Interview--John Hoptak

I had the pleasure of meeting John Hoptak on his regular stomping ground: the Antietam National Battlefield. My wife and I had a battlefield tour scheduled with him until a freak October snow storm wiped that out. Fortunately I was able to hear him give a presentation the next day and I learned a lot from it. John is also the author of two books published by The History Press. Please see my reviews here and here. In addition John writes the blog The 48th Pennsylvania Infantry.

 

CBR-Hi John. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for readers. First off can you tell us little about yourself?

JH-Sure, Robert, it will be my pleasure. First, though, I want to thank you for this invitation for this interview to talk about my two books with the History Press, published as part of their Civil War Sesquicentennial Series. I grew up in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, studying history, and the Civil War in particular, for as long as I can remember. Of special interest to me was (and remains) the Civil War history of my home region, which is why I spend so much time studying the First Defenders, 48^th Pennsylvania and other units recruited largely from Schuylkill County, such as the 96^th PA and 50^th PA. I earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Kutztown University and a master’s degree in history from Lehigh University. I have been working for the Park Service since 2006 when I was hired on seasonally at Antietam National Battlefield. Last year, I worked a three-month detail at Gettysburg National Military Park, and will be doing so again this year. I consider myself one lucky guy to work at these two battlefield parks, alongside the best Park Rangers in the business. In addition to this, I also teach courses part-time for American Military University; courses in American history, Civil War history, and Mexican-American War history.

CBR-Can you remember what sparked your interest in the Civil War?

JH-This is a question I have been asked for the past thirty years and even so, I have never been able to develop a good answer. The short answer is, “I don’t know.” I remember visiting Gettysburg when I was very young and something just clicked. I got hooked, or bit, as some say, by that Civil War bug at a very young age. And my family has always been most supportive. Every year would include several trips to Gettysburg or other battlefields and even from a young age I thought how great it would be to one day work on a battlefield as a Park Ranger. Every trip included coming home with more books, more plastic toy soldiers. . .and a greater interest in the story of the war. The interest I have in the war has been there, always present, for as long as I can remember.

CBR-As a park ranger at Antietam National Battlefield can you tell us what a typical day is like for you at work?

JH-Well, it depends on the season. In the spring, summer, and fall, it is quite busy and typically you can find me working at the information desk, orienting visitors to the battlefield, or providing interpretative programs, such as half-hour long Overview and Aftermath of Battle talks, or a two-hour-long battlefield tour. When not working the desk or presenting programs, I do research, learning more about the battle and the history of the Park.

CBR-Your two most recent books have been published by The History Press. What has it been like to work with them?

JH-Overall, very, very good. I missed a few deadlines with the Gettysburg title and went way over my word count, which they originally set at just 50,000 words, and each time I missed a deadline the editors there were most accommodating, allowing me some extra time to get it done. Their art direction and the layouts of the books are also superb; they really make an eye-appealing product. I was hoping they would have gone with a different title for the Gettysburg book, though, either, simply, The Battle of Gettysburg, or, as I suggested, Gettysburg: A Perfect Hell on Earth. But, other than this, they have been great to work with.

CBR-Your first book with The History Press, The Battle of South Mountain (MD) , would seem like an obvious choice to write about seeing where you work. Did this book come about because of your work and what were the advantages and, if any, disadvantages of writing about something that took place in your back yard so to speak?

JH-I was first put in touch with Doug Bostick, editor of the Sesquicentennial Series, by friend Eric Wittenberg, who has also done a number of excellent titles for this series. When I spoke with Doug initially, I thought he was inquiring about me doing the Antietam title, but at that time, the History Press was focused more on examining the smaller, or lesser known battles of the war and not the big ones, so we discussed South Mountain. I have long had an interest in the Battle of South Mountain, for as long as I can remember. My birthday just so happens to fall on September 14 so, growing up, I would always associate my birthday with the Battle of South Mountain. In addition, the 48^th Pennsylvania fought there. And for years the Battle of South Mountain has languished in the larger shadows cast by Antietam and all too often, you hear South Mountain referred to as a either a skirmish or a prelude, when, in fact, it was in its own right a major battle (with casualties equaling those sustained at First Bull Run), and a battle of vast consequence. I was thus hoping to bring the story of the battle from out of those shadows as best I could. With that said, the contract I signed gave me just one year to complete the manuscript, so I had to undergo a crash course, so to speak, in the records, the letters, the diaries, and the terrain.

CBR-For many, if not most, people interested in the Civil War Gettysburg is the turning point, if you will, of the war. To be chosen to write the Gettysburg volume for The History Press’s sesquicentennial series, Confrontation at Gettysburg: A Nation Saved, a Cause Lost (Civil War Sesquicentennial), is certainly an honor. How did you end up being selected to write this volume?

JH-Well, I sometimes think because no one else wanted to! This was a tough, tough challenge; to condense so critical a campaign and so important a battle into a single volume is almost impossible. And as the old saying goes, it is always more difficult to write less than to write more. I am reminded of that quote, and I can’t remember now off the top of my head who said it, but at the end of a lengthy letter, many pages long, the man who wrote it apologized for the length of the letter, stating the letter “would have been shorter had I had more time.” Most of the other books on the campaign that are currently still in print and on the shelves are 400-500 pages in length; to try and condense it all into 200 was tough. I was literally up all night some nights wondering why I ever agreed to write the book. But, you are right, I do consider it an honor and I was floored when Doug Bostick, the managing editor of the History Press’ Sesquicentennial Series, asked if I would be interested in writing it since there are so many others out there just as capable of writing it. I debated it in my head over and over again for days, before finally accepting.

CBR-Please describe for readers your goal in writing this book and what you hope they take away from it.

JH-As stated in my introduction, I wrote this with the general, interested public in mind, setting out neither to pave new ground in the interpretation of the battle nor to mine new, previously unused sources. From the get-go, I wanted to synthesize the most recent scholarship into an easily digestible, single volume. Throughout the writing of the book, I imagined myself providing a tour to a family visiting the battlefield for the first time. I attempted to explain why the battle was fought, how it unfolded, and what happened as a result. My hope is that readers are inspired to learn more after reading this introductory volume.

CBR-It seemed that for the most part you didn’t take any views that would be seen as controversial (some may not like your thoughts on the 20th Maine however). In fact I felt your view was more that the generals on the field really seemed to do the best they could under the circumstances. Do you feel this is a fair assessment?

JH-Yes. I always try to give these generals the benefit of the doubt. All too often, traditional interpretations of the major battles of the war imply that their outcomes were based solely and entirely on the generals at the top; their personalities, their whims, and so on, when we know there were so many more factors were involved. Again, as I stated in my introduction, I tried to approach this book more as a storyteller than historian. I did try to present both sides of a controversial issue and let the reader decide, but even so, I do think that all generals did the best they could under the circumstances. At Antietam, for example, one of the most frequently stated thoughts involve Burnside and his bridge; the thought being that he could have easily waded the creek. I remind people that Burnside was a trained, professional soldier and if we can think of different options or possibilities today then, rest assured, he thought about them, too. There then must have been reasons why he did not—or could not—wade the creek near the bridge. And for Sickles, too, at Gettysburg. Even though he was not a soldier, I do think he was doing what he thought was best for his men at that moment—all the back-biting and wars in the newspaper came later. There are times when I let my own thoughts known in the Gettysburg book, so I guess I was not entirely successful at remaining neutral.

CBR-It’s time to put you on the spot just a bit. Did the Union army and George Meade win the battle or did Robert E. Lee and Confederate army lose? In your mind is there a key moment or decision that led to this victory or loss?

JH-A great question and I am not sure if there is a correct answer to this. While one can argue either side, if I was forced to choose a side, then I would have to say that the Union army won this fight. The soldiers in blue demonstrated a remarkable tenacity and doggedness during those three days; even after the First and Eleventh Corps were smashed to pieces on July 1. On Day Two as well, with Greene holding on firmly to Culp’s Hill, with the Fifth Corps racing to the assistance of the Third and in holding the Union left, and the 1^st Minnesota with their dramatic charge, there was certainly no quit in the Union. This is not to say that that Confederate soldiers were any less brave or heroic, and it must also be mentioned that the Union army held a good defensible position, overall, and especially on Culp’s and Cemetery Hill. But, then again, it was the Union officers selecting this ground. I do think Robert E. Lee expected far too much of his men; as I noted in the book, the thought that his army could, indeed, be defeated never seemed to have crossed Lee’s mind. But it was the tough, determined stance of the Federals, along with the generalship of such soldiers as Meade, Hancock, Howard, and a host of other officers of lower rank—such as Strong Vincent, George Greene, etc, that more “won” the battle than Lee “lost” it. I am reminded of the famous line Pickett allegedly spoke. Supposedly when asked why his charge had been repulsed, he said “The Yankees had something to do with it.” Again, just my thoughts here; not sure if there is a correct answer to this.

CBR-I mentioned in my review your lack of end notes but rather the use of a “chapter notes” section. Was this your decision or something you and your editor came up with due to the large volume of literature available on the battle? With the book now being available do you still think this was the way to go?

JH-This was a difficult decision to reach, and it was reached as an agreement between myself and my editors for a number of reasons. First, and simply practically speaking, I had already far exceeded my word limit and adding notes would have multiplied that number by many more thousands. Secondly, since the book was a synthesis of the recent scholarship, and an overview of the campaign, I thought it would be better to point the reader in the direction of the works published in the past few decades, those I referenced most when preparing for this volume, with the hope that they would next pick up those works for their future study. Again keeping the purpose of the book—a concise, narrative summary of the campaign and battle—and the intended audience in mind—the first time student of Gettysburg—we thought this would be the way to go.

CBR-Your book also employs two distinct styles of maps. Would you describe for readers the different styles of maps and the reason for including both?

JH-The maps prepared by Mannie Gentile I consider more works of art than precision-maps. Mannie worked with me in the South Mountain book as well, and what were trying to do here was harken back to the types of maps one might find in late-19^th Century works; thus, I was going more for the imagery and artistic value here. Hal Jaspersen’s maps are much more precise, detailed and necessary for understanding the sometimes confusing battle sequences. Both Hal and Mannie are incredibly gifted at their crafts and their maps, I believe, work well together.

CBR-What kind of feedback has your book received so far?

JH-So far the feedback has been positive, and I thank you for your kind and favorable review posted a few weeks back. There is no doubt that I made a few mistakes or that others will disagree with some of my assessments (such as my look at the 20^th Maine on Little Round Top), so I am sure criticisms will come, but that’s to be expected. So far, though, the book has been well-received.

CBR-The literature on Gettysburg is so vast and continuing to grow that the new student can easily be overwhelmed and that is where your book is really a Godsend. It seems almost every regiment at the battle has a book detailing the tiniest of movements. There are discussion forums where only the Gettysburg campaign is discussed. The battle has a magazine devoted to it. Is there really anything new left to be said about Gettysburg? Are we in danger of missing the forest for the trees at this point?

JH-It is true the literature is vast and the interest immense, but this is a good thing. As long as we continue to study the battle and the war, we ensure what Lincoln prophesied in his famed Address comes to his fruition, that we will never forget both the cost and the meaning of this fratricidal war. I am not sure if anything “new” can be said, for I am confident that others in years past have thought certain ways about certain things. But I am most certain that we need to continue to write those books, to study the regimental or individual actions, and to keep publishing those magazines, for they can only help us better understand the battle, the soldiers who fought it, the reasons why, and the war itself. As long as there is interest, then there should be books. We cannot and can never know everything—even though sometimes I encounter people who think they do—but this is not the point. The point is only to learn more. So while I can see how new students to the war and to Gettysburg in particular can easily get overwhelmed, this does not mean that the historiography should end or that we should stop studying. I can only hope that if they do pick up my book as an introduction, they then move on and dive deeper and deeper in those vast annals of Gettysburg historiography, continuing to study and to read all those books, and perhaps someday adding to it as well.

CBR-I know you are extremely busy and have a lot on your plate. Do you have any thoughts on what your next book will be about?

JH-I am still exhaling from the Gettysburg book, so I think it will be a while before I begin working on a new project. I promised myself, though, well before Gettysburg was completed that I would go back to my roots, so to speak, and do something with the 48^th, or with General James Nagle, of whom I have long wanted to write a biography. But again it might be awhile. I got something much more important coming up in the immediate future: fatherhood; my first baby is on her way, due to arrive in mid-May. I have a feeling she will be taking up most of my time.

CBR-John, I want to thank you for taking the time to open up and answer my questions for readers. I truly enjoyed your book and hope you have much success with it.

Many, many thanks, Robert, I am glad you enjoyed it and I thank you again for the opportunity to answer these questions.

Author Interview--Dr. Guy Hasegawa

Photo Courtesy
 Dr. Guy Hasegawa

It has been my great pleasure to correspond with Dr. Guy Hasegawa regarding his recently published book Mending Broken Soldiers: The Union and Confederate Programs to Supply Artificial Limbs. Please enjoy this interview!

CBR—Dr. Hasegawa thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for readers. Can you give readers a brief biographical sketch and what led to your interest in the Civil War?

You’re very welcome, Robert. I was born and raised in Santa Monica, CA. After attending UCLA (Go Bruins!), where I earned a B.A. in zoology, I received a doctor of pharmacy degree from UC San Francisco and completed a residency in hospital pharmacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After that, I was a hospital pharmacist in Ann Arbor, MI, with a clinical practice in a coronary care unit. I’ve been at my current job in Maryland, as an editor, since 1988. I’ve published articles in the pharmacy and medical literature since 1978, and my first historical article was published in 2000.

I’ve been interested in military history as long as I can remember—or at least I enjoyed playing soldier as a kid and loved army surplus stores. I didn’t really study history until I reached mid-career and had some time for leisure reading, much of which was about World War II. It was moving to Maryland and visiting sites like Antietam and Gettysburg that shifted my focus to the Civil War. I volunteered to do some research on 19th century medicinal herbs for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD, and that introduced me to primary documents of the time, to fantastic repositories like the NationalArchives and National Library of Medicine, and to specialists in Civil War medicine. I got hooked on the excitement of uncovering new information and sharing it in talks and articles. I concentrated at first on Civil War pharmacy but have taken on various other medical topics.

CBR—While your day job isn’t writing about the Civil War you are closely associated with writing and publishing. Can you tell us about your work as Senior Editor at the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy? Did you find you journal experience a help or a hindrance in writing your own book?

The journal I work for publishes original articles—written by pharmacists and other health professionals—about drug therapy and pharmacy practice in hospitals and other institutional settings. I have numerous responsibilities, including planning journal content, but I spend the bulk of my time handling manuscripts. This includes evaluating them for suitability, selecting peer reviewers, discussing whether the submissions should be pursued for publication, determining how their authors can improve them, clarifying and restructuring them in preparation for copyediting, approving copyediting, and checking proofs.

I’m sure this experience helped in writing my book. I often have to decide how to improve the effectiveness and clarity of manuscripts—and usually how to shorten them—and doing this at work pays off when I do my own writing. I found it fairly easy, for example, to picture how I wanted my book organized and balanced. At work, we are ever mindful of structure, clarity, grammar, punctuation, and style, and I’m always observing how copyeditors improve what authors submit. I sometime have to redo parts of manuscripts, and it’s especially instructive to see how much better my own writing is after a copyeditor has tweaked it. I get a lot of practice as an editor; each year, I help prepare about 80 manuscripts for publication.

I have to believe that my experience was helpful in presenting a successful book proposal and collaborating with the folks at Southern Illinois University Press who worked on my manuscript. I understand the publication process, and I think I was able to communicate efficiently with my acquisitions editor, copyeditor, and production coordinator and anticipate their needs perhaps a little better than many other authors.

Editors also tend to be detail-oriented, respectful of the language, and—in certain specialties like medicine—fairly particular about backing up “facts” with documentation. I probably had these inclinations before becoming an editor. In any event, they proved useful for the type of book that I wrote.

Was my editorial experience a hindrance in any way? I don’t think so. Journals and books are not the same, but the same principles of writing and editing apply. Also, I was already acquainted with alternative ways of preparing manuscripts from my experience writing for various periodicals. There’s a saying that doctors make the worst patients, so I guess the corollary would be that editors make the worst authors. You’d have to ask the staff at SIU Press whether that was true in my case, but my impression is that things went pretty smoothly. I don’t think anyone there dreaded hearing from me unless it was during negotiations about the book title and cover design.

CBR—Your recent book, Mending Broken Soldiers, deals with a seldom discussed aspect of Civil War medicine: the artificial limb industry. Can you elaborate a bit on your book and what led to your interest in the subject?

Let me answer the second part of your question first. I didn’t have a preexisting interest in artificial limbs, but I’ve always been willing to research new topics, even if they had little or nothing to do with pharmacy. Several years ago, I became aware of records at the National Archives dealing with the Association for the Relief of Maimed Soldiers, a wartime civilian effort in the South to assist amputees. A number of projects intervened, but I eventually found myself looking for something new to investigate and decided to examine the ARMS records. I realized pretty quickly that the story contained in those documents needed to be told and that the corresponding Union program also needed to be researched. Once I started getting a view of the big picture, I knew there was way too much to fit into a magazine or journal article, so I decided to try a book, and the result was Mending Broken Soldiers.

The book, then, describes these wartime endeavors to supply military amputees with artificial limbs. This topic had previously received little attention, although there is some good literature on Southern postwar programs. Before the war, soldiers who had lost an arm or leg might receive a pension but had to procure artificial limbs on their own. The efforts described in the book were the forerunners of today’s prosthetics programs for military service members, and they were influenced by a multitude of human motives—altruism, patriotism, greed, and self-promotion, for example—and by the political and business environment. The men who administered the program on both sides were army surgeons who initially knew little about artificial limbs and had to find manufacturers and develop efficient ways to provide the devices to soldiers and sailors who needed them. The striking contrast between North and South in this endeavor illustrates how the sides differed in industrial capacity, manpower, and resources. The story features a diverse and unexpected cast of characters, including some renowned physicians and famous military officers. (That’s as close to a spoiler alert as I’ll get.) Appreciating the programs requires background knowledge of the limbs industry, so I provided that information in the text and in an appendix. The book has 23 illustrations, many of which have not previously appeared in print, and SIU Press has posted a couple of supplementary documents online. These are listings of more than 6000 Union soldiers and sailors who received a limb and several hundred Confederate soldiers who applied for a limb.

CBR—War is often credited with advancing medical technology. Can you discuss some of the advances in artificial limbs that came about due to the Civil War?

It’s important to realize that the limbs industry was growing and becoming increasingly competitive even before the war started. Railroads and machinery in factories, farms, and elsewhere were dismembering people at an alarming rate, and it was the age of invention, so folks who were mechanically inclined were designing and patenting all sorts of things. The war added a lot of customers for artificial limbs and intensified competition among manufacturers, but it’s hard to say whether specific developments were brought about by the war or would have occurred anyway.

Three particular innovations come to mind. The first was a ball-and-socket ankle joint that allowed the foot to move in all directions, not just up and down. The second was a solid rubber foot that was pliable enough to supposedly make ankle and toe joints unnecessary, and the third was a socket (the section receiving the stump) that was flexible rather than rigid. You’d have to consider the evolution of prostheses for decades after the war to determine whether these were true advances rather than just novelties, and I don’t think I’m qualified to do that. There certainly was a lot of disagreement at the time about the ball-and-socket ankle and the flexible socket. They seemed like good ideas in theory, but competing manufacturers claimed that they didn’t work in practice. A lot of designers came up with new concepts and materials and touted them as improvements, but even if the thinking was sound, a limb with these features might not work for a particular patient unless it met that individual’s specific needs and was corrected fitted.

CBR—There is still the view that doctors performed too many amputations during the war and also that there was a lack of anesthesia available. Would you care to address these myths and set the record straight?

It’s not surprising that people thought—and still think—that amputation occurred too often. There were all those boys returning from the war minus a limb, many of them claiming that their arm or leg could have been saved. Amputation was indeed the most common major operation of the war, and that fact prompts people to imagine that the typical surgeon had a one-track mind focused on sawing off limbs. What one must realize, though, is that physicians generally believed that other types of major operations—say, for penetrating wounds of the head, chest, or abdomen—were futile because if the wounds didn’t kill the patient, the surgery would. On the other hand, surgeons knew that removing a seriously injured limb could save a patient’s life, and that—plus the large number of limb wounds—accounted for the high frequency of amputation. I’d venture that the number of Civil War amputations about equaled the number of amputations that should have been done. The problem, though, was that some limbs were unnecessarily removed, and some remained that should have been removed. Keep in mind that most Civil War surgeons had recently been in civilian practice and may not have been adept at amputation or judging when the operation needed to be performed. So yes, physicians sometimes amputated limbs unnecessarily, because they didn’t know better or perhaps were eager to gain some experience performing the operation. On the other hand, surgeons sometimes elected not to amputate when doing so would have been best. This could doom the patient to a relatively quick death from overwhelming infection or to a lifetime of misery and debility with a natural limb that was chronically infected and less functional than an artificial one. Some learned physicians of the time concluded that more lives would have been saved had more amputations been performed. Of course, they meant that those additional amputations would have been in patients who needed them, because the operation was not benign; the overall mortality rate for all amputations was about 25%.

Using chloroform or ether as an anesthetic was the standard of practice for major operations and other painful procedures during the Civil War. Large quantities of these drugs were used by each side. There were times when the supply chain failed and the anesthetics were unavailable, and in those cases, an alternative such as alcohol or morphine may have been given. I suspect that Hollywood is largely responsible for the common belief that all a patient received in preparation for amputation was whiskey.

CBR—Mending Broken Soldiers has been out now for about three months. What has been the reaction so far?

The reception has been great. Reviews from bloggers and comments appearing on Amazon have been uniformly positive, and audiences hearing my talks about limbs have been eager to buy a copy of the book. It’s steadily making its way into libraries. I’ve been anxiously waiting for reviews to appear in Civil War magazines and other periodicals. I’m not yet ready to retire on my royalties, but that will change once your readers see this interview, right?

CBR—Prior to this book you were co-editor with Jim Schmidt on a work called Years of Change and Suffering: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine. Can you give readers a thumbnail sketch of this book and what they could expect when reading it?

Years of Change and Suffering is a collection of eight essays on various aspects of Civil War medicine, each by a different author, including Jim and me. The contributions, which are fairly specialized, reflect current scholarship on topics that range from medical education to post traumatic stress disorder and from amputation to urological injuries. Although the book is not meant to provide a complete overview of Civil War medicine, it is still appropriate for general-interest readers. I like the idea of collecting essays, because most researchers have at least one project that is too limited in scope to serve as the basis for its own book. A compilation provides a place for such projects and is an alternative to publishing them as magazine or journal articles. The last time I checked, the book was not available through large online dealers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. However, I just got a shipment of the paperbacks, so I know that the publisher, Edinborough Press, has at least that edition in stock. Folks who want to buy a copy might ask Edinborough about availability (books@edinborough.com) or contact me through my website (www.cwmedicine.com).

CBR—I seem to recall on Civil War Talk Radio you mentioned the possibility of a second volume. Is that idea still out there?

Volume 2 remains a possibility but is not in the immediate future. The compilation concept is still a good one and can result in an important contribution to the literature. For now, though, I’d like to stick with my own research.

CBR—So what is up next for you? Will you continue writing about Civil War medicine?

Yes, I will. The research keeps me active and interested, and I’m a great believer in publishing one’s important findings. In fact, I usually don’t take on a project unless I think it has publication potential. Right now, I’m promoting Mending Broken Soldiers, attending Civil War medicine conferences, and keeping my eyes open for another research project. I’d like to try my hand at a book that will allow me to present a lot of information I’ve collected over the years dealing with medical purveying. The trick will be to convince a publisher and then an audience that what I have to say is worth reading. Until I figure out how to do that, I won’t know exactly what I’ll cover or what additional research needs to be done.

CBR—Dr. Hasegawa, I’d like to thank you again for answering these questions. I wish you continued success with your book.

It’s been my pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss my work.


Please see my review of Dr. Hasegawa's book here.

Interview--Jim and Suzanne Gindlesperger

James and Suzanne Gindlesperger have written a couple of very interesting books dealing with the monuments on the Gettysburg and Antietam battlefields. On his own Jim has written several highly acclaimed books and has been nominated for the prestigious Lincoln Prize. Suzanne is a co founder of a very successful writing group. I am honored that they have agreed to answer some questions for us. Links to my reviews of their books and also a link to their website may be found at the end of the interview. If you haven't seen their books yet I highly recommend them!

 

 

CBR--Jim and Suzanne, Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions. First off, can you tell readers a little bit about yourselves?

Thanks for asking us, Robert.  Well, we’ve been married for 42 years and we live in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  We have two children and two rescue dogs.  We both enjoy the same things, especially tramping over Civil War battlefields, so it makes it easy to do projects like our books together.  Jim works at Carnegie Mellon University, and Sue is a Travel Consultant for AAA.

CBR--What led to your interest in the Civil War? Was it a particular book or visit to a battlefield?

It really wasn’t anything specific that we can recall.  We both have always enjoyed history, and with both of us having ancestors who fought in the Civil War it was a natural progression.  Because Antietam and Gettysburg are the two closest major battlefields to where we live, we just seemed to gravitate to them at first, and from there we just expanded our interests to the point now where most of our vacations seem to center around battlefield visits.

CBR--You've co-authored two books in the So You Think You Know... series, one dealing with Gettysburg and your recent book dealing with Antietam. Can you please describe your books and also what was the inspiration behind them?

Both books are similar.  We have always enjoyed learning some of the “behind the scenes” stories that you don’t often read about in the usual books about the battles.  We find them fascinating, and they give a truer picture of the men who fought.  Both books include photos of many of the monuments and locations on the battlefields, along with maps and GPS coordinates so people can locate them easily.  Then, we added stories about each one, trying to focus on the things we are often asked, such as why the monument sits where it does, what does it represent, who designed it, and, of course, the human interest stories.  Some of these stories are humorous, some are sad, but they all tell the story of the men who fought.  In a way, it’s kind of our own little tribute to them, hoping that people who read about them will not forget what they did.

Both battlefields, but especially Gettysburg, have been written about extensively.  But we haven’t found many books that tell the stories behind the men who fought, or the monuments that they built.  We wanted to stay away from the battle details, the tactics, and the strategies, because they had been done so well by so many others that we didn’t see any way we could add anything.  But the approach we have taken seems to have taken hold with many readers who tell us that they enjoy both the photography and the stories that they hadn’t heard before.

CBR--What has been the most interesting thing you have learned while researching these two battlefields?

One of the things we quickly picked up on in our early battlefield visits was the significance of the monuments.  Each one tells a story, and we’ve tried to pass that along in our books.  We tell people to take a few extra minutes to study the monuments, to look at the inscriptions, or focus on the figures shown and what they are doing.  In nearly every instance the monument depicts some significant event that the regiment or individual was involved in.  That is really what got us interested in the behind-the-scenes stories we referred to.  We wanted to find out what the men who fought were trying to tell us with their monument, and we learned that the scenes shown weren’t just something general but were actually testimonies to someone who did something outstanding in the battle, or to honor the entire regiment for some stand they took or some charge they were involved in.  Too often these monuments are taken for granted.  We look at them for a moment and move on to the next,  and people would be surprised at how interesting their stories really are.  It might take a little digging when you get back home, but it will add to anyone’s appreciation of the battle and is well worth the time. 

CBR--How have the books been received by readers?

They have been received extremely well.  The Gettysburg book won the bronze award for the ForeWord Review’s Book of the Year in 2010, and that really seemed to trigger a lot of interest.  In fact, the reception the Gettysburg book got was the real reason we decided to do the one on Antietam.

It’s really gratifying to have strangers come up to us at a book signing or after one of our lectures and tell us that they didn’t have much of an interest in the Civil War until they read our books.  And how flattering is it when a licensed battlefield guide tells us he uses some of our stories in his tours?  It doesn’t get much better than that.

CBR--Many writing partnerships are done long distance but the two of you are married. Can you describe how you do your research and who is responsible for what? Does one of you do the writing and the other the photography or is the writing more collaborative?

Our research techniques are really pretty hard to describe.  Maybe because we really don’t have a specific procedure.  One of us can be taking a picture and the other will say, “Here, let me have the camera a minute,” and then take a photo of something that the other didn’t see.  As a result, we have a lot of photos of the same thing that we can choose from, with different angles or lighting effects.  And we often look at the pictures later and truly don’t remember which one of us took some of them. 

We don’t have a set pattern, where one takes the pictures and the other writes the stories.  While one of us is talking about something we learned about an individual or a regiment, it may remind the other of something that seems totally unrelated, and we write it down so we can try to work it in somewhere later.  It sounds pretty haphazard, and maybe it is, but it seems to work for us.

Our work really is a joint effort, and we’ve always had the luxury that we don’t take our writing too seriously.  We do it because we enjoy it, and we don’t put any pressure on ourselves to get something done by a certain time.  We don’t even submit it to our agent until it is finished, so we don’t have to rush to meet any contract deadlines.  That keeps it fun. 

CBR--Time to put you on the spot. Of these two battlefields do you have a favorite? Also, any particular monuments that stick out as being your favorites and why?

Jim;  For me, each battlefield has its own strong points.  Gettysburg is a treasure trove of stories, simply because it is so large and so many troops were involved.  But Antietam is such an easy battle to follow, and the field itself is small enough that it can easily be covered in a weekend.  So I guess I would have to say I don’t have a clear cut favorite.

But I do have some favorite monuments.  At Antietam I like the 90^th Pennsylvania monument, mostly because it is so unique.  The fact that Gary Casteel, a friend of ours, sculpted it, helps, too.  And I like the story behind the 51^st Pennsylvania at the Burnside Bridge.  They had their whiskey ration taken from them as punishment for some infraction, and when their colonel asked them if they thought they could capture the bridge, they immediately saw a chance to negotiate.  They said they could take the bridge if he gave them back their whiskey.  Both got what they wanted.

One of my favorite spots at Gettysburg isn’t even a monument.  It’s a rock on Culp’s Hill where Private Augustus Coble of the 1^st North Carolina left his mark.  He was so proud of his participation in the battle that he found a way to go back to Gettysburg many years later and find the boulder where he fought, somehow carving his name and regiment into it.  It shows how important the battle was to those who fought there.

And because I enjoy irony, I also like the Excelsior Brigade monument in the Wheatfield.  It was supposed to include a bust of General Daniel Sickles, but when the time came for the bust to be sculpted, an audit revealed that the money to pay for it was missing.  Turns out that the good general was responsible for the missing money, so he never got his bust on the monument.  A fitting end to the story, I think.  Although later, as a Congressman, he was responsible for the act that established the battlefield as a national park, so in some respects, he got his recognition anyway.

 

Suzanne:  Like Jim, I can’t pick one battlefield over the other.  Each holds a special place for me.  Gettysburg has the most spectacular sunsets and watching them from Little Round Top is an experience everyone should enjoy.

I do have a special place, though, along Wheatfield Road.  There’s a marker for Captain Jedidiah Chapman of Connecticut who died while leading his company towards the Rose Woods.  I came across this marker several years before the naturalization project began in Gettysburg.  When I found it, it was hidden in overgrown weeds and seemed forgotten.  I wondered who he was.  Since that time I’ve learned a bit about him and his family.  Sadly, he was so young when he died, leaving a wife and children.  Whenever we’re in Gettysburg, I try to visit his marker to thank him for his sacrifice.

I have two favorites at Antietam.  The first is the Dunker Church.  It’s plain and simple and so quiet  whenever you enter, so unlike that day in September 150 years ago.  I like to sit in one of the pews and listen to the silence and offer a prayer  not only for  those who fought there, but for my loved ones as well.

The second place is unique, and as Jim mentioned, it’s one of his favorites, too.  It’s the monument to the Ninetieth Pennsylvania Infantry and is three fixed bayonets and a hanging cook pot.  It sits along Cornfield Avenue and is shaded by the tree line.  On one visit, it was covered with bright orange Monarch butterflies.  What a treat that was!  

CBR--Jim, you've written several other Civil War related books. Would you care to let readers know about your earlier works?

My first book, Escape from Libby Prison, documents the famous tunnel escape.  This was the largest Prisoner of War escape in American military history, and according to the National Park Service, my book was the first in-depth account published.  Escape from Libby Prison won the George Washington Honor Medal for Excellence from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.  It was also featured in a Discovery Channel documentary, and Warner Brothers purchased the film rights.  Tom Hanks and Dylan Sellers were to be the producers, but unfortunately, after a few years, Warner Brothers decided not to follow through with it.

My second book followed the cadets of Virginia Military Institute in the Battle of New Market.  It was titled Seed Corn of the Confederacy, a title that Jefferson Davis gave the cadets.  It was the first book about New Market that was devoted exclusively to the participation of the VMI cadets, and the director of the VMI museum wrote that the story had never been told better.

My third book, Fire on the Water, focused on the voyages of the CSS Alabama and the USS Kearsarge.  The Alabama accounted for nearly one of every four Union merchant ships lost during the entire Civil War, with more than 60 ships destroyed.  The Kearsarge was one of the Union ships charged with finding and sinking the Alabama.  The two finally met in an epic battle off the coast of France on June 19, 1864.   I used ship logs and diaries to document the words and lives of the participants and was able to offer a look into life at sea during the Civil War.  I also examined and discussed the many controversies surrounding the battle.  Fire on the Water also won the George Washington Honor Medal for Excellence and was nominated for the Lincoln Prize.

CBR--Suzanne, you are a co founder of Pennwriters. Can you let readers know about this  organization?

What began as a brainstorm of five people, Pennwriters has grown as a not-for-profit organization of more than 450 members from Pennsylvania and beyond.  It was established in 1988 to be a network for published and aspiring writers of all genres.   We offer a three-day writers conference each year as well as area events, email groups, online classes and social networking.  I encourage any writer who needs help and encouragement to visit www.pennwriters.org

CBR--So what is up next for the two of you? Any books in the future for readers to be on the lookout for?

We have a couple of projects in the works.  We are working together on a second volume of So You Think You Know Gettysburg? that we are kind of excited about.  There were so many pictures and stories that we wanted to include that we couldn’t fit them all into one book, so that is something that we definitely want to do.  And Jim has had a long time interest in the trial and hanging of Henry Wirz, the Commandant of Andersonville Prison.  He is actively gathering information on that and plans to do an objective study of Wirz and the trial.  Sue has an idea for a book on field hospitals that is just starting to take shape, so she hopes to pursue that at some point.  All in all, it looks like we have enough ideas that we should be busy for a while.

Thanks so much for allowing us to be a part of this interview, Robert.  We really appreciate it.

CBR--And thank you for taking the time to participate. I really appreciate your time and highly suggest readers purchase your  books. They are both entertaining and informative!

 

 

Please see my review of So You Think You Know Antietam here.

Please see my review of So You Think You Know Gettysburg here.

 

Please visit James and Suzanne's website here.

Interview--Meredith Henne Baker: The Richmond Theater Fire

Meredith Henne Baker

photo by Amanda K. Gille

I was recently able to read a very interesting and well written book by first time author Meredith Henne Baker titled The Richmond Theater Fire: Early America's First Great Disaster published by LSU Press. What a great read! Please see my review here.

 

 

Ms Baker has been kind enough to answer some questions about herself, her book, and her writing process and I am honored to share this with my readers.

 

 

Please be sure to check her website here or the book Facebook page here. Both are great informational resources.

CBR: Welcome and thank you for taking time to answer a few questions. First, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Thank you for hosting this interview! I'm a writer with an interest in history because of what we can learn about the present from the past. My particular interest is American religious history. I previously taught at a girls boarding school, worked in museum education, and developed educational programs for urban charter schools. Although I've won grants and awards for my historical work, I currently spend a lot more time hanging out at teeter-totters than archives, thanks to my toddlers. My husband and I do tote them around to lots of museums though.

CBR: Your book deals with what I consider to be a little known event in American history. What sparked your interest in the Richmond fire and led you to write a book about it?

I ran across about a dozen sermons about the Richmond Theater fire when I was a graduate student at William & Mary. They included sermons from the founder of Princeton Theological Seminary, from an English Quaker abolitionist, from a suicidal Unitarian schismatic--and I wondered "it was clearly an international incident...but whoever heard of this fire in Richmond?" The more I dug in local archives, the more amazing sources I uncovered besides these feisty sermons--sheaves of letters, unpublished and heartbreaking memoirs, riveting survivor accounts, and candid obituaries in the local papers among others. Here was a trove of fascinating primary sources about this fire, ample evidence that it directly affected influential men and women of the time (Monroes, Marshalls, Madisons, among others) and I couldn't find a single book about it.

I became completely taken by this story and the people who experienced it. (If I didn't find it fascinating on a personal level, I never could have stuck with it for the past seven years!) I went on to write a thesis focusing on the changes the disaster brought to Virginia's religious climate and culture, and over the next few years, various professors and writer friends urged me to be the person to write that first book about the Richmond Theater fire. It was such an amazing opportunity, to be the one to unpack the story of a long-forgotten but very significant event in American history.

CBR: Can you describe your research and writing process? Were there any particular obstacles that had to be overcome in telling your story? Any groups or people that particularly helped you that you would like to thank?

I relied heavily on Virginia archives--the Virginia Historical Society, the Library of Virginia, university libraries, and the Library of Congress. Their staffs were unfailingly helpful. Once I left graduate school and was employed full-time, I had to make day trips to these places from a distance and became really efficient at cramming a lot of research in a short time. I'd pack a sandwich and a bottle of water in my purse, show up with those triplicate request forms pre-filled, and just plow through stacks of material until the place closed. It made a huge difference when libraries began to allow digital photography, because then I could skip time-consuming transcriptions or expensive copy machine tabs and just snap a shot of a letter or document and deal with it once I arrived back at home.

As for my writing process, I treated it like a job and made myself write for x hours a day for about a year until I had the manuscript finished. My goal was to have it the book ready by the 200 year anniversary of the fire (December 26th, 2011), although I missed it by a few months. There were a few reasons for this, but I will say the writing process slowed down considerably after my two
children were born. I wrote mostly late at night then, or whenever I had an hour or two where someone kept an eye on the kids for me. I have a new found respect for writers with young children. It's not easy! Especially when working on a manuscript that requires a lot of original research. In my acknowledgements I probably thank as many people for pitching in with child care as I do historical institutions.

CBR: You point out the connection of the Richmond theater fire to Edgar Allen Poe. Can you give readers a sense of this connection and do you think it played any part in his later writing?

Poe's mother Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a popular member of the Placide & Green theater troupe, which was performing on December 26th, 1811, the night the Theater burned. He probably would have been taken inside the theater on various occasions. (Historian Martin Shockley supposes that little Edgar might even have performed on the Richmond stage in an ensemble with other cast children that season.) Eliza Poe had died from an illness earlier in December although Edgar would, I understand, claim in later years that she and his father were both victims of the blaze. In December the Poe children were taken in by local families, and Edgar went to the family of John "Jock" Allan, who lived a few blocks from the site of the theater. Poe was only about 3 in 1811, but certainly this was a memorably tragic time in his life and an event that haunted Richmond for decades. He couldn't have escaped its shadow. I don't doubt that this dark occurrence and his family's proximity to it made a lasting impression on him.

CBR: In comparison to disasters today the death toll of just over 70 seems relatively small. Can you put in perspective the impact this had on Richmond and Virginia as a whole?

I think "impact" is the key concept here, and that doesn’t always have to do with an enormous body count. Percentage-wise, though, those 72 deaths (more in the months to follow) were significant. In a town of ten thousand, this single fire killed nearly one percent of its citizens. If 9-11 had resulted in 81,000 New York City deaths instead of around 3,000, that would be comparable. Fires were common, yes, but (surprisingly) didn't often result in mass fatalities.

 

This was like the Titanic or the Hurricane Katrina of its day--a disaster that (to that point) was just unparalleled. Newspapers from New Hampshire to South Carolina printed breathless updates for weeks after the blaze. U.S. Congress wore black armbands for a month, the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. wore them for two. Cities across America sent resolutions to Richmond expressing their sympathy, and commemorative events were held in major cities like New York and Philadelphia. It even captured international interest--Americans overseas wrote home about it, and a
press in York, England published a religious booklet about the Theater fire. I suspect one reason for the interest in the blaze was that it happened in a large public building, the likes of which could be found in many urban areas. It was easy for people to imagine that the victims' fate could (but for the grace of God) have been theirs. Additionally, the higher social status of most victims meant people recognized the prominent family names of the dead. George Smith, the governor of Virginia was among the dead. Also, the fact that many of those killed were young women captured great public interest and sympathy—similar responses can be seen in later tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire or the U.S. Arsenal explosion in 1864 where teen aged women lost their lives.

CBR: What impact did the fire have on public safety in general?

Horace Townsend, a journalist who wrote in 1883 about the Richmond tragedy in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, summed up the public response to 19th c. theater fires rather succinctly: "Editorials are written in the newspapers, articles by experts appear in the leading magazines; the receipts of theatres and opera-houses suffer from a temporary diminution; the Fire Department officials bestir themselves and present voluminous reports; everyone comes to the conclusion that each and every place of public entertainment is a death-trap, and that “something ought to be done,” and the general result is that matters go on much as they did in the past."

CBR: We often think of early America as being a highly religious society. It seems your book actually paints a different scene. You point out the large growth in the four main churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, and Methodist after the fire. Can you discuss the impact of the fire on both the church and the theater?

Virginia wasn't much of a church-going society in the early 19th century. After disestablishment in 1786, the dominant Anglican Church lost all public support and had to be self-sustaining. It floundered, and took a real hit financially and in terms of their membership. Other denominations struggled as well.

Richmond wasn’t any exception. Far from being the “city of churches” it would later be called, in 1811 there were only five houses of worship—Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker, and a synagogue— for ten thousand inhabitants. In The Richmond Theater Fire I have the chance to describe religious life in Virginia in the Early Republic—ruined chapels, revivalists on horseback, and the kind of world where a church service was followed by a horse race and a drink. It's interesting--I was reading Lauren F. Winner's book A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith where she describes how everyday faith was lived out by gentry Anglican colonists in Virginia. Winner remarked that the church's fortunes turned around perceptibly after 1811. I propose that the Theater fire was the 1811 event that was the catalyst for that transformation and describe how in the book.

As far as the fire's impact on local theater, another wasn't built for nearly a decade. I write about the bickering over opening another one, the resistance from churchgoers, and the truly awful entertainment alternatives they had as substitutes for theatrical performances. A new theater was eventually built, of course, and John Wilkes Booth (among other notable actors) trod the boards there for a time.

CBR: The new Monumental Church was built on the location of the old Richmond theater. What role did the new church play in the growth of religion during this time?

I think Monumental—a Protestant Episcopal Church—made evangelicalism a viable option for the influential gentry class. To give a slapdash definition, evangelicalism (the brand of faith practiced mostly by Methodists and Baptists) emphasized missionary work, the preaching of the gospel, and a dramatic conversion experience. Evangelicals emphasized that Christians were to be separate and different from “the world.” Winner points out that Virginia’s gentry practiced their faith in a way that was comfortable with the world. You might play a hymn on your violin or a dance tune, and either was just fine.

The gentry (often Episcopalians) were very skeptical of evangelicals, who were considered “fanatics”, and their rowdy camp meetings which were spreading across the South—with convicted men and women shrieking and flailing over their sins—were just too over the top.

Yet when a new Yankee Episcopal minister showed up in the pulpit at Monumental, he gradually introduced evangelical practices, like emotional sermons and prayer meetings in a way that the congregation could accept. Mostly.

CBR: As talk of a new theater came about many people saw it as disrespectful in some way. Do you see any similarity to the way Americans respond today after a disaster either man made or natural?

Around 1816 one editorialist in Richmond argued “Four years have however now elapsed, since the disastrous event, which called forth all our sympathies—The population of Richmond has greatly changed, and is ever changing—Few persons are left in it, who were the immediate sufferers in that ever-to-be-lamented calamity…If they are convinced of [the theater’s] general good tendency … they will generously sacrifice their feelings to the public interest.” In other words: times change—eventually we need to switch out of the mourning garb, enjoy our lives, and not be mired in the past. Critics thought this man was disrespectful and callous. One suggested that every ticket for a performance at his new theater be sold at the monument to the old one—so purchasers would be forced to read the names of the dead.

There’s often controversy over how to properly memorialize the victims of a tragedy—just look at Ground Zero in New York City or the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

CBR: While this time frame is generally considered a white man's world how did the fire affect others such as women and African-Americans?

Wow, good questions. Women made up about two thirds of the victims (which didn’t say much for Virginia chivalry, some alleged), which drew a lot of sympathy from the public.

But in terms of how the calamity affected women, let’s take a look at the survivors. Most of the adult men who died were married and were the family breadwinners. In these days before life insurance, this meant that their wives were almost immediately in financial peril. In the papers, auction notices go up: the Governor’s family, now that he’s dead, is auctioning off their furniture, their slaves. A shop owned by a prominent Jewish family that lost five people in the fire is liquidated. And on and on. The story paints a very dire picture of how quickly fortunes could turn.

The story of enslaved hero Gilbert Hunt shines a light on the immense injustices suffered by African-Americans in this time. After Hunt saved the lives of about a dozen women who were jumping from the Theater’s windows, many expected him to be granted his freedom. (As a member of a volunteer fire brigade, he later saved dozens more.) Instead he labored for years until he paid for his manumission himself. Society insisted black men and women remain in a subordinate place, separate and unequal, even when they clearly deserved great public respect. Even the black and mixed-race victims’ names were placed in a lower spot on the memorial.

CBR: Your book is the winner of the 2012 Jules and Frances Landry Award. Overall, what has been the reception to your book?

The award was such an honor. What a wonderful surprise to be among the ranks of previous awardees: four Pulitzer Prize winners and such notable names as John Hope Franklin, Robert Penn Warren, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Lewis P. Simpson.

As for the reception of the book, I've had a number of historians and archivists tell me, "We've been waiting for someone to use this material and write about the fire!" The Library of Virginia hosted a marvelous book signing event (detailed on my blog at www.theaterfirebook.com), the lovely staff at the Historic Richmond Foundation has invited me to speak on several occasions, and I’m lined up to deliver a Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society this December. There’s also been interest from various churches because of the religious history aspect of the story.

CBR: Do you have an idea on what you will be working on next?

Right now I am mostly writing shorter pieces—articles and the like. I can’t wait to dig in to my next big project, though, and have a few ideas and historical characters that have captured my interest. (And there are other books I want someone else to write. For instance, I don’t have time or know enough French, but could someone please write a good biography of Louis Hue Girardin? That man must be one of the most dashing, fascinating, pulled-up-by-his-bootstraps characters in the Early Republic.)

Thanks for the interview, Robert, and readers are always welcome to send me questions or contact me through my website.