5 comments about Deep Enough: A Working Stiff in the Western Mine Camps.

1. Frank Crampton didn't have to become a tramp miner, he chose too. Born well conneced, he gave it all up to discover what it is like to become a working stiff in the western mines. His discriptive writings of the every day workings under ground are so real one can smell the powder after a blast. His experience while being traped under ground in the Bingham Canyon Mine, and being cold boiled,made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The loyalty of his fellow miners to rescue his crew,espically his two old friends who traveled hundreds of miles to help get Frank out can only be understood by a miner of that era. Frank Crampton's drive for self improvement is in it's self a blueprint for any young person to succeed the hard knocks of life. The Frank Crampton's built this country, what a wonderful gift he left us.



2. I live in Arizona and picked this book up in a map store. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. The style of Frank Crampton's writing is so descriptive that you feel you are listening to him tell the stories of his life as a hard rock miner in Arizona. This is not a documentary, but accounts told by the one that lived them. One chapter is so graphically described that I could feel the pain of the miners. This chapter is followed by the funniest of any I have read. I have used this book as a guide book of the mines and ghost towns of this area and have found many of them. I've given this book as a gift to many people and highly recommend it for anyone interested in the old west and mining.



3. A great way to learn about life in the American wild west arid zone in the early 1900's. The author describes his life experiences with a rich cast of rugged characters who are hard to find these days. If you have either visited or lived in a mining town or been to the Australian outback opal diggings, you'll have extra appreciation for the entertaining detail and perspectives on what really is important in life. One of the better books I have read in a while!



4. An excellent book about life in the western mining camps
   in the early 1900s. Born to privilege and wealth in New York
   and with a good education, Crampton ran away from home, riding
   the blinds to the western US. He worked as an ordinary stiff
   in the toughest conditions, but unlike most of his fellow
   miners, his education also let him work as an assayer and
   surveyor, and later as a mining engineer. So he became
   thoroughly knowledgable about all the aspects--from prospecting
   in Death Valley to being chief engineer at large mines. About
   the only side of mining that he didn't experience was a Wall
   Street mineowner. His education also gave him fine writing
   skills--this is definitely not an "as told to..." book ghost-
   written by someone else.
   
   You'll encounter a plethora of wonderful characters, and a
   wealth of old photographs. There are stories about gold,
   silver, uranium--all the kinds of elements you can hard-rock
   mine for. Crampton was trapped for 10 days when a shaft
   collapsed. He shows what can happen when you use a metal
   spoon (rather than wood) to tamp down a shot hole. He was
   nearby Ludlow and barely missed being part of the massacre,
   but had friends killed. Deep Enough is not a social "cri de
   coeur" as are "The Banditti of the Plains" about the Johnson
   County War in Wyoming or Sinclair's "The Jungle". It's very
   honest and heartfelt, and completely up close. Crampton
   enjoyed the life, the camps, the people, and the work, and
   it shows. If you want an honest view about what mining was
   like, this it it.



5. My husband works in a gold mine in Nevada. He, as his father before him, has worked in mines for many many years. I enjoy buying him mining related books which he collects. This book, Deep Enough: A Working Stiff in the Western Mine Camps by Frank A. Crampton , I have not read yet, but my husband says it is a , "really good book". When my hubby say's THAT then it IS a really good book! I'm glad I bought it and I'm looking forward to reading it myself soon.

No comments about The Tangier Diaries: 1962-1979.

1 comments about Douglass And Melville: Anchored Together in Neighborly Style.

1. The subtitle is taken from Melville's short story "Benito Cereno." Although Wallace cannot verify that the two major early 19th-century American figures ever met, he abundantly demonstrates from themes and quotes from their influential writings and activities and associations of theirs that the two men were kindred spirits. A professor of Literature and Language at Northern Kentucky U. and former president of the Melville Society, Wallace found his intuition that Douglass and Melville were connected in significant ways "deepened and expanded in multiple ways" as he researched and wrote this work. No one can argue with this after reading his work with much visual matter emphasizing the ties between these two important literary and cultural figures. Stories of Melville's and essays of Douglass's deal with individuals at the bottom or margins of society, the cruelties of physical punishment, and also the characteristic perspectives and abilities of individuals treated as less than human. An accessible work for young adults and adults that with its plumbing of comparisons of the works and concerns of Melville and Douglass sheds new light not only on them, but also American society in the years leading up to the Civil War.

2 comments about The Last Cowboy: The Personal Story of a Vanishing Cowboy.

1. In his excellent book, The Last Cowboy, Davis Ford creates a colorful mosaic not only of Leroy Webb but also of many other authentic cowboys - as well as the development of an entire region. The format of the book enhances the story with quotes encased in barbed wire, action pictures, regional maps and appropriate quotations interspersed in the text. The Last Cowboy is an outstanding chronology of an era told through ancestral history, geographical details and economic facts woven into telling the life story of Webb. It is a pleasure to read this well-researched and well-crafted history, augmented by humorous anecdotes and the personal observations of the author.



2. Davis Ford has compiled a labor of love, this by capturing the thoughts, ideas and personas of an era that is quickly leaving us. Just as Tom Brokow has referred to those who participated in WWII as members of a great generation, so are those whom Dr. Ford memoralizes in his book. You can almost hear the campfire crackle as the cowboys discuss their lives in a time soon to be remembered only by the false pictures generated by Hollywood of men who are truely of the ages. Everyone who has even sat astride of a horse, or watched John Wayne in action, needs to read this book to hear the true story of the American west and the men who made history, and won a country, in their own quiet way. This book will be read 100 years from now by those who want to know the true story of the American west and those that left their own personal brand on our country.

3 comments about Libby: The Sketches, Letters and Journal of Libby Beaman, Recorded in the Pribilof Islands, 1879-1880.

1. Libby gives her account of her life before and during her time on the Pribilof Islands. Her letters and journals provide a look at what life was like for the middle class woman of her era with an honesty I have never come across in any other widely-available account of the post-Civil War years. I read the book while I was Alaska, and it was startling to see both similarities and differences between the lives people live in the far north now and in Libby's experience. Libby has the intensity of a well-written novel, and a depth of truth only a woman writing for her eyes alone could present. If you're interested in women of her era, life in the north, or simply an interesting story by an excellent writer, Libby is worth the purchase.



2. ...evidently this is a very highly edited and perhaps even augmented version of her journal. In the editorial review from "500 Great Books by Women"--which does not appear on the Amazon page for this edition but is included on the page for for another, unavailable edition of the book (ISBN#0395493250)--it refers to the fact that some of the gaps have been filled in by the author's granddaughter, Betty John, who is the one who actually had the book published.

   In the forward of the edition I read (which has a different ISBN from both this edition and the one mentioned above), Betty John notes that when she got the sketches and journal some of the pages were missing. She then says, "In Libby's book, therefore, I've had to fill in some gaps by conjuring up memories of the stories she told me and by doing research into her times. Her story, nonetheless, is the true tale of a very real woman... ."

   In the epilogue, she adds "What was left of [Libby's] journal and sketches ... came to me after her death. Those pages have been the basis for the book."

   In the book itself, there are maybe one or two small bracketed notes--not longer than a few words--where the editor fills in details.

   So I am a little puzzled about how much of the book really is Libby's journal. The comments in the foreward and epilogue imply that more than just a few details are added, yet there isn't much notation in the text to show what has been added and what is original. I would rather the publishers had made it clear what parts of the text were added, edited, or paraphrased, and what were the real journal.

   The way it reads, like a novel (almost like a romance novel at times) and the sometimes modern-sounding prose makes me suspect it may have been heavily edited and/or rewritten. Also the fact that she was commiting some very personal things--things she probably did not want her husband to read--to paper made me wonder a bit. (She talks about her husband's boss's attraction to her and hers to him. These are the parts that read like a romance novel--complete with the gruff, aloof-seeming hero who often seems to be mocking her, but actually is attracted to her--total romance-novel stereotype!)

   That said, I found the book very enjoyable. Libby Beaman's family was very friendly with Abraham Lincoln and in the beginning she gives an interesting look at Lincoln's election and the circumstances under which he came into office--how he had to sneak into Washington because his life had been threatened by Southern sympathizers. Stuff I may have learned in school, but forgot. She was apparently an interesting woman, impatient with the restrictions that were put on her gender and class. (At the end of the book she recants a bit, though.) There are descriptions of the Alaskan wildlife and of the people and history, and just reading about how Libby and her husband coped with the culture shock and vastly different living conditions in Alaska was fascinating.

   I just would have liked to be able to tell what was her authentic voice and what was added or changed in the editing.




3. A very interesting accounting of an adventurous woman in the late 1800's. I would have given this 5 stars EXCEPT that the print is so small one almost needs a magnifying glass to read it.
   (I wanted to send it to my Aunt but knew she would not be able to read the print.)

No comments about Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency.

No comments about The Making of an American.

3 comments about Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae (Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series).

1. Sabine Pass was a narrow, 6-mile-long defile that channeled the Sabine River, which was the boundary between Texas and Louisiana, into the Gulf of Mexico. Guarding the Sabine River was Fort Griffin, a mud citadel which Union Army Intelligence believed had a force of 200 Confederate troops, including a field artillery battery, two 32-pounders (heavy artillery) and two boats that had been converted into rams. Actually, Fort Griffin was manned by only 46 Irish Texans, officially known as the 1st Texas Heavy Artillery, under the command of 25-year-old Lieut. Richard W. Dowling. It's artillery consisted only of six fieldpieces (the two 32-pounders had been removed weeks earlier). The two rams were ordered scuttled by Dowling near the entrance to Lake Sabine. This meant that any Union ships which did make it past Fort Griffin would run into the trap of the sunken boats, especially since the Sabine was running dangerously low.
   
   The Union plan to take Sabine Pass was developed by Maj. Gens. Nathaniel Banks, Henry Halleck, and William Franklin, as well as Admiral David Farragut. The Union assault force would consist of 5,000 troops in 22 transport vessels protected by four gunboats (with another two gunboats in support). On September 8, 1863, the battle began, and after just 45 minutes, it was all over. One gunboat, "Clifton", was so badly hit by the fort's artillery that it was disabled and abandoned, while another, "Sachem", was forced into shallow water and surrendered to the fort. One humiliated captured Union officer said to Lieut. Dowling,"You and your 46 men in your miserable little fort in the rushes have captured two gunboats, a goodly number of prisoners, many stand of small arms, and plenty of good ammunition, and that is not the worst of your boyish tricks: you have sent three Yankee gunboats, 5,000 troops, and a major-general out to sea in the dark!"
   
   The battle at Sabine Pass had disproved once and for all the myth about the invincibility of Union gunboats. And it gave the Confederacy a much-needed victory after recent disasters at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. In fact, President Jefferson Davis was so impressed by Lieut. Dowling and his men that he commemorated the battle by striking a silver medal in honor of the men. A statue honoring Dowling was later erected near the site of the remarkable fight. This is, at least in my opinion, one of the most fascinating battles of the American Civil War, yet very little has been written about it. Edward T. Cotham has obviously done exhaustive research for this book and his narrative makes for an exciting and very informative book on this extraordinary battle. Highly recommended!



2. Author Edward Cotham provides a well-written and interesting account of the civil war at Sabine Pass and the events leading to a decisive battle there in front of Fort Griffin. Although the author spares few superlatives for the victorious Texans' unanticipated and stunning victory he does so for good reason and in an overall balanced manner. The Union officers' failures (as well as successes in other areas) are fairly presented.
   
   This engagement was small but costly for the Union. It set back operations for capturing the important port of Mobile, Alabama as well as delaying operations against the Texas coast.
   
   On the Union side, the roots of the fiasco rested in poor intelligence, coordination, and execution. The first major failure was the arrival of the attack force, when the coordinating blockader was away re-coaling--setting back the attack a critical day and a half. This provided the small garrison the opportunity to bring powder and projectiles to what would have been a defenseless set of gun emplacements.
   
   The well-led and well-drilled garrison occupied a small but well-conceived and constructed earthen fort. It was ideally sited and designed to inflict maximum damage to any naval assault while limiting their ability to counter fire. Attacking gunboats would be forced to approach in tightly constricted channels where they could employ only their forward most guns at a low profile target. Lt. Dick Dowling's handful of men were itching for a fight and well equipped to do so.
   
   The attack was to be a joint operation, with the navy leading the attack in order to allow the army to land. Unfortunately a lack of intelligence about the new fort and unrealistic expectations of the naval vessels' capacity to fight it meant that the gunboats were at a severe disadvantage. Earlier in the war, a small predecessor fort nearby had been easily taken by Crocker, but allowed to fall back under rebel control. This prompted the CSA to build Fort Griffin, and for Crocker to become overconfident.
   
   During the assault everything that could go wrong for the navy did. The lead ship in the east channel suffered an early hit to its boiler scalding the crew and disabling it. Crocker's flagship in the west channel also was disabled by a hit to its rudder chain, then boiler. The other two navy gunboat captains displayed cowardice and fled, not even attempting to assist their disabled comrades. Crocker attempted to fight on, expecting that the army would land as planned and win the victory. U.S. Gen. Wietzel inexplicably decided not to land his force, squandering the painful sacrifice by the navy. The defenders had only 40 charges of powder in the fort at the end of the battle. Then after the battle Wietzel's superior Gen. Franklin retreated to New Orleans rather than carrying out his original instructions to attack elsewhere along the coast if necessary.
   
   350+ Union sailors and infantry serving as sharpshooters were captured when the two disabled ships were surrendered. The little rebel garrison suffered no casualties. The author reasonably suggests that the setting sun would have made gunnery effect hard to distinguish for the union gunners. Texas rejoiced and the CSA enjoyed some increasingly rare good news.
   
   In addition to the pivotal battle, Cotham reviews the initial Union capture of Sabine Pass, the CSA's successful cottonclad attack, operations at Galveston, and Calcasieu Pass. The maps and figures are excellent. My complaints and quibbles are few: I did notice a few confusing descriptions of some of the heavy artillery early in the book such as an 8 inch Columbiad rebored as a 6" rifle (?) and a 12 pdr howitzer described as a 12 inch howitzer. The author perhaps overstates the importance of the blockade running at Sabine Pass since it seems to have only been well suited for very light vessels rather than steam blockade runners. Also, supplies entering this pass would only really have been available to those in the Trans-Mississippi theater. Finally, I believe he fails to sufficiently emphasize the importance of the early delay that granted the defenders time to obtain ammunition.
   
   In spite of the above minor criticisms I highly recommend this book. It is a fascinating read and provides a useful perspective of seacoast warfare in Texas.



3. There were actually two battles at Sabine Pass during the Civil War. The first one ended with the fort there being captured by Union forces. However, because of its distance from Union headquarters, Texas was hard to hold, and Sabine Pass was quickly returned to Confederate control. The second battle is the one author Edward T. Cotham, Jr. recounts in his well-researched "Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae."
   
   By the third year of the Civil War, Texas had become an important objective to the Union, primarily to cut off Confederate trade. Sabine Pass was considered the best invasion point because of its proximity, not only to Louisiana and the Mississippi River, but to the Houston train yards.
   
   In the interim between the two battles at Sabine Pass, a new, stronger fort had been built at a location where the river forks around an oyster reef, dividing the stream into two channels. Manned with six guns set to pivot at ninety-degrees the artillery could cover both channels. Lieutenant Dowling expected an assault on the fort and, in preparation, drilled his men using range stakes placed in the two channels.
   
   On September 8, 1863, the Union fleet began to arrive at the mouth of the Pass. In all there were four shallow-draft gunboats, and seven transports loaded with Union solders and sharpshooters. The soldiers were a landing party designated to take the fort from the rear while the gunboats assaulted from the river.
   
   At the start the battle looked to be a match between David and Goliath. The forty-four Confederate gunners, Irishmen of the Davis Guard, were outnumbered a hundred to one. But a series of missteps made by the Union fleet, the shallow water and some deadly accurate fire from the six cannons turned the assault into a rout by this small Confederate contingent.
   
   After 45 minutes, the two leading gunboats ran up a white flag. One had been blown to bits, the other was hung on a sand bar. Dowling sent boats to recover 350 prisoners.
   
   The troop transports never landed. In a desperate attempt to retreat through the shallow water, they off-loaded horses and supplies. For a distance of thirty-five miles west of the battle, beaches were littered with these supplies and the bodies of dead, hobbled horses. As one soldier put it, "Such a skedadling you never saw."
   
   At times I was unable to keep straight the names of the commanding officers on either side in the battle, but confusion is one of the side-effects of the Civil War with brother fighting brother. I appreciated the detailed description of the topography and underwater terrain, as well as the background material the author exhaustively researched, including skirmishes at Corpus Christi and off Matagorda Island.
   
   A monument stands at the Sabine Pass Battleground State Park honoring the Confederate heoes. I found myself wanting to jump in the car and make a trip there, but after a phone call I learned the park has not reopened after damage from Hurricane Rita. More information can be found at the Texas Parks & Wildlife web site, [...].

5 comments about Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat.

1. It's true that Gunn Allen's work doesn't fit neatly into any of the normal western categories of biography or history, but then again she's not working within the western tradition to begin with. In order to appreciate what Gunn Allen has accomplished, you first must have a knowledge and appreciation of the Algonquian oral tradition, which embraces a wide range of Indian nations across most of the eastern half of North America, including the state of Virginia, where native communities persist to this day. To begin with the oral tradition, then, is to begin with living communities that still retain the memories of their historical ancestors, such as Pocahontas. From this perspective, as Gunn Allen demonstrates, the story of Pocahontas is less of a romance and more of an adventure, one in which the protagonist is an extension of women's roles and powers in the Powhatan Confederacy. As such, the story of Pocahontas is the story of Native America's fateful encounter with the European powers that would eventually--not annihilate them (though many died, particularly from disease)--but colonize, relocate, and oppress them. In the end, Gunn Allen's eloquent and insightful book is a potent reminder that it is the spirits, the manitou, who ultimately control the world. I highly recommend this book.



2. Dr. Gunn Allen opens our eyes to the roots of modern American culture that are too often obscured, whether intentionally or not. A reader who approaches this work "in good faith" will be regaled with the astonishingly open, clear, and unique viewpoint she cultivates and communicates. She chooses to stand between two cultures and knowledgeably observe them interpenetrate--rather than take the customary political or religious stances of taking one "side" or another. Only a woman with a solid grounding in both cultures (and a tremendous ability to write beautifully), as Dr. Allen has, can accomplish in her work what she is also showing her readers historically. A discerning reader who is willing to admit--and agree to suspend--culturally-programmed judgment can come away from this book with a much richer, smarter, more beautiful and especially more genuinely compassionate sense of REAL purpose this country's citizens might choose to see in their ancestors' having come here, as well as in the direction they would really like this country to take NOW. In addition, I find that it is an honor (still and despite the rude and terrible behavior the English showed towards the interesting and knowledgeable people already living here) to be so respectfully invited into sharing indigenous views of this world, this land, and the Western Europeans who came here. On top of all of this, the book is a truly great read for most anyone who has an intellect that enjoys exercise, and a love of exploring and rediscovering the past in new ways.



3. The feeling the book gave me was one of disjointed-ness, I couldn't fully submerge myself into the book because it didn't seem like the writer could decide how she wanted to present the material. It read like conjecture for a lot of it, with "could", "would have" , and it also read like a lecture given by a professor, at the same time, it was too conversational, and in all just poorly written. The material was interesting enough, and her conjectures intriguing, it was just the presentation that was faulty. It would also have been better if she could have given logic for her conjectures, as it is...she would have done better to have written the book as a fiction novel, and it would have carried better.



4. I don't ordinarily write reviews, but I feel the need to steer people away from spending money on this book! This was a horrible waste of money, and of time spent in reading the first third or so I read before I quit. Patricia Gunn Allen is not simply hooked on Political Correctness (which I could deal with). She substitutes it for decent scholarship and for writing ability. After the pointless detours into the legends of her own New Mexico Native American clan and 21st Century Physics, the attempt to relate the "myth" of Pochahontas to the Legend of one of the Kngihts of the Round Table (I think it was Gawain and the Green Knight, but I'm honestly not sure) did me in. I wanted to know something about Pocahotas -- the Woman! Or, as the title of the book says, the Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepeneur and Diplomat! And that is what I could NOT glean from this book at all.



5. Pocahontas Was a Tobacco Priestess
   When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me that we were descendents of Pocahontas. The idea aroused my fantasies. Having Indian blood was a special blessing. It endowed me with certain spiritual qualities, psychic perceptiveness and magical abilities--in my imagination. Later I was disappointed to learn that it was fashionable among past generations to claim a blood tie to Pocahontas. I suspected my grandmother's story was of this origin. Much later I realized that a fascination with things Native American was a symptom of a certain affinity. I valued the Indian fantasy as a call of the wild from within. It was to be answered, but in my own, indigenous terms, not in terms borrowed from other cultures. I recently read a book that has added great depth to this perspective.
   Pocahontas: Medicine woman, spy, entrepreneur, diplomat (HarperSanFrancisco), by Paula Gunn Allen, Ph.D., tells an entirely different history of this American icon than the one we cherish. This award winning author, retired professor from U.C.L.A., credited with originating Native American literary studies, has taken the usual sources, plus those rarely referred to, and re-interpreted the data within the context of the Native American mythical world view. The result is a fascinating account of the transformation of "Turtle Island" into "America the Beautiful."
   Dr. Gunn Allen begins by explaining the spirit-centered worldview of the Native American at that time. The "manito aki," which pertains to the supernatural, paranormal, spirit inhabited world, was the Native American waking reality, more real to them than the physical world. We might say that they were good "Jungians" at that time, because they respected the experiences of the imagination as real and worthy of attention. The natives at that time also realized that their world was coming to an end. Their calendars and mythologies had prepared them. The coming of the white men was part of the fulfillment of this prophesy. Evidence points to the fact that Pocahontas was a high priestess, initiated into the mysteries of the spirit world and charged with responsibility to these spirits. Based upon her evidence, the author came to the startling conclusion that Pocahontas, rather than falling in love with Captain John Smith, was actually on a pre-planned mission taking advantage of him as an unwitting pawn. Her objective: to insure that the spirit of tobacco would find a home in the new world. Tobacco spirit, the essential shamanic power of the Native American world, needed to find a way to be a part of the coming materialistic world that was being born. This mission was crucial if the spirit of the Native world was to survive destruction of its manifest existence. Pocahontas was the channel by which the transfer of power was achieved. Pocahontas' connection with John Smith was the means by which Native spirituality was preserved, even though it would have to hide for centuries within a plant that would be marketed, traded, consumed, and vilified within a purely materialistic consciousness, until such time as this ancient spirituality could one day be reborn in the awareness of the European mindset, as is beginning to happen today.
   What is this newly emerging mindset? Gunn Allen writes, "...the construction of Pocahontas in American thought, while often historically inaccurate, is an indication that the imagination of America is as connected to the manito aki as it is to the land. The problem that Americans face in harmonizing our modern American consciousness with the ancient psyche of the land we inhabit is the dominance of a paradigm that assumes material, measurable existence to be all there is."
   The lesson for us is to respect the intuitive nature of the imagination." We need to experience and to understand the imagination as a channel of intuitive realities. The mind and its ambassador, the imagination, is quite real although it inhabits a different plane of existence than the world the senses recognizes. It is real because it makes a difference in our lives. It is in this realm of the imagination that we can find our highest ideals, that we intuit our interconnectedness as spiritual beings, that we encounter non-material beings, and discover the patterns in the creative forces that shape our lives. Our fascination with all things Native American is evidence of our connection to this non-material world. Yet this connection is something that sadly we do not recognize within ourselves, but project onto these indigenous peoples. Gunn Allen re-connects us with our heritage. She joins us in gratitude to the people who came before us, who built a spiritual time capsule that would survive the materialistic, destructive stage of our history, preserving for the future our endowment as spirit's children. Pocahontas is truly America's godmother. [...]

5 comments about Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate.

1. Judah P. Benjamin is little remembered for his service to the United States of America, the Confederate States of America, and the United Kingdom. Born in the West Indies, he ended his life as Queen's Counsel in Great Britain. In between, he came to Charleston, South Carolina, studied law in New Orleans, became the first Jewish Senator--from antebellum Louisiana. Surprised? I was. Then, service as Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State of the Confederate States of America. Almost universally well-liked and respected, the "smiling lion" whose face adorns every Confederate $2 bill (you can check your collection); this was a most remarkable Victorian American, in all respects.

   Frequently the brunt of castigation in newspapers for problems with military supply and ordnance, probably trailing close behind Jefferson Davis (also a former U.S. Senator) himself, this book is a very intriguing and documented biography. Sadly now out of print, I still highly recommend it to any student of the Civil War, the Confederacy, the history of Jews in America, jurisprudence (he wrote a book on Contracts that is still important in the United Kingdom)...he should not be forgotten. Judah P. Benjamin was a spirited man who made the most of his talents (even marrying into Catholic New Orleans aristocracy) and yet is known by few, and probably understood by even fewer.
   He is as much a part of American history and identity as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Sam Houston. However, don't look for a film about him to come out from Hollywood anytime soon. You'll have to read the book!




2. Most every student of the Civil War has heard of Judah P. Benjamin but very few people know anything about him except that he served in three positions in the Confederate Cabinet. Most of these same people are also aware that Benjamin was Jewish and from Louisiana, but that is about it. This lack of knowledge about Benjamin may come from the fact that its generals often overshadow the Confederate government or it may come from Benjamin's own desire to sink into anonymity following the war. This desire on Benjamin's part has in great part made a study of him very difficult for he destroyed almost every document with his name on it, including personal correspondence. Eli Evans has taken on the difficult task though, and has turned out a fantastic biography of the elusive Benjamin.

   Benjamin's early life is dealt with in some detail, especially after he arrives in New Orleans looking for a fresh start. Through skill and hard work Judah became one of the most successful lawyers in New Orleans. He married into the Creole ruling class and gained in stature but also gained a wife who would be an embarrassment to him for the rest of his life. During this time he built a plantation and became an agricultural innovator and was remembered by his former slaves long after the war for his kindness. Benjamin was very much a progressive and this would show up later in his plans for a Confederate Emancipation Proclamation.

   Benjamin moved into politics and was in his second term in the U.S. Senate when Louisiana left the Union. He and Jefferson Davis had not gotten along very well in the Senate and Benjamin had once come to the point of challenging his Mississippi colleague to a duel. As the new Confederate President looked for a Cabinet however he wanted someone from each Confederate State and Benjamin was the obvious choice for Louisiana. From that point on a friendship blossomed that would end up making Benjamin Davis' closest advisor and confidant. This is the story Evans tells so well.

   Benjamin, for his country and his President was willing to serve as a scapegoat on several occasions for unpopular decisions Davis had to make. He also took the blame a few times for not sending needed supplies to certain points rather than hurt Confederate moral by admitting that they simply didn't have the supplies in question. Evans does a superb job of relating Benjamin's hard work and also the never-ending venom that was directed at him, especially by opponents of President Davis.

   The weak points of the book come when Evans leaves his subject and starts to write about things that he knows little about. He very quickly dispenses with battles but still often makes errors and naturally repeats the old fable about shoes at Gettysburg. He also has problems accepting that Tennessee did in fact leave the Union and while there were Tennessee men in the Union army there were many, many more in Confederate service. Tennessee was left out of Lincoln's proclamation simply because most of the state was under occupation and Andrew Johnson intervened for the rest of the state. Still, if one just sort of ignores some of his statements that do not involve Benjamin, Evans has written an excellent book.

   The final chapters trace Benjamin as he escapes to England and rebuilds his life to become one of the top lawyers in London. He remains deeply concerned about his imprisoned President but is also afraid that if the anti-Semitic Andrew Johnson can catch him he will again be the scapegoat and face a rope. Fortunately, cooler heads finally prevail and Benjamin is left alone to wow the English legal world.

   Benjamin obviously deserves more credit than he gets from Confederate historians but his destruction of most of his papers have made studying him a difficult task. Eli Evans has taken on this task and has done a masterful job. This book is an even more spectacular achievement when one considers that Benjamin took deliberate steps to avoid having his biography written. Any student of the Confederacy needs a copy of this book in their library. Also, anyone interested in Jewish-American history will find this book a must read despite Benjamin's tendency to not practice his religion by among other things, having a smokehouse full of delicious hams.




3. Judah Phillip Benjamin was born in 1812; on the Virgin Island of St. John; whose jewish parents came to South Carolina when he was still a child. His mother was a costermonger and his father a 'neer-do-well' (or in reality do nothing well). But he had a thirst for knowledge that could not be surpressed even by the anti-semitism of southern nineteenth century america.
   
   Being a remarkable student he earns a scholarship to Yale at sixteen. But he leaves school after two years under a cloud of accusations that are never delineated. But Benjamin is determined to be some one and sets off for a new start in New Orleans where he trains as a lawyer. After becoming successful enough to marry into one of the upper-crust Creole (c atholic) families, he embarks on a career as a mercantile lawyer. He does well enough to build himself a plantation with 140 slaves. But after a finacial misstep looses everything and goes back to the practice of law.
   
   Making the 'right' connections he first enters the Louisiana legislature and then is elected a US Senator. (All this time he is away from his wife who is known to be unfaithful.) When he tries to bring his wife and daughter to Washington, it turns into a fiasco, and she goes off to Paris never to return. He develops into one of the finest orators in the Senate but cannot escape the anti-semitism of his day.
   
   When his home state secedes from the Union he leaves the Senate and goes to Montgomery (Confederacy's first capital) where because of his well known knowledge of Law, Jefferson Davis makes him his Attorney General.
   
   As part of Davis' cabinet he excells in administrative logistics, which leads to his being named Secretary of War. What! A Jew as SofW for the Confederacy? He becomes the whipping boy of every anti-semite both North and South. Undetered, Davis then makes him Secretary of State (because of his knowledge of international law and French) which he remains for the last three years of the War. During the War he does his best to entice both France (under Napoleon III) and Britain to recognize the South but to no avail. At the end of the war he makes a harrowing escape through the Bahamas and Havana to England.
   
   He arrives in England without the ability to practice law and with the US government on his tail (he is tangentially and circumstantially tied to the plot to kill Lincoln) as a Confederate Cabinet Minister. But the luck of his birth on an English possession, and his naturalization through his father, allow him to claim English citizenship and protection. After a short time (and with the help of sympathizers to the southern cause) he is admitted to the English Bar.
   
   He develops a mastery of english mercantile law, and with his background of French and American law from practicing in Louisiana, he develops one of the premier practices in his field in England. His book on mercantile law- Benjamin on Sales- becomes the standard in the field. In the end he passes his last few years in Paris with his wife and married daughter and is buried in Pere Lechaise.
   
   Evans does a masterful job of using the two other detailed biographies of Benjamin (written in 1905 and 1943) which included interviews with people who knew him in Louisiana, during the Civil War and in England. Benjamin though remains an enigma in that he burned all of his papers before he left Richmond at the end of the war; and kept few if any not related to business in London. Much of the detail for the Civil War comes from his correspondence afterwards with Varina Davis and others. It would seem that his only hold on 'being' jewish was one of 'culture' and a thirst for knowledge (but not necessarily accolades).



4. I cannot think of a single book that is more difficult to assess than "Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate". On the one hand, it paints a vivid portrait of life in the antebellum South, as well as a grim chronicle of affairs in that region (political, military, and socioeconomic) during the Civil War. This is all a backdrop, however, to its intimate exploration into the life of one of the Confederacy's most complicated and fascinating subjects - Judah P. Benjamin, brilliant orator, United States Senator from Louisiana, Secretary of War and later of State for the CSA, oft-proclaimed "Brains of the Confederacy", and Jew. The primary events in Benjamin's life are of course covered, but more fascinatingly plumbed is the depths of his mind - Eli Evans seems concerned not merely with what Benjamin did, but with who he was, and what made him tick. All of this makes for fascinating reading, and even if one were to disagree with Evans's conclusions, it cannot be disputed that they are thought-provoking.
   The problem I have with this book, however, is the short shrift that it gives to the plight of African-Americans during this period. Evans does of course pay necessary homage to the slaves' condition, but one gets the sense that his interpretation of Southern history has several pounds of Margaret Mitchell and a teaspoon of Alex Haley. I am not accusing Evans of being a racist, mind you; I am merely saying that, in order to make his central figure more sympathetic, he glosses over the fact that both he and his compatriots were fighting for an inherently wicked cause. One can easily respect Judah Benjamin's achievements without downplaying the cause for which has talents served - he was, afterall, the first non-self hating Jew to serve in the United States Senate (the only Jew to serve before him, David Levy Yulee, was also a virulent anti-Semite), a spellbinding master of rhetoric, a brilliant wartime strategist, later guru of English law, and the only Confederate cabinet official with the chutzpah to propose a Confederate Emancipation Proclamation (as a means of giving them the moral high-ground in the war, and thus receive the support of either Britain or France). Evans doesn't do either Benjamin or himself any justice by not placing sufficient emphasis on the horrors of slavery; afterall, one could have given this book a great amount of depth by pointing out that Benjamin was (as Congressman Benjamin F. Wade once said to him) "an Israelite with Egyptian principles". Instead Evans chooses the safe approach - point out Benjamin's genius while de-emphasizing the great shortcoming of how that genius was used.
   Would I recommend this book? Yes. Do I think readers should then peruse a tome about the history of slavery in the pre-war South? Absolutely.



5. One of the previous reviews of this book begins with the statement that anyone familiar with the Civil War will know the name Judah Benjamin. Frankly, I doubt it. I'll wager that very few Northerners recognize the name. The eight reviews of this book are fascinating to read, and far shorter than the book itself. Note where the reviewers live; it's significant.
   
   Judah P. Benjamin had a fascinating "teflon" life - as a wealthy lawyer and a "macher" in very early Reformed Judaism, as a social climber in Louisiana creole circles, as a Senator and then as Jefferson Davis's one efficient and effective cabinet member, as a fugitive from the righteous victory of the North, and last as a supremely successful banker in England.
   
   Eli Evans has written a solid old-fashioned sympathetic biography of this brilliant man, whose contibution to the cause of secession was more significant than that of most Southron generals. It's not a deep biography, however, neither in its analysis of Benjamin's character nor its account of the Civil War. It will have, I think, great interest for two kinds of readers: serious Civil War buffs and serious students of the history of Jewish Americans.