Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

 

The Government and Administration of Ohio. By Francis R. Aumann and

Harvey Walker. American Commonwealth Series, edited by W. Brooke

Graves. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1956. xiv??489p.;

frontispiece, appendix, bibliography, and index. $5.95.)

Students of Ohio's government have had their task greatly facilitated in

the 1950's by the publication of two volumes. In 1953 Professor Albert Rose

of the University of Dayton published his Ohio Government, State and

Local. In 1956 Professors Aumann and Walker of Ohio State University

produced the subject of this review. During more than twenty-five years they

have been studying, teaching, and writing about various aspects of Ohio's

government. There has been almost no duplication or overlapping in their

interests. Citations of their earlier writings almost always occur in different

chapters: for example, Walker, in the chapters on the legislature, the office

of governor, financial and personnel administration, and local government;

Aumann, in chapters dealing with administrative and judicial organization,

law enforcement, and conservation. It should not be inferred, however, that

there was not close collaboration in writing this volume. There is no evidence

that one independently wrote certain chapters, leaving the other free to

write as he pleased in the others. There is no marked difference in style

of writing or treatment of the material as one reads through the book.

At the outset, the authors warn the reader "that no study of this kind

can ever be entirely free from errors, or ever be complete." The reviewer

noted "1912" on page 89 where 1921 was intended; "1924" on page 96

where 1922 was indicated. Legislative and constitutional changes are in-

evitable. Already there is a constitutional amendment which will give senators

terms of four years. Some factual statements seem inadequate. For example,

it may be true that the office-type ballot "makes voting a straight ticket more

difficult" (p. 47), but it leads one to wonder whether there has actually

been less straight-ticket voting since this change was made in Ohio. Has

anyone investigated even one precinct? The authors do not say.

Moreover, a factual statement may mislead. "In 1952 the interest in

holding a constitutional convention was much higher than it had been in

1932" (p. 35). True; but much of the interest was in preventing the calling

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of a convention. Consequently, while the total vote on the issue was much

larger in 1952, even after allowing for the state's growth in population, the

percentage of the vote cast for holding a convention was lower. Doubtless

the careful reader will note this fact when he compares the figures given

for the votes in the two elections.

It is probably true that "Ohio has had many strong governors" (p. 98).

More questionable is the sentence which next follows, "Surprisingly enough,

some of those whose achievements in the Presidency or the United States

Senate were most outstanding, did not make the most successful governors."

Governors Hayes and McKinley are not usually considered to have been

outstanding presidents. It would be difficult to name many governors (suc-

cessful or not), translated into senators, who have been outstanding among

the members of that august body.

Apart from these minor aspects, the important fact is that this volume

will prove to be valuable to many citizens of Ohio and to those in other

states who want to learn about Ohio's government. Study units in the

League of Women Voters will find it very helpful. Citizens who seek

legislation or assistance from administrative agencies and even citizens who

find themselves elected to state, local, or political-party office will find

enlightenment in its pages.

It is as a text for college students, and as a reference work for high school

classes studying Ohio's government, that this book will be mainly used.

(Some of these students will later be found among the 200,000 or more

who will then be employed by the state and its subdivisions.) How helpful

will this volume be in starting some of the abler students toward a career

in public service, political or administrative? The less inquisitive will be

appalled by the detailed information relating to the various agencies which

serve the citizens of the state. Some students will see in the mass of detail

a challenge to comprehend and master it. The latter may be the ones best

able to serve the state in responsible positions. They are likely to object,

not to the detail, but to unnecessary repetition. Why devote a chapter to the

constitution when its provisions will again be discussed in the chapters

dealing with the legislature, the governor, the courts, and other agencies?

I realize that teachers tend to be repetitious. Experience in the classroom

convinces us that most students fail to grasp facts, or fail to appreciate their

significance, when first presented. Classroom experience tends to be reflected

in texts which teachers write. But the brighter students may find the repeti-

tion boring. If there must be a chapter on the constitution, let it deal with

aspects which will not have to be repeated when the various branches of

government are discussed.

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Nevertheless, the authors are to be commended for the thorough, pain-

staking organization of information about the government of this great

state. The publishers, too, are entitled to commendation, not only for this

volume in its attractive format but also for undertaking the ambitious project

of the American Commonwealth Series, which proposes a similar treatment

for each of the states. Already, eight volumes have been published and three

more are to appear soon. The general editor is W. Brooke Graves, of the

legislative reference service, Library of Congress, who is the author of a

widely used text on American state government.

Miami University                                      HOWARD WHITE

 

The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, 1735-1789. By Brooke

Hindle. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute

of Early American History and Culture, 1956. xi??410p.; illustrations,

bibliographical note, and index. $7.50.)

Since eighteenth-century thinkers closely identified science with the useful

and practical, the term science in this study has a broader meaning than we

associate with it today. Professor Hindle's survey covers American contribu-

tions not only to natural history, astronomy, physics, and mathematics but

also to developing technology in such diverse areas as agriculture, textile

manufacturing, transportation, and military engineering, to name only a

few of the outlets for the practical scientist of that day.

In places the book is almost encyclopedic in detail. Fact-crammed para-

graphs become little more than recitals of names, dates, and titles. Many men

receive no more than a sentence or two; still, the substantial contributions

of the Bartrams, Franklin, Winthrop, and Rittenhouse are not thereby

neglected.

However, it is not the particular contributions of American scientists that

Professor Hindle is primarily concerned with; his originality lies in trying

to assess the place of science in American life during this crucial period. He

devotes much of his narrative to the rise of cooperative efforts cutting across

colonial boundaries, to the establishment of learned and professional societies,

and most importantly to explaining the relationship between political events

and the development of science. Some of the best material in the book

deals with cooperative observations of the transit of Venus in 1769 and with

the rivalry between the two learned societies in Philadelphia which culminated

finally in a flourishing American Philosophical Society.

Professor Hindle holds that the intensifying nationalism accompanying

the passage of the revenue acts created a climate of nationalism in the world

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of science and letters which helped to make scientific activities successful.

A second period of cultural nationalism arose when the breach between

colonies and mother country was recognized as permanent. The fruit of

nationalism was not so much positive accomplishments in science as "the

adjustment of the Americans to a new political and cultural status in which,

even though bereft of important British supports, they proved capable of

continuing scientific work at a productive level and, in some respects, of im-

proving it." War and separation also intensified the practical emphasis in

American science, and the new political arrangements brought by independ-

ence had their effect upon the forms of organized activity.

This is a book to consult rather than one to read at long sittings. Of special

interest and value is the picture given of the close relations which prevailed

between American scientists and those in England and on the continent.

One must respect the vast research, based chiefly on original materials, that

underlies this study, but the larger story of the impact of social change upon

American science sometimes gets lost amid the welter of detail. Fortunately,

the author has provided a helpful bibliographical essay and an excellent

index to make the book of maximum usefulness.

Marietta College                                  ROBERT J. TAYLOR

 

Half Horse, Half Alligator: The Growth of the Mike Fink Legend. Edited

by Walter Blair and Franklin J. Meine. (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1956. ix??289p.; illustrations and bibliography. $5.00.)

Since John Josselyn and his associates first set out to startle the folks back

home with awesome accounts of the New World, American literature has

ever welcomed the wonderful and the exaggerated. The development of the

tall tale and boast, like jazz, has been one of our really unique contributions

to world culture, and its evolution from the New England settlers through

Davy Crockett and Mark Twain to the modern western chamber of commerce

is a fascinating part of our history. The present book deals competently and

thoroughly with one chapter in the story of the western yarn.

Thanks to Walt Disney, Mike Fink is best known today as the man who

tried to cheat Davy Crockett during a boat race down the Mississippi.

Folklorists and historians know he was far more than a "Bre'r Bear" buffoon

without dignity or nobility. Born near Fort Pitt about 1770, Indian scout,

river boatman, Rocky Mountain trapper, killed in a quarrel at Fort Henry

on the Yellowstone about 1823, Fink was an incarnation of the restlessness

and recklessness, the uncontrolled power and heartless pride that was the

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American West. What America is today in the eyes of Europe and Asia

is in a real sense what Fink was yesterday in fact and fancy.

In Half Horse, Half Alligator, Walter Blair and Franklin Meine anthol-

ogize a host of original Fink yarns in their authentic form. The book, which

has been planned by the authors since 1933, when they published Mike Fink:

King of the Mississippi Keelboatmen, is divided into three parts. Part I

tells, as accurately as research can make possible, who Fink actually was,

what he did, and how he died. It also traces the growth of his legend through

the oral accounts inspired by his deeds and personality to the sub-literary

tall tales composed for the frontier-starved presses of the mid-nineteenth

century. Part II presents eighteen of the sub-literary accounts taken from the

works of T. B. Thorpe, Davy Crockett, and the like. All eighteen are colorful,

if not completely true. Part III is devoted to varying versions of Mike's

death. Generally, the outlines of these versions agree with the truth. Mike,

an expert marksman, shot too low in attempting to knock a can from the

head of a youth named Carpenter. Carpenter was killed. Talbot, one of

Carpenter's friends, with what seems to have been good reason, questioned

Mike's motives and aim. Mike, enraged, offered to kill Talbot as well.

Talbot then drew a pistol and ended Fink's spectacular existence.

In Half Horse, Half Alligator, the reader is in the hands of the two great

authorities on the American tall tale and sub-literary account. Blair's Native

American Humor, Horse Sense in American Humor, and Tall Tale America

have long been standard texts for students of American culture. Meine's Tall

Tales of the Southwest and work with the Crockett Almanacks, while less

general, is just as well known. The present book is sound, well annotated,

with a good bibliography. At the same time it is fully readable. In these

days when Americans, filled with nostalgia for vanishing occupations, are

in need of verifying their national tradition as they attempt to dominate

world thought, a book on so typically national a man as Mike Fink must

receive a warm welcome. Happily, it deserves the best reception that it

can get.

Denison University                              TRISTRAM P. COFFIN

 

The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890. By George Rogers Taylor and

Irene D. Neu. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956. viii??113p.;

maps, appendix, and index. $3.75.)

"Mark what ills the scholar's life assail," quipped the redoubtable Samuel

Johnson. Had he lived two centuries later the writing of railroad history

would have provided numerous additions to his own list of ills--inadequate

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and inaccurate data, and misapprehensions created by popularizers and

textbooks.

Prominent among the misapprehensions have been those disseminated by

railroad maps. A well-known example is the long-cherished exaggeration

of the amount of public domain given to the railroads, a legend laid to rest

by Robert S. Henry in 1945.

This new book deals with a misapprehension which is more subtle and

complex. Railroad maps for the 1860's are misleading in that they suggest

that uninterrupted shipments could be made between any two points con-

nected by the imposing lines representing the thirty-odd thousand miles

of track then in existence. Taylor and Neu show that this was emphatically

untrue, and they fully explain the obstacles: gauge differences, breaks at

rivers and within cities, and the absence of arrangements for the exchange

of rolling stock.

In three chapters written by Taylor two important facts are developed.

First, the dominance of local interests in the early period of railroad con-

struction often meant that the incentive was commercial rivalry among

cities rather than profitable investment. Second, these interests, especially

in the East, often encouraged gauge differences as a means of excluding

competition and monopolizing the trade of a tributary region. Taylor also

deals with the barriers to through shipments which those profiting from

breaking bulk at terminal cities erected and defended.

The trend toward integration is then taken up by Neu in four chapters.

First came the development of procedures for car exchange, particularly the

fast freight lines, which greatly accelerated the increase of through business,

though not without some damage to the railroads themselves. A short chapter

on the ways of solving gauge differences is highly interesting. There were

four: compromise cars, whose five-inch-wide wheels could run, albeit haz-

ardously, on both standard and four feet ten inch tracks; cars with adjustable

wheels, which were generally a little too adjustable; car hoists for changing

trucks; and third rails for double-gauging a line. All were unsatisfactory,

and by 1880 about eighty percent of railroad mileage had shifted to standard,

as compared with fifty-three percent in 1861.

This book is solidly based on sources carefully appraised, is fully foot-

noted, and has an index and three meticulously prepared and executed maps

which show the different gauges in 1861 by a color code. The work is well

organized and written, and definitely clarifies a long-obscure problem. One

hopes it will not take twenty years for this research to penetrate history

textbooks.

Pennsylvania State University                          JOHN PIXTON

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Immigrants and Their Children, 1850-1950. By E. P. Hutchinson. (New

York: John Wiley and Sons, and London: Chapman and Hall, for the

Social Science Research Council in cooperation with the U. S. Depart-

ment of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1956. xiv??391p.; appendices

and index. $6.50.)

The author, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania,

has prepared this volume with the helpful cooperation of the bureau of the

census and the Social Science Research Council. A previous census monograph,

Niles Carpenter's Immigrants and Their Children, 1920 (Washington, 1927),

covered much of the field indicated in the title of the work here reviewed.

Hence Professor Hutchinson's contribution stresses changes since 1920 in the

composition and geographical distribution of the first and second generations

of immigrant stock. He gives detailed attention to occupational data con-

cerning such groups that he gleaned from the census of 1870 and later

censuses which was not utilized by Carpenter. Hutchinson realizes that the

"question of what influence immigration has had on the population and

economic growth of the United States has not been--and perhaps cannot

be--fully answered," but he believes that a positive contribution can be made

to an understanding of that question.

The beginning date for the scope of the study was necessitated by the fact

that the census of 1850 was the earliest one to classify the composition of

the American people according to native or foreign birth. Data concerning

native-born children of foreign-born residents has been provided by the census

of 1870 and each one since that time.

The period since 1920 has of course been marked by decreased immigration

because of quota provisions, the depression of the 1930's, and World War II.

Hence the recorded number of foreign-born in the United States reached a

maximum (about 14,200,000) in the census of 1930. Since 1920 immigrants

have increasingly been southern Europeans and natives of the western

hemisphere, and the decline in immigration numerically has meant an

obvious aging of the foreign-born population as well as of the second

generation of immigrant stock.

Geographically, the foreign-born and their children in 1920 were found

in greatest numbers in the northeastern states, and they were even more fully

concentrated in the same area in 1950. Immigrants from Ireland, Poland,

Russia, and Greece were most inclined to be city-dwellers, while those from

Scandinavia and Mexico were most likely to be found in rural districts. As to

occupational trends, people from Mexico, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia

have had strong agricultural inclinations, while those from France and

Scotland have been especially well represented in the professions.

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One can find little to criticize in a volume based upon a careful analysis

of census records with restrained generalizations from such data. Almost a

quarter of the book is devoted to appendices which include valuable

statistical tables.

Ohio State University                     FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER

 

The Livingston Indian Records, 1666-1723. Edited by Lawrence H. Leder.

(Gettysburg: Pennsylvania Historical Association, 1956. 240p.; maps,

illustrations, pictographs, bibliography, and glossary. $5.00.)

To the scholar who locates--if need be translates--edits, and sees through

the press a collection of documentary material, his colleagues, both present

and future, owe a debt of gratitude. We acknowledge such debt in the case

of the Livingston Indian Records, a manuscript collection concerned, chiefly,

with Anglo-Iroquois relations in New York State at a relatively early period.

These Records, written mainly in archaic English but also sometimes in

Dutch, sometimes torn or otherwise impaired, could not have been easy to

handle. Their present form attests to Mr. Leder's care with them.

However, there are two features of the present volume, one negative and

one positive, which merit critical comment. The first is the notable lack of an

index, a lack unconvincingly rationalized by Mr. Leder in his introduction

to the volume as being due to limitations of space. The second feature is the

unfortunate inclusion of a text, with accompanying pictographs, narrating

the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy; a sentence or two of text, with

accompanying pictograph(s), appears at the bottom of many of the pages

of the Records.

Whether Mr. Leder or Paul A. W. Wallace, who contributed an intro-

ductory chapter on "The Iroquois: A Brief Outline of Their History" to

the present volume, is responsible for the inclusion of the "Legend" and

its pictographs is not clear; all we are told, at the end of the chapter by

Mr. Wallace, is:

 

Intermingled with the text of the Livingston Indian Records in the

following pages, is a picture version of the Legend of the Founding, done

by Ray Fadden (Aren Akweks) of the St. Regis Mohawks. As far as possible

the artist has depended on conventional Indian pictographs. When, however,

he has had something to express for which no ancient symbols were avail-

able, he has tried to imagine what the old-time picture-writers would have

done, and in that light made up his own characters. (p. 28).

 

The scholarly convention holds, among anthropologists, that the source

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of American Indian narrative material be named and identified. We presume

that Ray Fadden was the source not only for the pictographs but for the

accompanying textual material, but if this is the case, we doubt that his

narrative is reproduced verbatim in the Records without editorial touching

up. The inclusion of such a feature in a volume devoted to the faithful

reproduction of documents, is startling to an anthropologist, who regards

oral material from American Indians as primary source material, and is

accustomed to treat it accordingly in his scholarly publications. Nor will the

intermingling of fact and fancy so far as the pictographs are concerned be of

much value to the anthropologist, with no notations as to which are "Indian"

(St. Regis Mohawk?) and which Mr. Fadden's. Both classes of pictographs

are of course of interest to the anthropologist, but to make any use of them

he must know which are which, as the historian must know which parts

of a document are original text, and which are editorial insertions.

To expedite ethnohistorical research we need many more volumes of the

sort Mr. Leder has brought out. But if these must be embellished with

Indian material to give them added interest (and we really see no reason

why they should be cluttered with such), we hope that the provenience of

such material will be made clear, and that it will be treated with the same

meticulous care that a historian accords written primary source material.

Indiana University                      ERMINIE WHEELER-VOEGELIN

 

Old Bullion Benton, Senator From the New West: Thomas Hart Benton,

1782-1858. By William Nisbet Chambers. (Boston: Little, Brown and

Company, 1956. xv??⁵¹⁷p.; frontispiece, bibliography, and index. $6.00.)

Until now we have had no satisfactory biography of Thomas Hart Benton.

Historians and biographers have largely taken him at his own conceited

estimate and have borrowed heavily from his recollections, Thiry Years View.

The influence of that partisan work, even on modern scholars, can scarcely

be exaggerated.

The work before us leaves something to be desired, but it has substantial

merits that should not be minimized. It is conscientious, scholarly, and

sincere. The author sees Benton as he really was, a superb politician who,

for over thirty years, bamboozled the voters into keeping him on the public

payroll. With remarkable restraint Mr. Chambers withholds opinion and

lets Benton himself reveal his vulgarity and pomposity and egotism.

Benton is a tedious subject for a scholarly biographer. His career was

long, he took a stand on every public issue, and he was highly articulate.

To know Benton thoroughly is to understand each of the numerous public

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issues of his time. The biographer has an even more compelling task. He

must ask himself whether he can discern any single theme that informs and

unifies the diverse aspects of the career.

Benton advertised himself as a friend of the workingman and the small

settler, and posed as what we would call a nationalist. Professor Chambers,

like others before him, has been partly taken in by Benton's assertions. He

recognizes that in the first and last phases of Benton's political career he was

a hardworking errand boy for the St. Louis businessmen, but he seems to

believe that for twenty years Benton was a great statesman of social

democracy. Doubtless Benton's durability can be explained by his ability

to convince the plain people that he was working for them. But as his

position on each issue is analyzed thoroughly, one comes to see that the

real clue to his career is fidelity to the interests of the St. Louis business

community. Benton wanted westward expansion, for example, but he wanted

it to hinge on St. Louis rather than on Chicago, Memphis, or New Orleans.

He wanted federal aid to transportation, provided it benefited St. Louis. His

monetary policy meant local credit autonomy combined with maximum prices

for the Santa Fe specie that flowed in through Missouri. He looked on Texas

ever with a jaundiced eye and supported the Mexican War only when he

saw that it meant the acquisition of a California that he hoped to make tribu-

tary to St. Louis. Above all, he saw that preservation of the Union was es-

sential to the prosperity of St. Louis. As slavery became a crucial issue

in Missouri, Benton progressively lost his state-wide constituency and was

thrown back upon his home town. In 1844 he was reelected only because both

senate seats were vacant; six years later he was defeated, but St. Louis would

send him to the house later.

In the judgment of the reviewer this book does not fully resolve the

Benton problem. We are told that Benton was privately in the pay of St.

Louis capitalists while he was pressing for legislative and administrative

actions sought by them, but the significance of this dual role is not clearly

indicated. Scholars will acknowledge the virtues of this book without neces-

sarily accepting all the interpretations.

Oberlin College                                     THOMAS LEDUC

 

Military Heritage of America. By Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy and Colonel

Trevor N. Dupuy. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956.

xvi??794p.; maps, diagrams, appendices, bibliography, and index. $10.00.)

The writing of Military Heritage of America grew from the discovery by

one of the authors that there existed no up-to-date, reliable survey or analysis

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of American military history suitable for use in a college course which he

was presenting to ROTC students. This book is more than a college textbook.

The elements of our military heritage are of interest and significance to any

citizen, and the objective of this book is to provide for all Americans a

military history presented from the American point of view. Unit records

as such have been eliminated because these are available in The Army Lineage

Book and similar publications. The Dupuys organize the subject under

chronological periods with topical breakdowns within the periods.

Approximately ten percent of this volume is devoted to a preliminary

analysis of the principles of war, military techniques, and illustrations from

the period prior to the American Revolution, including a section on North

American colonial wars. Another ten percent brings the story through the

Mexican War to 1848. Some twenty-five pages are devoted to a chapter

on "Writers on Military Strategy," and twelve pages to a chapter on "The

Industrial Revolution and Warfare." Approximately one hundred pages deal

with the American Civil War, seventy with World War I, two hundred

with World War II, and thirty-five with the Korean War. Another ten

percent of the book covers the minor wars, and such subjects as "Military

History and the Future of War," and "Cold-war Evaluation of Hot-war

Lessons." The volume also has a well-chosen selected bibliography of some

six hundred items; an index of forty pages, with single entries followed

by as many as fifty, sixty, and once over ninety-five unassorted page refer-

ences; and, in the appendices, well-arranged charts on "The Wars of History

from Antiquity to Mid-Twentieth Century" and the "Development of

Weapons and War Materiel," both individual weapons and group weapons,

from the club and rock, the chariot and war galley to the bazooka and the

atomic-powered submarine.

In every section of this volume the Dupuys reveal their skill in sound

analysis, deep insight, critical judgment, and clear presentation. Examples

demonstrate lessons to be learned by students, as well as information and

interpretations valuable to citizens of a popular government. They show that,

by Custer's "ill-considered charge for glory, . . . Sheridan's strategy, Terry's

tactics, Crook's victory at the Rosebud, and (the real tragedy) more than

300 brave soldiers were all wiped out by one man's refusal to play with

the team--by what we now call 'grandstanding.'" In analyzing actions in

a later war, the background of the battle of Leyte Gulf is well built up

by the Dupuys, and then Halsey's decision, the near approach to disaster,

and the final analysis of the radically faulty command organization are all

presented in a lengthy quotation from the writings of a British naval officer.

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The conclusions are clear, but they are not permitted to rest without citation

of other authorities.

Some historians may question the merit of certain historical assumptions,

such as that "the Union Jack might be flying over New Orleans today,"

if Jackson had acted differently in January 1815; and some Texans may

question the balance in a volume of over eight hundred pages that devotes

only five words to the Alamo, and seventeen words to the battle of San

Jacinto; but all will agree that these are merely items in a work that really

makes a significant contribution both to the training of prospective officers

and to the enlightenment of the general reader.

Air University                                   CHARLES M. THOMAS

 

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Edited by Ned Bradford. (New York:

Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1956. xiii??626p.; illustrations and index.

$8.95.)

From the original four-volume series Battle and Leaders of the Civil War,

first published as a serial in Century Magazine in the 1880's and consisting

of several hundred articles, Mr. Bradford has selected forty-four, of which

twenty-nine are from the pens of northerners and fifteen from those of

southerners. On the one side are included such leaders as Grant, McClellan,

Porter, Pope, and Wallace; and on the other, Beauregard, Hood, Longstreet,

and Early.

Through these selections one gets a continuous and well-unified story of

the war, though it may be suggested that the part played by the navy is not

emphasized adequately. Illustrations and maps are not present in great

numbers, but such as are included contribute much toward a more effective

presentation of the mighty conflict.

The statement on the book's jacket that the "running commentary" by

the editor "makes this volume in effect a history of the Civil War told in

new form" will be regarded by many as an overstatement of the kind some-

times indulged in by publishers. The "running commentary" does present

in clear perspective the factual material dealt with in the respective articles;

however, there are few interpretative comments upon the way that material

is presented. Evidently the editor felt that the participants in the struggle

should tell their own story in their own way. By pursuing this policy he

does preclude any allegation or charge of partisanship. The only exceptions

that the reviewer found to the above statement were Mr. Bradford's efforts

to disparage McClellan as much as possible, and his apparent acceptance

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of what Professor Randall regards as the disproved charge that Secretary

of War Floyd used his position to weaken the North from a military angle

and to strengthen the South.

This lengthy volume should be considered from still another angle.

Military leaders, no less than political figures, naturally like to be favorably

viewed by posterity, and that favorable view, it is supposed, may result from

convincing evidence of positive achievements or superior judgment or con-

vincing evidence of serious mistakes on the part of someone else. All wars

give rise to claims as to the relative merits of military leaders, and certainly

the Civil War was no exception in this respect. In this volume there is

much of the strategy, drama, and tragedy of the colossal struggle; in it, too,

subjectivity, quite naturally, is very apparent. For instance, McClellan's

account of the preparations for, and the conduct of, the Peninsular campaign

of 1862 could convince one that he knew just where he was going and how

to get there. On the other hand, the article of Richard B. Irwin could

convince one that McClellan was almost entirely at fault in his controversy

with the Lincoln administration, and the one by General Jacob Cox plausibly

suggests serious shortcomings in McClellan's strategy at Antietam. That Lee

and Longstreet frequently differed as to military methods is a matter of

common knowledge. Some feel that, all factors considered, Lee acquitted

himself at Antietam as well as could be expected. Longstreet, however,

suggests that a different strategy could have resulted in an impressive

southern victory.

Ohio State University                                HENRY H. SIMMS

 

Lincoln and the Tools of War. By Robert V. Bruce. Foreword by Benjamin

P. Thomas. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1956. xi??368p.;

illustrations, bibliography, and index. $5.00.)

As the centennial of the Civil War approaches, the number of volumes in

this already well-stocked field may be expected to multiply at an accelerating

rate. Robert Bruce, who teaches history at Boston University, has turned out

a solid, worthwhile study in Civil War military history, a field that has

been attracting increasing attention for the past decade.

This work explores the relation of President Lincoln to the process of

examining, testing, selecting, and ordering weapons with which to equip

Union armies in the field. From his early experience as a surveyor, Lincoln

had long been fascinated by mechanical devices and technological improve-

ments, had once even delivered a lecture on "Discoveries and Inventions."

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BOOK    REVIEWS       213

 

As a layman he was intrigued by the practical applications of technology.

As president he was anxious to secure for the armed forces the most efficient

"tools" for pushing the war to a successful and speedy conclusion. Con-

sequently, he was willing to take time from a crowded official schedule

personally to examine and even test new weapons brought to Washington

by a flock of inventors and manufacturers' agents in a growing stream after

the war began.

If the desirability of securing the most advanced, effective weapons for the

armed forces seemed an objective that all officials managing the war could

agree upon, such a calculation left out of account bureaucratic red tape

and the hidebound narrowness of military officialdom. General James W.

Ripley, chief of army ordnance, convinced that the war would be a short one,

insisted on ordering only the traditional muzzle-loading rifle long after

the breech-loader had clearly demonstrated its effectiveness in the field. Ripley

successfully forestalled the ordering of many other "new-fangled" weapons

on the ground that it would be expensive, inefficient, and leave the army

clogged with surplus useless gear when the war ended. Often Lincoln's

requests to Ripley to examine new weapons were disregarded, or, if tests

were run, they were merely perfunctory, Ripley's decision already having

been made.

This volume examines the work of other men--those who helped as well

as those who hindered the war effort. Men like Captain John A. Dahlgren,

the navy's ordnance expert, and Stephen Vincent Benet (grandfather of the

poet), who tested arms for Lincoln at West Point. Inventors like John D.

Mills, with his curious "coffee-mill" machine gun, Christopher Spencer, with

his seven-shooting rifle, J. S. Smith, with his "suit of steel armor," and others

move across these pages toting a staggering variety of ingenious and some-

times incredible devices designed to insure Union victory.

Author Bruce brings to his self-imposed assignment the unique combina-

tion of undergraduate training as a mechanical engineer and graduate training

in history. He understands well himself and makes dearly understandable

to the reader the mechanical technicalities whereof he writes. His research

in the manuscripts and in the contemporary and secondary literature has been

extensive and rewarding--especially so since he succeeded in turning up a

number of hitherto unpublished Lincoln items and a journal kept by Mrs.

Gustavus V. Fox, wife of the assistant secretary of the navy. He writes in a

pleasing style and has done a workmanlike job in illuminating the problems

of weapons procurement in the Civil War.

Los Angeles State College                            DAVID LINDSEY

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214     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War. By Kenneth P.

Williams. Vol. IV, luka to Vicksburg. (New York: Macmillan Company,

1956. xv??616p.; illustrations, maps, source notes, bibliography, appendix,

and index. $7.50.)

This volume, the fourth in Professor Williams' projected seven-volume

military history of the Civil War, presents a study in command covering the

campaigns in the West from July 1862 to General Grant's capture of

Vicksburg. After discussing the season of reverses, the confusion in command

occasioned by General Henry W. Halleck's transfer to Washington, the

problems of incomplete military intelligence, and the action of Confederate

guerrillas, the author outlines the Union strategy in the western theater, which

included the capture of Chattanooga and the opening of the Mississippi

River.

In his scholarly, meticulous, readable, heavily documented, but not un-

conventional narrative, Williams presents a detailed account of General

Carlos Buell's role in the administration's strategy designed to liberate the

Unionists in the Volunteer State, interpose an army between the forces

of Smith and Beauregard, and cut vital railroad lines that led from Virginia

to Georgia. Buell, plagued by logistic problems, hampered by faulty in-

telligence, and occasionally subjected to unjust criticism for his failure to

take the offensive, failed to reach his objective and was forced to engage

in a retrograde movement to check the progress of the Kirby Smith -- Bragg

invasion of Kentucky designed to cut the Blue Grass State from its reported

wavering Union moorings and to threaten the security of Ohio. While the

Confederate invasion of Kentucky was effective in demoralizing Ohio, as

evidenced by the panic in Cincinnati and the mustering of the "Squirrel

Hunters," Buell reoccupied his base at Lexington; repulsed Confederate forces

at Perryville, thanks to the aggressiveness of Colonel William Carlin and

Ohio's Phil Sheridan; and prepared to resume his campaign in Tennessee.

In evaluating the Tennessee-Kentucky operations the author brands as a

myth the contention that Buell's movement on Chattanooga failed because

Halleck, heretofore depicted as a bookish meddler, "required him to rebuild

the Memphis and Charleston Railroad as he advanced." He concludes, also,

that Buell missed a rare opportunity at Perryville "because he lacked the

controlling instincts of a real field soldier." Ohio's General William S.

Rosecrans, Buell's successor, proved to be a difficult and boastful subordinate,

whose cautious, tortoise-like movements eventually culminated in an inde-

cisive Union victory at Stone River.

While the Tennessee-Kentucky campaigns are fully discussed and evaluated,

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BOOK    REVIEWS       215

 

the "main theme" of the volume is the Union plan of opening the Mississippi

River from New Orleans to Vicksburg in an attempt to deprive Confederate

states east of the river of supplies from the productive regions of the West.

Grant, relegated to the position of a subordinate during Bragg's operations,

emerged somewhat refurbished following his engagements at Iuka and

Corinth. Yet Grant was still hindered by a divided command and the back-

of-the-scenes machinations of General John H. McClernand. The Illinoisan's

petty letters to higher echelons, feebly evaluating the work, ability, and

progress of his comrades in arms, bore mute testimony to his duplicity,

incompetence, and unfitness for his position.

Williams relates, with a wealth of detail, the gradual evolution of Grant's

unorthodox, but in retrospect flawless, strategy, which according to General

William T. Sherman, who disagreed with his chief, was impelled by "clamor

in the rear, clamor by 'the same damned cowardly herd, who disgrace our

nation,' and who remained in Ohio and other places, raising a hue and

cry that made it necessary to 'disregard all sense and wisdom to risk the

impossibilities.' " During the initial phases of the operation Confederate

forces repulsed the Grant-Sherman joint land and river operation, with

Grant losing his supply base at Holly Springs, Mississippi. General Grant,

after witnessing the failure of his canal, Lake Providence, Yazoo Pass, and

Steel Bayou projects, concluded that the citadel, protected by swamps and

marsh lands on the north and heavy entrenchments on the east and southeast,

could be reduced only from the south or southwest. Accordingly Grant, en-

dowed with an "unconquerable spirit," sent Sherman north in a diversionary

movement while he and his transports ran the Confederate batteries.

Assuming personal command, Grant drove Johnson out of Jackson, dis-

persed Pemberton's forces, seized vital Confederate railways, and secured

the approaches to the reputedly impregnable fortress. The volume ends with

a dramatic account of the siege of Vicksburg (May 18-July 4, 1863). The

vociferous McClernand, violating orders by releasing to the press his troop

congratulatory order, in which he attempted to arrogate to himself credit for

the success back of Vicksburg, was replaced by General O. C. Ord, "a

soldier." In the final chapter evidence is presented to refute contemporary

charges that Grant exceeded his authority during the campaign and dis-

regarded instructions from his superiors.

When it comes to evaluating this volume, the reviewer is confronted

with a pleasant task. Based on an examination of the Official Records, and on

newspapers, memoirs, diaries, and recollections of participants, the study is

an outstanding work of scholarship and represents a significant contribution

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216     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

to an understanding of the military operations of the Union forces in the

West. The book, well printed, attractively bound, and comparatively free

from slips in proofreading (there is no map on page 38 as cited on page

67), contains a bibliography, critical source notes, an index, and an ap-

pendix, in which the author discusses critically some mooted points in

Civil War history and evaluates recently published Civil War literature. The

volume should be made required reading for all students who labor under

the misapprehension that the earlier studies of the Union army were

definitive.

Columbus, Ohio                                      JOHN O. MARSH

 

Gray Ghosts and Rebel Raiders. By Virgil Carrington Jones. Introduction by

Bruce Catton. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1956. xiv??431p.;

end paper maps, illustrations, and index. $4.50.)

"I thought Virginia was to be the theater of war for six or eight weeks.

We would have a battle in which one Southern man would whip five

Yankees with cornstalks. England would intervene, peace would be declared,

and we would return home finding all our servants smiling at our home-

coming." Mr. Jones in his study of the Virginia partisan rangers and their

daring exploits makes clear that not only was such southern optimism

wishful thinking, but that the eventual long war was prolonged for eight

or nine months due to the success of southern guerrilla activities. Voluminous

literature already exists on many of the actions of the "irregulars," Mr. Jones's

earlier work on John S. Mosby being a prominent example. However, this

study, although in style frequently resembling the current "true adventure"

tale, successfully synthesizes numerous divergent accounts into a meaningful

whole and relates the synthesis to the general activities of the major Union

and Confederate armies in the eastern theater of war.

Once again the struggle of the sixties is revealed as the first truly modern

war. Certainly guerrilla warfare was not new in world history, but now

partisans became "organized troops . . . subject to the Articles of War and

Army Regulations" and their legality as such was even recognized by the

Union in November 1862. Acting upon an opinion by Francis Lieber, it

was acceded that rangers "whose officers are commissioned by the Confederate

Government and who are regularly in the service of the Confederate States

are to be exchanged when captured." However, this did not insure acquies-

cence in their actions by either North or South, and Lee, for one, stated late

in the war, "I regard the whole system as an unmixed evil." The attraction

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BOOK REVIEWS       217

 

of partisan participation, with its freedom from the conformity of regular

army life and its opportunities for individual glory, to say nothing of

looting, often created serious recruiting problems for the organized forces.

On the other hand, the northern response to the harassment of the guerrillas

was also to produce later total war techniques. Barn-burning, looting, and

general devastation finally proved to be the one effective antidote of northern

armies, and it was such actions which eventually stopped both "irregular"

marauders and the war itself.

Mr. Jones is at his best when dealing with personalities. Adopting

Catherine Drinker Bowen's technique of superimposing contrived con-

versations upon historically accurate factual situations, he brings to life

such little-known figures as Elijah White, Harry Gilmor, John McNeill and

his son Jesse (who captured and carried off two Union major generals at

Cumberland, Maryland), and especially Turner Ashby, the legendary

gentleman farmer turned raider. Heroism prevails. Guerrilla activities along

the Baltimore & Ohio, well analyzed some years ago by Festus P. Summers,

are now integrated into the fast-moving narrative, and the Shenandoah

Valley reprisals of Sheridan come in for colorful treatment.

The book represents once again the type of historical study which the

commercial presses more and more are publishing and promoting, but when

academicians leave important research to the popularizers, they have no

choice but to accede graciously to the results and even to commercial success.

Ohio State University                            PAUL L. MURPHY

 

This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War. By

Bruce Catton. (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1956. ix??437p.;

bibliography and index. $5.95.)

To tell the story of the Civil War on 400 pages, in about 200,000 words,

as Bruce Catton tells it is no small accomplishment. Pulitzer Prize winner

and the man who won the National Book Award in 1954 for A Stillness at

Appomattox, Mr. Catton has written, in This Hallowed Ground, a thrilling

and unusual one-volume dramatization of the Civil War.

The development of the "Anaconda Plan" of northern over-all campaign

strategy provides an excellent bird's-eye view of the objectives set up early

in the war to bring victory to the Union. Frequent reference is made to that

basic plan as the story progresses through the forty-eight months of blood-

letting. It is a striking fact that this conception of General Winfield Scott

proved to be the basis of the federal war effort throughout. Mr. Catton does

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218     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

full justice to the over-all aspects of this gigantic strategy, which, like all

such early-conceived strategy, had to be changed many times and in many

details.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this book is the gifted author's

success in portraying the feelings, emotions, and everyday conversations of

the Union soldier. And at times he achieves the same feat of reporting those

aspects of the camp and field life of the Confederate warrior. This deep

insight into the day-by-day thinking and conversation of the "rookie"

volunteer and the battle-seasoned veteran alike lends interest to the tale and

makes the volume a vibrant, lively piece of reporting.

Bruce Catton, editor of that distinguished magazine of American history,

American Heritage, in giving us This Hallowed Ground has set a high

mark of achievement in writing Civil War history.

Worthington, Ohio                             WILLIAM R. COLLINS

 

The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865. By Dudley

Taylor Cornish. (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1956.

xiii??337p.; notes on sources, critical bibliography, and index. $6.00.)

This volume by Professor Dudley T. Cornish should serve not only as an

important source on the military history of the American Negro but also

as a medium for better race relations. The book is well written, properly

documented, and carries a wealth of information.

The essential value of this work stems, primarily, from the fact that it

deals with a military episode in the history of the Negro-American as a

separate and distinct development. It therefore avoids the weakness of other

rather inadequate attempts to deal with the Negro as a soldier which confuse

the picture with multiple issues.

There are several very good arguments that one could advance in supporting

a book like this one. First of all, the report appears to be fair and unbiased.

Such a requirement is certainly of the utmost importance, particularly when

dealing with the Negro as a military man. Even today there is still much

undue controversy surrounding the combat potential of the Negro soldier.

One who reads this portrayal of Negro combat performance in the Civil

War ought to enjoy some relief from these misgivings. This is indeed the

contention of the author, who feels that

 

without Battery Wagner, Brice's Cross Roads, Deep Bottom, Honey Springs,

Nashville, Petersburg, and Port Hudson, the American Negro must have

been excluded indefinitely from the rights and responsibilities of American

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BOOK    REVIEWS       219

 

citizenship. For him the Civil War was indeed a prodigious revolution. Had he

not fought his way into the Union Army, had he remained passive observer

instead of active participant, the history of the American people in general

and of the American Negro in particular must have been far different from

what it has been.

 

Professor Cornish says that approximately 180,000 Negroes served as

soldiers in the Union military arm during the Civil War. He relates that

these men served in capacities ranging all the way from menial labor to

experienced combat efficiency. A special emphasis is placed on combat per-

formance, because as Professor Cornish says, there is "much misconception,

misunderstanding, and misinformation" which has "grown up around the

Negro soldier" to twist and mutilate his true military history.

Another treatment by the author that deserves special attention is the

relationship between the development of overall administration policy and

the military policy permitting the incorporation of Negro troops as an

integral part of the military establishment. The reader gains additional insight

on the positive effect of the broadened Lincoln administration war aims

on the employment of the Negro as a soldier. This the author believes was

a necessary prerequisite for the use of the Negro as a part of the official

military establishment.

Reasons for the restricted overall policy at the outset are satisfactorily

dealt with. However, one wonders whether the indirect persuasion of Great

Britain through close British-Confederate relationship ought not to have

figured more prominently in policy change.

The discussion of radical, moderate, and conservative points of view are

both interesting and illuminating. Objectives and motives of the several

personalities, along with their varied thinking, is handled with considerable

fairness. The author does a good job in allowing these personalities to speak

for themselves.

The intricate task of raising, training, and organizing troops adds to one's

storehouse of knowledge. Prior treatment of this phase by other writers

was far too inadequate. It is to the everlasting credit of a host of individuals,

both Negro and white, that this long, drawn out, cumbersome undertaking

was accomplished to the benefit of the Union effort.

The book carries an excellent foreword and a most revealing critical

bibliography. It bids fair to allay fears and bring about a more healthy

understanding of the role of the Negro-American as a soldier participant

in the history of the United States.

Wilberforce University                           ARTHUR P. STOKES

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220     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Lincoln's Supreme Court. By David M. Silver. Illinois Studies in the Social

Sciences, Vol. 38. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956. ix??236p.;

frontispiece, appendix, bibliography, and index. Cloth, $4.00; paper,

$3.00.)

For the purist the title of this book is misleading--the court was not

Lincoln's until several weeks after his assassination, when the death of Justice

Catron gave Lincoln appointees a five to four majority. Rather this is a study

of the court while Lincoln was in the White House, with some reference to

post-Lincoln decisions, especially the Milligan case of 1866.

When Lincoln took the oath of office there was one vacancy, Justice

Daniel having died approximately ten months before. Only a few weeks

before Lincoln took office President Buchanan nominated his attorney general

for the position but at that late date, with several southern states having

already seceded, it was impossible to get a confirmation. Within a few weeks

two other vacancies developed, one through the death of Justice McLean and

the other through the resignation of Justice Campbell, who joined the

Confederacy. Of the six remaining justices, Silver says that three were friendly

to the Lincoln administration and three "were largely unfriendly" (p. 24).

Yet in what Silver calls "Their Gravest Decision"--the Prizes Cases--the

court, after three Lincoln appointees had been added, split five to four. One

of Silver's friendly justices voted against the administration. If President

Buchanan had nominated Jeremiah Black in May or June of 1860 instead

of the following winter, he would likely have been confirmed. With only

two Lincoln appointees on the bench by 1863, when the Prize Cases were

heard, the administration would have been pretty certain to have lost those

cases; or they would have been compelled to do more drastic packing than

just raising the number of justices to ten, as was being done even as the

decision was being written on those cases.

Until his death in the fall of 1864 Chief Justice Taney was the central

figure of the court. While the radical Republicans constantly fulminated

against him, those who met him regularly in the court grew to respect him.

Even Justice Miller (a Lincoln appointee), who later recorded that he had

hated Taney for his previous decisions, also recorded that he came to respect

and admire him; and Lincoln's attorney general, Edward Bates, also came

to appreciate him.

Silver titles his final chapter "Taney Absolved." It is well written, on the

whole, but seems to this reviewer to end with a very confused paragraph--

a confusion which creeps in elsewhere in the book:

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BOOK    REVIEWS       221

 

A "government of laws"--that was the object of Chief Justice Taney and

the object of President Lincoln as well. And that was the object of the

Supreme Court in the Milligan decision. In the broadest sense, the Milligan

decision stands as a monument to the man who strove for a "government of

laws" though the cause was not only unpopular but suspected, and the tide

ran against him and everything for which he stood. (p.236).

 

As Silver states on page 228, the Milligan case "called vigorously for a

return to constitutional guarantees. Taney's 'government of laws' was re-

stored." This plainly implies that "government of laws" did not exist when

Milligan was tried by a military commission. Since the military commissions,

as well as the withdrawal of the habeas corpus protection, against which in

the Merryman case of 1861 Taney used the phrase "government of laws,"

were the work of Lincoln, it seems hard to explain how he stood for govern-

ment of laws. On page 120 the author makes it clear that the administration

made clear the "contempt it felt for judicial authorities," hardly a state

of mind to show regard for government of laws.

The same careless thinking can be found on page 63: "Justice Swayne

[another Lincoln appointee] had an abiding interest in the subject of

arbitrary military arrests." To prove this point Silver refers to Swayne's

correspondence with President Lincoln in regard to the arbitrary military

arrest of a Mr. Harris. The justice wrote, in part, "Nothing but my firm

conviction of the innocence of the accused could have induced me thus to

interpose." It would appear that the justice had "an abiding interest in the

subject of arbitrary military arrests" of people he considered innocent.

Probably not all innocent people who were arbitrarily arrested by the military

under orders of the president had a powerful supreme court member to

intercede in their behalf.

There is an excellent chapter on the packing of the court. (Why is the

fact that Lincoln and the radicals enlarged the court so seldom mentioned

in the literature dealing with this period?) There is another on the attempts

of the extreme radical Republicans to destroy or further modify the court.

There are excellent sketches of the members of the court at the time and

accounts of the debates in congress relative to the court. The district court

system was completely overhauled during the war. There are accounts of the

work of the justices on circuit, although these accounts are largely limited

to war issues. Despite the weak spots mentioned there is much good material

in this study.

Hiram College                                        PAUL I. MILLER

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222     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The Years Were Good. By Louis B. Seltzer. Introduction by Bruce Catton.

(Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Company, 1956. 320p.;

illustrations, index, and biographical note about the author. $4.00.)

Fortunately, the buoyant "Louie" Seltzer, editor since 1928 of the

Scripps-Howard chain's Cleveland Press, did not put off the writing of his

first book another year. Thus the "lonely and unhappy" weeks, the "personal

suffering and emotional upset" (his words, quoted in Editor & Publisher for

December 1, 1956) of Cleveland's first Newspaper Guild strike last Novem-

ber, that started against his paper, could not leave their blemish on this

memoir with title connoting reflections in warm contentment.

Although Mr. Seltzer will not be sixty until September, he can reminisce

upon and look ahead from nearly forty-seven years of journalistic experience

--all of it in his native city. During those years since he left the seventh

grade for the newsroom of the old Leader he has recorded much home-town

history as it happened and, according to what one hears around town, has

in more mature years helped shape some of it.

Flashes of contemporary Cleveland history appear in The Years Were

Good--right down to the Sheppard murder case. But "Louie" Seltzer is not

writing history here. This is a personal review of his years as Clevelander

and newspaperman. The emphasis is on associations with people.

Besides himself and family, people of his home town who get into the

book include other newspaper personalities; Newton D. Baker, Harry L.

Davis, Fred Kohler, Maurice Maschke, Burr Gongwer, Ray T. Miller, and

other political figures; the Brothers Van Sweringen, Johnny Risko, and a

nameless ex-GI and wife who have just become parents of a congenitally

deformed infant which almost immediately becomes the "Heartache Baby"

in one of the Press-sponsored charitable promotions. Readers expecting an

intimate account of Frank J. Lausche's political progress from start to senate

by his good friend of the Press will find it, and also a fill-in on the career

thus far of a younger maverick, Mayor Anthony J. Celebrezze. There is

a longer and still more intimate account of the rising and passing of a

Clevelander who preserved the Old West in fiction, Charles Alden Seltzer,

the author's father.

In few places does the book reach beyond the bounds of the Cleveland

beat. There is one chapter on the Press's covering of that classic battle

fought in Toledo July 4, 1919, between Jess Willard and Jack Dempsey.

In another the scene shifts to Madison Square Garden, New York, where

the principal interest is the confirmation at the 1924 Democratic national

convention of a tip the author had received as payment of a long-standing

poker debt from an Ohio party strategist before leaving Cleveland. The tip:

John W. Davis "of Virginia" would emerge as a compromise candidate for

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BOOK    REVIEWS       223

 

president to break the deadlock between the McAdoo and Smith forces.

Twice in one paragraph, page 159, Davis is referred to as "of Virginia."

But reproduction of a Press clipping in the plate opposite page 128 shows that

Mr. Seltzer had him identified with the correct state when he wrote his

"big scoop" in 1924.

Chronology in The Years Were Good is hard to follow--if that matters

in a memoir--and in respect to some phases of the Seltzer career the

biographical note at the end of the book differs with the text. The essentials

of what the Cleveland editor has to say concerning his profession, his com-

munity, and his times are clear enough.

Marietta Daily Times                       ERMAN DEAN SOUTHWICK

 

Report of the Princeton Conference on the History of Philanthropy in the

United States. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1956. ⁸⁴p.; ap-

pendices and bibliography. $1.00.)

The conference whose deliberations are recorded in this Report met under

the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation in February 1956. Professor

Merle Curti served as chairman of the two-day meeting, which was attended

by other well-known historians and by representatives of the Ford and

Russell Sage foundations. The participants examined the ways in which

historical studies might elucidate the role of philanthropy in American

culture, suggested various approaches to the history of philanthropy, and

discussed methods of stimulating further research. Their conclusions, although

necessarily tentative and somewhat random, merit consideration by students

working in this field or contemplating entering it. Appended to the Report

are a list of possible research projects, a topical outline of American phil-

anthropy, and an extremely helpful bibliograpy (prepared by Margaret M.

Otto in consultation with F. Emerson Andrews) dealing with historical back-

grounds and current trends in philanthropy.

Ohio State University                          ROBERT H. BREMNER

 

Weddings in the Family. By Dale Fife. (New York: Farrar, Straus and

Cudahy, 1956. 248p.; illustrations. $3.50.)

With this work of a former Toledoan another delightful family scene

comes to light. The Houcks are not so brilliant nor eccentric as the families

in Cheaper by the Dozen or Life with Father, but they are lively enough

from Shatzie, who writes the book, right through to Uncle Theofil, who went

back to Alsace for his bride.

Theofil's wedding is only one of several which prompted the title

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224     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

"Weddings in the Family." Shatzie's mother came from Alsace and made

it her goal in life, as a Frenchwoman, to rescue her orphaned sisters and

brothers from Prussian rule. One by one these relatives came across "to get

to something" in the new land. Mama Houck considered the first step in

this procedure was to get the new immigrant married. As she hung up each

new wedding picture beside the one of her father in his French army

uniform, it was as if she said, "Well, now, and here we have again outwitted

Herr von Bismarck!"

Sometimes plans went amiss, as when the "tearful bride" was almost

paired with the wrong brother, and when Louis, cocksure as ever, arrived

to take Julie for a bride before he had even proposed. There was really

some excitement then, for German-speaking Frenchmen when excited "sound

like a bunch of firecrackers set off in a wash boiler."

There is some of the heartache of immigrants here. To the shiftless Grow

family that lived in a shack down in the hollow, these Alsacers were

"furners." And little Shatzie felt just as keenly the rebuff from the millionaire

Mama might have married, Mandell Karl. Karl had really "got to something,"

but when the Houcks visited him on his estate, they found themselves "fur-

ners" also. Uncle Theofil philosophized: An immigrant "is a man who has

come to this country with hands outstretched for something he could not find

in his native land. He must not come empty-handed. He must bring the best

of his culture. It would seem that Mandell Karl is ashamed of his beginnings.

He takes all. Gives nothing"

Toledoans will especially enjoy meeting the Houck family as it makes

its way through familiar turn-of-the-century scenes--the East Side, taking

the interurban out to a picnic grounds at Rattlesnakes Corners, riding free on

the city streetcar during Toledo's famous transportation war, going to

the zoo, the Casino, sliding down the hill of the "Hollow," visiting the

"Pond," attending their "German" church and visiting the "Irish" church

across town for Uncle Bertie's wedding, Cherry Street Bridge, Tiedtke's

store, and "Oh Yerra!" (to quote Mama Houck) so much more.

Toledo, Ohio                                   KATHRYN M. KELLER

 

Ships of the Great Lakes. Full-color drawings by Lemuel B. Line; text and

line drawings by Walter Buehr. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1956.

[⁴⁶p.]; map and illustrations. $2.75.)

An attractive, odd-sized book, ten inches wide by eight high, double-

columned, large type, with drawings interspersed in the text, its plan and

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BOOK    REVIEWS       225

 

general appearance indicate that it is designed for young readers. In the brief

forty-six pages it tells the story of the importance of lake shipping and of

the lakes themselves, reviews the history and legend of early days on the

lakes, names four milestones in lake navigation--The Walk-in-the-Water, the

Erie Canal, the ore discovery at Mesabi, and the building of the "Soo" locks--

and discusses Great Lakes shipping today at length.

It is quite an achievement in selectivity and one that the author has done

with admirable skill, writing with simplicity and accuracy. Boys will be

especially interested in how the great, modern freighters operate--the loading

and unloading of cargo, the size and speed of some of these lake giants, how

the crew live while on board, and what their duties are, and particularly what

the requirements are for getting a job on a lake ship.

The full-page color illustrations by Lemuel Line are scale drawings, from

the tug Louisiana to the bulk-ore carrier Wilfred Sykes. They first appeared in

Fortune Magazine. Walter Buehr has made the striking, clearly detailed,

black-and-white drawings which appear in the text.

Although chiefly suited to small boys with a yearning for boats and

sailing on the lakes, this book's attractive pages will make many a father

lean over his son's shoulder with a curious and interested eye.

Cleveland Public Library                            DONNA L. ROOT

 

The Road to Realism: The Early Years, 1837-1885, of William Dean

Howells. By Edwin H. Cady. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1956.

xii??283p.; bibliographical notes, index, and illustrated end papers.

$4.00.)

No American writer as distinguished as William Dean Howells has gone

so long without a full-scale biography. This book, the first of a two-volume

work, carries Howells through the writing of The Rise of Silas Lapham in

1885, when he was at the peak of his creative powers and the leading

American man of letters.

Mr. Cady's close-packed, scholarly volume does not alter our general under-

standing of the uncomplicated Howells, but it gathers and intelligently re-

flects upon all the scattered facts and critical views of him, and fills in some

hitherto blank spaces. The new Howells material begins with a detailed

chronicle--of special interest to Ohioans--of Howells' family and its news-

paper wanderings from St. Clairsville in 1831, to Mt. Pleasant, to Chillicothe,

to Cincinnati, to Martin's Ferry (then Martinsville), where the novelist

was born in 1837, to the Hamilton Intelligencer in 1840, to the Dayton

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226     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Transcript in 1849, to Eureka Mills, to Columbus, and to the Ashtabula

Sentinel in 1852, which the Howellses moved to Jefferson in 1853. Mr. Cady

has pored over the files of the Howells family newspapers, and his detailed

account of their make-up and that of the elder Howells himself is not only

interesting regional history but helps us to understand the mature William

Dean Howells' character, and the western tints in his personality and ideas.

Because of his family's need, young Will spent much of his boyhood at

the typesetter's case--probably a better education than the schools, either

then or now, could have given him. In studying Howells' literary beginnings

(which he wrote about in this magazine in January 1944), Mr. Cady has

sifted the young author's unpublished notebook and earliest printed pieces

for insights into his sensitive, even neurotic, nature. Drawing upon family

letters as well, and upon hundreds of other scattered sources for facts and

human interest, the biographer traces Howells' smooth, rapid rise from

country journalism to editorship of the majestic Atlantic Monthly in Boston--

a tale of talent, hard work, and fortunate timing.

Mr. Cady engagingly describes the Howellses' marriage in Paris, their

consular sojourn in Venice during the Civil War, their travels, their eight

homes in the twenty years following the war, and Howells' living and work-

ing habits. He retells the Ohioan's gradual acceptance, almost as an equal,

by the literary elite of Cambridge and Boston, of his delicate editorial

problems with them in the Atlantic, of his simultaneous closeness to such

howling opposites as young Henry James and red-headed Sam Clemens.

Finally, Mr. Cady reconstructs the gestation of Howells' novels, and writes

an analysis of each. He does not, however, deal much with literary theory,

presumably because Everett Carter did so at length in Howells and the Age

of Realism (1954).

Like any good biography, this book will arouse criticism by some of its

emphases and conclusions. It shows, for example, a persistent penchant for

amateur psychoanalysis, and it rather tends to see the elder Howells'

Swedenborgianism lurking in every shadow in his son's novels. More

important, it seems to this reviewer to be too uncritical about Howells' temper-

amental and artistic limits, and to overrate his dainty, dated, rather dull

fiction. After all, almost nobody but professors of English and their more

docile students read Howells any more; his novels in print are nearly all

textbook editions. And, good as it is, few who have taught The Rise of Silas

Lapham to college students--who object to its interminable scruples--will

agree with this biography that "it has endured with great vitality." It seems

likely that we will finally value Howells not so much for his fiction as for

his progressive leadership as editor and critic.

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BOOK    REVIEWS       227

 

But Mr. Cady, a professor of English at Syracuse University, has done

an accurate and useful job, and the concluding volume of his life of Howells

is awaited with interest. It may be mentioned, incidentally, that several other

scholarly books about Howells are appearing in 1957. Academically, at least,

the long-promised Howells "revival" has arrived.

University of Illinois (Chicago)                 JAMES B. STRONKS

 

Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West. By Elizabeth Jane Leonard and Julia

Cody Goodman. Edited by James Williams Hoffman. (New York: Library

Publishers, 1955. 320p.; illustrations, notes, Cody genealogy, Frederici

genealogy, bibliography, and index. $4.95.)

No American "good guy" ever won out over his "bad guys" with more

dash, more glamor, and more publicity than Buffalo Bill. And not just

sometimes but every time. When he finished doing his heroics on the prairies,

he did them all over again, twice every day (Sundays excepted) under canvas,

and for years.

His life as a frontiersman had enough death, danger, and daring to

satisfy even today's hardened (by now almost wizened, no doubt) TV

viewers. At least most of his biographers believe this, although a minority

view insists on a very heavy discount. In any case, no one disputes his hand-

some looks, his magnificent bearing, his horsemanship, and his showmanship.

No wonder that for thirty years his Wild West Show packed them in, that

every small boy and many grown ones hero-worshipped him with a fervor

intense enough for several Hopalong Cassidys.

Buffalo Bill's appeal was practically world-wide. As the authors of a

recent judicious study of him wrote, he "fixed the image of the Wild

West in the world's mind more vividly than Fremont the Pathfinder, Kit

Carson the Army Scout, Custer the Indian Slayer or their predecessors Daniel

Boone and Davy Crockett." (Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, by Henry

Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright. New York: Oxford University Press,

1955.) He has been the subject of some eight hundred books, nearly all

of them dime novels. The latter fact doubtless accounts for a considerable

part of his standing as a folk hero. Scholarly writers, like the two just

quoted, have also written admiringly of him.

The present book is the work of several hands. It was originally put on

paper by Julia Cody Goodman, Buffalo Bill's eldest sister, who wanted to

present to the public "the first true history of our family, especially the life

story of my famous brother."

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228    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

As a collaborator she chose Dr. Elizabeth Jane Leonard, former president

of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, author and editor of other

works on the American West. Dr. Leonard's contribution was to "revise and

rearrange for publication" what Mrs. Goodman had written. James Williams

Hoffman, one-time member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin,

as editor, then "collated and arranged, after research and authentication,

the material which [Mrs.] Goodman had furnished and which [Dr.]

Leonard had written so well." The finished work "bears the full endorse-

ment of the CODY FAMILY ORGANIZATION."

As an official biography (royalty has often had to be satisfied with worse)

this is no academic, well-rounded account of a colorful frontier and

theatrical figure of the not-so-long ago. It is, rather, a fairly successful

attempt to present a popular picture of Colonel William F. Cody as his

sister idealized him: the famous man "who loved and revered his mother

and his mother's God"; "the griefstricken father as he prayed"; "the

modest, kind, cheerful man" who loved the red man and loved children.

Perhaps that is after all the best way for most people (except dry-as-dust

historians and fellow meticulists) to think of Buffalo Bill. He is of far

greater importance as a symbol, a folk hero, than as a carefully dissected

character in history. Let's leave him in boyhood's happy hunting grounds,

not as he was but as he ought to have been.

Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana              WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN

Library Association

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