X'ing (aka Tweeting) Prewar Kansas

 

Social Media

 

Apologies for light posting lately on this blog. I fear, as you can see above, I've been seduced by X (formerly Twitter), where you can find the context of this and other debates that I've been engaged in about the Civil War and other topics. (The contemporary illustration of the Combahee River raid is from Harper's Weekly.) By all means follow me there, or on Facebook where on The Civil War Era Historian's Page I was recently arguing with a guy named Lloyd Klein about who wrote Grant's Memoirs. I of course think the question answers itself, but he was more inclined to finger Mark Twain or Adam Badeau. I did take the opportunity to say that the issue is at the heart of my 2018 novel, The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant.  

RIP Gordon Granger IV

 

Gordon Granger IV died on January 6, aged 96, at his home in Earlysville, Virginia. 

He was a great help to me in writing the 2013 biography of his great-grandfather, General Gordon Granger: The Savior of Chickamauga and the Man Behind Juneteenth.

From Letchworth, NY, to Brunswick, Maine

 The casualty numbers listed above, 294 fatalities out of 1,414 who served in one regiment, the First New York Dragoons, are a reminder of the war's horrifying cost. I'd barely heard of Todd's Tavern, a cavalry engagement in Grant's Overland Campaign between the much bloodier battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania. 

The wife took the photo of me in a red shirt taking the photo above, of one of the informative tablets at base of the impressive obelisk which memorializes the regiment in Letchworth State Park. I'd never been to the park before and hadn't known the monument was there, just stumbled across it on August 5 this year, when we happened to be in Western New York. (I was actually feeling a bit guilty about failing to attend the annual reunion on that date of the 154th New York Infantry, the "Hardtack Regiment", held this year in Delevan.)

This week it's off to Brunswick, Maine, where I have been before to visit the home museum of General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. On Thursday evening I'll be speaking to the Joshua Chamberlain Civil War Round Table at 7 o'clock in the Brunswick Library, mostly about James Montgomery: Abolitionist Warrior. Be there or be square.

 

Man of Peace

 

Frank Scaturro speaks at Grant Cottage on Saturday about President Grant's peacemaking efforts. Scaturro is an author whose books include President Grant Reconsidered (1998), and a lawyer who played a key role in the restoration of Grant's Tomb.

As president, Scaturro said, Grant resisted political pressure to wage war against both Spain and Britain, and submitted U.S.-British disputes to international arbitration which set a far-reaching and positive precedent.

He also talked about the book published earlier this year, Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant, which he co-edited with Chris Mackowski. They both contributed essays to it, along with others including every living U.S. president, Grant scholars John F. Marszalek and Ronald C. White, and Ben Kemp, Grant Cottage operations manager. 

I asked Scaturro about the successes and failures of Grant's peace policy toward American Indians, to which he gave a long and well-informed reply.

On international relations, I think Grant's two-term presidency has much in common with those of two other former generals, Washington and Eisenhower. All three knew well the horrors of war, and in part for that reason tried hard, for the most part successfully, to keep the nation at peace during their years in office.   

Revolutionary Days

Photos taken September 22 with our newish dog Bella. That date in 1777 was three days after the first battle of Saratoga and a couple of weeks before the second. American gunners from these heights would have been watching for any sign of a British advance southward -- i.e. from the left in these east-facing pics -- along the Hudson River road.

A Day at the Races

 

Ulysses S. Grant famously loved horses, and after the war was no stranger to Saratoga Springs. So I'll be setting up shop, signing and selling my books, at Saratoga Race Course tomorrow with Mike Lesser from Grant Cottage, which will get half the proceeds. Tomorrow being Friday, August 25, the day before they run the Travers. Gates open at 11.