ranks. These aren’t secrets, just things that require more reading.

I’d wager that most of the people reading this blog could come up with a more interesting list of Seven Stories about the Civil War off the top of their heads. WSJ, how about these stories:

1. The fledgling Confederacy engaged in a number of overtly hostile acts of war against the United States (seizing shipyards, arsenals, and installations, along with some U.S. soldiers) long before Lincoln sent ships to re-supply the garrison at Fort Sumter, leading to the "first shot" of the Civil War.

2. The extent of the damage and depredations wrought by Sherman’s bummers on the March to the Sea was greatly exaggerated in post-war tradition. During the same period, Confederate authorities in Richmond received angry complaints from citizens of Georgia over depredations by Confederate cavalry operating in the same areas.

3. On the day after Christmas, 1862, U.S. authorities engaged in the largest mass-execution in the nation’s history when 38 Sioux Indians were hanged (this after President Lincoln commuted the sentences of over 250 others). Texans may hold the record, however. In October of that year, 40 suspected Unionists were hanged, and two were shot. See blog entry on an ugly 10-week stretch of 1862 here.

4. The Confederate Constitution was nearly a verbatim copy of the U.S. Constitution, though it restricted the president to a single, six-year term, and gave him a line item veto. The C.S. Constitution also prohibited states from interfering with slavery even within their own sovereign borders. Curiously, abolition was an exception to state rights.

5. When in 1866, momentum was gathering in Washington to indict former Confederate General George Pickett for war crimes (the mass execution of deserters in North Carolina who had joined Union ranks), Pickett appealed to Ulysses S. Grant. Grant personally interceded with President Johnson on Pickett’s behalf, forestalling any charges or an arrest.

6. For the Five Civilized Tribes in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) – the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole – divided loyalties led to a war-within-a-war pitting mainly mixed-blood, slave-owning factions against mainly full-blooded tribal members, devastating the nations for generations.

7. The deadliest maritime disaster in American history remains largely unknown and obscure. Something over 1,700 recently-released Union prisoners of war, en route to their homes on the steamship Sultana, died in the fiery explosion of that ship’s stressed boilers, or drowned in the Mississippi near Memphis, Tennessee in the middle of the night.

What Seven Stories come to mind for you?