5 comments about The Curse of Cain: The Untold Story of John Wilkes Booth.

1. this book is obviously the version of this tragic story that should have remained an inner dialogue for the author. it is a total fabrication of the events from the opening sentence- some examples are: the sobbing parker at the saloon after lincoln was shot- the conversations in mudds house where booth and herold say they gave false names, but the in dialogue with quotation marks, call each other by booth and herold. the ridiculous exchanges between paine and herold outside of sewards house, the fact that he states there was a female nurse who opened the door to paine, when everyone involved testified that it was the black male servant,he states oswell swann was the runaway slave of colonel cox, who was never seen or heard from after he led booth and herold to the sinister cox, with his evil grin. he states that mrs quesenberry and dr stuart had a lookout on the water waiting for booths arrival into virginia and on and on and on. willie jett was supposedly sent to meet booth at port royal and escort him south . the author should be embarassed that he would try to pass off this vapid drivel as hard researched historical fact. every page is filled with ridiculous lies- i cant believe i read the whole thing. its actually sickening. how stupid does this dude think everyone is?



2. John Wilks Booth had loved the South and that flag since childhood. He and I would have had a lot in common. Carm can get you anywhere, no questions asked. It is thought that John was a conFederate spy able to buy and transport quine across the blockade which the North had imposed. JOhn was a devout upholder of the South's principles and proud of it. He wasn't a pauper, and had earned $20,000 a year by 1864. At the age of seventeen, already a 'pro' on stage in 1855. He witnessed the execution of John Brown on December 2, 1859.
   
   The theater was a world of false reality and, sometimes, actors forget and tend to lead the lives of the characters they protray on stage. Actually, he lived on a farm in Maryland, 25 miles north of Baltimore. He got his start on the stages of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Richmond (a place dear to his heart). In 1864, he visited Canada. Shortly before the assassination, he stars in the tours of plays in New York, Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, and Boston. He did have a tumor on the back of his neck, which may have caused him to throw caution to the wind and go "hog wild" which his inclinations led him to do.
   
   John had rescued a wounded Yankee soldier in New York City during the Draft Riots in July, 1863. He'd told his sister who was close to him, "My soul, life and possessions are of the South. My profession, my name, is my passport." He appeared to hve free pass everywhere as he was recognized as a notable figure in Washington, D. C.
   
   In a play there at Ford's Theatre, he had warned President Lincoln with his gestures and sharp demeanor in one of which he was the star, as he made threats toward another character each time pointing toward the president. This did not disconcern or upset Lincoln. He had a good sense of humor, and rather laughed it off. Booth publicly criticized the role represented and once was arrested in St. Louis for making "treasonous remarks." What he'd said is common slang today: he wished the President and the government "would go to Hell." He'd had to pay a large fine.
   
   He held Jefferson Davis and the Southern cause "sacred." That's not saying that he would deal with the devil for his life or do anything risky for the Cause. He really thought that he would get away free and clear and, at long last, be a hero for the South. He shot Abraham Lincoln on the evening of April 14, and the president succumbed at 7:22 a.m. on April 15. It was a dasdardly deed and he paid dearly, as his career on the stage was clearly over. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was pardoned by Andrew Johnson from the prison sentence for treating John Wilkes Booth four years (January 10, 1869) after the "crime against our country."



3. But be aware that this book, which is supposed to have been carefully researched to follow up the family story, starts out with a description of the cherry trees blooming in DC when Booth sets out on his mission...the famous cherry trees weren't planted until 1912. With that in mind, it's an interesting read, especially if you've read Otto Eisenschiml's work accusing Edwin M. Stanton of being behind Lincoln's assassination.



4. As far as I can see this book has but one fault, and that is that it claims to be a work of historical non-fiction. First of all, the body of John Wilkes Booth was not examined by his family at the old arsenal, it was examined in Baltimore shortly before being buried in the family plot. The story about Booth's escape to Asia is extremely far-fetched, and as a person who has spent a great deal of time reading about this man, it is highly doubtful that he would have brooded at all for killing Lincoln, although he might have brooded a bit for himself after he realized that he was now a hated man throughout the country. Finally, there is the icing on the cake, Booth's death in Enid, Oklahoma in 1903. If anyone has seen photographs of the man who claimed to be John Wilkes Booth shortly before dying, then it is very obvious that this man is not Booth. His forehead is much smaller and his features are much more rugged than Booth's. An interesting sidenote, the last known whereabouts of Boston Corbett, the man who killed Booth at Garrett's farm, was Enid, Oklahoma. My hats off to you Mr. Nottingham, for this book is much more entertaining than the other recent fiction book about John Wilkes Booth.



5. Theodore Nottingham is primarily a writer of religious books and fiction with a religious and/or historical bent. In The Curse of Cain, purportedly a biography of the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, he creates a work that is both a religious parable and a work that is at once history and historical fiction. His rationale for doing so is his desire to put across the torment and the motivation of a man reviled by history as the murderer of both the man Lincoln and of the ultimate well being of the post Civil War South. His reason for doing that is his family connection to the protagonist, for Nottingham is the great, great, great grandson of John Wilkes Booth.

   As I said when I reviewed the biography of the Empress Josephine, I tend to like my history "neat," and this is no exception. That doesn't mean that the book is a total waste, however, for a number of reasons. For those readers who prefer the story behind history, the first half of the book should be quite captivating, for it certainly reads like a Shakespearean drama. Nottingham claims to have received some of his ancestor's propensity for drama and grim intensity, and he certainly reveals that when he throws himself into Booth's tale. The setting, character, and plot, including the implication of important figures pulling strings behind the scenes, are interesting enough to hold the attention. I read the first 142 pages in about 2 hours. To some extent the author's choice of words and phrases was a little trite, or perhaps more fairly, a little adolescent. In fact the book might well appeal to adolescent boys who find history too dull because history books are too "dry," a mere collection of names, dates, and places to be memorized for tests if one is to pass them

   On a more redeeming note, from my perspective at least, is the final few pages of the volume which are mostly historical data drawn in part form family diaries, reminiscences, photos and documents and in part from public documents. The hurried summation of this data in these final pages certainly provided some justification for the more theatrical pages that preceded it. It also provided data that seemed to support the intimation in the earlier pages of collusion in high places. If nothing else it rubbed away the patina of the ages from the events of that era and revealed the solid brass of the time. Like our own world, full of subterfuge and hidden agendas, political posturing and diplomatic positioning, the post Civil War Era was filled with urgency and moment, with people who won big time and those who lost big time. It demonstrates that nothing under the sun is truly new, especially when it comes to human drama, something that both Shakespeare and Booth would have understood.

   I think it's a pity that so little space was given to the documentation and the conclusions to be drawn from it. When I ordered the book, it was that that I expected from it. Given his access to family material, Nottingham could have made it a far more major and serious work of history.

4 comments about Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation.

1. General Lee was a trator to this country and his training, and he would have replaced the Black-American slaves with the Irish serfs of Europe, according to Elizabeth B. Pryor, in her study of Lee, in Reading The Man. Please only recommend historal facts to me, and not some idealized opinion. Lee was a West Point trained soldier, and he selected personal comfort and convience over duty. Am I to believe that Ms. Pryor is incorrect?



2. the author is a good writer, entertaining with an obvious wealth of knowledge of the subject. I couldn't imagine how the author could get a picture of Lee into that small book when it took Freeman four volumes, but it was well worth the purchase, I would highly recommend it.



3. It is easy to overlook the many contributions that non-Americans have made to the study of the American Civil War. Brian Holden Reid's outstanding study "Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation" brings an informed, fresh and balanced perspective to bear upon the Confederacy's greatest general. Reid is Professor of American History and Military Institutions and Head of the Department of War Studies at Kings College, London. He has taught military strategy and tactics and written extensively about America's Civil War.
   
   Any new study of Lee must work on two levels. First, of course, it must examine Lee himself, his life, his career, and his generalship. Second, any study must come to terms with the extensive writing and radically shifting perspectives about Lee over the years. Following the Civil War, Lee quickly became an icon to Southern partisans in the "Lost Cause" tradition. His character and success, for a time, against long military odds soon elevated Lee into a figure respected and revered by many Americans, north and south. Then, in mid-20th Century a reaction set in against Lee, questioning some of the mythology that had grown around him and challenging his agressive conduct of the War, his focus on the Eastern theater, his alleged lack of broad strategic vision, and the high casualty rate to which he subjected the Army of Northern Virginia, among other things. The reasons underlying the reassessment were complex. They included correcting an overly iconic and uncritical account, the changing perspective with which Americans viewed the Civil War, and a general and, I think, unhappy tendency to debunk and to criticise important historical figures.
   
   In clear, elegant prose, Reid examines Lee and Lee historiography. Although Reid avoids hero worship, he clearly admires greatly Robert E. Lee as a person and as a general. He finds that much, but not all, of the traditional picture of Lee has merit: he was an imaginative, agressive, savvy, and gifted commander who, importantly, inspired the love and the trust of his men. He fought and won many battles against long odds and prolonged the life of the Confederacy, giving it its best chance to achieve independence. Reid is far from uncritical as he points to flaws in, among other things, the command structure of Lee's army, the commander's frequent over-confidence, his tendency to overdelegate to subordinates, his conduct of the Battle of Gettysburg, and the failure to make the most of his opportunites in battles such as Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredricksburg, and Chancellorsville. For all these faults, Lee emerges in this study as a remarkable, charismatic commander whom Reid believes is properly regarded as one of the greatest in history.
   
   The book opens with a chapter on Lee the icon with a summary of how historians of the "Lost Cause" school have viewed him, under the influence of the writings of Confederate General Jubal Early. The book then discusses Lee's pre-Civil War career, focusing on his service in Mexico, but gathers force in its consideration of Lee's three-year career as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's assumption of command in June, 1862, and the battles for which he is famous -- Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness Campaign, Petersburg, and Appatomatox, are discussed clearly and with sufficient detail. Reid keeps his and the reader's focus on the main themes of his study: showing Lee's greatness as a leader but his shortcomings as well.
   
   In common with most books about Lee, his military exploits are discussed in detail but we see little of his inmost thoughts and feelings. Lee was a highly reserved individual. I would have also liked more emphasis on Lee's pre-Civil War career and, particularly, a fuller discussion of Lee's life and career as President of Washington University following the Civil War. The book includes some basic maps of the key theatres of Lee's operations -- placed at the beginning of the book to avoid cluttering the text -- a good, basic bibliography, and no footnotes.
   
   Reid has written an excellent study of a great commander which argues convincingly that Lee deserves most of the esteem that he has traditionally received. This book will appeal to serious students of the Civil War.
   
   Robin Friedman



4. At the end of the American Civil War Robert E. Lee had only five years to live. The heart problems that caused him to spend the battle of the North Anna River in an ambulance killed him. ==In the years following his reputation as a battlefield leader was heavily promoted by writers lamenting the lost cause of Southern independence. These included not only Southerners but Northernors as well.
   
   In this book Brian Holden Reid, Professor of American History at King's College London, writes from the vantage point of a disinterested outsider to argue that Lee was one of the great commanders of all time. He does not claim that Lee didn't have faults. Everyone does, but that the overall generalship of General Lee ranks him among the best.
   
   The American Civil War took place at a transition point in military affairs. The war before (Mexico, 1843) and the war that followed (World War I). The author contends that Lee was among the first of the modern generals. If the armies had listened to him during World War I, it probably wouldn't have turned into the mess that it was.

3 comments about I Rode With Jeb Stuart: The Life And Campaigns Of Major General J. E. B. Stuart.

1. I feel this is a great book for anyone intrested in learning more about this great person. He was not just a General but a caring, warm and compassionate person.



2. It is often more interesting to read what those who have been there have to say than what we think they said. Thus is the case with this book. It may not have every fact correct, but it is what the author McClellen remembered. As with "Co. Aych" and "All For the Union," their perception of the smaller picture of the War than the overall history that is fascinating.



3. More than McClellan's memoir, this is an early Stuart biography, and later biographies such as Davies' and Thomas' rely heavily upon it. McClellan became Stuart's AG in May '63, but his account starts with Stuart's youth.

   This is a vital account in showing exactly what Stuart's cavalry did during the war: scouting, raiding, screening movements, fighting rearguard actions, gathering information, etc. One thing I didn't know was that Stuart's horse artillery, often under the command of the general himself and sometimes with regular batteries added, would take up a flank position during infantry battles and fire into the Federal ranks. The perpetual, obviously exhausting, activity of the cavalry also becomes obvious.

   McClellan was present for the Gettysburg campaign, and his account is invaluable for this somewhat controversial issue. His writing becomes more personal at this point, and he recounts several anecdotes of interest. He continues his detailed recounting of ANV cavalry activity until Stuart's death; McClellan was present at the deathbed and ends his book there. This should be required reading for anyone interested in the cavalry.

3 comments about The Irish General: Thomas Francis Meagher.

1. It seems every time you turn around someone's writing a biography of another Confederate general from the Civil War. Somehow, there's not quite the enthusiasm for biographies of Union soldiers that there is for the Confederates. This current book examines the interesting life of one of the more unusual characters from the Union Army in the Civil War era: Thomas Francis Meagher. Meagher is famous as the Union general who led the Irish Brigade, a hard-fighting unit which was famous for its opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation, and also famous for its ability to consume large amounts of whiskey. Meagher himself supposedly drank to excess, though whether he did so on the battlefield or not is a matter of debate.
   
   Wylie's account of Meagher's life is a full one, following the man through life, beginning with his childhood in Ireland, involvement in the Irish uprising in 1848 (which was very small and never had much chance of success). He then recounts his exile in Tasmania and escape. Meagher made his way to America, became a citizen, earned a law degree, and did the lecture tour circuit in order to make money. When the Civil War started, Meagher was at first sympathetic to the Confederates, but changed his mind and wound up raising troops for the Union. These troops were formed into a regiment which he wound up serving in. After First Bull Run, Meagher raised more troops and wound up leading the resulting brigade, fighting through all of the crucial campaigns up through Chancellorsville. By this time the Irish Brigade was down to a few hundred men, and Meagher felt they'd earned a rest and a period to recuperate, but the high command disagreed, and he resigned during the dispute. He did later get himself reinstated, but didn't fight again for the remainder of the war, and primarily distinguished himself with a very poor performance trying to move a body of troops from Tennessee to North Carolina, which almost led to his removal from command. He then, at the end of the war, accepted a post as secretary of the Territory of Montana, and served as the interim governor while the office was vacant or the governor absent. He died in a bizarre accident two years after the end of the war, falling off of a steamboat into the river, his body never being found.
   
   Wylie is a judicious and intelligent biographer, and this is a careful, well-written biography. The author contends that Meagher's drinking certainly had an effect on his life, but also notes that it might have been exaggerated by enemies, of whom Meagher had many. One of those enemies was William T. Sherman, who recounted the famous incident where Meagher complained to President Lincoln about Sherman's rather draconian attitude towards discipline, and Lincoln's rather comical response. This is, frankly, and intelligent and well-written biography, and I think a valuable addition to any Civil War library.



2. Wylie's book is very well researched and well written. I not only learned about the very rich and flawed life of an infamous Irish general and rebel, but I also learned a good deal about the historical struggles in Ireland that inspired him. I learned much about the Civil War, as well as how communication and politics worked around the war. I learned still more about early Western history as it applied to newly developing territories. If you have any interest in Montana history at all, this book is a must read. The author provides a colorful and detailed, very human picture of what Montana was like when it was first forming. This includes some history of the sociopolitical struggles between the settlers and the Native Americans as well. Meagher was certainly a very colorful and very human character who suffered many ups and downs and wore quite a few important hats in his day. Even Meagher's death is well researched. "The Irish General" is a real page-turner overall.



3. This is the best book on General Meagher that is available today. The research is prodicious and the writing is excellant. It is a fair view to a complicated man. Dont miss out on a excellant book if you are a fan of General Meagher, the Irish Brigade, the Civil War, or Montana History. The photographs are also excellant.The bibliography is also excellant.

2 comments about The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.

1. Insight is key to this book written by Grant from basically his death bed. What we learn from Grant in this book gives us an opportunity to understand his intentions, strategies and how he worked with people. Grant tries to be very fair in his writing that covers his early days as a colonel to full-fledged commander of the US Army. His style is basic and easy to understand. At times the book feels like he is giving a history lesson about the war and sometimes is vague about triumphs or failures. I was looking forward to reading about Grant's work with the battle of Cold Harbor and he was completely brief in this book considering it was a major conflict. But, this was Grant's choice to write and memoir depth is subject to author decision. Grant does pack a lot of information in and also has interesting coverage in regards to Lee's surrender. Anyone studying Grant or looking for further insight owes it to themselves to consider reading this book.



2. The only criticism here is that the editors saw fit to edit this masterpiece of American literature. This is a little like editing Shakespeare or the Bible. Don''t tamper with genius! This criticism aside...

   General Grant wrote this book while dying of throat cancer. He had been swindled by a dishonest Wall Street Broker and his trophies and possessions were stripped from him to satisfy the demands of his debtors. Bankrupt, suffering from a terminal illness and never passing a moment without acute pain, he produced this magnificent monument to his greatness. Those who denigrate Grant as a drunkard, butcher, bumbling President need to read this book in order to correct these errant assumptions. It is impossible to read this book and not realize that Grant was an inordinately intelligent man and one hell of a writer.

   Grant's Memoirs are a deserved classic in American literature and considered the greatest military Memoirs ever penned, exceeding Caesar's Commentaries. Grant wrote as he lived: with clear, concise statements, unembellished with trivialities or frivolities. The only "criticism" the reader might have is that Grant bent over backwards not to wound the feelings of people in the book. He takes swipes at Joe Hooker and Jeff Davis, but what he left unsaid would have been far more interesting. A compelling and logical reason why Grant was so spare in his comments was because he was involved in a race with death. He didn't know how long he could live and therefore, "cut to the chase."

   Grant's assessments of Lincoln, Sherman, Sheridan and other military leaders are brilliant and engrossing. His style, like the man himself, was inimitable and couldn't be copied. In everyday life, Grant was a very funny man, who liked to listen to jokes and tell them himself. His sense of the absurd was acute. It's no accident that he loved Mark Twain and the two hitched together very well. Twain and Grant shared a similar sense of humor, and Grant's witicisms in the Memoirs are frequent, unexpected and welcome. There are portions where you will literally laugh out loud.

   Though Grant's Memoirs were written 113 years ago, they remain fresh, vibrant and an intensely good read. I have read them in! their entirity 30 times in my life and I never weary of the style and language that Grant employed. He was a military genius to be sure, but he was also a writer of supreme gifts, and these gifts shine through on every page of this testament to his greatness. All Americans should read this book and realize what we owe to Grant: he preserved the union with his decisive brilliance. A truly oustanding book.

3 comments about The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889 (Gender & American Culture).

1. I totally diagree w/ the review above because apparently the reader did not understand that this diary is not a novel.
   
   It is true however that the diary does not reveal too much of Ella herself. This is not surprising to me since she states that she is not going to open up to her diary and tell her innomost feelings. Unfortunately!
   However, after she gets married, has children and is much more matured she does reveal a great deal about her life, feelings etc.
   One can only thank that someone took the trouble to record personal information during the antebellum time and afterwards for the readers of the 21st century to read. Thank you.



2. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! How often does one get to read someone else's diary? (Set during the Civil War, no less.) The author was a well educated, intelligent woman for her time and she is an excellent writer. So many aspects of this diary are completely fascinating. Her pampered southern lifestyle, her views on slavery (she calls herself a liberal re: slavery and yet, she is such a racist.), her feelings on male superiority and her longing to do more with her talents. The entries during the war and after are the most interesting... but DON'T read the introductory notes written by the editor...unless you want to spoil the ending! I wanted the diary to unfold one day at a time without knowing what was coming just as it did for Gertrude. After reading the diary I went back and read the editorial notes which add insight into the author's life. This is a story of a very strong woman enduring unbelievable hardships. If you enjoy history at all you will love reading this diary!



3. A Secret Eye was a huge disappointment. The characters were not as developed and colorful as one might expect. The diary/journal form became ho-hum after the first few entries. The dragging subjects and subject matter made the 470 pages difficult to wade through. Augusta has always been my home and I did enjoy some of the local history. I am certain a more interesting story could have been told about my hometown.

5 comments about Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman.

1. There are redeeming qualities in this biography of Hampton. There is much more material included about Hampton's postwar life than is found in Longacre's treatment. But Cisco has totally bought into the highly favorable southern examinations of Hampton that predate the Civil Rights era. There were certainly redeeming qualities in Hampton who seems genuinely concerned about black's welfare especially when compared to racists like Ben Tillman (a Hampton opponent), N B Forest and John Brown Gordon (a Hampton ally), but Hampton was a virulent opponent of any black who did not see things his way and presided over the end of large-scale participation of blacks in South Carolina governance. It is notatable that Cisco includes nothing about Hampton as a slave-owner (he owned over 900 human beings) other than a few "oh he was a fine massa" quotes from ex slaves who were in no position to state otherwise.
   
   There is still room for a scholarly study of Hampton particularly his role in slavery and his post war career. This one is for the Civil War buffs only.
   
   The new biography of Hampton by Rod Andrew is indeed a vastly superior work compared to Cisco's effort, but I doubt it will receive as much readership.



2. I had trouble putting this book down and finished it in 2-3 days. I consider it one of the best books on my shelf, not only for its style, but because it is extremely well researched. Part of the fun after reading the book was going through the bibliography and the footnotes to see where Mr. Cisco came up with all the information he presented. "The Truth is (still) Out There", for anyone who cares or takes the time to look. Buy it, read it, and see what your school teachers left out when they taught you about "Reconstruction"!
   
   Much of the information contained herein will disturb those who are public school educated AND have never learned to think for themselves, or who see the past in terms of their own world. If this is you, then don't buy this book. Instead, do an amazon search for "video games" and stay in your contented fugue state because you will certainly be disturbed by what's in this book!



3. With respect to the other reviewers in this forum, I must disagree with their positive impressions of this book. Cisco's book is strictly for the neo-Confederate reader. True, Hampton is in real need of a biography--there are basically three: Manly Wade Wellman, Giant in Gray, 1949; Ed Longacre's, Gentleman and Soldier, 2003; and Cisco's version. The best of the lot, Longacre's, is war heavy, and the other two are biased to a Confederate view. Indeed, Cisco's book can not be taken seriously by academics or even serious students of history with such outlandish comments that, "During the war many Southern blacks stood by their country--the Confederate States" (p. 170) Or, that Hampton "treated slaves as individuals and fellow human beings." (p. 41).
   
   This book is poorly written and ignores Hampton's role as a Redeemer and slaveowner. Hampton, and the reading public, deserves better.



4. Wade Hampton is local hero here in Columbia, SC. His statue is prominent on the State House grounds and his home is a local historical society attraction. Outside of SC he may not be a household name, but within SC he is an icon, a figure respected and admired. This biography of Wade Hampton will give the reader an orderly summary of the key events of his life. When significant events occure the author goes into more detail, rightly so. Readers interested in Civil War military or political history, the history of Reconstruction, or American politics in general will benefit from this book.



5. Wade Hampton III has been in need of a comprehensive biography for a long time now. Reserved and deliberate in life, both as a cavalry commander and as a political leader, he tried to restrain his annoyance when temporarily outshone by more flamboyant peers; with the benefit of hindsight, however, we ought to pay more attention to WHIII and his substantial achievements.
   
   The "untrained" officer whose pragmatic cavalry tactics proved more of an asset to Lee than the celebrated Stuart ever was; the reluctant secessionist who sacrificed family and fortune to the Confederate cause (or more accurately, to the cause of South Carolina); the conservative Democrat who reined in the bitter ferocity of his own party's extreme elements to become among the first Democrats in the nation to benefit from black voters - Hampton is a fascinating character and Cisco provides a worthy introduction to him.
   
   Walter Cisco does not repeat the bits of folklore that crept into the last Hampton biography, a 1940's hagiography; instead he quotes extensively from primary sources and lets his subject's character emerge naturally. Nor does he shy from uncomfortable aspects, such as the probable abuse of Hampton's sisters by another prominent South Carolinian, or Hampton's bitter exchanges with Sherman over POW executions in the Carolinas Campaign of 1865. However, by the time you finish this work, you'll understand Wade Hampton III as a major and underappreciated figure in both the military and civil history of the South and of our nation.

3 comments about I Fought With Custer: The Story of Sergeant Windolph, Last Survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

1. It is difficult to really rate a work like this. This is the story of Charles Windolph, the last survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in his own, simple words. Windolph told his story to a father and son historian team in the 1930s and 40s. Windolph's distinction as last survivor is a bit misleading--he was the last man who was present at the battle to die, but his title as last survivor does not mean he was with Custer's column of troops. He wasn't. In fact, he was under Benteen, and was one of many who survived the battle because they weren't as heavily engaged in it as Custer.
   Windolph presents an interesting perspective on the battle, and seems relatively objective. He does tend to romanticize a little, but for the most part he refrains from throwing blame on Custer, Reno, Benteen, or anyone else (though he does state up front that he is partial to Benteen). His story is not all that unique when compared to other primary accounts of the battle, but it is nevertheless valuable as the testimony of a survivor of that horrible tragedy.
   Included with Windolph's narrative are a number of primary documents, cobbled together in chapters and laced throughout with author's commentary. This is all right, but it would have been better to present these documents in their entirety, with only enough commentary (perhaps in the form of footnotes) to give the reader an idea of the background surrounding the documents. Still, the Hunts have done a relatively good job of remaining objective as well, something that is rare in a Custer historian. This is perhaps not the best account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but it is nevertheless an important one.



2. As a Custer buff, this book has been on my shelf for a long time. A great book to read, one that fleshes out a lot of the daily life in the Seventh as well as the battle along Greasy Grass. Right up there with "Son of Morning Star" and Walter Camp's book on the subject. Check 'em out, you won't be disappointed.



3. This book is compiled from the found writings of a sergeant of the Seventh Cavalry who survived the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The first hand accounts of men like Sergeant Windolph and Theodore Goldin are very valuable and interesting reading. They were not men defending their performance as were the officers like Benteen, Reno, and Godfrey. They had their biases but didn't have to grind axes. This account is worthwhile reading for students of the Seventh Cavalry and the Little Big Horn campaign.

1 comments about A. Lincoln'S Gettysburg Addres.

1. This 79-page examination of the Gettysburg Address provides kids in grades 4-6 with an excellent in-depth examination of the concepts and basic importance of Lincoln's historic statements. Chapters blend vintage black and white photos with fine insights on the events of his times.

5 comments about The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., 1835-64.

1. The Nature of Sacrifice: Charles Russell Lowell's Civil War
   The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Rusell Lowell, Jr. 1835-1864, Carol Bundy, Farrer Strauss and Giroux, 560pp., endnotes, index, 2005, $35.00.
   
   Within the first several chapters, this reader found Charlie Lowell a 'child of the(19)sixties living in the 1850s and not the Brahmin snob that he thought he would encounter.
   
   Born in 1835, immediately before his family slipped from high social standing and wealth and into the 'poor cousins' category, Charlie the grew up in the 'high'culture' of Boston of close-knit kinship relations and opportunities.
   
   With Transcendentalists and Abolitionists as neighbors and relatives, with books and debate as a part of family dinner discourse, and with newspapers and current bestsellers as a part of the table top literature of the household, Charlie grew into an apparently aimless but articulate Harvard student. Slight in build and height, surpassed all, after giving the commencement day address at Harvard in 1856, he took a manual laborers job on the Boston wharfs.
   
   He approached manual labor and business in general with the soul of a philosopher and philanthropist. He was a subversive idealist in the workplace, a worker with a social conscience, and a son who wished to succeed where his father failed. Charlie chose the iron industry as his place in the world. By 1860, after an interlude in Europe recovering from tuberculosis, he was managing an iron foundry, west of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Voting Republican in the presidential election, he watched the secession crisis from western Maryland. The attack on Massachusetts troops by a Baltimore mob in the spring of 1861 brought him into the ranks of the Union army as a cavalry captain.
   
   By 1863, after seeing action on the Peninsula and serving on McClellan's staff during the Sharpsburg campaign, Charlie Lowell commanded the 2nd Massachusetts cavalry in what he considered a 'backwater' assignment, Mosby's Confederacy. It was difficult and distastefull duty for him but one at which he excelled. Lowell collected near missed throughout the war; on the Peninsula he shook out his bedroll from behind his saddle and minie balls dropped out. At Antietam, he discovered his horse to be winded and removed the saddle and found the beast hit several times under it. As a colonel of a brigade during the 1864 Shenandoah campaign, he participated and rationalized the destruction of civilian farmsteads. He finally received a wound from a ball that clipped his elbow, traveled up his sleeve,crossed his shoulder, traveled down and cut a small portion of his spine. He died within 24 hours; he was survived by his wife whom he married in 1863 and was seven months pregnant.
   
   The nature of Charles Russell Lowell's sacrifice was multi-faceted: the happy bachelor who left a wife and child, the workplace manager with a heart for the workers, sleight twenty-somenthing who had become a leader of cavalrymen, and the intellectual who became a anti-guerrilla fighter.
   
   This biography surprises in many ways. Charlie Lowell is put in the context of a family on economic decline, of a social conscience within the environment of the empheral ideas of Transcendentalism, and of a top achieving Harvard student who condemns the college's curriculum of constant mind-numbing rote memorization. In 1861, few would have picked Charlie Lowell become a successful leader of cavalrymen. Appreciated by McClellan, Stanton, and Mosby, Lowell became a hero. The nature of Lowell's sacrifice was the loss of a future earned by a man who believed that there are no problems, only solutions and seized his duty to find a way to succeed.



2. Drawing her story from hundreds of family letters, Carol Bundy describes with vivid detail the life and death of Charles Russell Lowell. She is a fine writer, and this, her first book (amazingly), is a remarkable achievement. I found it totally absorbing. Yes, Bostonian readers especially will discover many familiar names, but Bundy's viewpoint is neither partisan nor provincial. I highly recommend this book as one of the best I've read in a long time. Just one caveat: it is very, very sad.



3. This is a three way review, along the lines of "readers who enjoyed this book also enjoyed....." Each of these books enriches reading of the other two. They are, in order of publication (and the order in which I read them), The Metaphysical Club, by Louis Menand, The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl, and The Nature of Sacrifice, a biography of Charles Russell Lowell, by Carol Bundy; These three fit together like birds in an Escher sketch. The many other reviews of each of these three explore their focus, their scholarship, their pace, breadth and depth, skillful turn of phrase and weaving of ideas: all of them excel in every way that their respective genre demands. What has intrigued me is how each, from their own genre and viewpoint, contribute to a fuller picture of the ideas and times that the others explore and a more informative and enjoyable total reading experience.
   
   Briefly, The Metaphysical Club is primarily about ideas, and secondarily about their men: Oliver Wendell Holmes; William James; Charles Peirce and John Dewey, but Menand also necessarily explores the milieu from which these men and their eyes emerged. Holmes and James received the lion's share of delving into their history, as I recall from my reading several years ago, principally their lives as sons in their natal families, and their experiences with the Civil War: Holmes' an intimate, lucky survivor's life emerging from the corpses of a great many of his boyhood and college chums, James', a more distant, detached view. Menand explores how these war time experiences, as well as their exposure to zealous causes, such as abolition and the copperhead reaction thereto, shaped their approaches to life, to dealing with ideas, with movements, how Holmes applied these ideas in his jurisprudence and James in his philosophies. The Metaphysical Club is dense, tersely but often breezily written, requiring frequent re-readings of paragraphs and sections. If you let your mind wander for a sentence, you must retreat and reread. Menand also follows their ideas into the twentieth century, and their effects on public and higher education and other important areas in our country. We learn quite a bit about Boston, Cambridge and New England.
   
   The Dante Club is fiction, which takes place within the boundaries, both geographical and temporal, of the Metaphysical Club. The club members tickle but do not overlap with the Metaphysicals: O.W. Holmes' father, the "diminutive doctor," as famous in his day as his son came to be in his; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the key figure, then widowered, and bringing forth his English translation of Dante's Inferno, with the help of Holmes Sr., and James Russell Lowell, poet, critic, and a founder of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, among other things, (including the uncle of Charles Russell Lowell, subject of the third book); and Charles Washington Green. The Dante Club is an exciting, interesting, chatty, rather informative and fast moving murder mystery, set mostly in Cambridge in the first few years after the Civil War had ended, partly in Boston, with forays to Boston's north shore, to civil war battle grounds south of the Mason Dixon line, and an occasional mention of Italy. Cameo appearances of Holmes Jr and his friends, his wounds and his ideas give hints of the developments of the Metaphysical Club, which was just then perhaps starting to take form. The Dante Club is a refreshingly easy reading barnstormer, a nice, light dessert after the Metaphysical Club. It inks a palpable picture of Cambridge after the civil war, and is great fun to read while sitting in a park along Brattle Street. J. R. Lowell enjoys a large role in it, and to understand its mystery, and the resolution thereof, it is helpful to know something of the lives, privations and crises of the everyday civil war soldier, and his officers. This then brings us to the missing piece in the puzzle, The Nature of Sacrifice.
   
   The Nature of Sacrifice is Bundy's first published book, as the Dante Club is Pearl's. (Menand has several books to his credit, but he is mostly known for his remarkably wide ranging articles, essays and other short pieces that have established him as one of today's leading public intellectuals.) Bundy's biography of Charles Russell Lowell, J. R. Lowell's nephew and sometimes housemate, uncannily fills in territory left open by both these books about non-existent clubs, almost as if her book were written just for me, so that I could enjoy the other two more. Bundy's book is at once more compact, more potent than both, because her subject died before his 30th year, and also because he was a real live hero. She writes of the sounds, smells and sights of soldiering and battle with such vigor, organization and thrust that images and whole scenes arise in the mind's eye, as well as the mind's ear, and the mind's nostrils. Bundy's prose soars and charges, leaving the reader with no doubt that it tells the story of a flesh and blood man who lived earnestly, and died violently, leaving a family and community eviscerated by his death; and not only his death. Portrayal of His death stands as the synechdoche, the one death, put before us to call forth every single death in every family that lost a son to the Civil War adding up to the over 600,000 civil war deaths, and with just a little imagination, to all deaths, in all wars. Bundy gives us the catalogue of Boston and Cambridge families who sent their treasure to war, and lost that treasure, their individual names, their beautiful faces, the faces of their sisters, their playmates, the lists of places where they died, the lists of names who died in the same battles, or the same years; families with two sons dead (as was the case for the Lowells); She depicts the normal, daily childhood these boys led before they went off as men to kill and be killed. Bundy provides the real raw material for Holmes' pragmatic views, and James' different pragmatic views, for the motivations behind the actions of the main characters in the Dante Club, a picture of Dante's Hell, as well as really helping the reader to understand the insanity of the action in the Dante Club as something other than insanity, rather as a reaction to civil insanity that is beyond sane and insane, beyond good and evil as opposites. Bundy's descriptions also of the social and political background of the Civil War is very helpful to understand that war at at least a casual level. It certainly isn't and doesn't try to be an in depth study of those backgrounds, which studies have been done again and again. But it helped to get a picture of the country before the Civil war on many levels. Bundy's book is also a real counterweight to the other two, because much of the story is gleaned from sources written by or to women: Lowell's mother, his sister, his wife, wives of his comrades. Not to be simplistic, but mothers and sisters do have different views about war, risk and death than do most men.
   
   These 3 books also reinforce each other, because they feel to be pieces of the same cloth. Nothing, or hardly anything in either of them contradicts matters in another, or jars the sense of the places and times established by the others.
   
   So, I heartily recommend all three of these books to anyone interested in any one of them. And, I think that reading in the order of publication, or probably even better, its reverse, is the way to go, keeping Dante in the middle as a quick, driving light weight, between the two much more serious, albeit compelling and exciting non-fictions.



4. I first became interested in the career of Charles Russell Lowell Jr., when earlier this spring I saw the author, Carol Bundy, speak about him and read from her book on TV, on a fourm provided by the Public TV station Boston's WGBH. For this reader Boston visits always include at least a few hours spent curled up in front of a high-definition TV and turning on the public station, for it seems nowhere else in the country do the arts get such play. Nor the humanities, including the utterly humane biography that Bundy has written of a man she says is her great-great-great-great uncle I think. She was amazed when, after her grandmother died, among her trunks and effects out tumbled the clattering sword of Lowell, as well as his dress uniform, preserved through generations who had relished remembering him as their fallen hero.
   
   As though honoring this family mandate, Bundy has done her level best to help preserve his memory for at least another generation. For on the one hand although Lowell was a forgotten soldier, dead before he was thirty, he fought with distinction at a number of pivotal sites in the War Between the States, at one point serving with "Mosby's Marauders." He was a curious chap, as Bundy relates. While his peers and elders were romantic dreamers-transcendentalists, really-who swore by the abolitionist movement and excused the barbarities of some of its activists as examples of ends justfying means, Lowell took the middle ground, sort of turning his nose up at the ideals in question, while cherishing a different set of ideals, by and large culled from a classical education and a tour of Europe on the grand scale. On this extended sojourn, the privilege of young gentlemen of the 19th century, Lowell became haunted by Michelangelo's painting of the three fates. Later on in the annals of art scholarship, ironically enough, it emerged that the painting was not by Michelangelo at all-not even close. But such is its power that it made Lowell sort of an ironist, and a fatalist too.
   
   Bundy brings the War alive as Shelby Foote did, though from the union side of course. The sights and sounds of the battlefield waft over the reader who dares finish this exhsuaring biography all the way through, not only the sounds of glory but the rotting flesh of the dead and the mad faces of the survivors. Like Shakespeare, Lowell begs the question. No wonder his funeral was attended by so many notables, still spooked by him, for none could follow the oddments and the contours of his soul. Today his distinguished descendant has widened the field of inquiry, allowing us to see the lineaments of a brief life with tantalizing hesitance.



5. Ms. Bundy paints an exceptionally fine picture of the Boston cultural and political scene in the pre-war years. She clearly knows the Lowell family's story (she's a descendent) and she also is a good writer.
   
   However, when she gets away from that and into the details of the war, she falls very short. Her information on Ball's Bluff, for example, contains several errors. Capt. Caspar Crowninshield did not command the 20th Massachusetts and was not the only officer from that regiment to make it back from Ball's Bluff.
   
   On three occasions, she describes California governor Leland Stanford as a "copperhead" or a southern sympathizer though Stanford helped found the Republican party in California and was an ardent Unionist.
   
   She notes Sen. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts as Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, though Wilson was not even a member of that committee.
   
   She treats the tactic of fighting cavalry dismounted almost as if it were invented by Col. Lowell instead of being an old and well-known dragoon technique.
   
   There are numerous other small mistakes like that which some fact-checking or a little more research would have let her avoid. I give the book three stars instead of two only because it is very well written and because the mistakes she makes are not central to the story she is trying to tell about Lowell. They are very jarring, however, and the reader should be prepared for them.