Author Archive
There are two common laments that average folks have about history: (1) They’re trying to rewrite it, and (2) they never taught me that in class.
While there are multiple reasons for both statements, one that they have in common is the limited amount of time that can be devoted to history in high school or college survey courses. If an educator only touches upon the basics of the American colonial period and then tries to get within the life experiences of his students, he faces the daunting task of cover at least 250 years worth of information in nine months or less. Thus there’s little time for that piece of the past between Columbus and the Declaration, an comparable amount of time.
It’s not uncommon, then, for most Americans to know little of the colonial era other than some thin understanding of the Pilgrims. Thus a nasty massacre of French Huguenots in Florida by the Spanish a half century earlier never gets mentioned. The story of how a Massachusetts woman carrying a hatchet — no, not Carrie Nation — and a handful of scalps became a hero is not one that gets celebrated at Thanksgiving. And perhaps as relevant to American history as the turkey were Queen Isabella’s pigs.
It’s not that you were absent the day these things were covered in class. Hardly anyone else heard of them either. Fortunately, Kenneth C. Davis, author of the bestselling “Don’t Know Much About History,” did stumble across these stories and ably wrote recorded them in his “America’s Hidden History, Untold Tales Of The First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, And Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation.” Davis continues on this theme, telling of George Washington’s culpability in a massacre that happened years before the American Revolution, how an egg-toss and a founding father in a toga figured into events in revolutionary Boston and some details about a group of little-known farmers who almost derailed the American experiment before the Constitution was even written.
Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that “There is properly no history; only biography.” Perhaps the inverse is true, however, in the case of Zachary Taylor — a soldier who lived through fascinating moments in early nineteenth century history only to expire before finishing the final, and potentially most important, chapter of his life.
“Old Rough and Ready,” as he was known for his military exploits, served less than a year and a half as president before green apples and cherries chased with milk on a July day in 1850 gave him a fatal stomach ailment. But Taylor had lived a full life, if not much of it took place in the White House. It’s hard to imagine anyone more appropriate to be called upon to write a brief biography of this general-turned-president than John S.D. Eisenhower, a former general himself and the son of a famed general who followed Taylor’s path to the White House. Too, Eisenhower’s books on Gen. Winfield Scott and the Mexican War prove his ample knowledge of the era.
Simply entitled Zachary Taylor, Eisenhower’s biography is concise at less than 200 pages, yet informative. It follows Taylor’s military career through not just the Mexican War fame that made him president, but his earlier years in the War of 1812, the Blackhawk and Seminole wars and, more generally, his life as a soldier largely on the antebellum frontier.
The flush of patriotic enthusiasm that is so common at the outbreak of many American wars was no exception in the Civil War around America. Mississippians’ level of frustration with the war’s progress and then the Confederacy, however, set in fairly quickly and never much improved, judging from the Ben Wynne’s assessment in his Mississippi’s Civil War, A Narrative History (Mercer University Press, 2006).
Wynne, a native of Florence, Miss., who is an assistant professor of history at Gainesville State College, takes a broad view of the state’s involvement with the war, starting in the political developments in the 1850s that led to Mississippi’s secession, following with the military and civilian toll and finally examining the Lost Cause myth that took root around the South after the war. The result is that this concise work (243 pp.) quickly establishes the sort of framework needed for further examination of the state’s role in the war, whether it be military, civilian, social or political.
Those who are looking for information on such events as battles at Corinth or Brice’s Cross Roads, Grierson’s Raid or the siege of Vicksburg can find books on those topics that cover the details better. But putting these military matters into the context of suffering on the home front or the political infighting within the state and with the Confederate government throughout is not usually within the purview of most Civil War books. Wynne deftly connects the effects of all of these factors while recounting the sequence of events that affected Mississippi for decades to come.
There is an inclination to think of American frontiersmen in near mythic terms. They’re independent, fearless, dress from a coonskin capped head to moccasined toe in animal skins and spend their lives in a constant state of hand-to-hand combat with some group of Native Americans. Robert Morgan dispels many of those stereotypes in his “Boone, A Biography” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007).
The first sentence in Morgan’s introduction informs us that no raccoon gave up his life for Boone’s chapeau, and then with an easy narrative Morgan shaves away other preconceptions that come naturally to a society whose impressions of the Long Hunter are gleaned from 20th Century entertainment. Morgan says, for example, that Boone admitted killing only one lone Indian in his long life, a far cry from the number Fess Parker dispatched on a weekly basis on his 1960s television series.
Boone had a much more complex personality and life than might be expected. While his formal education was limited, indications are that he spoke well. Growing up in an era were reading and writing were not complementary educational practices, Boone was an avid reader but a random speller. He was the enthusiastic hunter that one might expect — leaving home for a period of two years at one point — but his trips were also journeys of exploration, a search for new lands that eventually led him into speculation in the era after the American Revolution. While Boone was at home in the wilderness, surviving happily and going to great lengths to avoid confrontations with the Shawnee and Cherokee, he was ham-handed in his relations in the political and commercial business spheres. The result was that despite having owned tens of thousands of acres in Kentucky, he left the state for his later years in Missouri deeply in debt.
Morgan’s description of this early American hero with a strong moral compass to match his internal compass is rich, vivid, insightful and well researched. But Morgan’s background as a poet and fiction writer lead him often to draw analogies to Whitman and Emerson when Jedediah Smith and Kit Carson seem to fit more neatly. Morgan’s inclination toward the literary yields convincing arguments that Boone’s exploits inspired the likes of James Fenimore Cooper and Lord Byron. In all, “Boone” adds an impressive depth of understanding this trailblazing guide who was a legend in his own time and beyond.
N.B. Those who appreciate this sort of adventurous narrative might also be interested in reading “Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West“ by Hampton Sides.
I get lots of love letters from people wanting my money. You know the type — $1 per book, no obligation, blah, blah. This time I’ve decided to pull the trigger with a history book company. I’ve got a four-book limit and here are some that I’m interested in reading. And I need to narrow the field. The candidates:
“American Transcendentalism,” by Phillip F. Gura — a look at Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, et al.
“A Gallant Little Army,” by Timothy D. Johnson — Winfield Scott’s Mexico City campaign.
“The French and Indian War,”by Walter R. Borneman. –pretty obvious what this is.
“What Hath God Wrought,” by Daniel Walker Howe. — America from 1815-1848, interesting times.
“A Glorious Defeat,” by Timothy J. Henderson — Mexican War overview.
“American Creation,” by Joseph J. Ellis — Rebellion to the new nation era. And a solid writer.
“Fallen Founder,” by Nancy Isenberg — Burr. Never read a bio on him.
“The Great Upheaval,” by Jay Winik — America, France, Russia in flux.
OK, now you see what I’m facing. Any suggestions?
