US Civil War military history book – “In Their Letters, In Their Words” (Southern Illinois University Press, 2019) – Mark Flotow – WarScholar written interview 9

Check out the book here

http://siupress.siu.edu/books/978-0-8093-3763-7

Illustrations of the US Civil War from above offer wide swathes of blue and gray crashing together. But move your eye closer and you’ll see the details among them. The men of the various states of the Union and the Confederacy each individually doing their part. Among them you may see the soldiers of Illinois.

Mark Flotow wanted to know more about these Illinois men who shed their blood for the Union. He pored through their letters and discovered feelings of happiness, grief, boredom, ego, shame, fear and courage. Much the same as one might find among any soldier in any century but these are the stories of Illinois, with their own philosophies and feelings towards war. But what they share with readers not only teaches us about the war or soldiers but about Illinois and the experience of that state’s citizens.

I was able to interview Mark Flotow about his book In Their Letters, in Their Words: Illinois Civil War Soldiers Write Home and learn more about this fascinating topic.

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

In 2013, I sought a book like this one, but without success. At that time, I was writing poems to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the war, and scoured Illinois soldiers’ personal letters to understand the mindsets, speech, and everyday life of those who had lived (and shaped) the Civil War era. I wanted to know what was important in their world, and how soldiering and the war affected their perceptions and opinions.

So, I started from scratch and simply read soldiers’ original letters, through their ink on 150-year-old paper. Those became my portals into their private pasts.

I was fascinated by what I found, and I began sharing my readings with a select group of friends and colleagues, who mostly were neither historians nor those who had an interest in the Civil War era. I ended up writing forty-six essays, one each week, and sharing them with my far-flung group through email. Others in the group became fascinated, too. Those essays ended up being the seeds of the current book. In essence, I ended up writing the book I originally had sought in 2013.

What aspect of this subject does your book focus on?

It is the soldiers on whom the book focuses and what they wrote regarding the war, politics, the military, the South, combat, and much more, all through their personal letters. The book is arranged topically, but secondarily it also goes through the war era and its evolution relative to those who experienced it.

If you enjoy reading about the Civil War, you will relish the soldiers’ intimate details of daily living and military experiences, as well as their broad opinions of the nature of the war, slavery, President Lincoln’s policies, state and national politics, and other subjects. In fact, there are few topics Illinois soldiers did not write about. It is as if each letter writer was asked “what is on your mind today, soldier, and what do you want to share about that with your family and friends at home?” Their stories and insights are refreshingly honest and often straight from the heart. And Civil War soldiers’ letters were not censored by the military (with prisoner-of-war mail being an exception).

If you have family, friends, or a significant other who are not Civil War enthusiasts, this book also is especially for them. The focus is not on the war per se, but how and why ordinary people responded in a variety of ways to extraordinary circumstances. It is about citizen soldiers’ lives during wartime. In essence, the book focuses much more on personal and social history than military and political history. However, by reading the soldiers’ experiences shared in their letters, the reader learns about the circumstances and history of the Civil War as a natural byproduct. I have included a concise timeline in an appendix that also serves as an outline of the era’s events during the four years of the Civil War.

What are the major themes of this book?

The book is arranged thematically, and not strictly by chronology of the war nor by individual soldiers’ letters. In fact, there are only about two or three complete letters featured in the book. All the letter quotations are presented to illustrate or highlight soldiers’ thoughts and experiences. Listing the chapter titles is a good way to illustrate the thematic concept.

  1. A Lifeline of Letters; 2. Illinois Citizens Become Soldiers; 3. Camp Life and Bonding with the Boys; 4. Soldiering; 5. Managing Affairs from Afar; 6. Seeing the Elephant; 7. Southern Culture through Northern Eyes; 8. Officers, Generals, and “Old Abe”; 9. Debility and Diseases; 10. Writing the Indescribable as Prisoners of War; and 11. Soldiers No More.

What resource materials did you use for your research?

I ultimately chose 165 collections only from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, which covered Illinois geography, had good provenance, were very often the original items, and were well organized. I selected the soldiers (and sailors) from various branches of the military, from the enlisted and commissioned ranks, originating from sixty-five Illinois counties, who had participated in a wide array of military campaigns, and who represented the gamut of social experiences and personal outcomes. I used quotations gleaned from their letters, adding context and background, in conveying details and stories of soldering during the war.

How many collections of letters were there to choose from?  Were there some collections that didn’t make it that you might like to have included?

For example, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library has over a thousand Civil War era collections, many of them containing personal letters and several with over a hundred letters each. I did not attempt to read all of the collections, and many I did read do not have representation in the book. However, I gradually am adding both new letter quotations and fuller or extended quotation transcriptions on the “Addenda and Amplifications” page of the book website. I had that in mind almost from the beginning of the writing process. In this way, the book becomes more of a living document.

What part of the research process was most enjoyable for you?

Reading this book is – literally – reading other people’s mail that was never intended for anyone in the twenty-first century to see. There is a certain unguarded, honest appeal to that.

What did you discover in your research that most surprised you?

I had no real “a-ha” moments during my research, at least from how I approached the material. I used an ethnographic research perspective that focused on inductive construction of period facts through personal letters, where the informants were soldiers experiencing the military subculture. I essentially started with myself as a tabula rasa (as much as that is possible) and thus entered the project with few biases or expectations. The approach is similar to a cultural anthropologist doing an ethnography in a foreign land. If indeed “history is a foreign country,” then I was close to taking that literally.

Rather, I gradually came to appreciate that the soldiers were poets, in their own ways: expressive, passionate, and had something to say, sometimes as if it was their last words.

Was there anything you discovered that moved you?

Thinking back, I suppose there were two Illinois soldiers whose writing eloquence especially appealed to me. One was Captain/Major D. Woodman Norton, who was trying mightily to impress a female correspondent, and Corporal/Sergeant William A. Smith, who faithfully wrote to his spouse on a wide variety of topics. She asked, while he was part of a campaign in Alabama in 1862, “how does slavery look to the naked eye?” Like the majority of the Illinois soldiers, Smith previously had never set foot in the South. Yet his honest, expressive, and insightful reply about slavery showed he had carefully pondered his answer. Norton’s letters, on the other hand, had interesting anecdotes and unique perspectives. And his descriptions of the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge are moving, in an old-school military way. Both Norton and Smith never saw their respective correspondents again.

Did Illinois soldiers seem to have a [more personal connection] particularly personal connection to the war considering a fellow Illinoisan was the President?

I have not comprehensively studied other Union states’ Civil War soldiers and compared their remarks about President Lincoln in their letters, with those of Illinois soldiers. Instead, I will simply state that Illinois had more Civil War soldiers per capita than any other Union state. (The per capita rates for the five highest ranking states, and how I calculated them, are on the book website [ markflotow.net ] on the “Question of the Week” page.)

Did the soldiers have much to say about soldiers from other Northern states?  Did they ever remark about differences between various Northern groups?

The short answer is there were some remarks I encountered, mostly con and a few pro, about soldiers from other states and armies. I suspect the soldiers in almost every regiment had a certain “pride and prejudice” regarding their company and regiment, their “boys,” versus virtually all others. More broadly, there was an ever-growing realization that the Civil War was being won by the western armies compared to, say, the Army of the Potomac. There was a bit of hurrahing by the Illinois soldiers relative to that. And, as I mention in the book, General McClellan was singled out by Illinois soldiers for both praise and condemnation.

What was the most difficult issue to research?

As odd as this may sound, the best answer might be someone else would need to tell me what obvious soldier topic is missing. On the book website, #2 under The Seven Secrets of the Book is “the soldiers determined the content more than I did.” Ergo, if they did not write about it, then I simply did not know about it (or, somehow overlooked it). That said, I found written statements on otherwise impolite topics such as prostitution, venereal disease, sinks (latrines), and vermin. I also learned through their letters about some things I originally thought likely postdated the war, such as pencils, baseball, having the “blues,” and express package services.

What do you hope the book will do for readers?

The book has three primary uses for readers. First and foremost, it is the sharing of the experiences and lives of Illinois Civil War soldiers as told through their personal letters. Secondly, it is a reference book to the collections of 165 Civil War soldiers (along with brief biographies for each) who originated from 65 different Illinois counties. These are all public collections and accessible to everyone. Thirdly, it is a guidebook to reading any collection of Civil War soldier letters. The book is arranged by the most common themes about which soldiers wrote, and includes original spellings, colloquialisms, and historical contexts.

Did you have any difficulties in finishing the book and publishing it and if so, how did you overcome those?

No, there were no particular difficulties, other than having enough time to reach each objective in the publishing process. Southern Illinois University Press turned out to be an excellent project partner and, once they were on board with the book’s concept, I felt we had made a mutually beneficial decision to work together.

What is your next research or writing project?

Currently, I am researching aspects of Cairo, Illinois, during the first months of the Civil War. At that time, Cairo, arguably, was one of the most strategically-important points on the Union war map. It also was one of the first places transformed from a (sleepy river) civilian town to a military bastion. While many soldiers complained about being billeted in Cairo, in several ways most local citizens had more to bellyache about regarding the soldiers being there!

Do you have any online accounts where people can find more of your work?

The book website is markflotow.net and well worth a visit. It includes my book-related schedule and appearances, a “Question of the Week” feature, and a page dedicated to updated content information and extended quotations that could not be squeezed into the book. There also are resource links and reviews of this book by other authors and scholars.

http://www.markflotow.net/

Author Biography

Mark Flotow

Mark Flotow is a former advisory board member of the Illinois State Historical Society and has written articles for the Society’s magazine, Illinois Heritage. He currently is an adjunct research associate in anthropology at the Illinois State Museum, and a volunteer interviewer for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library’s Oral History program.

Position and specialty – Independent Researcher

Project/work being discussed – book: In Their Letters, in Their Words: Illinois Civil War Soldiers Write Home (Southern Illinois University Press, 2019)

Check out the book here

http://siupress.siu.edu/books/978-0-8093-3763-7

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Military History Newsletter January 2020

Welcome to the first January 2020 military history book list.  We have ancient Roman war, to Boko Haram, the Vietnam War, Vicksburg, and a load of World War II titles.  The list will grow throughout the month so keep checking back or sign up for the newsletter.  Thanks!

AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND SYRIA – MODERN WARFARE

 

ANCIENT WARFARE

Ancient Rome – Bontty

Crossing the Pomerium – Michael Koortbojian

ASIAN AND AFRICAN PRE-MODERN WARFARE

Resistance at the Edge of Empires – Petrie and Magee

GENERAL MILITARY HISTORY

The 100 Worst Military Disasters in History – Kuehn et al

MECHANIZED WARFARE, ARTILLERY, AND TANK STUDIES – MODERN

 

MEDIEVAL AND DARK AGES WARFARE

Isabella of France

Byzantium in the Time of Troubles – ed McGeer and Nesbitt

MILITARY AVIATION

 

MODERN MILITARY STUDIES

Defense, Peace, and War Economics – Christopher Coyne

MODERN WARFARE/20TH-21ST CENTURY

Screening the Red Army Faction – Christina Gerhardt

Priests de La Resistance – Butler-Gallie

An Incipient Mutiny

Grunt Slang in Vietnam Words of the War – Gordon L. Rottman

RAF College, Cranwell: A Centenary Celebration – Roger Annett

From the Cold War to the War on Terror – Michael Haygarth

The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975 – ed Tuong Vu

At The Forward Edge of Battle – PB

My War Criminal – Jessica Stern

NAPOLEONIC WARS/19TH CENTURY WARFARE

NATIVE AMERICAN WARS

NAVAL SHIP STUDIES

RENAISSANCE WARFARE

TERRORISM AND WAR

Overcoming Boko Haram – ed Mustapha and Meagher

UNITED STATES CIVIL WAR

The Union Assaults at Vicksburg – Smith

WAR AND CULTURE

 

WAR ART, LITERATURE, AND MOVIES

Cold War Cosmpolitanism

WORLD WAR I

WORLD WAR II

Hitler’s War Beneath the Waves – Michael FitzGerald

The Hunt for Jimmie Brown

Such Splendid Prisons

Zitadelle The SS-Panzer-Korps on the Attack, July 1943 – Massimiliano Afieros

American Armor in the Pacific Casemate Illustrated – Mike Guardia PB

Blood in the Forest PB

Siege of Malta 1940-42 – Anthony Rogers

Race of Aces –John Bruning

The Art of Resistance – Justus Rosenberg

Indestructible – Jack Lucas

A House in the Mountains – Caroline Moorehead

For more military history…

http://www.warscholar.org

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US Civil War military history book – “The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864” (University of Kansas Press, 2019) – Hampton Newsome – WarScholar written interview 7

Check out the book here

https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2746-2.html

Brother against brother is the mantra most often heard when discussing the United States Civil War. But how often do readers consider what this means? Some of the citizens of Northern states enlisted in the Confederate Army and vice versa. In the eyes of the people of their states, these soldiers were traitors and often treated as such. That is one of the issues addressed by Hampton Newsome in his book on North Carolina during the Civil War.

As opposing armies clashed against each other in the state, so did civilians clash against each other as well as the war dragged on. African-Americans sought freedom and the chance to fight against former oppressors. North Carolina wanted peace and considered negotiating peace separately from the other Southern states. The war as a whole was much more than tactics and military operations and Hampton Newsome weaves these parts together in an engaging and enlightening read. In fact the book was named Book of the Year for 2019 by Civil War Books and Authors. https://cwba.blogspot.com/2019/12/2019-civil-war-books-and-authors-year.html

Hampton Newsome has been researching and writing on the Civil War for many years and we discussed this latest book The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864. There are still many stories to be told about the Civil War and Mr. Newsome has written about some very important ones.

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

While I was searching for a new project several years ago, a fellow author suggested I look into Confederate efforts to capture key Union positions in North Carolina during 1864. As I read up on these events and gathered materials, I realized these battles formed a compelling story that involved not only fighting on land and water but other issues such as local resistance to the Confederacy, emancipation, desertion, and a crucial gubernatorial election.

What aspect of this subject does your book focus on?

Specifically, the book recounts the Confederate operations against New Bern, raids conducted by both sides, combat between ironclads and wooden gunboats, and the rebel victory at the battle of Plymouth. Although it is primarily a military study, the book also delves into the connections between these engagements and the political and social developments at the time.

What are the major themes of this book?

In addition to the operational and tactical details of this campaign, the book explores the motivations behind the Confederate offensive. Specifically, in attacking Union positions, rebel leaders sought to secure vital supplies from North Carolina for Robert E. Lee’s army and to dampen a growing peace movement that threatened to pull the state out of the war. The resulting engagements involved complex joint army and navy operations, daring raids, and deadly ironclads.

What resource materials did you use for your research?

I relied on a wide array of sources for this project. As with most Civil War military studies, the research began with the Official Records (“O.R.”), a collection of more than 100 bound volumes of reports and correspondence compiled and published by the War and Navy Departments a few decades after the conflict. This essential source, however, formed only the tip of the research iceberg. In searching for records beyond the O.R., I dug into the unpublished departmental, army, and personnel records at the National Archives. I also gathered diaries, letters, and other material housed at university and historical society collections around the country. I am grateful for the tremendous help from many excellent archivists at these various institutions.

I also made extensive use of period newspapers, especially those published in North Carolina. These have been a gold mine for me in this and other projects. They often contain eyewitness accounts in the form of letters sent home by soldiers on the battlefields and in the camps. These soldier dispatches, full of details not found elsewhere, provide a valuable source of information that augments official reports and correspondence. In addition, the papers routinely include colorful, unflinchingly-partisan editorials, which furnish a clear window into how different factions viewed the events of the day. Despite their immense value, I approach the newspapers with caution and weigh the reliability of each story. For instance, the lead “news” articles are often vague and inaccurate, frequently the product of murky, third-hand rumors trickling across editors’ desks.

What part of the research process was most enjoyable for you?

I enjoy the “eureka” moments. There have been many of those, both big and small. For example, in gathering research for my book on the Petersburg Campaign a few years ago, I found a lengthy court martial transcript at the National Archives, which, according to the file log, had only been viewed once before. It was stuffed with testimony from high-ranking Federal officers, and included a detailed, hand-drawn battlefield map. In my research on The Fight for the Old North State, I came upon the full transcript of an investigation into the looting, vandalism, and arson that destroyed a large part of Washington, N.C. in late April 1864. The report contained the accounts of Union commanders (both army and navy) as well as the testimony of citizens who witnessed the events that left much of that town in ashes. As far as I could tell, no author had previously used that document.

Was there anything that you wrote about during the project that moved you?

The 1864 events in North Carolina produced much tragedy and loss. The study discusses the sometimes shifting loyalties as well as the trials of the state’s population, including the challenges faced by African-Americans seeking to gain their freedom and serve the Union war effort. Throughout the eastern part of the state, many slaves fled from their owners and joined the Union army as new recruits. After the Battle of Plymouth, the Confederates captured and then killed a number of these men, an act repeated on battlefields elsewhere, including the Crater and Fort Pillow. In addition, the book recounts the execution by Confederate officials of nearly two dozen white North Carolinians who had enlisted in Union regiments. These unfortunate men had served in Confederate units early in the war, switched sides, and then had become prisoners of the rebels during the fighting at New Bern. I was struck by how these episodes brought into relief the brutal, tangled nature of the war in the region.

What was the most difficult issue to research?

The search for elusive information about Confederate supply efforts in North Carolina was particularly difficult. Most of the official Confederate commissary records from 1864 have not survived. However, I was able to find important information elsewhere in period newspapers and in correspondence. I also struggled to locate information about Union African-American recruits at Plymouth. In trying to track down several details, I pored over regimental books and personnel files housed at the National Archives as well as records in the collections at Duke University. Ultimately, I managed to put many of the pieces together but, as is usually the case, there is certainly still more to find.

What do you hope the book will do for readers?

Foremost, I hope the book provides readers with an engaging narrative of interesting, yet little-known events during the war. Additionally, I’d like them to come away with an appreciation of how complicated things were in North Carolina at the time, both socially and politically. In addition to the military details, the book highlights many issues impacting the state during the conflict including unionist sentiment, internal divisions, the contributions of African-Americans to the Union war effort, the enlistment of North Carolinians into Federal regiments, and the peace movement.

Did you have any difficulties in finishing the book and publishing it and if so, how did you overcome those?

Though this book took several years to complete, I was fortunate to avoid any extraordinary problems along the way. I enjoy juggling the research, writing, and editing involved in the process of assembling a book. I also make the maps. But there is no way I could have completed this project on my own. I’m thankful to many who helped out by assisting with research, offering suggestions, and reading drafts. Among the many readers was my father, who grew up in Ahoskie, North Carolina, not far from where many of the book’s events occurred. In addition, I’ve been lucky to work with fantastic academic presses and University Press of Kansas has been no exception. The editors, copy editors, designers, and marketing staff at Kansas have been great to work with and have produced a wonderful looking book in my opinion.

Do you have any online accounts where people can find more of your work?  

I have a blog, Ransack Garret and Closet, at www.hamptonnewsome.blogspot.com. I am also on Twitter @hamptonnewsome.

Author Biography

Hampton Newsome

Author of Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864 (Kent State Univ. Press, 2013) and co-editor (with John Horn and John Selby) of Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans (Univ. of Virginia Press, 2012).

Project/work being discussed: The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864, (Modern War Studies) (Univ. Press of Kansas, 2019).

Check out the book here

https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2746-2.html

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.