GRANT and LEE: VICTORIOUS AMERICAN and VANQUISHED VIRGINIAN by Edward H. Bonekemper III

Originally published in 2007.

Edward Bonekemper was a Civil War historian who came to the game kind of late in life - after he retired as an attorney for the federal government. 

However, he brings his skills as an attorney to this book. Imagine a regulatory attorney bringing all of his research to bear in order to win a case by simply  overwhelming the other side with binder after binder of evidence. In this case, the evidence is almost 200 pages of appendices, endnotes, and a bibliography. 

Bonekemper makes an argument in this book that Grant was undoubtedly the superior general when compared to Lee. In fact, he makes the arguments that Grant was the best general in the Civil War by far and Lee squandered his soldiers and his resources by going on the offense almost all of the time.

Being the best general does not mean Grant made no mistakes. It does not mean Grant was perfect. Bonekemper acknowledges mistakes by Grant in every campaign and gives Lee his due from time to time. 

Grant and Lee is really a dual history of these two generals, comparing their pre-war careers and then various stages of the war itself. For example, there is a chapter called May-July 1863 where the Vicksburg campaign is compared to the Chancellorsville/Gettysburg campaigns. 

A constant refrain is that Lee's biggest weakness is that he did not conserve his resources by falling back on the defensive. His argument is that Lee did not grasp the strategic fact that the North had to literally conquer the South while the South just had to stay alive until popular support collapsed in the North and the Europeans recognized the Confederate government. 

Instead of building a series of fortifications and compelling the Union forces to destroy themselves in useless attacks, Lee kept lashing out at Union forces and invaded the North twice only to lose both times and discourage European intervention after both failures.

Lee rarely lost more soldiers than the Union forces he fought, but he did not have a constant supply of new soldiers coming to the front - and the North did. Not only did the North replace soldiers at an amazing rate, they also managed to create all new armies when needed.

I found that I basically agreed with Bonekemper. Grant was the better general. Lee was too focused on Virginia and too eager to go on the offense. He did not save his resources and did not share the ones he had with other theaters of the war.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GRANT and LEE: VICTORIOUS AMERICAN and VANQUISHED VIRGINIAN by Edward H. Bonekemper III.

RUN: BOOK ONE (graphic novel) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

Illustrated by L. Fury and Nate Powell.
Published by Harry N. Abrams in 2021.

This spring I read the MARCH, the three volume graphic novel series about Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) and the Civil Rights movement. When I finished the series, I thought to myself that it would be interesting to see how John Lewis ran for Congress and the struggles he encountered in an era where the KKK still openly marched.

My Synopsis:

The graphic novel RUN picks up right where MARCH trilogy left off. At the end of the MARCH trilogy, there was a celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights bills - a moment of success. There was also the murder of a volunteer who was helping with the celebration by anti-Civil Rights forces.

RUN explores what happened after the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had it first taste of success. At the end of MARCH, there was a celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights bills. With that, a long-term goal achieved there was a lot of discussion about where to go next. there were a lot of things to consider, including the beginnings of the Vietnam War.

The discussions soon became arguments and those arguments led people to leave the SNCC and for the movement to fragment. Some pushed for more of the same strategies due to a belief in the power of non-violence and for the simple reason that they had been effective up to this point. 

Others, led by Stokely Carmichael, wanted to pursue separatist strategies. Eventually, this leads John Lewis to leave the SNCC and run for political office.

My Review:

As I look over what I wrote in my synopsis of the book, it sounds boring. It really was not. You normally don't hear much about the Civil Rights movement after the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, so I found it interesting.

Sadly, Lewis died before this book was finished and I doubt there will be more in this series. 

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: RUN by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

MARCH: BOOK THREE (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

 

Published in 2016 by Top Shelf Productions

Written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Illustrated by Nate Powell.

2016 National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature

2017 Printz Award Winner

2017 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner

2017 Sibert Medal Winner

2017 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner

2017 Walter Award Winner

Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) continues his life story in book three of the March series, focusing on his struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. The book starts with the 16th Street Birmingham Church Bombing in September of 1963 and ends with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in August of 1965.

These were, by any account, much like the famous Charles Dickens line from A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."

It was the best of times in that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. It was the worst of times because of these landmark laws were passed due to great sacrifices. As noted on page 91, in the state of Mississippi in the summer of 1964 during an attempt to mobilize and register black voters there were "more than 1,000 arrests, 80 beatings, 35 church burnings, and 30 bombings."

A theme that runs throughout the trilogy is that every success is soured by a violent response. I was particularly struck by an act of pointless violence at the end of the book. When the march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama finally happens (it had been turned back on other attempts by violence and by court order) there is a rally, there are speeches, and a concert given by an amazingly diverse crowd of artists - diverse in race and in musical styles. What should have been a beautiful moment is marred by the murder of a volunteer driver named Viola Luzzo from Detroit. She was shuttling people back to Selma. She was heading back to Montgomery to pick up more people when a car pulled alongside. A single shot was fired and she was killed (see picture.)

This is an excellent trilogy and an excellent way to tell this history. I rate this book and the entire trilogy 5 stars out of 5. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: MARCH: BOOK THREE (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Click here for March: Book One.

Click here for March: Book Two.

MARCH: BOOK TWO (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

 

Published in 2013 by Top Shelf Productions.

Written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Illustrated by Nate Powell.

Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) continues his life story in book two of the March series, focusing on his struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. The book starts in November of 1960 and ends with the 16th Street Birmingham Church Bombing in September of 1963.

The story includes some very harsh responses to attempts to integrate restaurants in Tennessee, the freedom riders (young African Americans were attempting to desegregate bus lines after a court ordered them to be desegregated), and the bus boycott campaign in Birmingham. 

The violent response is horrible and shocking

Infamous segregationist lawman Bull Connor of Birmingham figures prominently throughout the middle of the book. I am pretty well-versed in the major points of the Civil Rights Movement but I was still moved by the portrayal of the Children's Crusade.

The book includes all of the negotiations, concerns, and demands before the famed March on Washington. Lewis spoke at the march, followed by the world-famous "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King. 

And, as often happens in this history, a giant step forward is followed by tragedy. In this case, the book ends with the death of 4 girls in the terrorist bombing of a church in Birmingham. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found at Amazon.com here: MARCH: BOOK TWO (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Click here to see my review of March: Book One.

Click here to see my review of March: Book Three.

MARCH: BOOK ONE (graphic novel) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

Published in 2013 by Top Shelf Productions.
Written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.
Illustrated by Nate Powell.

Winner: National Book Award

Winner: Will Eisner Comic Industry Award

Winner: Coretta Scott King Book Award

Winner: ALA Notable Books

Winner: Reader's Digest Graphic Novels Every Grown-Up Should Read

Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) tells his life story in this graphic novel, focusing on his struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. This is the first book in a trilogy, covering the first 20 years of his life.

Lewis is interested in three things as a young man - education, preaching, and the Civil Rights movement. Lewis listens to the traditional African American leaders and he hears talk of moderation (or, even worse, nothing at all about Civil Rights.) He doesn't know what to do, but he knows this is not the way forward. 

Lewis's growing frustration and the moment when Lewis hears MLK.

One day, he hears Martin Luther King, Jr. speak over the radio and he knows the way to go: non-violent resistance.

The last half of the book goes into the effort to integrate lunch counters in several department stores in Nashville, Tennessee. He details the training, the cat and mouse tactics and the way the movement grew and grew to the point that it simply overwhelmed the legal system. 

So, the legal system withdrew and let vigilantes try to deter them. Anyone who has studied the time period knows about the violence and how it ended up in the end, but that doesn't stop the reader from being drawn in. 

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon here: MARCH: BOOK ONE (graphic novel) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Click here for my review of March: Book Two. 

THE BOMBER MAFIA: A DREAM, A TEMPTATION and the LONGEST NIGHT of the SECOND WORLD WAR (audiobook) by Malcolm Gladwell

 

Published in 2021 by Pushkin Industries.
Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell.
Duration: 5 hours, 14 minutes.
Unabridged.

Before there was a U.S. Air Force, there was the U.S. Army Air Corps. Before the Army Air Corps (re-organized as the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1942) built the largest collection of flying fighting machines to relentlessly bomb the Axis Powers in World War II, they had a tiny budget and a few air bases. One of these was Maxwell Field, a training facility in Alabama. That facility became the intellectual home of a group of pilots who espoused the concept of precision bombing. They were known as The Bomber Mafia.

Precision bombing is the theory that teaches that you don't have to blow an enemy's entire military to pieces, you can just hit certain key industries and choke out their ability to produce more weapons/feed their people/move soldiers and so on. This was intended to be a more humane way to wage war - an antidote to the mass slaughter the world saw in World War I. Precision bombing could end wars before they got to that point by simply forcing an opponent to stand down. The invention of the Norden Bomb Sight convinced them that bombers could fly as high as they wanted over the enemy and could still drop bombs precisely where they wanted them

The other argument when it comes to bombing is strategic bombing. Strategic bombing, in simple terms, is brute force bombing. It is simply dropping bombs on enemy territory to inflict maximum mayhem and damage with the goal of breaking the morale of the enemy. Think of it as something like Sherman's infamous March to the Sea from the Civil War, but delivered from the air.

In the European Theater, the U.K.'s Royal Air Force followed a policy of strategic bombing. They flew at night in order to give their pilots cover and they indiscriminately dropped bombs on German cities. The Americans flew during the day and used the daylight to try to hit certain high value targets as part of a precision bombing strategy. 

This audiobook is about the debate over the two points of view, specifically in the Pacific Theater. For months, the United States tried precision bombing, but a combination of things made it difficult, including factors like the weather was much more erratic and the manufacturing base was more diffuse (a lot of parts were actually made by small-time family-based manufacturers).

US Navy Grumman TBF Avenger aircraft dropping
bombs on Hakodate during July 1945

When Curtis LeMay arrived in the Pacific Theater, he brought a different plan. He had personally flown and led precision bombing missions and was not impressed. He brought massive fire bombing campaigns to Japan and leveled city after city.

Gladwell comes up with a mixed bag of conclusions. He gives the impression that strategic bombing was the obvious choice, but it clearly wasn't that simple. LeMay leveled huge chunks of 66 Japanese cities and the Japanese kept on fighting. Tokyo was hit so hard that it was actually removed from the official target list. 

Imagine of the situation was reversed and America was subject to such attacks. New York City would be hit so hard that it was effectively gone and so would the next 65 cities by population. That would include Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas, of course. But that would also include the destruction of such smaller cities as Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Fresno, San Juan (Puerto Rico), Tulsa, Corpus Christi, Tampa and Cincinnati.  Would we have kept fighting?

I say we would have kept right on fighting. Strategic bombing was used against England at the beginning of the war and, in the end, it seems to have made England all the more determined to fight and inflict as much strategic bombing as possible on Germany. One could argue that the Germans and Japanese surrenders owed more to fear of Soviet occupation than a desire to end the firebombings. 

Gladwell brings the discussion into the modern world with discussions of cruise missiles that can hit specific GPS locations and drones that can target individual people. He gives the impression that precision bombing is actually the way to go. 

But, did our targeted "Shock and Awe" campaign in the Iraq in 2003 make the Iraqi people decide to just go along with America's plans? Did the Taliban just quit even though we killed who knows how many of them with drone attacks that demonstrated we have the ability to sift through all of the data, figure out who they are and find them no matter where they hide?

What were are left with is an unresolved question even though Gladwell gives the impression that he did provide them.

But, the discussion was interesting.

This audiobook was produced by Gladwell's podcasting company. He includes special effects and audio from the time period and interviews that were conducted after the war. It was a really slick production.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BOMBER MAFIA: A DREAM, A TEMPTATION and the LONGEST NIGHT of the SECOND WORLD WAR (audiobook) by Malcolm Gladwell.

THE BLUEST EYE (audiobook) by Toni Morrison

The author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Originally published in 1970.
This audiobook version was published in 2011 by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
Read by the author, Toni Morrison.
Duration: 7 hours, 6 minutes
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

This is a story of a girl named Pecola who lives in Ohio in the 1940's. She is sexually abused by her father and only knows her mother by the name Mrs. Breedlove. Sometimes she lives with other families as her family struggles.

Pecola is universally considered an ugly child. Pecola wants nothing more than to have blue eyes like Shirley Temple because she is convinced that blue eyes would make her pretty.

The narrative goes round and round and moves back and forth in time, often re-telling certain aspects of the story from different perspectives that fill in the gaps as the reader proceeds. 

In the end, it is not a complicated story, but it is told in a complicated manner.

My review:

Undoubtedly, my take on this book is overshadowed by the audiobook that I listened to immediately before this one: The Handmaid's Tale (click to see that review). On the surface, they have nothing in common - one is dystopian sci-fi, one is set in 1940's Ohio. But, they both share a common theme - the overwhelming sense of despair of people living in a society that is misshapen by a set of rules. Jim Crow era life for African-Americans was its own dystopia.

In The Handmaid's Tale, the rules are enforced by religious elite (or, elite that twist religion to serve themselves). In The Bluest Eye, the rules are enforced by a mostly unseen white society (white characters, even the mention of white characters take up only a few minutes of this 7 hour audiobook). 

White culture sets the standard of beauty for black culture (as demonstrated by Shirley Temple and Pecola's envy), it sets the rules about where black people can live, where they go to school, how long they can go to school before they have to leave to work, what types of jobs they can have and more. It determines almost everything.

Morrison shows a variety of families in the novel. Pecola's family is barely a family at all. She has a sexually abusive father named Cholley. Cholley's first sexual intimate moment was interrupted by white hunters who stumble upon Cholley and a girl and humiliate them by making them continue the act under the threat of their guns while they taunt and critique them. Her mother shows more care for the white family that she works for and shows more care for their daughter than her own. 

Claudia and Freida's family struggles, but they are making it - barely. Geraldine and Junior are rich by African American standards, but Junior has to attend a certain school and has to be friends with certain people and Junior takes it out on other African-American kids. Even the rich are limited in this system.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

The Bluest Eye was the first novel by the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, Toni Morrison (1931-2019). I was spurred to read it because of a news story out of Idaho about 22 books being banned "forever" and this book was included.

Turns out that The Bluest Eye is one of the most banned books in the country. Here is a story out of Missouri and here is a link specifically for The Bluest Eye from a university that tracks banned books. It also made a list banned in the 2023-2024 school in Florida. Here is a link to that ridiculously long list.

This book is specifically complained about for sexual content. Ironically enough, the people who complain about the sexual content are usually the same folks that complain about Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT teaches that everything is tinged with race in America and this book embraces that theme wholeheartedly, and I have to say that CRT is more right than it is wrong.

I am a 30+ year high school teacher so I thought I'd read this book and give my opinion on whether or not it belongs in school. I have been teaching grades 7-12 in some form or another for 32 years. I have a 16 year old daughter and a 22 year old daughter. I also have a very high threshold for outright banning a book. There are books I wouldn't want to personally teach in class, but that doesn't mean they don't belong in a school or a classroom library.

I am convinced that a talented high school teacher could teach this book (see this article). This book has some powerful themes.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

DOWN ALONG with THAT DEVIL'S BONES: A RECKONING with MONUMENTS, MEMORY, and the LEGACY of WHITE SUPREMACY (audiobook) by Connor Towne O'Neill

 

Published in 2020 by Workman Publishing.

Read by Geoffrey Cantor.

Duration: 7 hours, 25 minutes.

Unabridged.

Connor Towne O'Neill was attending the 50th anniversary recognition of the Selma to Montgomery March when he discovered something unexpected. The Selma to Montgomery march ended when Alabama State Troopers joined local deputies at the Edmund Pettus bridge and beat them until they retreated. The bridge is named for a Confederate General and a Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK.

O'Neill was looking for a place to park and drove into a graveyard. In the graveyard, he discovered a group prepping a part of the graveyard for the re-installation of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest (the original had been stolen) in the graveyard. It was on a piece of property owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the middle of the graveyard.

O'Neill sensed that this was the more powerful story, no matter how dramatic that moment on the bridge had been 50 years earlier. He decided to investigate the power that the memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest has over so many Confederate apologists. 

He begins with an interesting mini-biography of Forrest. He began with almost nothing and made himself quite wealthy trading slaves, including slaves straight from Africa (Constitutionally prohibited since 1808). At the beginning of the war, he joined as a private and is the only person on either side to go from private to general. He outfitted a squad of cavalry and became on of the most daring and active Confederate generals of the war. He led from the front and the omnipresent threat of his sudden appearance was a constant source of worry in the Western Theater of the Civil War.

After the war, Forrest was approached to lead a group designed to resist the new rights granted to the ex-slaves with a wave of terrorism - the Ku Klux Klan (also known as America's first terrorist organization). He formally led the group for a while and then may have become a leader in the background after it was formally disbanded (maybe he was still their leader, maybe he wasn't. Maybe they disbanded, maybe they didn't - it is surprisingly unclear).

O'Neill's search for the story of the hold that Forrest has on so many takes him from Selma to Memphis to Nashville to Montgomery and sees how people use Forrest as a symbol to oppose racial integration. 

Close up of the face of the Forrest statue
in Nashville. It was not the intent of the artist,
but Forrest looks plenty crazy

For me, the most interesting section was the discussion of the Forrest statue near I-65 in Nashville. I always keep an eye for it whenever I drive through Nashville (not often). It is so cartoonish that many people have joked that they want this statue to stay up even if all other Confederate statues come down. It is on private property, however, so it will stay there as long as its current owner wants to keep it.

Often, this was a difficult book. But, I think it is an important one, especially if you are interested in the Confederate monument controversies. 

Highly Recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found at Amazon.com here: DOWN ALONG with THAT DEVIL'S BONES: A RECKONING with MONUMENTS, MEMORY, and the LEGACY of WHITE SUPREMACY by Connor Towne O'Neill.

Note: the Forrest statue along Interstate 65 in Nashville was removed by the new owners after the death of the original owner. Here is a news story describing the situation: Click here.

PATRIOTIC FIRE: ANDREW JACKSON and JEAN LAFITTE at the BATTLE of NEW ORLEANS (audiobook) by Winston Groom

Published in 2006 by Tantor Media.
Read by Grover Gardner.
Duration: 10 hours, 10 minutes.
Unabridged.

Winston Groom, best known as the author of Forrest Gump, is also a historian of sorts. He has written 14 non-fiction books, using his research skills he honed as a journalist to investigate a historical topic.

In this case, the topic Patriotic Fire is the Battle of New Orleans. Most people know everything they know about the battle from the catchy Johnny Horton song:

In 1814 we took a little trip, 
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.

I knew a little bit more, having read a little about the battle. I didn't know much, however, not really being a fan of the War of 1812 or Andrew Jackson. But, I am a fan of Winston Groom so I decided to give it a try.

Groom is skilled at telling a narrative history and at the end, I had a much better idea of how the Battle of New Orleans was fought. He also is excellent at fleshing out the historical figures and making them feel more like real people.

For example, Jean Lafitte. I knew Lafitte's home base was in the islands in the

Jean Lafitte (1776-1823)

swampy river delta south of the city, but since he has always been described as a pirate, I assumed it was some sort of gang headquarters. Instead, Lafitte was a privateer and a smuggler. A privateer is, to be generous, a legal pirate, getting permission from various governments at war to attack the commerce of their enemies.

I was surprised that Lafitte's island was less of a pirate headquarters and more of a warehouse selling items he regularly smuggled and special items he captured as a privateer. Lafitte wasn't really a pirate king so much as a pirate businessman who often lived out in the open in New Orleans. His life was hardly that of a hardened criminal on the run - it was much more like that of a mafia don rather than a wild-eyed pirate with a dagger clenched in his teeth.

The audiobook was read by veteran reader Grover Gardner. Whenever I listen to one of his audiobooks, I start out hating his folksy reading style. But, as it goes along, I find myself really enjoying it, almost like comfort food.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: PATRIOTIC FIRE: ANDREW JACKSON and JEAN LAFITTE at the BATTLE of NEW ORLEANS by Winston Groom.

APOSTLES of DISUNION: SOUTHERN SECESSION COMMISSIONERS and the CAUSES of the CIVIL WAR (A NATION DIVIDED: STUDIES in the CIVIL WAR ERA) by Charles B. Dew

Originally published in 2001.

The greatest argument among people who study the Civil War isn't who was the best general or what would have happened if Lincoln hadn't have been assassinated or even what would have happened if the Union had lost at Gettysburg.

No, the greatest argument is this: What caused the Civil War?

For the better part of the last century, the argument has been that the Confederacy seceded in order to protect "their rights". The counter-argument has always been to protect "the right to do what?"

For me, the answer has always been a simple one - they fought for their right to own people and to keep African Americans at the bottom of the heap in Southern society. For the Confederate States of America, slavery was the reason to fight. For the Union army, maintaining the Union, with or without slavery, was the reason to fight - a goal claimed many times by Lincoln himself. 

There will be arguments that claim that Confederate states seceded over differences in culture and differences in attitude and the disagreement over federal tax policy. If you think so, I encourage you to read the Ordinances of Secession (basically Declarations of Independence) from Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. They are full of all sorts of reasons to secede, but they keep coming back to slavery-related issues. These are wonderful resources because they are frozen in time, before the loss of the war by the Confederacy. Many post-Civil War authors who fought for the South obscure the importance of slavery, perhaps realizing it was a great moral wrong, or perhaps simply being cognizant that slavery had become politically incorrect and it would hurt their overall argument. Let's face it - many Union soldiers became proud of their role in ending slavery long after the war ended, being indifferent to or even mildly pro-slavery during the war.

 Several of the seceding states did more than issue their own Declarations of Independence. Some of these states sent out ambassadors from their newly independent states to try to convince the other slave states to join them. They were generally referred to as Southern Secession Commissioners. The title of this book, Apostles of Disunion refers to them. The Apostles of Jesus were sent out to teach about Jesus. These apostles were sent out by several secessionist states to to convince the other slave states to join them. Just the fact that they were only sent to slave states should serve as a major clue as to what caused the Civil War.

The texts of their letters and speeches make it very clear that their main arguments were these: fear of the abolition of slavery by "Black Republicans", fear of slave revolt, the loss of the investment of money in their slaves, fear of former slaves having the power to vote and the fear of race mixing. William L. Harris, the Commissioner from Mississippi sent to reach out to the state of Georgia said on December, 17, 1860: "Mississippi is firmly convinced that there us but one alternative: This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery; or, slavery under old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us. If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate." (p. 87)

He followed up with a comment about how Mississippi would "...rather see the last of her race, men, women and children, immolated in one common funeral pile, than see them subjected to the degradation of civil, political and social equality with the negro race." (p. 89)

Stephen F. Hale (1816-1862. He served Alabama
as a Secession Commissioner and as a Lt. Colonel
in the 11th Alabama. He died of wounds sustained
during the Battle of Gaines' Mill in 1862.
Hale County, Alabama is named for him.

Stephen F. Hale of Alabama sent a letter to the Governor of Kentucky to convince him to push for secession. In the letter he calls Lincoln's election "...nothing less than an open declaration of war, for the triumph of this new theory of government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassination and her wives and daughters to pollution and violation to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans."

He continued: "What Southern man, be he a slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters in the not distant future associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white stripped by the heaven-daring had of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed?" (p. 98)

The author of Apostles of Disunion included plenty of similar quotes throughout the book and also includes the entire text of the Harris speech and the Hale letter. He found snippets of speeches and letters from the other Commissioners in newspaper articles and journals and found similar comments to the ones in the complete texts. Combine these texts with ambassadors hand-picked by the newly-seceded states and the Ordinances of Secession and you have the answer to why the Civil War started.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: APOSTLES of DISUNION: SOUTHERN SECESSION COMMISSIONERS and the CAUSES of the CIVIL WAR (A NATION DIVIDED: STUDIES in the CIVIL WAR ERA) by Charles B. Dew.

BULL'S-EYES and MISFIRES: 50 PEOPLE WHOSE OBSCURE EFFORTS SHAPED the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR by Clint Johnson

Originally published in 2002.

As the title states, in Bull's-Eyes and Misfires: 50 People Whose Obscure Efforts Shaped the American Civil War, Clint Johnson has found 50 people from the Civil War (25 from each side) who played an important role, but are generally speaking, not big names. So, you won't find Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, William T. Sherman or Stonewall Jackson in this book, except in passing. All of those men would have admitted that they didn't win (or lose) the war by themselves. It was a big war and it involved literally millions of people inside and outside of the military and even outside of the government. Some of those were very helpful and are labeled as "bull's-eyes". Some people, though, got in the way more than they helped. They are the "misfires".

Some of the misfires and bull's-eyes that Johnson lists are clearly misfires or bull's-eyes. For example, the first person listed in the book is Union Major William F. Barry. He misidentified Confederate troops at a critical moment in the First Battle of Bull Run as Union troops and stopped Union artillery from potentially breaking the Confederate line and wiping out Stonewall Jackson's unit before they made the stand that gave Jackson his famous nickname.

Captain Sally Tompkins (1833-1916)

Others are a judgment call. Lew Wallace is called a bull's-eye, but he could have just as easily have been called a misfire for his bungled march during the Battle of Shiloh. For the record, I agree with Johnson's anlaysis, but Ulysses S. Grant never thought much of Wallace's military ability after Shiloh.

The story of Captain Sally Tompkins was an eye-opener to me. Sally Tompkins ran a hospital out of her own home in Richmond and had an incredible success rate - the lowest mortality rate in any hospital in the war on either side. Jefferson Davis made a rule that all hospitals had to be ran by a military officer (because there were some pretty bad private operators). But, Jefferson Davis wanted to make sure that Tompkins' hospital stayed open so he made her a captain in the Confederate Army - possibly the first female officer in any American army. For the record, she served without pay and refused a pension after the war. Personally, I was amazed that Jefferson Davis could be that flexible in his thinking - he was not known for that quality. I was also pleased to read that Tompkins treated all wounded equally in her hospital - Union or Confederate. She even treated African-American Union soldiers, which was enough of an oddity that people commented on it.

I am an avid reader of Civil War histories and I only knew and could identify about 20 of these people (meaning I could make a good guess as to why they were listed in this book) before reading this book.

I have only three complaints.

1) The book is heavily biased towards the Eastern Theater of War.

 2) There is a slight anti-Lincoln bias present in the book. Not the biggest deal, since the book is about the smaller players in the war.

3) The biggest complaint I have is that there are times when a person was listed because they got into a professional squabble with another person and forgot the larger picture. Then, a few profiles later, the squabble was presented a second time because it was a profile of the other guy in the fight. For example, there were two discussions about the creation of the C.S.S. Virginia, the first Confederate ironclad ship. Two men were sure they were responsible (Porter and Brooke) and the reader gets to read the story twice, with a slightly different take the second time.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BULL'S-EYES and MISFIRES: 50 PEOPLE WHOSE OBSCURE EFFORTS SHAPED the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR by Clint Johnson.

JUST MERCY: A STORY of JUSTICE and REDEMPTION (audiobook) by Bryan Stevenson

Published in 2014 by Random House Audio
Read by the author, Bryan Stevenson.
Duration: 11 hours, 11 minutes
Unabridged.

"...if he just had the money for a decent lawyer."

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who has spent his entire career working with people who have been wrongfully convicted and unfairly sentenced. He works through the Equal Justice Initiative with a lot of death row inmates in Alabama. He has succeeded in getting over 100 re-trials and/or re-sentencing hearings for people on death row. He has had multiple convictions completely overturned.

Stevenson does a lot of work in Alabama because Alabama doesn't do much to subsidize the defense in death row cases. How much does the state spend for the entire case, including appeals?

Just $1,000.

Some counties help with that amount, but more than 70% of Alabama's death row inmates were represented by $1,000 lawyers. Considering that the average cost of a simple will is $375, you can see that a $1,000 worth of death row defense won't get much. The author says it won't even pay for the photocopying costs associated with a death row defense, let alone DNA tests, expert testimony, hiring investigators and other costs. In one of his cases, he freed a man because he was able to demonstrate that the bullet that killed the victim could not have been fired from the supposed "murder weapon" owned by the defendant - it wouldn't have fit in the gun. That is super-basic expert testimony that should have been presented at the original trial.

Stevenson tells the stories of many of his clients as Just Mercy moves along, but the thread that ties it together is the story of Walter McMillian. McMillian was convicted of murdering a teenage girl based on flimsy testimony and even flimsier circumstantial evidence. It is the attorney's most famous case and it does give the reader a good idea about the length of time it takes to straighten out one of these incorrect verdicts.

Stevenson also makes a compelling argument that there is a great deal of racial bias in these cases. The sentences for black defendants are often longer, more likely to go to Death Row and are less likely to have an adequate defense. Younger black defendants are much more likely to get moved to adult court than white ones.

My advice if you are poor and/or black is to never get arrested for anything in Alabama.

This book is an important read. Stevenson's writing style is very to the fact - very much in line with someone that writes a lot of legalese all day. He avoids technical terms in this book, but it is often a "just the facts" style of writing. 

That said, this book can be inspiring and Stevenson paints a compelling picture. There was one point in the story that I was so frustrated with what was going on that I was physically angry. At another point just a few minutes later, the situation resolved itself in such a profoundly moving way that it brought tears to my eyes. The topic is so engrossing that artistic flourishes are not required.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: JUST MERCY: A STORY of JUSTICE and REDEMPTION by Bryan Stevenson.

GO SET a WATCHMAN (audiobook) by Harper Lee

Published in 2015 by HarperAudio in 2015
Read by Reese Witherspoon.
Duration: 6 hours, 57 minutes
Unabridged

I waited for a while to take a chance with Go Set a Watchman. The blowback when it was released was formidable, so I decided to let it sit for a while and in the meantime stop reading the reviews.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

This book is set about 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, in the 1950s. Jean Louise Finch (Scout) has come home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City for a long visit. 

When she first arrives she falls into the familiar rhythms of a small town where she seems to know most everyone. She rekindles a romance with her father's young protege and soon enough returns to scandalizing her aunt with her forward ways. Atticus Finch has become a physically frailer man, but his mind is still spry.

Harper Lee (1926-2016)

Everything about the trip seems to be going well until Jean Louise discovers a racist pamphlet among some papers of Atticus. She decides that she simply must sneak into a meeting of the Citizens' Council - a group of white men who are concerned about the NAACP and the burgeoning Civil Rights movement.

The meeting is in the same courtroom where Atticus Finch defended Tom Robinson and Jean Louise sneaks into the balcony to watch her father, just like she did in To Kill a Mockingbird. In that novel she saw her father do his best to defend a black man in a town that already knew his client was guilty.

In Go Set a Watchman, she sees her father and her serious boyfriend colluding with men who spout racist nonsense. She sees the hero fall - and fall hard.

Jean Louise's reaction was amazingly similar to my own as I listened to an icon of American literature debase himself - shock and disbelief. In my case, I knew it was coming, but I still hoped that maybe it had been exaggerated.

Everything seems to be falling apart around Jean Louise. She flees to her childhood home only to find it has been torn down and replaced by an ice cream stand. Calpurnia, the only mother figure she has ever known, rejects her. Her childhood is gone, her hero is gone and she is totally alone.

Clearly, there is a large bit of autobiography in this book - every bit as much as there was in To Kill a Mockingbird. One can easily imagine a young Harper Lee taking a similar trip back to Alabama and struggling with two versions of her hometown - the idealized version that she remembered from her childhood and the reality that falls short once she looks upon it with the eyes of an outsider.

Despite it all, I found myself enjoying this book. It is, in many ways, a more mature book than To Kill a Mockingbird. That being said, it is certainly not a stand-alone novel. You must read To Kill a Mockingbird before you read this book.

Reese Witherspoon read this audiobook and her lovely voice was an excellent choice.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

See my review of To Kill a Mockingbird here.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.

David Farragut and the Great Naval Blockade (The History of the Civil War Series) by Russell Shorto

Solid history for grade 5 and above.

Published in 1991 by Silver Burdett Press
119 pages of text. 9 pages of timelines, sources and and index at the end.

David Farragut and the Great Naval Blockade is part of a larger series (The History of the Civil War Series). It is very readable with a good balance of national history versus the biography of David Farragut.

Farragut joined the United States Navy at age 9 in 1810, fought against the Barbary Pirates and in the War of 1812. Until the Civil War, Farragut was known as an great officer, the kind of officer that sailors were glad to work under, but also the kind of officer that just missed doing something great. He was not sent to "open" Japan with Matthew Perry. He tried to get involved in the Mexican War but the fighting in Veracruz was over by the time his ship arrived.

When the Civil War began, it was assumed that Farragut would go with the Confederacy. After all, he was born in Tennessee, he lived in Norfolk, Virginia and his wife was also a Southerner. But, Farragut was a U.S. Navy man so he moved to New York and soon found himself in charge of the blockade of the Gulf states (from Texas to Florida).

David Farragut in 1858

Farragut's ships took New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama. Both conquests involved a great deal of clever strategy and a lot of nerve. While his ships were going through a mine field (called torpedoes in Civil War times), his men were scared and stopped moving forward into Mobile Bay. Farragut yelled out, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" and on they went to victory.

Due to health issues, Farragut headed home to New York. He became the first person in American history to become a vice-admiral and in 1866 he became the first admiral. Farragut died in 1870. The date of his funeral was a national holiday and 10,000 soldiers and sailors marched in the funeral procession, led by President Grant.

This book is a solid introduction to the role of the Navy in the Civil War as well as being an great little biography of Farragut. The maps are simple and the maps of the Battles of New Orleans and Mobile Bay are excellent. Lots of pictures help to tell the story.

I rate this biography 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: David Farragut and the Great Naval Blockade.

Reviewed on March 17, 2012.

From Peanuts to the Pressbox: Insider Sports Stories from a Life Behind the Mic by Eli Gold

An enjoyable read from one of the true nice guys in American sports broadcasting

Published in 2009 by Thomas Nelson Inc.

I've listened to Eli Gold for years as one of the radio (and from time to time TV) voices of NASCAR. He's always come across as a nice guy and a straight shooter who is not out to grind any axes.

From Peanuts to the Pressbox: Insider Sports Stories from a Life Behind the Mic is Eli Gold's story of how he went from being a peanut vendor at Madison Square Garden to being a nationally known sports announcer. Eli tells it in an entertaining, light-hearted style and keeps it classy by not airing anyone's dirty laundry.

He does include lots of funny and interesting stories, including his tale of the day that he went to the airport with David Pearson, Bobby Allison's distinctive ritual when he flew his plane home after a win and the strangest thing Richard Petty ever signed (a duck!). The revelation that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a big NASCAR fan who attends in his own RV was a bit surprising.

A good gift for the NASCAR (or Alabama or hockey) fan that has everything.

4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: From Peanuts to the Pressbox: Insider Sports Stories from a Life Behind the Mic by Eli Gold.

Reviewed on December 15, 2009.

The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War by Howard Bahr

Published by Picador in 2001.

The Year of Jubilo is the second book by Bahr that I've read. In fact, I bought this one because I enjoyed his novel, The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War so much. This book is different than the The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War, which was heavy on texture and feel. This book is every bit the equal of the first, but much more focused on plot and theme.

So, what is the theme? It's in the title. The Year of Jubilo refers to the Old Testament Hebrew tradition called the Year of Jubilee. Every 7 years, all slaves were forever released from bondage. This novel explores freedom of all sorts in a (barely) post-Civil War Alabama town. There is, obviously, the newly-won freedom of the slaves, but that is barely brushed upon in favor of deeper themes. There is freedom (or not) from the past, guilt, the entanglements of family, family honor, regional honor, friendship, obligations of social position and even love.

All of this is mostly told through two characters, Gawain Harper, a former college professor who joined the Confederate army to prove he was worthy to the father of the woman he loves and Harry Stribling, a former newspaperman who served in the Confederate cavalry during the war and is now a self-proclaimed philosopher. Bahr is not limited to these two characters, though. He has created a whole community in this book. Characters range from the Union colonel in charge of the occupying force to a former slave chaser to a smuggler.

Howard Bahr

The smuggler, King Solomon Gault, is by far the most interesting character. He has avoided the real war all together and has made himself rich by smuggling during the war. He literally sees himself as a god unto himself and he callously uses and destroys a great number of people to pump up his own sense of grandeur and freedom. He is the antagonist and all of the advances in the plot move through him and the reactions to him.

This novel has rich characters and sometimes almost poetic scene setting. It is a joy to read. I laughed out loud at parts and was surprised at the brutality and abruptness of other parts. I even read parts out loud to my wife.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War.

Reviewed on August 14, 2004.