Franklin - Carter House

Looking south along the Columbia Pike. You can see a post for General Adams. There are posts like these for all of the Confederate generals who were killed at Franklin. They are not in the spots were the men died, although in some cases they are probably pretty close. But Adams' brigade was farther east so he did not die here. On each post is a box that holds info sheets for the general killed. I don't think I've ever seen them all full but I'm sure the inventory constantly varies.

The front of the Carter House. It faced the Columbia Pike, in fact my ankles are probably within inches of the pike when I took this picture.

The back porch and the Columbia Pike can be clearly seen.

This area saw heavy combat in part because there was a gap in the Union entrenchments where the Columbia Pike was. Back from the main line they made a retrenched line to counteract the gap but this was still a weak point in the line. When Wagner's two brigades were routed from their forward line they rushed thru here. The men in the entrenchments had to hold their fire until their comrades cleared away. This also led to the breaking of the line at this point.

As the next several pictures will show the battle raged among the Carter house and its out buildings. Bullet damage was never repaired so it is very easy to see today. You may need to click on the pictures to see the full extent of the damage.

This picture is just so you can see the layout of the buildings that were part of the estate.

Our tour guide said that this tree dated to the battle. I think this tree will not last too much longer, in fact it may have fallen since I was last there.

A modern reproduction of the earthworks, just to show how it was not just a ditch but was braced with wood sides.

And a view towards the museum, and also showing the remains of the original entrenchments.

There are a ton of plaques on the Carter House grounds as there are few other areas on the battlefield that groups could place plaques. For many years this (and Carnton) was the only preserved ground. Since then the country club next to Carnton has been bought and a few other small parcels.

One of the sad stories of the battle is that young Tod Carter was mortally wounded during the attack near his house. His family found him and brought him back into his home where he died a few days later.

This is the room he died in.

As was talked about in the post on the forward line, Emerson Opdycke refused to leave his brigade at the forward position. He could see it was a horrible position but also his brigade had been the rear guard for most of the past day. His men were tired and hungry. They needed a quick meal and as much rest as possible. So he kept marching, finally resting his men just north of the Carter House. When all hell broke loose his men quickly formed up and charged into the mess at the Carter House. I had a relative in the 24th Wisconsin, of Opdycke's Brigade, and while he was dead before this battle I am quite proud that his old regiment helped check the Confederate tide here.

Comments

I regret I've had to step up the level of comment moderation again. I have started receiving gibberish Chinese comments again (or maybe they really are saying how they love the Civil War, but I bet not). So all comments now need to be reviewed before they are posted, previously if you commented the day the post appeared it was not moderated. Oh well. So if you don't see your comment appear right away that is why. I wish it would let me make a list of safe commentators so that frequent users of the blog would have all their comments appear right away but that is not yet an option (or at least I don't know how to set that as a feature). Thanks for understanding.

Franklin - Union Forward Line

The most well known Franklin fighting occurs at the Carter House and Cotton Gin, but there are other areas that saw action. Most of these are lost to development. One such area is the Union's forward line.

As the Union army retreated into the defenses around Franklin Wagner's Division formed a defensive line in front of the main entrenchments. Emerson Opdycke thought the order was ridiculous and kept his brigade marching into town, eventually stopping just north of the Carter House. Wagner's two remaining brigades were quickly overwhelmed once the Confederate attack began and were routed. Opdycke's men would pitch into the fight around the Carter House and help turn the tide (which we'll get to in another post). A few days later Wagner would request to be relieved of command.

Basically nothing remains of this forward line. There is a nice marker next to a car wash but that's about it.

Franklin - Winstead Hill

Winstead Hill is a small park south of Franklin. Hood kept his headquarters here during the battle as it offered a nice view of the valley. It still offers a nice view although there are a ton of buildings in the way now. But you can still see where many of the important parts of the battlefield are from here.

When I first went to Winstead Hill all that was near the parking lot to indicate this was a Civil War park was the cannon and the state historical marker. Since then a monument to Freeman's Battery of Forrest's Cavalry (for an April 10, 1863 engagement) has been placed here.

There is also a marker in the parking lot to explain the history of this piece of ground.

Up the hill is a nice metal relief map that shows important places and gives some background of the battle.

And here is the view from the map. The Columbia Pike can be seen running across the center of the picture towards the left, disappearing at the top of a ridge (which is right where the Cotton Gin and the Carter House are).

A view from the bottom of the hill so you can see that the Columbia Pike is right next to the hill.

And some closeups of the Freeman's Battery monument. Monuments of this design are up at various other parks. I've seen them at Brice's Crossroads and Parker's Crossroads. There might be others I'm forgetting about but those two instantly pop into mind.

Near the relief map are a bunch of other monuments for the generals killed at Franklin, there were six in all.

John Adams

John C. Carter

Otho F. Strahl

States Rights Gist

Hiram Granbury

and Patrick Cleburne

There is also a monument to Cockrell's Missouri Brigade.

This is a very nice park. Its nice that it has a good number of markers and monuments that help explain the battle. Its also nice because it offers good views of the battlefield. One can only imagine how good these views might have been if the battlefield had been preserved in the 1890s but that is long since past. I imagine the visitor's center would have been at Winstead Hill.

Lincoln

Yesterday at kindergarten my son learned about Lincoln, well truthfully he already knew what the teacher said but this just helped cement it in his mind. They are doing four presidents this month, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (maybe they should carve those guys on a mountain somewhere).

So during dinner I prodded him for information on Lincoln. At first his descriptions were pretty vague. Lincoln was a president. And Lincoln was a he. This was gonna be rough. But eventually he opened up that Lincoln was president during the Civil War. That before the war he was a lawyer (and that he grew up). He had a beard. He is on the penny. I wondered if the teacher told of his death but I decided against asking what Lincoln did after the Civil War; even if she had told them of his death he might not be able to articulate that there was no "after the war" for Lincoln.

All in all they did a good job of covering the basics. I'm sure he knows nothing of things like Lincoln's Spot Resolution but its kindergarten so the basics are fine.

And I'll be back to a normal blogging schedule tomorrow, starting with some blogs on the battle of Franklin.

Its gonna be a boy!

Monday we went in for an 18 week ultrasound and the little baby looks very good. They measured all sorts of things and he's running a few days small but that's not a big deal. But the most important thing to come out of it was that the baby is a boy. So now we can focus on picking the name. Plus I can paint the room the appropriate color and once we start buying clothes and things they don't need to be unisex anymore.

The early front runners for name are:
John Paul Braxton
Thomas John
Matthew Archer

But our tastes change daily so the final decision may not have any of those names in it. But it feels good to finally be serious about a name.

Update

Sorry for the hiatus of late, I've been busy getting bedrooms ready for the expanding family. Our office has been transformed into a bedroom for our son. I'm finally done with that and will move him into it this weekend. Then I will start on turning his old room into the nursery.

With some luck we might find out the gender of the baby next Monday. Then we can start figuring out the name. We've thrown a lot of ideas out there but until we actually know the gender it seems hard to really pick the name. My wife is open to Braxton as a middle name for a boy. I think if the baby comes on July 4th we need to do a patriotic name, like George Ulysses for the twin Union victories of 1863. My wife is not as convinced on that one. If its a girl we've grown fond of Olivia lately but there is still many months for us to change our mind.

When I've had free time lately I've been fine tuning a manuscript. The likelihood of it getting published looks very promising as it will be part of a series from a publisher, but nothing is ever guaranteed. So for the time being I've decided to shelve my plans for using createspace. I got a lot of good feedback from my post. On one end was the advice that my work is good enough for a real publisher, that I've got to just keep working at it and one day the chips will fall into place. On the other end was practical advice on how to go the self publishing route and turn out a product that would look very professional.

An exciting job opportunity in the Civil War community came my way. I'm one of many applicants and the job really won't be open for a little while yet, but I am excited for the opportunity and maybe I'll be lucky enough to get it.

On a sad note I am getting rid of my truck because I need a car that can handle two car seats. I've had that truck 10 or 11 years now (its a 1990) and even took it back to Chickamauga once for a great two week trip camping out. I'm gonna miss the truck but I'm excited that I've already found its replacement, a 2000 Land Rover, and I look forward to getting some Tennessee mud on it in the future.

Maps of First Bull Run

The Maps of First Bull Run by Bradley M. Gottfried.

Once again a book review that is well behind the time. I think I'm late in doing this review because it is so obvious from the first time you open this book that this is a great book. This is Gottfried's second book in the battlefield atlas series from Savas Beatie (he did Gettysburg first and Dave Powell has added Chickamauga to the series as well).

The basic layout of each book in the series is that there is a full page color map depicting one phase of the battle and the text that describes that map is on the facing page. You can read the book cover to cover or simply use it to enhance another book on the battle that has much fewer maps. I think the series is great and as each book comes out I'll buy it without needing to see it or read reviews first, that's part of the reason why I did not review this book when it came out.

There are 51 maps in this volume, half of which cover the battle directly. Nine cover the preliminary movements and skirmishes, including Blackburn's Ford. A few maps cover the theater situation in the month afterwards and then there are about a dozen maps on Ball's Bluff.

My only complaint, and it is a series wide complaint, is that elevation change is indicated by hash marks and not by topographic lines. I grew up with topo maps so reading them has never been a problem for me. I understand they can clutter a map or be difficult for a portion of the population to read but I personally would prefer them over hash marks. I've seen topo lines used in books where it doesn't clutter the map, so it can be done. I think it would help with study as you would be able to see real elevations (and for those of us who know how to make profiles you could create profiles to show how much of the field could be seen from a particular position). Whenever I study I battle I go to the local USGS office and get the quad sheets so I have a good topographic map.

Anyway, that's my only complaint about the book series. I see no reason not to add this book to your library.

The Complete Gettysburg Guide

The Complete Gettysburg Guide by J. David Petruzzi. Maps and photography by Steven Stanley.

I am behind the times in reviewing this book, it already has received numerous highly positive reviews, but I’m sure one more won’t be too much in the way.

This is as complete a guide of Gettysburg as I’ve ever seen. What separates it from the other Gettysburg guides is its attention to the periphery. Besides chapters covering the main fighting of July 1-3 there are chapters on the June 26 skirmishes, the cavalry fighting on Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field, the fighting at Hunterstown on July 2nd and at Fairfield on July 3rd. But there is also tours of the town of Getysburg, the National Cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery, the various rock carvings around the battlefield and the plentiful hospital sites scattered around the town.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on the National Cemetery and the rock carvings. I loved the amount of detail given to the variety of mistakes in the cemetery. Some of these are simply stone cutters who made misspellings (and not just of soldiers’ names) but some are because the soldier was misidentified when buried. Since then researchers have found that no soldier by that name served in that regiment but that same name was found in a different regiment, or state which meant there are Confederates buried in the National Cemetery. Today that’s not a big deal but before the reconciliation of the 1890s veterans would have been quite upset to know that.

I also enjoyed the rock carving chapter because it looks like it would be a fun tour to do. I knew about some of the carvings but the tour created here has 21 stops and would be a fun extra tour to do next time I’m there, especially finding the dinosaur footprint and fossils with my young son.

The book itself is beautiful. Stanley’s beautiful maps grace nearly every other page. When there isn’t a map there is a great photo as Gettysburg is a very photogenic battlefield (that may sound odd but the right combination of monument and natural beauty creates amazing photos at many battlefields). The text is clear with good directions (giving odometer readings at tenth mile increments and longitude and latitude coordinates for GPS users). I haven’t had the good fortune to field test it yet but the directions are clear and informative so I do not foresee any problems in the field. The page stock is even different than most books, a nice thick page that feels very durable for field use. I’m not sure it’ll survive a rain storm but normal field use should be fine.

I only wish there was a Shiloh version of this book. I am excited to hear that an Antietam version is in the works.

Britton's Lane

Yesterday I received the new issue of Tennessee Historical Quarterly and the first article is about the battle of Britton's Lane. Britton's Lane is one of the smallest battlefields I have ever visited, on the way there I was sure I was lost but I found the little park. The park is located east of Denmark, Tennessee which is southwest of Jackson (I mention that because Denmark is a very tiny town).

The article actually has little to do with the battle and more about where the battle was fought. The available maps, the reports in the Official Records and the few available letters and diaries are pretty vague on location, basically six miles from Denmark. In the article King Wells Jamison argues that the real location is northeast of Denmark, pretty close to present day Jackson.

And he has some compelling evidence, things like Britton does not appear on the list of Denmark inhabitants, but does appear on a list of inhabitants of District No. 6 and No. 7 of Madison County, which is north of Denmark. And that Shedrick Pipkins, a local man who helped with the dead and wounded, is listed in District No. 7.

But not once does Jamison deal with the fact that there is a preserved park over 8 miles, as the crow flies, to the south. There is a state historical marker there as well as other modern interpretive markers, cannons and monuments (including one to the mass grave on site). He doesn't say one word about the park, not to explain why its wrong or anything else. In fact the preserved land is on a road named Britton Lane.

Jamison's new site has an old lane in nice condition. He has scoured part of the area looking for artifacts that would indicate a battle had taken place there but has not yet found anything besides some slag lead which might indicate that bullets were cast there. Some parts of that proposed location though have been developed so artifacts may have been lost.

I was disappointed with this article. At first I was intrigued by the possibility that the battlefield might be this far wrong. But Jamison's points were not that convincing and he didn't attack the placement of the current park. For one I'd like to see sort of attack on the mass burial site, use ground penetrating radar to determine if there is a mass burial there. If there isn't then some questions creep in. If there is then Jamison needs to explain why its there. Is it from a different battle? Did the men move the dead over 8 miles instead of burying them where they fell? Why would they do that? I thought the article had a good start but when it ended I was left wondering what the point of it all had been.

Those Damned Black Hats!

Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign.
By Lance J. Herdegen

I am a fan of the Iron Brigade. I would feel this way if its only significance was a heavy number of Wisconsin regiments but they then ended up being one of the better fighting units of the war. When I heard Iron Brigade historian Lance Herdegen was doing a book focusing on the brigade in the Gettysburg campaign my only question was when I would add this book to my library not if I would. Then last year Herdegen was one of the speakers at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Symposium so I decided to wait until the event to buy the book (helping the event’s sales and also to get it signed).

While the focus of the book is Gettysburg Herdegen also does a good job briefly explaining the activities of the brigade both before and after Gettysburg. The battle of Gettysburg is the meat of the book but it was good to also have coverage of the post war efforts at memoralization and the various battle anniversaries the brigade survivors attended.

And as far as the battle goes expect a ton on the events of July 1st. There is some coverage given to the brigade’s activities on the other days but after July 1st there were too few men left to do much of anything. The brigade went into battle with 1883 men but on the night of July 1st the brigade quartermaster only issued 500 rations. The 2nd Wisconsin lost 77%, the 6th Wisconsin lost 48%, the 7th Wisconsin lost 51%, the 19th Indiana lost 72%, and the 24th Michigan lost 80%. Officially they lost 189 killed, 774 wounded and 249 missing (leaving 671 survivors yet only 500 rations were issued so apparently close to 200 men were separated from the regiment that night.

The book itself was a pretty quick read. It has 33 short chapters, none is more than 15 pages long. So it was quite easy to read a chapter or two during the small batches of free time that I have as a husband and father.

The maps are wonderful (done by Bradley Gottfried of Maps of Gettysburg fame) and plentiful. There are also a good number of pictures of brigade veterans.

Children's book reviews

The other day while looking for books to use by Barnes and Noble gift card on I happened across some of their children's Civil War titles. Not knowing the quality of the work I instead checked out the books from my local library and have been reading them to my son this past week.

First up he picked the one about Lincoln (he loves Lincoln and John Brown). Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall, Thin Tale by Deborah Hopkinson.

It tells the story of a young Abe crossing a creek with one of his friends. Abe falls in and is saved by his friend. Its an okay story but the narration is odd. The narrator talks to the reader and illustrator as if they are active participants in the story. For instance the narrator explains that we don't really know how Abe's friend saved him, maybe he used a big stick, maybe he was able to reach him with his arms, or maybe something else happened (and even says we don't know if the story is true or not to begin with). So the narrator asks the illustrator to pick one of the methods himself. My son enjoyed it which is my main goal for any bedtime reading. If the story is true or not doesn't matter much here, its not like this event really matters much to how Abe grows up, unless of course he had drowned.

Next we read Civil War Sub: The Mystery of the Hunley by Kate Boehm Jerome.

This was a very good book but probably too long for a six year old. We read it over three nights and it covers the entirety of the Hunley story from its invention to its modern place in a research museum. My impression is that the book came out soon after the sub was opened up for research. The finding of Lt. Dixon's gold coin is mentioned but not much of the findings since then. There was one error that leaped out to me, the Hunley was described as an altered boiler and I'm pretty sure they are now convinced that was not the case. But that is a relatively minor error for a six year old to overcome. He really liked the story and would make guesses about what would happen in the next night's reading.

Then we read From Slave to Soldier by Deborah Hopkinson.

Slave boy Johnny runs away from his master to join the Union army as a teamster. He quickly shows that he is a good teamster, earns the respect of his new comrades and ends the book by receiving his own blue uniform. I'm sure this story happened many times during the war. The book is pretty good, my son was interested the whole time. I think its important to give him a few different view points on the war so he has a fuller grasp of the war. I'm not going to ignore slavery when selecting his books but I also don't demonize the South. The Hunley book was a good one for the bravery of the Southern soldier.

We also read Billy and the Rebel by Deborah Hopkinson. Hopkinson turns out a ton of history themed children's books which have been pretty enjoyable.

Billy lives west of Gettysburg and during that battle has many different encounters with Confederate soldiers. One such encounter is a young boy who wants to desert from the Confederate army. This young Rebel changes into Billy's clothing and stays hidden well enough to avoid detection. This based on a true story, Billy Bayly really did help hid a Confederate deserter and he stayed in Gettysburg after the battle and eventually bought a farm there. The author says she was never able to locate the name of the soldier.

Our final book was Under the Quilt of Night by Deborah Hopkinson (and my least favorite of the books we read).
This one tells the story of a slave family escaping into the North and beyond. The reason I didn't like one as much was that it used the story of quilts on the Underground Railroad. My mother is a quilter and has read some books about the Underground Railroad quilts, and found out that it is all a myth. There is not one piece of real evidence that quilts were used as signals. Also I don't think this story connected with my son as much as he fidgeted more during this one. I think that was also due to the narrative style and not so much because of the topic.

Civil War’s First Blood: Missouri, 1854-1861

The Civil War’s First Blood: Missouri, 1854-1861
By James Denny and John Bradbury

This book is a wonderfully illustrated introduction to the early fighting in Missouri. The title says it covers the period of 1854 to 1861, otherwise known as Bleeding Kansas but the period before Lincoln’s election is not dealt with in much detail. Mostly it is because the events of those years primarily happen in Kansas while the authors focus on Missouri’s history.

That is one of a few drawbacks that prevent this from being a much better book. My chief complaint is that while the authors included many old Missouri maps these maps were often grainy and not all the details could be seen. They needed to include one large map of Missouri that showed all the important towns and rivers. This could have been an antique map or a modern creation; it just needed to be well labeled and easy to read.

One thing that made me wary was when Albert Sidney Johnston was misspelled Albert Sydney Johnston. If they misspelled the name of one of the more important generals of the early war period it made me wonder the spelling accuracy of all the lesser known individuals who were mentioned.

The final drawback I have with the book is that there were no footnotes. There is a bibliography at the end but no notes. It seems obvious that this book is intended more as an introduction to the conflict but it still could have had footnotes.

Despite those drawbacks this is a very entertaining book. The authors do a good job of explaining the haphazard way Missouri tried to leave the Union. Ultimately the convention that Governor Claiborne Jackson called with hopes that it would declare for secession ended up declaring his administration vacant and appoint a new Union friendly government. The Confederate friendly government mismanaged its first attempts to join the Confederacy and eventually officially succeeded in November 1861, but did so without a legal quorum.

Nearly every corner of Missouri saw organized fighting in 1861. The guerrilla war was heating up but during 1861 there were still small armies facing each other on Missouri battlefields. Sometimes the battles occurred between forces that were only a regiment in size but it was still more organized than the guerrilla fighting that Missouri would become more well known for during the rest of the war. The battles of Wilson’s Creek, Lexington, Athens, Carthage, Boonville, and Belmont are covered quite well, striking a nice balance between excruciating detail and simplistic overview.

In fact that is something the book often does quite well, although it is an overview of the first year of combat in Missouri it provides a good amount of detail. Most battle descriptions offer a good amount of tactical details without becoming tedious. And the sections that deal with the movements of armies, recruiting and other activities also provide a good amount of details. If one good map of Missouri had been provided it would have made these sections even better.

One other thing the book does quite well is providing numerous illustrations. Often these are of the politicians and soldiers being discussed but there are also many period drawings from newspapers and even some modern paintings. Most pages have two such illustrations so the reader sees a wide range of personalities and other images.

Despite a few shortcomings this is a very good book that serves as a good introduction to the first year of the Civil War in Missouri.

This book review also appears in the January 2010 issue of Civil War News

Fun problem

I have a fun problem, I have a gift card from Barnes and Noble and have no idea what to get. First I visited the store on the off chance they'd have something I couldn't live without, but I didn't see anything there. Then I browsed online and found a few items to consider but right now nothing has jumped to the fore front. In the past I've hardly ever had a problem picking out a new book. This current situation is largely due to my role as a book reviewer for Civil War News.

I might just save the gift card until something comes out that I need, but its hard for me to hold onto gift cards, I want to use them before I forget I have them.

Any advice on a good book that I should buy with my gift card?

Merry Christmas

Sorry I've been away for the last few weeks. Just got busy with holiday madness, plus I have taken on a second job. I just have not had much spare time this month for much of anything connected with the Civil War. Hopefully things will settle down again after the first of the year.

Happy holidays to all of my friends and readers out there.

createspace

The other day I received a review copy of “Chatfield Story.” There were a few oddities in how endnotes were done which made me wonder who the publisher was. It turned out to be booksurge, a do it yourself publisher. Booksurge has since become createspace. So that cleared up why there were a few oddities in endnotes (and in a few other minor areas), it was because the author had 100% control over the product and decided that this was the way they wanted to do endnotes. I’m not a huge fan of their endnotes but I’ve seen publishers do even odder things so its not a huge issue. Personally I prefer footnotes but there are nearly as many ways to do notes as there are publishers so I don’t get worked up when publishers don’t use footnotes or do something else odd.

Anyway the book made me curious about createspace. The book itself is wonderfully put together, if the endnotes had been done a little differently I don’t think I would have ever known this was a do it yourself book otherwise.

It prompted me to find out more about createspace because I’ve had my own issues getting my work published. A brief review of my manuscript’s status; the peer review came back positive, suggesting some changes (which have been made) before publishing but not needing another peer review before then. But the head ranger at the one battlefield indicated that he would never allow the book to be sold in his book store, I’ve since found out that basically he blocks all new books on his battle from appearing in his bookstore (unless he published them, which he has not yet done). The other two battlefield parks I’ve worked on have been enthusiastic about the project. I’ve received tremendous support from both and have completed two other manuscripts along the way, only one of the battlefields has yet to be done and only because I have not had the time to get there and put in the leg work needed (and probably won’t now for the foreseeable future).

But that one park ranger scared my first publisher to the point that they decided not to do any of the books, even though they also thought all the projects were worthwhile. I have not sent the manuscripts to any other publishers because they will eventually run into the same road block with the ranger. In my mind it seems like why bothering to send a manuscript off, get good peer reviews and then have it all end when they try to get it sold in the park. So the fact that createspace books have an ISBN number and can be ordered by any book store, and by anyone on amazon made me very interested. Yes, I would like to walk into the battlefield book store and see my book, it probably would also be a great source of sales, but on the other hand I tend to buy few books at battlefield book stores, instead buying them at home online. I support the battlefield stores by buying t-shirts, maps, pins, hats and the like, things that I cannot find online. So maybe not being sold in the battlefield book store is not such a horrible thing.

The tough part of going through createspace will be not having a publisher’s marketing team working with me. I’ll have to do it all myself. I’ll have to do all the marketing myself. As I’ve learned through some publisher’s blogs (Ted Savas’ in particular) the author needs to do a lot of that work anyway, the publishers do what they can but if the author sits back waiting for the sales to roll in they will wait in vain. The publishers do help with some of the major advertising and helping to focus the efforts, but if Savas Beatie published my book I’d probably have to work just as hard to get people to buy it than if I published it myself through createspace.

The financials at createspace do seem pretty good. For example if my book was 350 pages (a reasonably accurate figure) it would cost me $8.50 to print a book, or if I upgraded to the pro plan it would cost $5.05 per book. The pro plan costs $39 per title and if you sell more than a dozen it pays for itself. If I then sold the book for $20 I would get paid $7.50 per sale at the createspace estore, or $3.50 per sale through amazon. On the pro plan those figures jump to $10.95 at createspace and $6.95 at amazon. I don’t really know what royalty figures are at other publishers but from what I’ve heard I don’t think $6.95 is a horrible royalty, although I could be wrong.

So I’m really considering publishing these three books through createspace. They are all not 100% ready to go so I could stagger them a bit, print one every 4-6 months or so, to make sure they are perfect. One other major roadblock doing it this way is that there is no copy editor to check my work, nor is there any peer review. I can accomplish both on my own by sending it to people (and having to pay them as well), its just one more thing that is not done for me. That’s part of the reason I think getting one out every 6 months is a reasonable goal as it allows time for me to get it in the hands of other readers.

Do you all think I’m crazy for going this route? Any advice to give, pro or con about the createspace versus established publisher route?

Shiloh Campaign

The Shiloh Campaign Edited by Steven E. Woodworth


Eastern theater battles have long been the beneficiaries of essay filled books. Gary Gallagher has edited roughly a dozen of these books. Now the Western theater is getting the same treatment as Steven Woodworth has embarked on a series of books through Southern Illinois University. Each book will be a collection of essays from some of the leading Western theater historians. The first book in “Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland” is The Shiloh Campaign. It is a pretty balanced collection of essays. There are three which focus on the Union, three on the Confederates and two are on battle events that clearly affected both sides.

In the first chapter John R. Lundberg intends to give a recap of Albert Sidney Johnston’s actions in the Shiloh campaign, beginning roughly with the fall of Fort Donelson. Lundberg believes that Johnston has been unfairly criticized for his actions during this time period. Although the essay is good at recapping Johnston’s activities I do not fully agree with his assessment that Johnston had shown a vast improvement in his abilities as a commander. Of course his performance in the Shiloh campaign was better than his performance during the Forts Henry-Donelson campaign, his performance there was below par. So while he was making an improvement he was still not living up to Jefferson Davis’ earlier assessment of his abilities. Lundberg says that Johnston “might conceivably have become as great a field commander as Lee or Jackson.” This seems doubtful given his performance so far. Lundberg is most likely right though when he says “His death at Shiloh lengthened the odds against Confederate success in the West and thus ultimately in the war as a whole.” Of course that is only right because the commanders who replaced Johnston over the next three years did not achieve great results. We’ll never know if Johnston would have done much better.

Stuart’s defense of the Union left is one of the lesser known actions of the battle but it gets covered here by Alexander Mendoza. He does a good job explaining the flow of battle but his times do not coincide with the times listed on the markers and monuments on the field. He credits Stuart with holding his main position til 3 pm, but all the markers say the position was held until 2 pm. If his times are to be believed then Johnston was killed in the rear of Stuart’s position.

Timothy B. Smith provides an excellent essay on the Hornets’ Nest in memory, basically how several key figures have shaped our understanding of the Hornets’ Nest in the context of the battle. The main figure at work here is David W. Reed, first historian of the park , who fought in the Hornets’ Nest with the 12th Iowa. Smith argues, convincingly, that the main fighting occurred on either side of the Hornets’ Nest. While it seemed to those Union defenders that they were holding off repeated charges, they were actually facing a small part of the Confederate army while the rest of the army fought elsewhere. Once the rest of the Union army had retreated to the final line at Pittsburg Landing the Confederates focused more attention on this last pocket of resistance. Smith points out that the final line was essentially finished by 4:30, so there was no need for Prentiss and WHL Wallace to stay in the Hornets’ Nest as long as they did. In other words, since the main fighting was elsewhere and the final defensive line was ready at 4:30 the defense of the Hornets’ Nest cannot be the most important action of the day; and yet due to the efforts of Reed it is considered one of the most important parts of the battle.

Lew Wallace’s march is one of the mysteries of the battle. Wallace was a competent general, who had shown some talent earlier in the war and would later turn in respectable performances. Steven Woodworth tackles Lew Wallace’s march well, as he works through the troubled time line created by non-standardized times between commanders. Woodworth is of the opinion that Wallace’s removal from the army had less to do with the speed of the march and more to do with the lack of urgency displayed when it was made clear to Wallace the dire predicament that the army was in.

Gary D. Joiner does a good of explaining the activities of the two Union gunboats. He also briefly talks about how the gunboats used the slope of Dill Branch to deflect their shots towards the Confederate lines. A greater explanation of this would have been helpful as it seems to me that deflecting shells would not have been any more effective than using a higher gun elevation.

The only old essay used is one by Grady McWhiney in which he attacks Beauregard’s “Complete Victory.” McWhiney argues that the Confederates had a chance to break the final line and that the attack was worth trying. Beauregard however decided against making a final attack, even though he had not seen the position and had no way of knowing if the battle was truly won. That did not stop Beauregard from sending off a telegram to Richmond proclaiming a complete victory, which would come back to haunt him.

Charles D. Grear provided an essay on Confederate soldiers’ reactions to the battle but this covered mostly the same topics that Joseph Allan Frank and George A. Reaves dealt with in Seeing the Elephant: Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh.

The final essay concerns the relationship between Grant and Sherman. Brooks D. Simpson blows a few holes in popular Grant stories from the post-Shiloh time frame. The first being a Lincoln story that he had arranged for Halleck to come to Pittsburg Landing after Shiloh to shield Grant from criticisms, when the facts show that Halleck intended to come to Pittsburg Landing once Buell’s army arrived. The other part of this Lincoln story is that he supposedly said “I can’t spare this man, he fights,” but Simpson points out that immediately after the battle Lincoln did ask Halleck if Grant was negligent. We can infer that Lincoln might not have spared Grant if Halleck had answered yes. The second story to get a more critical look is about Sherman convincing Grant to stay with the army. While Sherman might have given that pep talk Halleck also asked Grant to delay leaving the army, a week later Grant would again command an army. Simpson also reminds us that had Sherman turned against Grant in the aftermath of Shiloh it might have meant the end of Grant’s career as Sherman was very well connected politically. Instead Sherman leaped to defend Grant and might have saved his career.

I have one complaint about the book, there are only three maps in the entire book. There is a general overview map in the introduction and two detailed maps in the Hornets’ Nest chapter. I constantly was referring back to the overview map as I read sections. Not every chapter needed maps but some, such as the essays on Stuart’s fight and Wallace’s march, would have been much better with maps. Then there are minor issues with the book, such as there is no essay on Buell’s forces or coverage of the second day of battle.

This review also appears in the December issue of Civil War News.

Update on Shiloh presentation

I'm currently working on a presentation for the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table in which I'll discuss the fighting around the crossroads at Shiloh. Sherman and McClernand do a masterful job of holding back the many Confederate brigades that are sent against them. I think the fighting here was more important than the better known places like the Sunken Road, but generally the historiography has not ranked it as highly.

To get a better grasp of the fighting I'm reading a ton of official reports. Just now I was reading Major Franklin H. Clack's report of the activities of the Confederate Guard Response Battalion (in Anderson's Brigade). After giving a good account of the capture of a battery he then sums up the rest of the day's action with:

"From this time, sir, until the close of the day I am unable to describe the various localities in which you led us to the attack. We made several other successful charges, being ordered from one part of the field to the other, where our services were most needed."

That really does not help me in placing the unit on the field anywhere else. Oh well. Luckily the placing of one regiment is not a big deal for me, I would have liked to pin point every one but knew going into the project that was impossible.

Big news

There are times when great news can be shared with just a few words, this is one of those times. My wife is pregnant!!

Its still pretty early, due date will be mid July, but my wife said its okay to spread the news. Its been tough keeping the news quiet as long as I have, which truthfully has not been very long.

I'm super excited. Right now I can't think of the words to describe how excited I am.

Expect a post every so often over the next several months to have some sort of update on her progress.

Turchin's Chickamauga

Awhile back I stumbled across a potentially really interesting find. I requested John Turchin's Chickamauga through interlibrary loan, with the intention of xeroxing the entire book. Since then google books has made this unnecessary.

The interesting find is that inside the cover was a notation that this copy once belonged to William Rosecrans, commander of the Union army at Chickamauga. But as I read the book I found four pages that had hand written notations on them. They are in pencil so they are not the clearest copies. All the notations center around the time when Wood's Division moved out of the lines on September 20, right before Longstreet assaulted that very spot and turned the tide toward Confederate victory.

This is page 112 with the simple notation, "mistake"

Page 116 with the notation, "[?] Sheridan [?] way to shore up the left of our lines"

Page 127 with the notation, "this is a weak argument to expect a [?] [?]"

Page 128 with the notation, "this is a great mistake"

Is it Rosecrans' handwriting? I have no idea. I only offer it up as an interesting quirk of research. I did find this letter by Rosecrans to allow for some handwriting comparison. My initial reaction is that it does not eliminate the possibility that the writing in the book is Rosecrans'. I'd like to think it is Rosecrans' writing, it seems like an odd hoax to make.
I also posted this pictures on the Civil War West Yahoo discussion group when I found it a few years back. The pictures there might be a bit clearer, I think I scanned them differently back then.

Veterans Day

I would like to thank all of our veterans who have protected us through our great history. As a Civil War buff and blogger I deal with soldiers every day. Whether that's reading about what they did in their own words or by others, or looking at the battlefields that they fought on, and many other ways.

I had a few relatives who fought in the Civil War.

Jacob Goll, 24th Wisconsin, Co. C. Enlisted 1 August 1862. Murdered 25 October 1864 at Marietta, GA.

Friedrich Goehring, 9th Wisconsin, Co. A. Enlisted 17 September 1861. Mustered out 3 December 1864.

Frederick Illian, 37th Wisconsin, Co. G. Drafted 21 October 1864. Mustered out 27 July 1865.

Henry Kneibes, 6th Wisconsin, Co. I. Drafted 21 October 1864. Mustered out 14 July 1865.

Peter Reis, 107th Ohio, Co. F. Enlisted 22 August 1862. Died 10 July 1863 of wounds received at Gettysburg on July 2nd.

My connection to Peter Reis is not direct. My dad's mother was Luella Goll, her mother was Caroline Illian, and her father was Lewis Illian. Lewis' father was Friederich Illian, the same Illian listed above in the 37th Wisconsin. At that same time his brother-in-law, Heinrich Kniebes was also drafted and served in the 6th Wisconsin. Both men were 44 years old and lived on the same farm (owned by Friederich Illian). Friederich's mother and father in law also lived on the farm and when he was drafted were probably a big help to Friederich's wife, who had seven children aged 15 years to 14 months old to take care of. One of Friederich's daughters, Catherine, married Wilhelm Reinheimer. Wilhelm's aunt Elisabeth was married to Peter Reis. Like I said the relation is not direct at all but a line can still be traced.

Additionally, Robert Meisinger (my grandfather) served on the USS Hope and USS Thistle during WW2. His father Louis served in the 150th Machinegun Battalion (Rainbow Division) in WW1. My GG Uncle Alexander Kurtz was in the Coastal Artillery in WW1 headed to Europe when a submarine sunk his troop transport ship and he was killed. A few years my uncle gave me Alexander's hunting shotgun and one of Alexanders' brothers engraved the stock with the particulars of his death.

I also have veterans who did not see war service. John Kurtz, my great grandfather and Alexander's brother, served in the Wisconsin National Guard during WW1. My father, Gary Kurtz, served in the Colorado National Guard (originally enlisting in the Wisconsin National Guard) for over 20 years. Part of his unit was sent to the Persian Gulf the first time around but luckily he was not.

Chatfield Story

Yesterday I was wandering through my library looking for a new book to start. Nothing was catching my eye and then in the mail I received my next book to review for Civil War News. At first glance its nothing too special, "The Chatfield Story," the letters and diaries of private Edward L. Chatfield of the 113th Illinois. But it turns out that private Chatfield moved to Colorado after the war and farmed some land near my parents' current house. The nearby reservoir is named Chatfield and one of the major streets in the area is named Chatfield as well (as well as a high school, although in that case they are simply using the name Chatfield and did not directly name it after the man). So now a simple collection of letters and diaries takes on much more interest for me. I'm going to dive into this one tonight and look forward to learning more about the man whose name abounds in the area I live in.

Maps of Chickamauga

The latest release in the amazing Savas Beatie "Maps of ... "series is the Maps of Chickamauga, by Dave Powell and cartography by David Friedrichs. I received my copy the other day and it is another amazing volume.

The basic concept for each book is that when the book is laid open the right side page has a map and the left side page has the text that explains the actions on that map. The book is in a large format (7X10) so the maps are nice and big and there is quite a bit of text accompanying each map. This is not simply a paragraph or two but a full page of text. If you just read the text and never looked at a map you would have a good understanding of the battle but the maps really seal the deal.

The other way to get the most out of these map books is to refer to those maps while reading one of the highly detailed battle histories that are out there. For instance with this book you would pair it with Peter Cozzens' This Terrible Sound. Cozzens' book does have a good number of maps for a battle history but Powell and Friedrichs probably have 10 times the maps, with more detail. Also the problem with a book like Cozzens is that often when you need a map you've already passed it so you need to flip back to the map. Now you just need to keep a second bookmark in the map book so that you keep pace in that book as you read the detailed battle history. (I don't mean to pick on Cozzens, I'm just using him as an example since the latest map book is on Chickamauga, all battle histories suffer from this problem, its not the fault of the author, its just that none of them have upwards of 100 maps in them).

When the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table does a battle study we always have a ton of maps in a binder. When Chickamauga comes around again on our schedule we can just use this book instead of creating a massive binder of maps. Okay, I'll probably still create a massive binder of maps, but I really wouldn't need to.

Earlier Ted Savas provided me with a few low resolution images from the book. If you click on them they'll be a bit better.

Ted also informed me that Powell and Freidrichs are currently working on a book on Chattanooga/Knoxville (and attendant satellite actions). And that Bradley Gottfried is keeping the series going in the Eastern Theater with the Maryland Campaign coming out next. The map series will also include several books on the Trans-Mississippi theater campaigns.

UPDATE

Here's a page of text and the accompanying map.

Wisconsin Yankee in Confederate Bayou Country: Halbert Eleazer Paine

A Wisconsin Yankee in the Confederate Bayou Country: The Civil War Reminiscences of a Union General by Halbert Eleazer Paine. Edited by Samuel C. Hyde, Jr.

Union General Halbert E. Paine is a figure one rarely encounters in Civil War literature, except for one particular incident. Paine began his career with a brief stint as quartermaster for the 2nd Wisconsin but was quickly promoted to colonel of the 4th Wisconsin. The 4th Wisconsin was first sent to Washington DC, spent some time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland before being sent to the Gulf of Mexico as part of General Benjamin Butler’s force set to attack New Orleans.

Paine seemed to run have afoul of Brigadier General Thomas Williams from the very beginning that the 4th Wisconsin was attached to Williams’s brigade. At first the issue was Williams’s insistence that his brigade use his own tactical formation, the "Order of Combat." Paine described “Order of Combat” as an “interesting performance” and “an invention of Gen. Williams, who, being absolutely ignorant pf tactics, as of everything else worth knowing, sought to make this scheme take the place of the entire system of tactics.” Apparently the movement from the company lines into “Order of Combat” was not that difficult, it essentially made a formation that was two companies wide and four deep (Paine made no note of where other two companies would be). But Williams did not create an order to return the men to their previous formation.

Eventually the problems between Williams and Paine would be far greater than opinions on drill ground movements. The issue of what to do with the escaped slaves that flooded into Union camps became an early problem for Union commanders. Ironically Butler was one of the first to confront this issue head on as he refused to return slaves to their owners (the Fugitive Slave law was still on the books at that time). His reasoning was that the slaves would materially aid the Confederacy, whether this was working on fortifications or working on plantations to allow white men to build fortifications instead. This would eventually become the Contraband Act.

On June 5, 1862 Paine was faced with this very issue while in Louisiana. A slave owner, and a lieutenant from Williams’s staff, came to Paine’s camp to collect an escaped slave. Paine refused to allow the men to do this, citing a recent Act of Congress that forbade officers from returning slaves to their masters. Paine also stated that many of the slaves furnished information about Confederate dispositions and that they were likely to be killed if returned to their masters. Coincidentally on June 4th Paine had started writing formal charges against Williams for breaking an article of war, namely the very Act of Congress that Paine referenced in his refusal to allow the alleged master to search his camp for his slave. Paine was soon put under arrest by Williams for refusing to obey his order concerning the fugitive slave.

For the first 7 weeks of his arrest Paine remained with his regiment and would be temporarily released from arrest when his men were ordered on a scouting mission. By the end of July Paine grew tired of this and asked Butler if the charges against Williams had made their way to his desk yet. This must have prompted Williams to write Butler asking that the temporary releases end and Butler soon ordered Paine to report to New Orleans. Butler tried to smooth the issue but Paine wanted his day in court. There would be no court martial though as Williams was killed August 5th at the battle of Baton Rouge. Butler sent Paine to Baton Rouge to take command of Williams’s brigade as Paine was the senior colonel in the brigade.

Paine turned in fine service at Baton Rouge, and then during the 1863 Bayou Teche and Port Hudson campaigns. At Port Hudson he was severely wounded in the leg. He would end up losing the leg (remarkably his diary does not refer to which leg was amputated). His diary stops there but he did end up returning to duty commanding troops in the defenses of Washington DC. He would be promoted to brevet Major General at the close of the war.

The format of the text is a bit odd in that it is mainly in a diary format but was actually written in 1901. It is not clear in the introduction if Paine kept a diary that he later reworked or if he did this all from memory. It would seem to be the former as some diary entries are as simple as “I received an order from Gen. Williams to hold a lottery, to determine the rank of captains.” Also knowing that this diary was written nearly forty years afterwards has to make us suspicious of some of his comments about leaders. Forty years later it was clear that Butler was not a great general but in the spring of 1862 Paine might not have had all the negative thoughts that he records in this diary. Perhaps his first impression of Williams was positive, but within a year there would be enough bad blood between the two that Paine would never be able to admit his earlier favorable opinions.

My only issue with the text is that Hyde says Paine’s original manuscript had many more details of the feud with Williams. Hyde says he removed the extra chapter to avoid repetition and also to make the manuscript as a whole better. I think though that this should have been included because this dispute is how most readers have heard of Paine, not for his service in the Baton Rouge, Bayou Teche and Port Hudson campaigns. This is especially true because there is a wonderful regimental history on the 4th Wisconsin (A History of the 4th Wisconsin Infantry and Cavalry in the American Civil War by Michael Martin). If someone wanted to learn about the movements of Paine and the 4th Wisconsin they would be better served by that book than this one. With that in mind I think Hyde would have been well served to explore the Williams-Paine feud more closely. Despite that absence the book is still a very enjoyable read.

This review originally appeared in October issue of Civil War News

Chickamauga Memorial by Tim Smith

A Chickamauga Memorial: The Establishment of America’s First Civil War National Military Park. By Timothy B. Smith

Over the past few years Timothy B. Smith has established himself as one of the leading authorities on the initial preservation of Civil War battlefields in the 1890s. He has previously written about the formation of Shiloh (This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park) and the initial period of preservation (The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation: The Decade of the 1890's and the Establishment of America's First Five Military Parks). Now he has tackled the first battlefield that became a National Military Park, Chickamauga.

Even though battlefield preservation efforts began very early in some instances it wasn’t until the 1890s that the effort began seriously. In 1888 two Union veterans of Chickamauga, Henry Van Ness Boynton and Ferdinand Van Derveer, toured the battlefield and decided that Chickamauga should be preserved. There were already efforts at Gettysburg to preserve that battlefield but what Boynton and Van Derveer’s idea different is that they wanted to preserve the entire battlefield. Gettysburg’s efforts were focused only on saving Union positions, while the newly hatched plan for Chickamauga was preserve both sides’ positions.

Boynton was in a unique position to make this happen. He was the Washington correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette, founder of the Gridiron Club and friendly with many national politicians. He also was a staunch defender of the Army of the Cumberland, and had written a rebuttal against William T. Sherman’s memoirs. When Boynton returned home from his battlefield tour he threw himself into the effort to create a national military park at Chickamauga, which also intended to include sites in Chattanooga. He started with articles in Cincinnati Gazette, which were eventually published in book form. He also lobbied politicians to spend federal money on creating the park, another new way of preserving a battlefield.

When his efforts to convince Congress to pass legislation creating the park they turned to Boynton to write the bill. With no guide to follow he created a bill that needed few changes and would also be the template for future battlefield park legislation as four other battlefields became national parks in the 1890s. Boynton was then selected as the first park historian. From this position Boynton would greatly influence how the story of the battle was told. No plaque or monument could be placed during his watch without his approval. The fight on Snodgrass Hill took on greater prominence in the Chickamauga story and it was no coincidence that Boynton’s regiment, the 35th Ohio, had fought there. There were obviously controversies over positions but Boynton almost always prevailed.

Interestingly the way Boynton preserved both battlefields was different. At Chickamauga the entire battlefield was purchased, sometimes through condemnation proceedings. At Chattanooga only land along roadways with some small side parcels was preserved. This was done primarily because Chattanooga had grown in the intervening years and huge parcels of land could not be purchased. This method was first copied at Antietam and became known as the Antietam Plan but Smith argues, quite correctly, that it should be called the Chattanooga Plan. Within both units of the park both methods of preservation were utilized. Since the 1890s preservation efforts, nationally and locally, mainly followed the Chattanooga Plan. In recent decades preservationists have gone back to Boynton’s original idea of preserving huge tracts of land.

It was not long after Chickamauga became a park that the Spanish-American War began. The US Army needed areas to train and garrison soldiers before sending them to Cuba. Chickamauga became one of these sites. Over 70,000 passed through the park on their way to the war. Their presence damaged roads and left a mess behind. A few years later the Army would build Fort Oglethorpe just north of the park. The park was still used for maneuvers but the total impact was lessened. The park was again used as a staging ground for World War One, with 60,000 troops using the park. Trenches were dug on Snodgrass Hill to simulate the trench warfare the men would see in Europe. In 1933 FDR transferred the park to the Interior Department and it would not be used by the troops for World War Two.

Smith’s book in some respects can be considered a biography of Boynton as Boynton was the prime moving force in the early days of the park. From 1888 until his death in 1905 there probably was no other man who was more active in park activities than Boynton. In fact one wonders if Smith might write a biography of Boynton sometime in the future.

I have one minor complaint about Smith’s book. It is that he ends the story with the 1933 transfer to the Interior Department. He does a brief recap of events at the park since then but I wish there was more. I do understand it however as Smith’s goal was to write about the formation of the first national military park and that story is over by 1933. I think this book is a worthwhile addition to anyone with an interest in Chickamauga, or who has visited our national battlefield parks and wondered how it all got started.

This review also appeared in the November issue of Civil War News