Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Karen Abbott's History of Four Women in the American Civil War
I am always on the women's side.-The Diary of Mary Boy
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Karen Abbott's History of Four Women in the American Civil War
I am always on the women's side.-The Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut
Whoever said history has to be dull? Well, when Newsweek Magazine asked one thousand Americans the same U.S. Citizenship Test questions required for an immigrant to gain United States Citizenship, 38% must have found it pretty dull stuff. They failed. Seventy percent couldn't tell you what the Constitution was. That's a pretty bleak look on Americans' knowledge about their own country. Take The Quiz: What We Don't Know Newsweek Magazine, March 20, 2011.
So it is especially refreshing to find a book as skilfully written by an author as talented as Karen Abbott who brings a lesser known area of the American Civil War brilliantly alive. Any reader will find her story of four women and their involvement in the American Civil War anything but dull. With the skill of a novelist, Abbott weaves the lives of four exceptional and independent women into the complex history of the times. Nor does Abbott accomplish her task without the credentials to back up her work. Abbott writes the History column for Smithsonian.com and Disunion, the continuing series on the American Civil War for The New York Times.
Oh. Don't be misled by the author's looks. Yes, she's a beautiful woman. Yes, she certainly turned this reader's head. But make no mistake about it. She has a mind as sharp as the finest Toledo steel. This is a history that is fully noted with a bibliography of sources that should satisfy any historian.
Writing of women's role in the American Civil War, Abbott said in her introductory note:
Some--privately or publicly, with shrewd caution or gleeful abandon --chafed at the limitations society set for them and determined to change the course of the war. In the pages that follow I tell the story of four such women: a rebellious teenager with a dangerous temper; a Canadian expat on the run from her past; a widow and a mother with nothing else to lose; and a wealthy society matron who endured death threats for years, and lost as much as she won. Each, in her own way, was a liar, a temptress, a soldier, and a spy, sometimes all at once."
If that doesn't grab your attention, I don't know what will.
[image] Belle Boyd, the teenager with the dangerous temper.
Belle was seventeen when the war began. She lived with her parents in Martinsburg, Virginia, near the top of the Shenandoah Valley. She was impetuous. As one of the belles of Martinsburg described her, she was "man crazy." When Union troops entered Martinsburg and invaded her home, she killed a Yankee soldier whom she thought was too rough with her mother. Early in the war, there were no repercussions. The North wanted no repercussions among Southern civilians--yet. Belle's father was a member of Stonewall Jackson's Brigade, though he had not earned that nickname yet. During the battle of Falling Waters, Belle Boyd ran across the field of battle to warn Jackson of the number and deployment of Union troops. She was instrumental in Jackson's victory. Belle, ever the romantic, became enamored of Jackson. Surprise. Belle's feelings were not returned. Eventually Belle became a courier for the Confederacy. She was imprisoned in the Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. She was subsequently exiled to the South, paroled on the condition that she never return to Union soil. Ironically, Martinsburg was located in what became West Virginia. Belle Boyd would be exiled from home or in violation of her parole. It is left to the reader to discover what happened to Belle.
[image] Rose Greenhow, the widow and mother with nothing left to lose.
The Mitcham War of Clarke County, Alabama: A Native Son's Perspective
Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin was chosen as a group read for August, 2017The Mitcham War of Clarke County, Alabama: A Native Son's Perspective
Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin was chosen as a group read for August, 2017, by members of On the Southern Literary Trail. Franklin's first novel, published in 2003, was a work of historical fiction. It is a gripping novel based on the facts contained in this notable book of Southwest Alabama History. This review is republished for those who read Franklin's book looking for the facts behind the fiction. In his novel, Franklin points those interested in reading further about the subject to this book.
Mention the Mitcham War of Clarke County to another Alabaman, most likely you'll get a blank stare. Mention the Mitcham War in Clarke County and the residents of that County know exactly what you're talking about. You might also be asked "Why do you want to know," or "Which side were your people on?"
Readers of Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin know about the Mitcham War, but that is fiction, although it's classified as Historical Fiction. But readers overwhelmed by the violence in Franklin's novel would be surprised to learn that the war occurred and the violence depicted by Franklin so graphically did occur.
Franklin carefully noted, "Each character is fully a creation of the author's imagination and in no way represents any person, living or dead." He then directed readers having a greater interest in events portrayed in his novel to this book, The Mitcham War of Clarke County, Alabama by Harvey H. Jackson III
Interestingly enough, Franklin used a number of actual names of persons involved in the events which occurred during 1892-1893. That's something that has stepped on some Clarke County toes, the descendants of poor cotton farmers who lived in Mitcham Beat, and persons purportedly on the side of law and order who stepped over the line, taking lives and laws in their own hands.
Jackson has a unique connection to this history. The sheriff, William Waters Waites of Clarke County was his great grandfather.
This is a unique historical document. It was published by the Grove Hill Democrat in 1988 for the people of Clarke County. For, as Jackson has written, the Mitcham War has divided the County for generations. Jackson wrote the history in collaboration with Joyce White Burrage, a descendant of a Mitcham Beat resident and James A. Cox, the publisher and editor of the Clarke County Democrat. Cox, in particular wanted the story written because the very fact of the war had become a taboo story around which myths and legends had grown up, obscuring the true incidents of an integral part of the County's history.
In 1892 times were especially hard for cotton farmers, although they worked some of the richest land in the state known as the black belt. However, farmers barely managed to provide for their families from year to year. Most farmers went to merchants and got their seed and supplies from merchants who took mortgages out on the farmers' land against the upcoming season's harvest. Typically supplies might be bought on the current futures price of eight cents a pound. By harvest time, the cotton price controlled by the NY market dropped the price to five cents a pound. Some merchants stringently enforced their mortgages, foreclosing on families, driving them from their land.
During this period of time the Farmers' Alliance was formed. It was a populist movement, opposed by the "Bourbon" Democrats. Bourbon? I'm sure they consumed a great deal of it. However, the reference is to the Bourbon French who wanted to undo the results of the French Revolution. The Bourbon Democrats' agenda was to undo the effects of reconstruction following the civil war. Their goal was to invent a "New South" seeking Northern industry and increasing profits. The Democratic Party was rigid, conservative, and sought to disenfranchise black republicans and the white poor.
The Mitcham War ostensibly began when Rafe Bedsole sought a seat in the State House of Representatives. Following a stump speech against his opponent, a Dr. Love, a town physician, Love insisted on giving Rafe something to help his head. Rafe was later found dead on the road. Love disappeared from the county. Although there was no proof, Rafe's supporters suspected he had been poisoned.
Following Rafe's death, The Hell at the Breech Gang was formed, either by Rafe's father Edward, or Edward's nephew Tooch Bedsole. The gang would set things right by striking out at the merchant class. Members provided one another alibis for any crime for which they might be suspected.
Hell at the Breech demanded loyalty oaths to be signed by Mitcham Beat residents. Joseph Anderson refused any involvement. He was ambushed and murdered.
Kirk James, a cotton farmer, received his seed and supplies on credit from merchant Ernest McCorquodale. James claimed he paid McCorquodale on the due date, but that McCorquodale told him he'd already locked the store for the night and he would give him the receipt for his payment the following day. Instead, McCorquodale foreclosed. In court James told McCorquodale he might have his verdict, but he would never enjoy it.
On Christmas night, 1892, McCorquodale and his wife answered a knock at the door. A shotgun blast killed McCorquodale and wounded his wife Elrica.
Kirk James was immediately suspected. However, when James was taken by more than a hundred men from towns surrounding Clarke County, James confessed he had paid his brother Lev James $50.00 to do the job. By this time the town riders were known as the mob by Beat residents. James was shot to pieces by over a hundred men armed with rifles and shotguns.
Lev James was ambushed by four townsmen, including McCorquodale's son, Carlos. Four were enough for Lev James.
The townsmen suspected Tooch Bedsole of being involved in Hell at the Breech. A search was conducted of his house. A young boy found a list of names signed in blood. The mob found Tooch, tied him between two trees and executed him. Bedsole's body was riddled with over 120 shots, with six through the tobacco in his shirt pocket. There were even bullet holes in the bottom of his feet.
For the merchants, it was justice. No one was ever charged in any of the murders. Two brothers, William and Mack Burke fled to Louisiana and never returned. Jim Jordan, another member of Hell at the Breech returned to Clarke County several years later, asking the Sheriff and Probate Judge if he could return as he had done no wrong doing. He was told yes. Shortly after returning, he was shot from ambush and killed.
In 1894, Pink Pinkerton, a detective hired by the McCorquodale family to find the murderer of the merchant, was shot and killed from ambush after he settled in Clarke County. He should have moved on. But the war was over.
Jackson's book is an enthralling read. It is filled with photographs of participants, locations, genealogies, and maps pinpointing major events during the war. Most convincing is the transcription of an interview with D.C. Matthews recorded in 1976. Matthews was ninety years old when his son persuaded him to tell the story of the Mitcham War.
"And the children of Mitcham Beat were warned if they ever heard the whinny of horses and the squeak of good leather, they had better run and hide."--As told to Harvey Jackson, III by his father, Harvey Jackson, II.
My sincere thanks to Dr. Jackson for allowing a copy be provided to me. I sincerely hope that this book will be reprinted.
For further material on The Mitcham War see: Jackson, Hardy. "The Middle-Class Democracy Victorious: The Mitcham War of Clarke County, Alabama, 1893." Journal of Southern History 57 (August 1991): 453-78....more
The Proud Tower: Barbara Tuchman's View of the World on the Road to War
Channel Firing BY THOMAS HARDY That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our
The Proud Tower: Barbara Tuchman's View of the World on the Road to War
Channel Firing BY THOMAS HARDY That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment-day
And sat upright. While drearisome Arose the howl of wakened hounds: The mouse let fall the altar-crumb, The worms drew back into the mounds,
The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No; It’s gunnery practice out at sea Just as before you went below; The world is as it used to be:
“All nations striving strong to make Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters They do no more for Christés sake Than you who are helpless in such matters.
“That this is not the judgment-hour For some of them’s a blessed thing, For if it were they’d have to scour Hell’s floor for so much threatening....
“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when I blow the trumpet (if indeed I ever do; for you are men, And rest eternal sorely need).”
So down we lay again. “I wonder, Will the world ever saner be,” Said one, “than when He sent us under In our indifferent century!”
And many a skeleton shook his head. “Instead of preaching forty year,” My neighbour Parson Thirdly said, “I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”
Again the guns disturbed the hour, Roaring their readiness to avenge, As far inland as Stourton Tower, And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
We are about to embark on a great quest. That is to explore a world at war.
Of course we speak of World War I, which would come to be known as World War I. It is not only that we seek to explore that world and war, but to attempt to understand why it happened, what brought it about.
Not only should we seek to understand what brought it about we must be aware that we seek to do all these things regarding a world that existed one hundred years ago that went to war in 1914 and did not return to a state of uneasy peace until 1918. And in attempting to understand what surprised the world as the greatest conflagration the world to that point had ever witnessed, it becomes necessary to know what the world was like.
Who were the people who lived there. How did they live, what did they do. Nor can we begin to understand the hellish waterspout that sucked so many nations into the depths of seas tinged with blood without understanding that it was not merely a world of politics or property but a world of art, music, dance, and philosophy.
These are the conflicting aspects of culture that are inconsistent with the idea of war. The attempt to put these seemingly impossible inconsistencies together can bring about a great distubance of the human spirit that a world capable of music as beautiful as "The Rites of Spring," clashing with the quivering chords rising into a crescendo of horns that might sound the trumpets of doom, based on the writings of a man who died, mad, in an asylum, but whose philosophy was adopted by a nation as its theme, acknowledging the right, the need of exerting its power over whole nations out of a sense of nationalist fervor.
Such things are of the type that enter our dreams and become our nightmares as we sense the end of one world and the beginning of another. It is as though we are walking as somnambulists in a world unknown to us. For it is unknown to us. We must be capable of forgetting, unlearning the modern world of which we consider ourselves to be a part.
This is a journey that requires a guide. Just as Aligheri required a guide into the Inferno we must have our own Virgil. It is highly likely that we will find the need of a Beatrice for the war we will eventually explore was not a paradise, but a Hell as fiery as the first book of The Human Comedy.
As we speak of Virgil we must think of a world of epic stature, that grew as great as Rome and fell just as surely as Rome. In one way we are traveling through a world as ancient to us as we would consider a symbol of its literature, the Aeneid. In his journeys from the sacked city of Troy, Aeneas met and fell in love with the Queen of the Carthaginians, Dido. And Virgil commented that a nation should be ruled by a woman to be so foreign to his people he had to document "Dux femina facti" which means the leader of the thing was a woman.
So our guide is no Virgil. Our guide is a woman, Barbara Tuchman. And as it once was, once again "Dux femina facit."
To be continued...January 30, 2014.
Our Guide
Barbara Tuchman was born Barbara Wertheimer, January 30, 1912, the daughter of prominent banker Maurice Wertheimer. Well that didn't take long. Interrupted. 2/5/2014
For seventeen days I was held enthralled by Shadow Country. Once I began it, I was unable to stop. Nothing could have pulled me away from it.
"A New Rendering of the Watson Legend" happens to be the subtitle of Peter Matthiessen's 2008 National Book Award winning novel. The operative word in that subtitle is Legend.
A legend is a story founded in truth, indigenous to the people residing in the region where the story originated. Rooted in truth, the question becomes where does the truth stop and the legend begin?
Peter Matthiessen devoted approximately thirty years of his life absorbed, or as he says in his introduction to "Shadow Country," he has learned a lot about obsession having spent so much time in the mind of E. J. Watson. For Matthiessen had previously written of Edgar Watson in a trilogy of novels: Killing Mister Watson (1990); Lost Man's River (1997); and, Bone by Bone (1999).
Watson was born in 1855 in Clouds Creek, South Carolina, as Edgar Artemas Watson. In later life he changed his name to Edward J. Watson. The J stood for Jack.
Matthiessen constructed his novel in daring fashion. In Book One, Edgar Watson is shot down by his neighbors on Chokoluskee Island, Florida, on October 24, 1910, suspected of a growing number of murders over a period of time. The question is obvious. How did those who knew him come to these conclusions, for, as we begin this increasingly complex web, there is no evidence, but only suspicion.
Matthiesen's writing is brilliant not only in its structure, but the dialogue of the natives of Chokoluskee, Florida. The language is reminiscent of a blend of the inhabitants of the novels of Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner. It is as easy to believe you are listening to conversations heard along a walk down Tobacco Road or around Frenchman's Bend.
Not only is Matthiesen perfect in character, dialog, and plot, he is a master of setting. For when you enter "Shadow Country," Matthiessen has effectively taken you to a lost world, relatively unblemished by man. And he will develop the theme of man's callous domination over nature in revealing plans to develop the gulf coast of the Florida Peninsula as Flagler and others permanently changed the character of the State's Atlantic coast.
Here are vast rookeries of white plumed egrets, with nights shattered by the scream of Florida black panthers. Seemingly sodden logs transform into huge alligators and crocodiles. In the vast mangrove tangles, cotton mouths, coral snakes and Florida Diamondbacks wait for the unwary traveler. And it is man's nature to believe that he has the right to exterminate any species for profit.
Book One is filled with fifty one monologues of fourteen separate narrators. They relate their memories of Watson and what they "know" of him. It becomes readily apparent that knowledge is an illusive concept.
Among the many crimes laid at Watson's feet is the murder of Outlaw Queen Belle Starr, while he was a fugitive in the Indian Territories. Watson did not deny the story, enhancing his reputation as a man not to be trifled with.
Halfway up the empty Chatham River a circumspect man named Watson had built a respectable two-story frame house high on an old sand-and-shell Indian mound that commands a great sweep of river east and west. There was nothing to be seen but the fish jumping and the birds flying. It had a porch and high bare rooms, a rainwater cistern, a plank dock for his boats. He set out a cane patch, horse bananas, and the usual vegetables. He planted palm trees along the river, and two royal poinciana trees flamed against the gray house and dazzling blue sky….
Nobody seems to know when Watson first came to Chatham River. Nobody over there even now seems to want to say much about him. But of all the men who lived silently along those coasts with the air of strange deeds behind them, Watson’s is the figure about which multiplying legends seem most to cluster.
He was a Scotsman with red hair and fair skin and mild blue eyes. He was quiet spoken and pleasant to people. But people noticed one thing. When he stopped to talk on a Fort Myers street, he never turned his back on anybody.
It was said freely that he had killed people before he came to Florida, that he killed Belle Starr and two people in northwest Florida. That was nobody’s business here, from Fort Myers to Shark River. From time to time he went up to Fort Myers or Marco in his boat and took down to work at that lonely place of his on Chatham River people variously described as a boy, a rawboned woman, two white men, a Negro, a Russian, a Negro woman, an old woman. No one seems to know how many. No one seemed to notice for a while that none of these people came back.
He was, of course, a plume hunter and alligator skinner, and he shared many feuds with the quick-shooting men of the wilderness….
In 1910 a man and his son sailing up the Chatham River saw something queer floating by the bank. It was the body of an old woman, gutted, but not gutted enough to sink. The man said, “Let’s get along to Watson’s and tell him about it.”
The son said, “Let’s get back to Chokoloskee and talk to Old Man McKinney.” At Chokoloskee they found several men talking to a Negro in McKinney’s store. The story the Negro told was that he’d worked for Watson a long time and seen him shoot a couple of men. The Negro said he’d buried a lot of people on his place, or knocked them overboard when they asked him for their money.
Watson was away, the Negro said. His overseer, named Cox, killed another man and the old woman and forced the Negro to help him cut them open and throw them in the river. He said he would kill him last, but when the Negro got down on his knees and begged to be spared Cox said he would if he’d promise to go down to Key West and get out of the country. The Negro came up to Chokoloskee instead and told everything.
A posse went down to Watson’s place and found plenty of bones and skulls. The overseer got away and has never been seen there since.
The next day Watson came back in his boat from Marco and stopped at McKinney’s store in Chokoloskee. He came walking along the plank, quiet and pleasant, carrying his gun. And here were all the men of Chokoloskee standing quietly around with their guns.
Mr. McKinney walked up to Watson slowly and said, “Watson, give me your gun.”
Watson said, “I give my gun to no man,” and fired point-blank at McKinney, wounding him slightly. As if it was the same shot, every man standing there in that posse fired. Watson fell dead. Every man claimed he killed him, and nobody ever knew because there were so many bullets in him.
Book II provides a distinctly different perspective in the narration of Lucius Watson, the most loyal of Watson's children, legitimate or illegitimate. Lucius is also the most gentle of Watson's children. Following his father's death, Lucius sets out to vindicate his father's name and bring those to justice who murdered him, compiling a list of the assassins.
Lucius, having been made a Marine sniper in World War One, loses his taste for revenge. However, the news that Lucius has prepared a death list is rampant in his father's former community. Lucius risks his father's fate because of that list. However, he refuses to abandon his mission to find the truth behind the rumors that swirled around his father.
In the end Lucius learns a truth more horrible than that believed by the residents of Chokoluskee from his half brother Robert, whom his father referred to only as "Son Borne," failing to acknowledge him by name. Lucius' mission had been to write a biography of his father. On learning the truth, he burns it.
Book III confirms Matthiessen's unconventional structure. The narrator is Edgar Watson. The voice is surprisingly formal and articulate. Watson is a man politically astute, and educated in the classics. However, this is no self serving refutation of the many accusations made against him. Watson's long monologue is a confession of what he has done and what he hasn't. He is no saint, far from it.
Interestingly, Watson recalls the Iliad before his final trip to Chokoluskee:
"'All of us must die. Why make a fuss about it?' Achilles to Hector. You die in your own arms, as the old people say."
Those old people, the ancient Greeks, would have said that wrapped around Watson's arms was the fabric of hubris.
"War means fightin'. Fightin' means killin'."--Nathan Bedford Forrest
I'll be the first to admit as much of it as I have read, some military histories can be duller than dishwater. There are authors of that vast genre that I avoid for that reason. But Winston Groom doesn't fall into that category.
Although I first came to appreciate Groom as a novelist, I've come to admire him more as a historian. Shiloh, 1862 is his finest work yet.
A battle the magnitude of Shiloh was inevitable. However, politicians, military leaders and civilians had no baseline in American history to anticipate how long and grim the American Civil War would become until news of what had happened in a mere day and a half had happened near a small Methodist Church known as Shiloh in Northwest, Tennessee, on April 6 and 7, 1862. In Hebrew Shiloh means "place of peace."
When the final shot was fired, more Americans had been killed in one confrontation than during the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War. The butcher's bill was over 25,000 killed, wounded, and captured, split roughly equally between the North and South.
U.S. Grant and William Sherman had been surprised by Beauregard and Johnson. The Union position had not been fortified prior to the attack. If Shiloh accomplished anything for Grant and Johnson it would be their unwillingness to ever be surprised again. Shiloh also led both men to form the philosophy that, having seen the determined fighting of Southern soldiers, the war would last until the South was completely subjugated. And that is what happened.
The tactics of Jomini and Napoleon still reigned supreme on the battlefield, although advancement in military technology had outstripped outdated tactics resulting in ever increasing body counts.
Perhaps because Groom began as a novelist, he brings a different perspective to his works of history. For here you find the voices of Ambrose Bierce, Lew Wallace, Henry Stanley, mingled with the words of Elsie Duncan Hunt whose Unionist family was caught in the middle of the Shiloh battlefield. This is not a mere recapitulation of facts but a living recreation of the first major conflict that brought the startling knowledge to the American people this was not a war that would be decided by one devastating battle.
The Donner Party Monument, Truckee, California State Park
I happened to be in Reno, Nevada, in late March, 2012. It was strictly business, assisting a family with whom I have had a significant bond for many years. Casinos have no allure for me. However historical sites have drawn me to them like a magnet since childhood. I owe that to my grandfather with whom I would travel during summers on his business trips. As the rest of my family, he was a reader and was particularly fascinated by the Great American West and the westward emigration beginning in 1846. So I first heard the tale of the ill-fated Reed-Donner Party from my grandfather. But I had never visited the site or had the opportunity to do so.
When we touched down in Reno on March 28, the weather was crystal clear. The skies were a magnificent blue. It was warm in Reno, but in the distance the white on the peaks of the Sierra Nevada was still clearly visible. Donner Pass is only about a forty minute drive from Reno. My traveling companions were game, we had a rental car, and off we went.
As we drove up into the mountains towards Truckee, California, the winds were howling. The rented Nissan reverberated in the stiff cross winds that whistled across the highway through the passes. One last winter storm was forecast. About a foot and a half of snow was forecast for that Saturday evening. Yet, the snow began to fall early. I stubbornly insisted we were so close to our destination that the ground temperatures were too warm for the snow to cause a problem so early in the day.
When we pulled into the parking lot of the Pioneer Emigrant Museum, there were two other cars there. I was in a light weight jacket, no hat, no gloves. Although the air temperature was 34 I would not have ventured to guess what the wind chill factor was. The photograph of the monument is much clearer than the view I had of it, although I stood directly in front of it. The snow was coming down so heavily that it was hard to keep your eyes open to take in too much of the scenery at once.
After all the obligatory photographs were taken, we ventured into the museum. Several books on the Donner Party were available, but I chose the Stewart volume. The Ranger nodded with approval. "Yes. You picked the right one. I've read them all. After all these years, this is still the best you'll find. Stewart was careful and very thorough."
I told the Ranger my first read about the Donner Party was, Mothers by Vardis Fisher. "Oh, my, we have requests for that all the time. It's been out of print for years. There's a copy of it over at the Truckee Public Library. That's where I read it. Mark my words, though, Stewart's the best. Now, I'm not trying to hurry you folks along, but I wouldn't advise going up to the summit. The chain requirements are on. I'd be headed on down before too long. I've been watching the temperature. It's dropping faster than predicted. You never know what the weather's going to do up in these mountains."
"Thank's, Ma'am. We'll take your advice and head back." Shortly after pulling back on I-80 East to Reno along came a chain of three snow plows. These days in the Sierra Nevada the highway departments are prepared to deal with the storms.
Visiting this isolated location on a cold and windy day with snow visibly accumulating by the minute made an impression on each of us that we most likely would not have experienced had we been there in mid summer in light clothing. I questioned how rash I had been in pressing on with the weather uncertain. Sometimes, the foolish are just lucky.
Needless to say, the Reed-Donner party had no idea what they were facing. Through the years the members of the Reed-Donner party have alternately been portrayed as greedy, lazy, stupid, or incompetent. Stewart destroys those inaccuracies through careful research and an understanding of the circumstances that led to the plight of the party.
If there's a villain responsible for the fate of the Donners and those families that traveled with them, it's Lansford Hastings, an entrepreneur who had traveled to and from California on more than one occasion. He developed the Hasting's Cut-Off which he vowed to cut 350 miles from the cross country trip from the Missouri jump off to California. However, Hasting's route crossed the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Salt Lake Desert, which he described as half the actual length of actual passage without drinkable water. Hastings had written a highly touted travel book regarding California and the ease of the journey. George Donner had a copy of it. Additionally, Hastings charged each party $10.00 to serve as guide for the journey. His guidance amounted to leaving posted signs and promises to return to retrieve those who had fallen behind on the journey. He didn't.
Stewart proposed that Hastings intent was to build his own constituency of voters in an effort to become the equivalent of the Sam Houston of California, as it was still in the hands of Mexico. After the Donner disaster, the Hastings cut-off was virtually abandoned. Subsequently, Hastings fell into disrepute after becoming a member of the California Confederacy Conspiracy. He died destitute, but not under the circumstances which his slap dash leadership resulted in to the Reed-Donner Party.
The party was comprised of eighty-seven members. Only forty-eight members survived. The dead included men, women, and children.
As George Stewart forthrightly noted:
“It is a long road and those who follow it must meet certain risks; exhaustion and disease, alkali water and Indian arrows will take a toll. But the greatest problem is a simple one, and the chief opponent is Time. If August sees them on the Humboldt and September at the Sierra — good! Even if they are a month delayed, all may yet go well. But let it come late October, or November, and the snowstorms block the heights, when wagons are light of provisions and oxen lean, then will come a story.”
It should be noted that although Hastings had traveled his route three times, this expedition was the first trip attempted with wagons. Because of the distinct differences of travel by wagons pulled by oxen, anyone hitting the Sierra Nevada after the passes filled with snow was likely doomed.
As with any group of human beings, those comprising the Reed-Donner party responded to their trial as any group--some with bravery and generosity and some with selfishness to the extent their own self preservation led to the death of comrades. That some survivors resulted to cannibalism of the dead is without doubt. That two Indian members of a relief party were murdered for food is true. Whether Keseberg, whose first name is lost to us, the last survivor to be rescued by a third relief party murdered Tamsen Donner, the widow of the Party Captain, George Donner will remain a mystery.
Virginia Reed, aged twelve wrote of her experiences to a cousin back east on May 16, 1847. In part she said,
"I have not rote you half of the truble we have had but I have rote you enuf to let you now tht you down now what truble is but thank god we have all got throw and the onely family that did not eat human flesh we have left everything but i dont cair for that we have got throw with our lives..."
In the New York Times of February 3, 2008, Dana Goodyear reviewed Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West, by Ethan Rarick, Oxford Press. While noting that Rarick had done his homework, Goodyear reinforced the opinion that Stewart's original work remains the standard for study of one of the most controversial disasters of Western Emigration. I have to agree. Highly recommended. This is a solid 4.5 Star read....more
Stewart O'Nan's A Prayer for the Dying, A Reminiscence for the Living
It is slightly after 12:30 a.m. But I am not sleeping. I have just completed A PrStewart O'Nan's A Prayer for the Dying, A Reminiscence for the Living
It is slightly after 12:30 a.m. But I am not sleeping. I have just completed A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan. Rarely have I read a novel that I am compelled to review immediately upon completing it. But this is one.
Much has gone on in my personal life since a killer tornado passed through our town, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on April 27th. Shortly afterward, my mother developed a serious case of pneumonia. Although the pneumonia was cured, she was immediately diagnosed with emphysema. A spot on the lung in an x-ray, which might have been a mere shadow was cancer. Next she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. The diagnoses were numbing. However the prognosis was good. She was released from the hospital on a relatively small amount of oxygen, small enough to allow her to travel about with one of those portable units that you've perhaps seen people walking around with, nothing more than what you might see in a stylish shoulder bag.
In August, my mother had her second bout of pneumonia. She came home with an oxygen concentrator delivering nine liters of oxygen per minute. Our traveling days were over. I promised her that she would remain in her home as long as possible. My wife and I moved into my Mother's home. From August till now, I put my law practice on hold. I am an only child. The duty of being the primary caregiver was mine and mine alone.
The oncologist said that it appeared the radiation treatment had done its job. When she returned the end of this month, she expected to find nothing but a small amount of scar tissue. We were all optimistic.
Last week, something was obviously wrong. The shortest walk, even tethered to nine liters of oxygen wasn't enough to keep her from being physically exhausted. I got one of those small flyweight wheelchairs to get her from den to bath and bedroom.
On last Thursday evening, my mother began to choke. She was gasping for breath. Although she had stubbornly insisted that she would ride out this long journey at home, she told me to call 911. The front of the house was reflected in reds and blues from the emergency vehicles that parked alongside the front of the house and filled the driveway.
It was a trip by ambulance to our hospital. It was a long night in the emergency room. About 3:30 am. she was admitted to the acute stroke unit. It was not that she had a stroke, it was the only monitored bed available in the entire hospital.
On Saturday, she was moved to a regular respiratory floor monitored bed. I was glad. So was she. Visiting hours were limited to only thirty minutes every four hours on the stroke unit. On the floor, my wife and I, my aunt and two of her grandchildren were able to keep her company.
But, I couldn't help but notice that what had been 9 liters of oxygen was now 15, an incredibly significant increase. Yesterday, about 8:25 am, mother was admitted to intensive care. The fifteen liters were not holding her.
The irony of the situation is that I had begun reading O'Nan's "A Prayer for the Dying" that very morning. I carried it with me to the hospital during the long visiting hours.
I read sporadically through the day. A day of hospital visiting is not conducive to uninterrupted reading. Most of the day passed in conversation with my mother as her breathing allowed. But when I came home that night, I was immersed in O'Nan's novel about a small Wisconsin Township called Friendship.
It begins on a beautiful summer day. It is 1866. The American Civil War is still fresh on the minds of the citizens of Friendship. Jacob Hansen, himself, a veteran, who fought extensively in the Kentucky campaigns, has returned to Friendship where, seen as a natural leader, he is the town constable, undertaker and deacon of his church, where he frequently fills in as preacher.
Jacob carries out his duties with great satisfaction over a job well done. He has a happy home life, married to the beautiful Marta, and the proud father of their young daughter Amelia, who has just gotten her first tooth.
1866 is a year when it is still not unusual to see veterans of the war looking for their next meal, or next place to sleep. When Jacob is summoned to a nearby farm of a bee keeper, his attention is first diverted to the drone of the bees and the keepers industry in gathering honey from the hives, raking the sweet from the combs rich with the golden treat. It is a beautiful day, blue skies, bright sunshine, with dots of clouds scudding across the sky in the hot summer breeze.
The bee keeper calmly tells Jacob that there is a deadman behind the hives down in the woods. One of his sons will carry him to the body's location. Jacob immediately recognizes him as one of the many wandering veterans homeless,bivouacking wherever he can find a spot. Jacob notes that his pockets have been turned inside out. One of his few belongings, a tin cup, frequently issued to troops is readily recognized by Jacob.
The farmer and his children all deny having touched anything. But Jacob suspects that the bee keeper who has lost his wife recently would not be above picking the pockets of a dead soldier to search for anythng of value. Jacob notes the odd coloration of the dead soldier's skin and the presence of blood about his nose and lips. Doc Cox must take a look at the dead man. There's not a mark on his body.
Jacob enlists one of the bee keeper's sons to carry the body into the Doctor's Office. Jacob drops the soldier's tin cup. The youngest child "Bitsy" politely hands Jacob the cup. On the ride into town, Jacob spies the body of a woman in a pasture. Upon checking on her, she is alive, but mad. She is obviously a resident of the Colony outside of Friendship, run by the Reverend Grace. Rumors abound around Friendship concerning the possibility of lewd behavior of the women residents there, with the Reverend Grace as their satanic leader in all possible improprities.
Upon arriving in town, the dead man and the mad woman are placed into the care of the local Doctor. The Doc rapidly diagnoses the soldier's deat as being caused by diptheria. At that time, diptheria was a dreaded disease, highly contagious, that spread like wild fire. The Colony resident also shows signs of infection as well. The Doctor cautions Jacob not to drain the body for preservation, but to bury it, not exposing himself to any possibility of infection. Yet, Jacob, out of his respect for the dead, properly drains the soldier's body, filling him with formaldehyde to properly prepare the body for burial.
Jacob continues to enjoy his idyllic life with Marta and daughter Amelia. However, it is evident that Diptheria is spreading rapidly throughout Friendship, its source unknown. Marta begs Jacob to allow her to take Amelia and seek safety with relatives in a nearby town. But Jacob reassures her that all will be well and cautions her that it would serve as a poor example to the Township were he to allow his wife and child to seek safety elsewhere.
Soon, Jacob is dealing with a full blown epidemic of Diptheria, resulting in the quarantine of the town--no one leaves and no one comes in.
What begins as an idyllic summer day turns Friendship into Hell itself. Although Jacob's personal life may disintegrate around him, he will continue to perform his duties as constable, deacon and undertaker.
Interestingly, each of Jacob's honorable judgments lead to more dire circumstances for the people of Friendship. Jacob's effort to do the honorable thing lead him from being beloved of the town, to despised, as he enforces the quarantine. Tension mounts as a wild fire burns out of control towards Friendship. Jacob must save those untouched by the sickness and leave those infected to the flames. It is a decision that will tear him apart.
This afternoon, I presented my mother's living will to the nurse's station directing a do not resuscitate order on her chart. My mother's primary physician met with us to tell us that all that could be done had been done. Mother reiterated no ventilator, that she did not wish to prolong her illness. I shared a special friendship with my mother. She always rode shotgun on my rambling day trips no matter how boring it may have been for her. Those trips ended in May of 2011. I will miss them greatly.
Any work of an author is a living thing. It serves as an interaction between author and reader. O'Nan will never have any idea of how he spoke to me of bravery, duty, responsibility, love and sacrifice. Nor will he ever know how I have come to appreciate the growing loneliness of Jacob Hansen. I am thankful for the comfort of the company of my wife. But I owe Stewart O'Nan a debt of gratitude. It is in this interaction between reader and author that books continue to live long after they have gone into print. It is this connection between reader and writer that gives life to books and causes them to breathe.
For my Mother, Ann M. Sullivan, August 27, 1935 till time stops. Prl...more
The Night Circus: Erin Morgenstern's Novel of Artifice
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."--Act IV, Scene I, Macbeth, WillThe Night Circus: Erin Morgenstern's Novel of Artifice
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."--Act IV, Scene I, Macbeth, William Shakespeare
Well. That's that. Done. Finished. Three Hundred Eighty Seven pages. I read every one. It was a task. It was a chore. It became drudgery. It was work. This review is cathartic in nature.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I'm a better writer than Erin Morgenstern. I certainly could not have written The Night Circus. Although I have written a great deal, I've not attempted publication. No guts, no glory. Fear of rejection, and all that, I suppose. Not so for Ms. Morgenstern whose book was optioned by Summit Pictures, before it was completed, a fact that Ms. Morgenstern has candidly said caused her to change her own work to fit a medium for which she didn't originally intend The Night Circus. Could this be the next "Twilight" franchise? Summit Pictures certainly must think so. And Doubleday's first print run was 125,000 copies. A lot of folks have jumped on The Night Circus band wagon. I've had my spin. You can keep your "Silver Ticket."
Actually, the language of Morgenstern's book can be achingly lovely. However, I found the plot to be a random string of vignettes pushed together between a lovely dust jacket and tied up with a pretty bow. Characterization is almost absent. Ah, the play's the thing!
So, here we have the tale of two rival magicians, battling through time, pitting children whom they raise in seeming social isolation to be bound to one another in a duel to the death. Mr. A.H., the man in the gray suit takes Marco from an orphanage. Hector "Prospero" puts up his own illegitimate daughter for a challenge in which she might die. A fine figure of a father, who in his own desire to win is willing to slice open his daughter's fingers so she can learn to mend them through the power of magic--a man so cruel that he crushes her wrist with a paper weight for another exercise in repairing herself.
For this challenge, the venue is Le Cirque des Reves, a mysterious operation seemingly owned by Chandresh LeFevre, aided by a curious group of comrades. They supply the money and the physical skeleton of the circus. However, it is Marco and Celia, Prospero's daughter, who are the heart of the circus. It is inevitable that the two individuals, one of whom must die in the challenge, fall in love. Wouldn't you know it.
In a clever twist, the color palate of the circus is black and white, where everything is real. But it is not. The circus is a place for dreamers who wish to live in a world that is not black and white. It serves as a retreat from the mundane, the real, the humdrum real world of real life.
Woven in intermittently we meet young Bailey who has visited the circus and fallen in love with Poppet, a red haired girl who must be as beguiling to him as that "little red haired girl" for whom Charlie Brown swooned. And we follow Bailey as he attempt through time to find the circus once more to find his first love. It is also a convenient device that might allow a sequel, too. Fancy that. Doubleday and Summit Pictures must be pleased. Frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn.
A multitude of readers have tried and tried to find a deeper level of meaning to Erin Morgenstern's novel. After all, one of the characters is named Prospero. Ah, it must be an allusion to Shakespeare's The Tempest. About as close as I can come to that is that Prospero happens to be a magician and he has a daughter.
I certainly can't divine the origins of The Night Circus in Ms. Morgenstern's mind. Only the author can tell us that. But it takes more than a quote from The Tempest which the elfin author adroitly slips in towards the end. For this reader, I found vestiges of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, The Prestige by Christopher Priest, with a touch of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. Unfortunately I can't say Ms. Morgenstern comes close to the mastery of those predecessors, although she joins their ranks by having her novel adapted as a movie.
If you simply have to find an appropriate allusion from William Shakespeare, I eschew The Tempest and opt for Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28"
Now, for the readers whose hackles are rising, thinking I've called Ms. Morgenstern an idiot, I respond, not so. Far from it. No, Ms. Morgenstern is cunning as a fox, even attending Comic-Con 2011 to promote The Night Circus before its publication by Doubleday. An artifice is:
1 a : clever or artful skill : ingenuity b : an ingenious device or expedient 2 a : an artful stratagem : trick b : false or insincere behavior
As one deeply southern friend of mine might say, I am a "threat and a hazard" to hit a tag, garage, yard, orTIME AFTER TIME,Or, a case of Serendipity
As one deeply southern friend of mine might say, I am a "threat and a hazard" to hit a tag, garage, yard, or estate sale. Being a book lover which means I possess not one degree of shame, if I don't see a book at one of the aforementioned types of sales, I'll ask the seller might he or she have any books I might look at they might be willing to part with.
Sometimes, I'm met with a scowl and curt no. On other occasions, I get the curiously raised eye brow and the "Dang, why didn't I think to put out that box of grandpa's books" look, and a, "Just a minute, I'll be right back." Better, when things are slow at the sale, and my polite question and smile works, I get an invitation to view a library. And have I seen some libraries. And bought some books. Cheap. Really, really cheap.
Among my purchases have been treasures and trash when it comes to the eye of a bibliophile. Entre' to a personal library is an incident of what I call the reader's serendipity.
My copy of Time After Time was purchased in just such a way. It is not a treasure from a collector's viewpoint. About the only thing I can say is it isn't a public library discard. Other than that, it is cocked, slanted, sunned, unsigned by the author, bumped, jacketless, dog-eared, remaindered and written in. In other words, it isn't worth a plugged nickel, i.e.,(chiefly US, idiomatic) having no or almost no value; worthless.
However, from simply a reader's viewpoint, it is a jewel. Alexander's novel is wry, dry, witty, and fun. At times that's all a reader needs or wants. Nope, didn't win one award I'm aware of, or to avoid the dangling preposition, of which I am aware.
As a goodreads friend just completed H.G. Wells The Time Machine, while reading his very good review, I recalled Karl Alexander and his spin on the future as Wells envisioned it.
I was chatting with a fellow goodreads friend the other day about shelving books. I've read many more than I have shelved and far more than I will ever review. Although I may well remember I've read a book, if I can't sit down and write a review, I simply don't shelve it.
Then there's a reminder from out of the blue which shouts, "WHY HAVEN'T YOU SHELVED THIS, IDJIT?
The review comes from my comment to a goodreads friend, whom I thank for jogging my memory of a very fun read--
For a relatively contemporary twist on Wells' original novel, consider Time After Time. Written by Karl Alexander in 1979, the book's premise is that Wells successfully built a time machine which The Ripper used to escape apprehension. Wells follows the Whitechapel killer to modern San Francisco to prevent further killings. Wells' actual view of the future is a great disappointment to him. Humanity had not changed at all. Perhaps it was more violent than he had envisioned possible.
Alexander's novel was the basis for Nicholas Meyer's directorial debut of the movie based on the novel. Janet Maslin of the NYTimes wrote, A movie that's as sweet as it is clever, and never so clever that it forgets to be entertaining.http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/revie...
What's interesting about this book is that Nicholas Meyers, author of The Seven-percent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD, optioned Alexander's book for film after reading only the first few pages. Meyers knew a good thing when he saw it. He was right. Alexander's book was published in April, 1979. Meyers' film was released Fall of 1979.
Alexander's novel is a gem and so is the film, starring Malcolm Macdowell as Wells, Mary Steenburgen as Wells' modern day love interest, and David Warner as the Ripper. I recommend both.
The read dates are set arbitrarily to the date central to Meyer's film. ...more
"Blood Meridian" is hellish nightmare of successive acts of violence. Based on the story of the Glanton Gang operating on boundary between Texas and M"Blood Meridian" is hellish nightmare of successive acts of violence. Based on the story of the Glanton Gang operating on boundary between Texas and Mexico in 1849-1850, McCarthy's novel focuses on an unnamed protagonist known only as "The Kid." The Kid is fourteen, a runaway from the hills of Tennessee. He finds himself among a group of Filibusterers bent on finishing what the Mexican War began. The band is attacked by Comanches. The Kid is among the few survivors. However, he survives only to find himself imprisoned by the Mexican government for his participation in the invasion of their territory. The Kid is released to become a member of the Glanton Gang to rid the Mexican populace of marauding Apaches. A bounty is paid for each scalp by the Mexican government.
Glanton and his band find themselves outnumbered and out of gunpowder. They are miraculously saved by "The Judge." The Judge seems to know of the gang's approach. He is waiting for them on top of a rock and witnesses their plight. The Judge ably mixes up a batch of gunpowder from nitre, sulfur, and urine. The powder is dried by the heat of the southwestern sun just in time to turn the massacre of the gang into a slaughter of the surprised Apaches.
If the Kid is the protagonist of "Blood Meridian," the antagonist is the Judge. At one time or another, each man in the gang has crossed paths with him, although they cannot remember just how the encounter occurred. The Judge is indifferent to the violence committed by the gang. He is also a participant and a killer of children. Violence is the nature of man, seems to be the Judge's estimation of humanity or the lack of it. At one point he says, “War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”
In an interview of McCarthy conducted by Richard Woodard of the New York Times in 1992, the following appears: "There's no such thing as life without bloodshed," McCarthy says philosophically. "I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous." See "Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction" http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17...
Eerily, at on point, the Judge proclaims, "Nothing exists without my consent." The Judge keeps a notebook handy, meticulously rendering drawings of antiquities and artifacts in his personal journal. After reproducing the item, making it his personal property, he destroys the original object, preventing its discovery by anyone else.
As the depredations of the Glanton gang continue to pile up, the Kid is an observer of the relentless violence, but is a relatively mute witness. It is only much later, after the demise of the gang that the Kid confesses to his participation in Glanton's murder of hostile and friendly Indians alike. To Glanton, a scalp was a scalp. Its origin was irrelevant as long as it produced a bounty.
Once the last page of "Blood Meridian" is turned the only conclusion to be reached is that evil exists in the world. One can react to it, participate in it, or be indifferent to it. In the final pages of the novel, the Judge dances to fiddlers in a brothel and saloon, proclaiming he will never die. And, perhaps that is true. Evil, not confronted never dies.
As to the fate of the Kid? By novel's end, the Judge refers to him as the Man and that he is sorely disappointed in him. What transpires in the Judge and the Kid's final meeting is ambiguous, subject to interpretation just as life will always be. That the Judge meant to possess the Kid is unquestionable. To the degree that the Judge took the Kid is open to question.
McCarthy concludes "Blood Meridian" with a curious epilogue. A lone figure treks across the desolate southwestern landscape, tapping holes into the ground, striking sparks with each blow. His identity is not revealed. But he is followed by a band of wanderers who observe him at his work. A symbol of fencing in the tractless wasteland, the bringing of civilization, or a matter of greed led by the Judge in his endless dance?
In another excerpt from the Woodard-McCarthy interview is McCarthy's observation: "The ugly fact is books are made out of books," he says. "The novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written." His list of those whom he calls the "good writers" -- Melville, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner -- precludes anyone who doesn't "deal with issues of life and death." Proust and Henry James don't make the cut. "I don't understand them," he says. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."
"Blood Meridian" is a kaleidoscopic portrayal of the inevitability and existence of violence. It brings to mind the swirling violence of a Sam Peckinpah film, the paintings of Heironymous Bosch, and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" as reconstructed in Coppola's "Apocalypse Now."
This may be the most disturbing book I've ever read. Yet, it will remain completely unforgettable.
Faulkner experiments with a very different plot device and structure in "Requiem For a Nun." Faulkner surrounds and connects the acts of a play with tFaulkner experiments with a very different plot device and structure in "Requiem For a Nun." Faulkner surrounds and connects the acts of a play with three prose pieces addressing the early history of Mississippi through the construction of the county's courthouse and jail. In his prose, Faulkner traces the development of society's need for law. In his drama, he illustrates that the enforcement of law does not necessarily render justice.
"Requiem For a Nun" takes up eight years after the story of Temple Drake and Gowan Stevens in "Sanctuary," although Faulkner wrote "Requiem" twenty years after the appearance of "Sanctuary." Gavin Stevens defends the alleged murderer of Temple Drake Stevens' infant child by her black nurse Nancy.
Almost on the eve of Nancy's execution, Gavin Stevens takes Temple Drake to the Governor's office to plead for clemency for Nancy. In the process, Temple is forced to examine her actions in and following "Sanctuary," and her recognition of her choices between good and evil.
It is here that we find this oft quoted passage. "The past is never dead. It's not even past." In the context of "Requiem," Faulkner tells us that our actions have lasting repercussions far into the future. The only way we can find redemption for the acts we commit is to recognize those repercussions and suffer for them, though the law does not make us responsible for those acts.
I recommend that "Requiem" be read immediately following "Sanctuary." I recommend the original text edition prepared by Noel Polk, published by Random House in 1981.
Faulkner tells the story of the rise of the Snopes family through three novels,"The Hamlet"; "The Town"; and "The Mansion." It is a stunning cycle of Faulkner tells the story of the rise of the Snopes family through three novels,"The Hamlet"; "The Town"; and "The Mansion." It is a stunning cycle of stories depicting the decay of the south as it is overtaken by new social values at odds with the past.
At times the story is told by an apparent omniscient narrator. At others it is solely told from the perspective of specific voices, especially the attorney Gavin Stevens, his nephew Chick Mallison, and V.K. Ratkliff, a travelling salesman, vending sewing machines on the installment plan.
The Snopes clan arrives in Yoknapatawpha County in force in the late 1890s, although Faulkner gives us glimpses of the family in "The Unvanquished" and "Sanctuary." However, Faulkner's ultimate symbol of the changing south appears in the form of Flem Snopes in "The Hamlet," published in 1940.
Consider Flem Snopes synonymous with amoral greed, the darkest side of capitalism. Flem will rise from sharecropper to banker over the span of forty years. In an effort to portray himself as a respectable member of Jefferson, i.e. Oxford, Mississippi, society, he will rid the town of his own family members, using them for his own purposes until he discards them when they are no longer useful.
In addition to Flem, Faulkner creates more memorable Snopes: Mink, Wallstreet Panic, Montgomery Ward, and Clarence Eggleston Snopes. Then there is Eck Snopes,so innocent, so decent, that V.K. Ratkliff insists he could not have been a Snopes at all, surmising that Eck's mother had improved the family gene pool by trysting with someone outside the Snopes family.
On simple terms, the Snopes trilogy indicates that you can have love or money, but you can't have both. Flem's greatest opportunity comes from his marriage to Eula Varner after she is becomes pregnant by a young man from one of the old aristocratic families. He will provide a name to a bastard child. However, he will never be Eula's lover. She will find that comfort from another source. Flem will accept playing the cuckold as long as it serves his purposes.
Gavin Stevens, his nephew Chick, and Ratliff will make it their mission to protect Jefferson from the Snopes clan. This trio represents the decency of democratic progress in the face of southern decay. These men are the moral foils to the amoral greed of Flem Snopes.
The Snopes novels have waxed and waned in their value in the Faulkner Canon through years of critical analysis. For this reader, these novels establish Faulkner's true place in post modern literature. While maintaining the major aspects of southern literature in the use of legend, myth, time and place, Faulkner's County is a microcosm for a larger universe of human values.
These three novels provide enough material for a review much more in depth, and deserving of much critical study. For the purpose of this review, however, it is enough to say that these novels show Faulkner's storytelling ability at its finest, covering humor, farce, pathos, and tragedy. Perhaps it is because I have waited to attaining the age of 59 to read these novels, that I find them as accessible as they are. My earliest encounters with Faulkner were more than forty years ago when I lacked the maturity and experience to understand the complexities of his earlier works.
Through my life I have returned to Faulkner's earlier works and understood many things I did not as a young high school student, just as Chick fails to understand the significance of the social change in his town when he tagged along at the heels of his Uncle Gavin. By the time of Faulkner's publication of "The Mansion" in 1959, Chick is equally capable of interpreting the significance of Flem Snopes and his influence on Jefferson society. Perhaps so it must be for all of us. And it is an illustration of why we must return time and again to the works of literature to reexamine their significance in light of our own growing experience as human beings. So it is with Faulkner's trilogy of Snopes novels.
As has been my custom, this review may appear to be quite generic. However, it is always my purpose to avoid spoilers so I do not deprive the reader of the joys of the discovery of Faulkner's twists and turns of plot and structure. There are countless joys to be found in these three novels. By all means, mine these books to find the treasure they contain. ...more
Sally Wolff is a professor of southern literature at Emory University. She is a Faulkner scholar and the author of several books on Faulkner and southSally Wolff is a professor of southern literature at Emory University. She is a Faulkner scholar and the author of several books on Faulkner and southern literature.
Wolff offers an annual trip to "Faulkner country" to Emory students. A few years ago Wolff also offered the trip opportunity not only to students but school alumni. She received a note from Dr. Edgar Francisco who said he could not go on the trip, but he knew William Faulkner.
Dr. Francisco is now in his eighties. However, as a child in Holly Springs, Mississippi, he met William Faulkner who was a long time friend of his father's. Wolff takes us through in depth interviews with Dr. Francisco of his memories of the man he knew as Will.
Francisco reports Faulkner's fascination with his father's stories of his ancestors, particularly the McCarroll and Leak families. McCarroll was a Scot who came to north Mississippi when it was still Chickasaw territory. Leak was a lawyer from North Carolina. Both were planters and slave holders. However, McCarroll saw that slavery must end. He developed a program of freeing slaves through a system of indenture. Leak strongly opposed the idea.
Francisco shares the plantation diaries of Leak with Sally Woolf. Faulkner was fascinated with them. He pored over them for hours at the time. Faulkner also took frequent notes of Ed Francisco's stories of the McCarroll side of the family. Both men saw slavery as a legacy that would haunt the south indefinitely.
It is not surprising that the Francisco family stories emerge as source material for a number of characters and stories in Faulkner's works. Francisco's father and Faulkner remained friends for over thirty years, but grew apart because Francisco's mother strongly disapproved of Faulkner, especially his influence on her husband's drinking and his use of profanity. Her father was a fire and brimstone Presbyterian minister. Faulkner didn't fit into her system of values. "Little Eddie's" repetition of Will's colorful language resulted in a number of mouth washes with soap.
Holly Springs provided Faulkner with a setting much closer to the time of the American Civil War. There are more antebellum homes there than in Natchez. Grant housed his wife in Holly Springs and no homes were burned in that town. Holly Springs and the Francisco family ancestors strongly influenced Faulkner's "The Unvanquished."
After a visit to Natchez, Dr. Francisco's mother established an annual pilgrimage of Holly Springs homes. Her romanticized view of southern plantation life led Faulkner to criticize the practice as preserving a version of history that never happened.
At times, Wolff's speculations of Faulkner's source materials are a stretch. The value of this book comes from Dr. Francisco's vivid memories of William Faulkner and the friendship shared by Faulkner and his father. Wolff's conversations with Francisco are a treat.
My first memory of Fort Mims came from Walt Disney's "Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter." The episode aired in the 1950's. It began with a flaming arrow dMy first memory of Fort Mims came from Walt Disney's "Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter." The episode aired in the 1950's. It began with a flaming arrow descending on a stockade fort that burst into flames. The fort and the buildings inside quickly turned to ashes. The arrow remained intact. The arrow's target was Fort Mims, destroyed by Creek Indians in August, 1813.
Through the years, I continued to learn more about Fort Mims. Mrs. Welch, my fourth grade teacher, relished in telling the story. However, what she taught was more legend than history. In my history book, the occupants of Fort Mims were white settlers, massacred by howling savages.
The truth is a different story. Gregory Waselkov tells it well. In 1813, Alabama was a portion of the Mississippi Territory. White settlers, many who had been Tories during the Revolutionary war had fled the Carolinas and settled in what is now southwest Alabama. They lived peacefully with the Indians there. Intermarriage between the white men and Indian women was common and accepted. The Tensaw Indians were a part of the lower Creek Indian Nation. They became skillful farmers, traders and merchants.
The offspring of the Tensaw dwellers were known as Metis, or to the less tolerant coming into the territory down the Federal Road, half breeds. The upper Creeks, above the forks of the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, extending northeast to the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, grew wary of their southern tribesmen and their easy relationship with American settlers.
Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader fomented rebellion among the upper Creeks. What was originally considered an Indian "civil war" quickly turned to a war against Indians and settlers. Fort Mims was an undeniable Indian victory. By 1814, the war was over. Approximately one half of the Creek Nation was dead.
The battle at Fort Mims would become the justification for removal of all Indians in the southeastern United States. Andrew Jackson who crushed the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend would force the removal measure through Congress by a surprisingly narrow margin. The opposition to unfair treatment of Native Americans would evaporate as land hungry settlers steadily moved west.
Waselkov captures the unique personalities of the people on both sides of the Creek Indian War. A historian, anthropologist and archaeologist, he adds a welcome volume to the story of Fort Mims and its significance throughout America's westward expansion. Highly recommended. ...more
Metaxas has written a compelling biography of a complex hero of the German Resistance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was the product of two aristocratic GerMetaxas has written a compelling biography of a complex hero of the German Resistance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was the product of two aristocratic German families. His father was a psychiatrist at the leading hospital in Berlin. His mother was a member of the von Hase family, a descendant of well known theologians. A mixture of science, logic, discipline and devotion were daily presences in the Bonhoeffer home. When Dietrich announced he had chosen to study theology at the age of thirteen, it was not a childish decision, but a very deliberate and carefully considered choice.
The Bonhoeffers lost their eldest son, Walter, in World War One. They were loyal subjects of the Kaiser and the Weimar Republic. However, the entire family recognized that the founding of the National Socialist Party would lead to drastic consequences for their country. As Hitler cemented his position of leadership, the Bonhoeffers were vocal opponents of the changes sweeping across Germany.
Bonhoeffer was a leading proponent of the Confessing Church, founded in opposition to the Reichskirche represented by the Deutsche Christians. He would be outspoken in his condemnation of the infamous "Aryan paragraph" that the Nazi party sought support for among the Deutsche Christians to remove anyone of Jewish descent from being allowed to participate in Christian worship, though baptized as Christians.
Hitler used the principles of Christianity to support his political agenda as one means of cleansing the German race. The traditional Deutsche Christians did not realize that Hitler intended to abolish the church when the time came. His openly anti-christian supporters such as Himmler, Goebbels, and Heydrich intended to replace the cross with the swastika and bring back the Tuetonic gods.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was deeply involved in the growing international ecumenical church movement. His brilliance as a theologian brought him to England and America where he developed ties which would later become outlets to the world for Bonhoeffer's revelation of Hitler's atrocities against the disabled, his political opponents and the Jewish populations of Germany and all of Europe.
From academic theologian, Bonhoeffer transformed to a committed pastor, ministering to those who found themselves without a voice as the Nazi juggernaut began to crush every opponent following the outbreak of war in 1939. Bonhoeffer transformed from pastor to spy, joining in the earliest conspiracies to remove Hitler from power. He would become a member of the Abwehr, the Intelligence Division of the German military to cloth himself in a cloak of deception to be in a position to bring about Hitler's downfall, even through assassination if necessary.
Throughout this meticulous study, Metaxas reveals Bonhoeffer's innermost thoughts through careful selections from his letters and his best known writings. And Metaxas offers a unique perspective of Hitler's rise to power from a theological perspective. To the greater extent this is a brilliant book, and would be completely so, were Metaxas a more incisive writer, resorting to his own analysis as opposed to his heavy reliance on the careful recitation of not only Bonhoeffer's own words, but those of the most significant people around him.
Whatever the reader's religious beliefs may be,"Bonhoeffer" is a book that deserves to be read. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a man whose courage, morality, and sense of justice should be remembered and practiced today.
To actually call the Comanche an Indian Nation is a misnomer. They were a band of loosely associated nomadic bands that ranged from Colorado to Eastern New Mexico, Oklahoma, and down through the Panhandle of Texas all the way to the outskirts of present day Austin and San Antonio. The land they occupied was named Comancheria by the Spanish. The Comanche had no central political or social organization. War chiefs were chosen strictly on the basis of an individual's ability to recruit followers and successfully raid their opponents for horses and captives.
The Spanish, Mexicans, and Texans were all taken by surprise by the ferocity of Comanche attacks. The Comanche were the first Native American opponents of all the aforementioned to fight from horseback. The Comanche consistently out-maneuvered not only the Indian tribes they had previously dominated but also European and American colonists.
Gwynne offers captivating portraits of individuals frequently left out of histories of the American West. While early history of the Comanche remains much of a mystery, Gwynne brings the Comanche into sharp focus from 1830s Texas until their ultimate surrender in the late 19th Century.
Students of Texas history will discover unsettling policies of government leaders during the time of the Republic of Texas that was nothing short of an extermination of the Native Americans. Although the Comanche was their true opponent, early Texans showed a lack of discernment in implementing the Republic's policies, attacking tribes who were peaceful or had already chosen to follow the "white man's road." My wife, a native Texan, was completely unaware of much of the Republic's actions against the Indians, as these incidents were completely left out of her school texts from elementary school through college.
Do not consider Gwynne's work or this review to be a replication of the sorrow recounted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. The Comanche were brutal in their attacks on any opponent. The Comanche subjected those they defeated in battle to torture and mutilation. Captured infants were routinely murdered, being of no immediate use to the band. Women were routinely repeatedly sexually assaulted and mutilated. Those women who were not murdered were enslaved to increase the female workforce in the band. They were also passed to their captor's relatives and friends as sexual objects. Many did not survive their captivity. Those who were either rescued or purchased back from the Comanche ultimately were outcasts in white society.
On occasion, white captives were adopted by the band who took them away from their homes and families. Such is the case of the best known captive of the Comanche, Cynthia Ann Parker. Cynthia Ann was captured when she was nine. She was adopted by the band who captured her. She married a Comanche known as Peter Nocona and gave birth to three children, one who would grow to become the principal war chief of the Comanche, Quanah Parker.
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Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped at age nine by a Comanche war band in 1836. Her family was killed. She was adopted by the tribe, ultimately marrying Comanche brave Peter Nocona. She gave birth to three children, including Quanah Parker, the last free Comanche Chief until his surrender. Cynthia died of influenza in 1871, after several unsuccessful attempts to return to her Indian family.
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Peta Nocona, Chief of the Quahadi Comanche Band, married Cynthia Ann Parker, fathering three children by her, including Quanah Parker. The date of his death is disputed. According to some he was killed in an attack by Texas Rangers at the battle of Pease River in 1864. According to son Quanah, Rangers did not kill his father, but he died of wounds several days later that he had received in fighting with Apaches, not the Rangers.
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Quanah Parker was born in 1845. He was never named principal war chief by the Comanches although he did fight as a warrior at the battle of Adobe Walls along with Apaches. He surrendered in 1875 and was named Chief of the Apaches by the United States Government. He died in 1911.
The Parker family story was the inspiration for Allen Lemay's western masterpiece "The Searchers," subsequently filmed by John Ford in 1956, starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood. Although both book and movie were highly acclaimed, the story told there comes nowhere close to the dramatic truth of the history of the Parker family.
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It's an iconic American film, but the truth overwhelms one of Hollywood's best.
Gwynne's work is a complex story of a lesser known era in American history. It is a story worth knowing. Gwynne tells it well. I would encourage anyone interested in expansion of the American frontier to read it. One not fully familiar with Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico geography would be well served to have maps readily available to appreciate the range of the Comanche travels and the speed in which they achieved it.
Highly recommended. This is a solid Five Star read.
Nathaniel Philbrick can write history in the way it should be taught. Philbrick has the knack for capturing the personalities of the protagonists of tNathaniel Philbrick can write history in the way it should be taught. Philbrick has the knack for capturing the personalities of the protagonists of the era he chooses to portray in each of his books. It is difficult to believe that another book on the last stand can add anything to the considerable literature already available. However, Philbrick does. This new book should be considered as important as Evan Connell's "Son of the Morning Star," and Robert Utley's titles dealing with Custer and Sitting Bull. Philbrick includes information gathered in the latest archaeological digs on the Little Bighorn. The book is richly illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs....more
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