Three Fictional Encounters in Three Factual Events

In my novel Brookhaven, the teenaged Sam McClure has three fateful encounters with John Haygood. The three happen in successive years, and each of the three involve Civil War military operations. 

I was reminded of this when Emerging Civil War posted articles on two of the three operations a week apart this month.

 

The first encounter happens during Grierson’s Raid, an operation ordered by Ulysses S. Grant to distract the Confederates during his siege of Vicksburg in 1863. Some 1,700 Union cavalrymen rode through Mississippi, starting at the Tennessee border and finishing in Union-occupied Louisiana. They tore up railroad track and caused considerable havoc, but more importantly, they kept the Confederates focused away from Grant transferring his army across the river to besiege Vicksburg from the east.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Illustration: Major Benjamin Grierson and his cavalry make a triumphant entry into Union-controlled Baton Rouge at the conclusion of their famous raid through Mississippi in 1863. (Library of Congress)

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Why Governments Cannot Educate – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

How Do You Fix Schools? Teachers Union Says Stop Trump, ICE, and Fascism – Maya Sulkin at The Free Press.

 

C.S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury: Legitimizing Science Fiction – Bradley Birzer,

 

Just War Thery and the American Civil War – Ed Lowe at Emerging Civil War.

 

Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861-1865 by Damian Shiels – review at Civil War Books and Authors.

"Bloody Promenade" by Stephen Cushman

I found Stephen Cushman’s poetry first, and then I discovered he wrote about the Civil War as well. 

Cushman is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. He’s known for his seven collections of poetry and two books of literary criticism, Fictions of Form in American Poetry and William Carlos Williams and the Meanings of Measure. 

 

But when he was a child, he was given a book about the American Civil War. It was The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (1960), with a narrative by noted Civil War historian Bruce Catton. The book became the key that unlocked a lifelong interest in the war, to the point where he’s published three books about it – The Generals’ Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today, Belligerent Muse: Five Northern Writers and How They Shaped Our Understanding of the Civil War, and Bloody Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

“Trouble Him a Little Longer”: Morgan’s Raiders in Bardstown, Kentucky – Caroline Davis at Emerging Civil War.

 

The Surrender of Port Hudson – Sean Michael Chick at Emerging Civil War.

 

A Civil War Road Trip of a Lifetime by John Banks. 

"Bear in the Wilderness" by Donald Waldemer

One of the many features of the Missouri Civil War Museum is the gift shop, which has artifacts, souvenirs, refreshments, t-shirts and jackets, and books. Lots of books. Lots of new and used books all about the Civil War. (I wrote about the museum here.) 

I found more than a few things of interest, but I didn’t overdo it. I walked away with an old copy of Stephen Vincent Benet’s epic book-length poem John Brown’s Body, the novel Shiloh by Shelby Foote, and a few others. One, as it turned out, had a strong St. Louis connection.

 

Donald Waldemer (1925-2021) was about totally St Louis as you can get. He was born here. He received two degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. He worked for Union Electric (now Ameren, the main electric utility) for 34 years.  He and his wife raised a family in Brentwood, a close-in St. Louis suburb, and he’s buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Kirkwood, the suburb where I live. 

 

Waldermer was also an avid student of the Civil War. He published Triumph at the James: The Checkmate of Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1998 and Bear in the Wilderness: The Battle of the Wilderness May 5,6,7 1864 in 2001. It was the book on the Battle of the Wilderness that I found at the Missouri Civil War Museum.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

“Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864” by Chris Mackowski

Once Ulysses S. Grant became commander of all the Union’s armies, he undertook two efforts that ultimately helped defeat the Confederacy. First, he coordinated the campaigns of all of the Northern armies, and not only those forces under his immediate command. Second, he made a concerted effort to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond.  

In 1864, the campaign against Richmond was renewed in earnest. Grant was attempting to avoid a frontal assault and instead sweep around and back. To do that, he had to move his Army of the Potomac through 70 square miles of densely wooded terrain known as the Wilderness. The area was inhabited, if sparsely. Moving an army through it, with its artillery and supply wagons, would be difficult, but Grant was determined.

 

So was Robert E. Lee. He understood what Grant was attempting, and he was just as determined to stop him. Two steel wills clashed – and the Wilderness exploded. Literally.

 

In Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864, Chris Mackowski does two things. He tells the story of the main points of the battle, and he provides detailed directions for a tour of the battlefield by automobile. (“Battlefield” is a limiting term here; there was no one field or area of open terrain where everything happened.) The book is part of the Emerging Civil War Series. 

 

Chris Markowski

In addition to writing some of the volumes, Mackowski serves as editor for the entire effort. A professor at St. Bonaventure University, he has B.A., M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. degrees in communication, English, and creative writing. The author of some nine books, he’s written extensively on the Civil War for a number of publications. He also worked for the National Park Service and gave tours of the Civil War battlefields at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. 

 

The Wilderness was a horrific battle, deserving of the name given by one its participants, “Hell Itself.” The terrain and denseness of the forest often meant hand-to-hand combat. Artillery fire often resulted in the woods catching fire, and soldiers on both sides were burned to death. 

 

Hell Itself brings the battle to life, making the reader feel almost a first-hand observer. You wonder, as did many who fought there, how anyone made it out of those woods alive.

 

Related:

 

Attack at Daylight and Whip Them: The Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862 by Gregory Mertz.

 

The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863 by Robert Orrison and Dan Welch.