Blog 4 History: American & Civil War History

Lots of new services coming online for a fee, of course. You can get some free previews though. For example, Footnote has an “interactive” 1860 census online. Dimitri pointed out that you can download the non-interactive version for free here.

Another one I found that was searchable was the family search website. Their FREE 1880 online census helped me find and locate a lot of soldiers for my book after the war.
If you’re looking for a searchable archive with letters and diaries, you have my soldierstudies.org, which is free, and Alexander Street Press, which is free now, but will be pay-per-view soon. [Note: there are some issues with the accuracy of ASP, but it is a cool site with a lot of features!]

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, by Tony Horwitz, who you might recognize as the bestselling author of Blue Latitudes, Confederates in the Attic, and Baghdad Without a Map. He is also a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who has worked for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker.

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World - Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated, ISBN-13: 9780805076035, 464pp

Horwitz’s book uses a dichotomy not often seen in the realm of history writers. He takes the reader not only on a “journey” through time, but also his own personal journey as he dictates his experiences exploring the geographical paths taken by the explorers he studied. For more on this, see this short video clip featuring Horwitz.

The book is divided into three Parts:

1. Discovery
2. Conquest
3. Settlement

Each is superbly written. Horwitz weaves his two narratives, using one and then the other, and takes us on a magical journey through the heartland of North America. He has a wit and sense of humor that he incorporates into his writing, delivering a wonderful reading experience!

My favorite chapters dealt with the European discovery of the continent, and Coronado’s journey from Mexico to what is today Southwestern U.S.

As a high school history teacher I like to read material that will provide me with interesting facts, funny and alluring historical characters, and comedic and entertainment events. In this, A Voyage Long and Strange delivers!

These details of history help me keep my students interested. All of these are included in Horwitz’s book to keep you the reader interested. I found myself laughing out loud often.

For example, this gem will be incorporated into my class next year:

“The Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts eighteen years later had a very different experience. Samoset, the first Indian they met at Plymouth, greeted the settles in English. The first thing he asked for was beer.”

Funny and interesting anecdotes like these always deliver with high school age students.

This book is a must read for any high school or middle school teacher and will help you be a better teacher with the knowledge gained and insights from which to tell a better and far more interesting story of North American history.

No not #21 overall, of course, but #21 for Military > Regiments (NOTE: only two other Civil War regiment history books were ahead of mine as of this writing!), but hey, I’ll take it. [UPDATE: today (5.3.08) it’s gone, oh well, it was nice while it lasted!]

I’ve been reading Eric’s recent posts about authors and publishing: Things I Wish I Knew Then But Know Now. For some reason it made me feel uneasy. My book, The 11th Wisconsin in the Civil War: A Regimental History, is no great historical work and I am very aware of that. I have to admit I wonder about my book in the same manner Eric questions others. I did not intend to write anything more or less than a narrative of this regiment of heroes.

I found I could not easily pull myself away from my desk once into the rhythm of my writing. This told me it was a good story. I am a screenwriter by trade, and have had to teach myself to think and write like a historian. I’m not even close yet, and I know that.

I did not write or seek out a publisher to stroke my ego, I just simply wanted to get the story of this incredible regiment in print for others to read. I wish this task had fallen on an abler man, but it did not! I do, frankly, worry that I made junior historian mistakes and perhaps that will come back to haunt me. I dunno…

I’ll leave that up to the reviewers. Anyway, thanks for all those who have given me words of encouragement and support!

Chris

On what has to be one of the best history blogs, Boston 1775, I found the following that got me thinking about changing my classroom rules and adopting some of these (Note, I would be the “Senior.”):

Rules for Harvard’s incoming class in 1741.

1. No Freshman shall wear his hat in the College yard, except it rains, hails, or snows, he be on horseback, or hath both hands full.
2. No Freshman shall pass by his Senior, without pulling his hat off.
3. No Freshman shall be saucy to his Senior, or speak to him with his hat on.
4. No Freshman shall laugh in his Senior’s face.
5. No Freshman shall ask his Senior any impertinent question.
6, No Freshman shall intrude into his Senior’s company.
7. Freshmen are to take notice that a Senior Sophister can take a Freshman from a Sophimore, a Master from a Senior Sophister, and a Fellow from a Master.
8. When a Freshman is sent of an errand, he shall not loiter by the way, but shall make haste, and give a direct answer if asked who he is going for.
9. No Freshman shall tell who he is a going for (unless asked), or what he is a going for, unless asked by a Fellow.
10. No Freshman, when he is going of errands, shall go away, except he be dismissed, which is known by saying, “It is well,” “You may go,” “I thank you,” or the like.
11. Freshman are to find the rest of the scholars with bats, balls, and footballs.
12. Freshmen shall pay three shillings to the Butler to have their names set up in the Buttery.
13. No Freshman shall wear his hat in his Senior’s chambers, nor in his own if his Senior be there.
14. When anybody knocks at a Freshman’s door, he shall not ask who is there, but immediately open the door.
15. When a Freshman knocks at his Senior’s door, he shall tell his name immediately.
16. No Freshman shall call his classmate by the name of Freshman.
17. No Freshman shall call up or down, to or from his Senior’s chamber or his own.
18. No Freshman shall call or throw anything across the College yard, nor go into the Fellows’ Cuz-John.
19. No Freshman shall mingo against the College walls.
20. Freshmen are to carry themselves, in all respects, as to be in no wise saucy to their Seniors.
21. Whatsoever Freshman shall break any of these customs, he shall be severely punished.

The 11th Wisconsin in the Civil War
A Regimental History
Christopher C. Wehner

ISBN 978-0-7864-3210-3
photos, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
248pp. library binding (7 x 10) 2008
Available for immediate shipment

Description
This volume details the Civil War experiences of the 11th Wisconsin Volunteers as they traveled more than 9000 miles in the service of their country. The book looks at the attitude prevalent in Wisconsin at the start of the war and discusses the background of the men who comprised the regiment, 72 percent of whom were farmers. Compiled primarily from the letters and diaries of the men who served in the 11th Wisconsin, the work focuses on the firsthand day-to-day experiences of the common soldier, including rations (or lack thereof), clothing, disease, and, at times, the simple act of waiting. The 11th Wisconsin lost more men to disease than to battle, so their story presents an accurate picture not only of the heroic but also the sometimes humdrum yet perilous existence of the soldier. Appendices provide a list of occupations practiced by the men, dates of muster into service for the regiment’s companies and a copy of a sermon delivered by George Wells after Lee’s surrender in 1865.

About the Author
Christopher C. Wehner is a history teacher in Colorado.

Roll Call to Destiny: The Soldier’s Eye View of Civil War Battles, Brent Nosworthy, Basic Books Inc., 336pp. $27.95. Release Date: March 2008.

Having sifted through mountains of firsthand accounts (many never previously published), Nosworthy pieces together his relevant findings to paint a crisp, clear picture of the Civil War frontlines, from the perspective of soldiers standing on them. Nosworthy’s subjects of interest here are infantry, artillery and cavalry. What was it like to stand behind a cannon and beat back an infantry charge? To take part in a chaotic, fast-paced cavalry raid? To confront the enemy face to face in thick, forest foliage? Nosworthy puts us in the middle of it all.

1858: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and the War they Failed to See by Bruce Chadwick, Sourcebooks, Incorporated,368pp. Pub. Date: April 2008

1858 is the prologue to the American Civil War, ending with the first shots fired on Fort Sumter in the spring of 1861. But it is less a survey of the era than a study of characters: James Buchanan as an odd-looking, maniacal disaster of a president, bent on conquering Paraguay, and John Brown as an imposing, biblical fury, determined to force America to confront the issue Buchanan was determined to ignore: slavery.

To listen to Chadwick discuss 1858 in a podcast, click here.

Washington: The Making of the American Capital, Amistad, Fergus Bordewich, $27.95, Pub. Date: May 06, 2008

Washington, D.C., is home to the most influential power brokers in the world. But how did we come to call D.C.—a place one contemporary observer called a mere swamp “producing nothing except myriads of toads and frogs (of enormous size),” a district that was strategically indefensible, captive to the politics of slavery, and a target of unbridled land speculation—our nation’s capital?