Book Reviews
Ohio Handbook of the Civil War. By Robert S. Harper. (Columbus:
Ohio Historical Society for the Ohio
Civil War Centennial Commis-
sion, 1961. 78p.; illustrations, map,
and bibliography. Paper, $1.00.)
This compact work is crammed with highly
useful information. Be-
ginning with Abraham Lincoln's earliest
appearances in Ohio before
the disruption of the Union, it covers
in rapid-fire fashion a wide range
of topics. Ohio's reaction to secession,
to the firing on Fort Sumter,
and the state's response to President
Lincoln's call for volunteers
plunge the Buckeye State into a most
active participation in the Civil
War.
Such diverse topics as Ohio troops in
the military campaigns, Ohio's
winners of the Congressional Medal of
Honor, the state's military
camps, its Civil War sites, its vigorous
war governors, William Denni-
son, Jr., David Tod, and John Brough,
its battle flags, and its two
Confederate cemeteries receive treatment
here. For internal action
within the state, the most interesting
sections describe the Jenkins raid
and the Morgan raid in fascinating
detail. A twenty-page list of Ohio
military units is especially helpful.
And the naming of Ohio generals
(defined as those who were born or lived
a part of their lives in Ohio)
is particularly impressive as the names
of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan,
McClellan, McPherson, Buell, and
Rosecrans are encountered.
One wonders about the rather random
organization of the volume,
and one wishes at points for fuller
detail. But as a "handy" handbook
for miscellaneous information, this book
will be welcomed by Ohio
Civil War fans during these centennial
years.
Los Angeles State College DAVID LINDSEY
Newton D. Baker: A Biography. By C. H. Cramer. (Cleveland:
World Publishing Company, 1961. 310p.;
illustrations, bibliography,
and index. $6.00.)
A full-length biography has long been
due one of Ohio's most dis-
tinguished citizens, Newton D. Baker.
The task has been admirably
BOOK REVIEWS 361
fulfilled by C. H. Cramer, professor of
history and dean of Adelbert
College of Western Reserve University.
This is not an "authorized
biography," although Dean Cramer
has made extensive use of the
Baker papers in the Library of Congress.
On the other hand, it is not
a "debunking" biography. The
author avoids both blind devotion and
picayune faultfinding. All of the major
criticisms that were leveled at
Baker in his lifetime are aired. The
worst canards uttered by unprin-
cipled opponents (for example, Henry
Ford's charge that Baker was
a Russian Jew, or George Harvey's that
Wilson had appointed a pacifist
as secretary of war) are easily disposed
of. Some of the others, how-
ever, represented an honest difference
of opinion (for example, the
critical commentary of Peter Witt and
Jack Raper); in these instances
Dean Cramer presents both sides and lets
the reader be the judge.
Baker, after all, withstood these
criticisms when living, and his reputa-
tion can withstand them today.
He had a superb mind, rare oratorical
gifts, a warm heart that made
him a devoted friend of Mayor Tom L.
Johnson, President Woodrow
Wilson, and Justice John H. Clarke, and
a generosity of spirit which
made it difficult for him to refuse a
request for public service. Baker's
life was in large measure dedicated to
the public service: secretary to
Postmaster General W. L. Wilson in
President Cleveland's administra-
tion, city solicitor of Cleveland, later
mayor of that city, and secretary
of war. Even after he turned to the
private practice of law, he con-
tinued to devote much time to public
causes: a trustee of seven col-
leges and universities, president of the
Association for Adult Educa-
tion, co-founder of the National
Conference of Christians and Jews,
member of the Wickersham Committee on
Law Enforcement, appointed
by three presidents to the Permanent
Court of Arbitration, and an
eloquent spokesman for the cause of the
League of Nations and the
World Court.
One-third of the book is devoted to
Baker's major service to the na-
tion as secretary of war from 1916 to
1921. Although this might sug-
gest an unnecessary duplication of the
work done by Frederick Palmer
in his earlier biography of Baker, which
concentrated altogether on the
war years, the approach of the two
authors is so different that the
second seems fresh rather than
repetitive. Whereas Palmer was descrip-
tive--reporting at length not only
Baker's views and actions but also
those of all others involved and quoting
extensively from speeches and
statements--Cramer is analytical and
much briefer--holding the spot-
light on Baker to assure that the
secretary of war emerges as the
362
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
dominant figure. Dean Cramer examines
and clears Baker of personal
responsibility for the most serious
charges directed against him:
America's unpreparedness in 1917 and
incompetence and extravagance
in the conduct of the war. The author
concludes that Baker's vital
role as secretary of war was as an
eloquent interpreter and arbiter
between the military establishment, on
the one hand, and the civilian
world of politicians, parents, and
special pleaders, on the other. He
successfully brought the draft law into
operation, created a wholesome
recreational environment for American
soldiers, and contributed by his
knowledge of labor conditions and labor
leaders to the elimination of
major strikes and lockouts in war
industries. Added to this was his
selection of military leaders like
Generals Pershing and March, his
unstinting support of them, and his
skill in dealing with the British
on shipping. Clearly, Baker was the
head, not the figurehead, of a
great and successful war enterprise.
Having become such a key participant in
big government during the
First World War, Baker surprised some of
his friends by his opposition
to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal,
fashioned on the assumption that
the national government had a
responsibility to act in the crisis of
the depression of the 1930's. But Baker
was unwilling to endorse an
extension of federal power beyond the
war itself. In all other situa-
tions he clung to the Jeffersonian brand
of liberalism which had been
his guide since college days, favoring
strong local government and weak
national authority. Many have insisted
that Baker, because he had
favored an extension of governmental
power at the city level when
he was city solicitor and then mayor of
Cleveland, should have approved
of an increase at the national level and
that he changed his mind be-
cause he represented the Van Sweringens
and other industrial leaders
in the 1930's and was also piqued by his
defeat by Roosevelt at the
Democratic convention in 1932. But there
is nothing logically incon-
sistent or intellectually dishonest in
his position. Rather what Baker's
position does reveal is a naivete in his
economic thinking and a Rip-
Van-Winkle attitude toward the situation
in which the nation found
itself at the height of the depression
crisis.
If his tenacious adherence to
Jeffersonian principles made him an
economic conservative in the latter
years of his life, Baker may still
be classified as a "liberal"
in his non-economic views: his support
of free speech (as counsel for newspaper
defendants in two contempt-
of-court cases), of personal liberty
(the "Jake the Barber" Factor
extradition case), of adult education,
which reflected his faith in the
BOOK REVIEWS 363
capacity of the common man, and of the
international peace movement
through the League of Nations and the
World Court. Again we see
the traits of liberalism in his concept
of the university as a place of
free inquiry and liberal learning, not
of vocational training, social drink-
ing, or the subsidizing of athletics.
Although so much is praiseworthy in this
book, there are certain
shortcomings. The writing, while always
clear and generally sprightly,
is marred by lapses in style--the use of
slang cliches and hackneyed
epithets (for example, characterizations
of Al Smith and Hoover on
p. 223). Long lists of references are
lumped in one footnote, making
it most difficult for the reader to
identify the sources of quotations.
There is no evidence that use has been
made of the comments Baker
wrote on the margin or fly-leaf of many
books in his personal library,
now the property of Western Reserve
University--a number of which
have been edited by Willis Thornton in Newton
D. Baker and His
Books. Had the author done so, he would have modified Baker's
un-
favorable reaction to the first volume
of The Intimate Papers of Colonel
House by adding Baker's notation that "the Second and
Third volumes
of these papers are written in a fine
spirit and are amazingly interest-
ing. They show both Wilson and House as
very great men." More-
over, in his effort to be brief, the
author has only skimmed over Baker's
period as city solicitor of Cleveland.
Not one of the myriad of cases
in which Baker defended the city in the
street-railway litigation is de-
scribed. Too much has been sacrificed to
hold down the size of the
book. But with these few caveats this
biography is highly recom-
mended as a sympathetic yet discerning
picture of Newton D. Baker.
Kenyon College HOYT LANDON WARNER
The American Historian: A
Social-Intellectual History of the Writing
of the American Past. By Harvey Wish. (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1960. viii??366p.;
bibliographic notes and index. $7.50.)
American teachers of history have a
particular stake in such a study
as this one by Professor Wish. They have
occasion to consult a variety
of sources for theses and projects:
multiple histories, like those by
George Bancroft and James Ford Rhodes;
strategic works, like those
identified with Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Sr., and Merle E. Curti. They
acquire impressions of the relative
weight of different historical writings,
attitudes toward such different
historians as Walter P. Webb and Louis
M. Hacker. Such a work as the present
one by Professor Wish can
364
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
help them to clarify the issues implicit
in both their preferences and
antipathies.
There are surprisingly few surveys of
American historiography. The
first major effort in the field was
Michael Kraus's The Writing of
American History (1937), which moved bravely through vast archives
of published history in order to render
an account of its achievements. H.
Hale Bellot, American History and
American Historians (1952) was
something of a tour de force by a
British scholar. Herman Ausubel,
Historians and Their Craft: A Study
of the Presidential Addresses of
the American Historical Association,
1884-1945 (1950), was a valuable,
if somewhat specialized, examination.
Professor Wish has made the most
determined effort to date to under-
stand trends in American historiography,
and to explain the "social
conditioning" which guided major
American historians. Thus, at the
very beginning, Puritan tenets firmly
direct William Bradford's pion-
eer labors in his Of Plymouth
Plantation, which combined valuable
information with somewhat less objective
evaluations of both Satan and
Thomas Morton of Merrymount. All this is
not too unexpected. But
the author also notes Bradford's
literary qualities and economic predil-
ections. This effort at a balanced
estimate informs his writing throughout
the volume.
The American Historian's most evident quality is temperateness. It
is easy to wax scornful over Jared
Sparks's notorious shortcomings. Un-
fortunately, too many practitioners who
are troubled by them have been
too busy to read Sparks. Professor Wish
has been more conscientious,
and has been made more mellow. But
though willing to accord credit--
often very generous credit--to
historians who have, for example, tam-
pered with facts (as with Bancroft) or
written from strictly biased
positions (as with the "unorthodox
Whig," Hildreth), he does not
avoid issues. In addition, he preserves
a democratic set of values which
can help, rather than hinder, the search
for accuracy.
Readers can gain from discussions which
do not emphasize, though
they note, the brilliance of Francis
Parkman's prose, the torrent of fresh
data which McMaster released from
untapped newspaper sources, the
magisterial concern for sources which
Channing invested in his great
history. Professor Wish appears to be
especially comfortable in his
description of the rise of social
history. The curious fact that McMaster
had a high interest in democratic goals,
yet was less than democratic
in his attitude toward humbler classes
of American society is brought
out. Also explained is the fact that
more substantial concern for the
BOOK REVIEWS 365
newer immigrant strains, as exemplified
in the History of American
Life series, resulted in better and
improved social history.
In general, Professor Wish emphasizes
the solid historians, who
undertook big tasks and dedicated years
of work to their consumma-
tion: historians, in addition to those
already mentioned, like Henry
Adams, Hermann von Holst, Charles M.
Andrews, Lawrence H. Gip-
son, and Allan Nevins. Some readers may
miss extended discussion
of modern historians presently deemed
more "stimulating," "evocative,"
and "original" than those this
work has preferred to stress. One might
ask, for example, how one would
distinguish a present-day "hypothesis"
from hypotheses which Professor Wish
takes seriously, like the all-
encompassing Turner thesis, or Beard's
economic interpretation. It is
well-known that Turner had not exhausted
archival materials before
delivering himself of his epochal
pronouncements; and that Beard him-
self underscored that he was no more
than offering suggestions and
inconclusive data for further
examination. The answer as to the differ-
ence between earlier and more recent
hypotheses would lie in Professor
Wish's own narrative. The great
conjectures were set off by a back-
ground of exhaustive labors: of
historians who worked large canvases
with industry as well as enthusiasm,
with special attitudes and preju-
dices, no doubt, but with a will to
prove their points and persuade their
readers. Whether their successors are
equally rooted in historical reali-
ties and integrated historical labors is
a subject which can profitably
engage readers of The American
Historian.
Antioch College Louis FILLER
The American Historical Association's
Guide to Historical Literature.
(New
York: Macmillan Company, 1961. xxxv??962p.; index.
$16.50.)
A small but distinguished group of
historians assembled in a room
of Chicago's Conrad Hilton Hotel on
December 27, 1953. They were
the members of the council of the
American Historical Association.
Their attention was focused on a letter
being read to them by the exe-
cutive secretary of the organization.
The letter, written by the Mac-
millan Company, suggested the time had
come for either reprinting or
revising the Guide to Historical
Literature. Without hesitation, the
members of the council approved a
resolution for the appointment of an
ad hoc committee to explore the possibility of undertaking a
revision.
Here then, the seed was planted that was
to bear fruit some seven
366
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
years later with the publication early
in 1961 of the new Guide to His-
torical Literature.
Thirty years have elapsed since the
appearance of the original Guide.
Because of the enormous amount of
history that had been made and
written in this period, the committee on
revision realized at once the
nature of the task before it: a simple
revision consisting of corrections
and additions would not suffice; the
need was for a completely new
Guide.
Under the competent direction of George
Frederick Howe, historian,
United States Department of Defense, the
committee devoted much time
and effort to devising a plan of
organization and procedure for the
new Guide. It solicited and
received a grant of $75,000 to finance the
preparation and publication of the
volume. It called for assistance upon
230 specialists in various fields of
history, appointing 50 of them to be
responsible for the sections into which
the Guide is divided. It engaged
the services of a central editor,
William C. Davis of George Washington
University, to coordinate the project.
To the central editor goes much
of the credit for the success of the
entire operation; his name, inci-
dentally, receives no mention in the
Introduction.
This reviewer can find no more accurate
words to describe the Guide
than those used by its board of editors:
"a bibliographic panorama as
well as an inventory of the best
historical literature at the time of com-
pilation." One can have confidence
that the 20,000 entries represent the
"best" by glancing at the
names of the board of editors and the con-
tributors. They are all eminent scholars
and experts in their respective
fields.
Historians, teachers, students, and
librarians justly acclaimed the
original Guide when it was first
published. The new Guide will no
doubt meet with an even more
enthusiastic reception. By devoting
much more space to the less familiar
areas of the world--Asia, Africa,
Slavic Europe--the present volume
reflects the political realities of
today. Its detailed table of contents,
virtual uniformity in the organi-
zation of the sections, complete index,
annotations combined with in-
dividual entries--all of these are
features which will make for even
greater facility in the use of the new Guide
as compared with the old.
To criticize in any way the particular
entries selected for inclusion
in the new Guide would require
bibliographic omniscience, a character-
istic not possessed by this reviewer. To
him it appears that the experts
have done their job well and that they
deserve the gratitude of the his-
torical profession. One can only hope
that the American Historical
BOOK REVIEWS 367
Association will demonstrate its full
appreciation of this fundamental,
monumental work by issuing periodic
supplements at regular intervals
of less than thirty years.
Ohio State University CHARLES MORLEY
Carl Becker: A Biographical Study in
American Intellectual History.
By Burleigh Taylor Wilkins. (Cambridge,
Mass.: M.I.T. Press,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and Harvard University Press,
1961. ix??246p.; frontispiece,
bibliography, and index. $5.50.)
Turner and Beard: American Historical
Writing Reconsidered. By
Lee Benson. (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press,
1960. xiii??241p.; appen-
dix and index. $5.00.)
In the late 1930's Charles A. Beard
observed--somewhat caustically--
that "European disturbances in
thought will find their loudest echoes
here after the lapse of thirty or forty
years. If this conjecture is cor-
rect," he said, "then the
problems that disturbed Croce about 1912
may become insistent in the United
States about 1950." This provoca-
tive Beardian paradox is, however,
basically inaccurate. The crisis
of the historical conscience had for
many years prior to 1940 been
developing within the ranks of a select
group of American historians,
led by James Harvey Robinson, the
originator of the New History,
his sometime student Carl L. Becker, and
Charles Beard himself. This
crisis reached its maturity in 1946 with
the publication of the Social
Science Research Council's Bulletin 54
on Theory and Practice in
Historical Study. Since then historians have studied the careers of
Robinson, Becker, and Beard with a
meticulousness that reaches hagio-
graphical proportions. Becker's latest
biographer, Burleigh T. Wilkins,
for example, explored the Becker, Burr,
and Hull papers at Cornell
for gleanings not brought to light by
his immediate predecessors, Char-
lotte Smith and Cushing Strout; tracked
down the family papers of
many of Becker's relatives and
colleagues; and, with painstaking
devotion, ably summarized for the layman
the main body of Becker's
writings.
Wilkins approaches the study of Becker's
ideas chronologically,
beginning with a careful delineation of
the formative years. The crucial
moment in Becker's intellectual
development occurred in his early
twenties (a fact not made very clear by
Wilkins), when faced with a
choice between the vita activa and
the vita contemplativa Becker selected
the latter. His choice was deeply
influenced by his teachers, Frederick
368
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Jackson Turner, Charles Homer Haskins,
and James Harvey Robinson.
Turner's devotion to the historical
craft (a point brought out by Lee
Benson), Haskins' espousal of the
"ideal of critical scholarship," and
Robinson's enthusiasm for the "New
History" of the social sciences
presented a combination of talents that
the young historian found
irresistible. For years Becker worked
under the shadow of these titans.
Only in 1910 was his intellectual
tutelage finally and dramatically
ended. In that year, while still a young
professor at the University of
Kansas, he published his intellectual
declaration of independence entitled
"Detachment and the Writing of
History," in which he asked the
ancient question, "What is Truth"
-- or, in this instance, "What is
Historical Truth?" In 1910, posing
such a question was like shouting
"the Emperor has no clothes"
at a profession that had long since
arrived at the truth, and had done so
scientifically. The so-called
scientific method can best be described
as the patient amassing of reams
of footnotes that somehow in the process
of being gathered reveal to
the researcher patterns of the truth by
a process of historiographical
epiphany. These scientific historians,
termed by Beard the American
Rankeans, or better, the American
neo-Rankeans, interpreted Ranke's
injunction, wie es eigentlich
gewesen, with pathetic narrowness. Natur-
ally they resented being told by a young
Kansas professor that objective
history was a will-o'-the-wisp, that
they themselves were captives of
their own predilections, creatures
confined to a particular time, place,
and circumstance, forever barred from
seeing the historical past "as it
actually happened." Yet Becker's
own intellectual pattern was set: he
remained until his death a prober, a
questioner, a searcher after the
truth, who summarized his position by
saying that "the most intriguing
aspect of history turns out to be
neither the study of history nor history
itself . . . but rather the study of
historical study."
The apogee of Becker's career came in
the early 1930's with his
election to the presidency of the
American Historical Association and
with the publication of his best book, The
Heavenly City of the Eight-
eenth-Century Philosophers. Becker sympathized deeply with the
humanitarian crusade of the
eighteenth-century rationalists. Yet, for
all his understanding of the age of
reason, he failed to discern that
beneath the philosophe's mask of
witty cynicism and clever paradox
lay an awareness of the tragic sense of
life, an awareness that animated
their writings and gave serious purpose
to their proposals for reform.
Indeed, the Voltaires, Montesquieus,
Diderots, and their followers
BOOK REVIEWS 369
repeatedly suggested hard-headed,
practical measures for the amelio-
ration of man's poverty and the
restoration of his individual dignity.
But they often did so with a profound
sense of pessimism that stemmed
from their realization of the facts of
life, of man's inhumanity to man,
of his bigotry, cupidity, callosity.
This side of the Enlightenment, the
more complex, tragic side, has, since
Becker's essay appeared, been
described by Friedrich Meinecke, Ernst
Cassirer, Paul Hazard, and
Peter Gay, who have restored to the
period its true dimensions. Yet,
for all The Heavenly City's parochial
limitations, Becker produced in
his essay a remarkable tour de force,
which has outlasted many of its
weightier competitors simply because it
asked significant questions.
Becker's answers may have been wrong,
but it was the quality of rest-
less searching, the use of daring
juxtaposition and ironical twists, that
were his major contribution to the study
of the Enlightenment and,
indeed, to the historical profession as
a whole. It is an illusive heritage,
but none the less, a real one.
Wilkins' account of this heritage is,
withal, rather prosaic. He follows
his sources relentlessly but with little
imagination; seldom does he rise
above his materials to view the whole
man. Perhaps it would have
been better had he approached the study
of such a mercurial person as
Becker by the topical method rather than
the chronological--anything
to get away from the overpowering sense
of detail that obscures rather
than illuminates the reader's path to an
understanding of one of the
greatest of the latter-day philosophes.
To turn from the writings of Becker to
those of Beard is like stepping
out of the muted, diffused light of a
late eighteenth-century drawing room
into the clamor and iridescence of a
twentieth-century emporium. Where
Becker is hesitant, uncertain,
questioning, Beard is certain, positive,
insistent. Where Becker uses the rapier
of wit, Beard employs the
sledgehammer of unsmiling certitude. Yet
Beard's contributions to
the historical profession are no less
impressive than those of Becker:
from his seminal ideas on the American
Revolution has arisen a historio-
graphical controversy (well defined by
Lee Benson) that has kept a crop
of young scholars busy for years; from
his writings on the origins of
World War II has sprung a rather
unscholarly, if not ungentlemanly,
exchange of verbal blows that still
raises the ire of many historians;
and finally, from his writings on the
philosophy of history (abetted by
Becker), has arisen an awareness among
many American historians of
the need for a critical examination of
the philosophic presuppositions
370 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
held by members of their own craft.
Together, Beard and Becker were
Nestors of their profession, who posed
questions that will keep their
epigoni at work for another generation
or two.
Ohio State University JOHN C. RULE
Cultural Life of the New Nation,
1776-1830. By Russel Blaine Nye.
The New American Nation Series, edited
by Henry Steele Commager
and Richard B. Morris. (New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1960.
xii??324p.; illustrations, bibliography,
and index. $5.00.)
The exacting standards set by earlier
volumes in the New American
Nation series, edited by Henry Steele
Commager and Richard B.
Morris, have been maintained in this
readable book by Russel B. Nye,
chairman of the English department at
Michigan State University and
well known for his study Midwestern
Progressive Politics and his
biography of George Bancroft. The
Cultural Life of the New Nation
falls naturally into two parts, the
first a consideration of those aspects
of the eighteenth-century enlightenment
which had relevance for the
American experience, and the second, a
description of the growth of
our culture in the formative years of
the young republic. There are
fascinating chapters on science and the
organization of scientific knowl-
edge after 1776, the social structure in
the early 1800's, the growth of
educational institutions, the religious
ferment and the expansion of
American Protestantism, the first steps
toward a national literature,
and the search for an American style in
art and architecture.
Nye has done particularly well in
delineating those aspects of the
Enlightenment which took root in
American soil. He points out how
misleading it is to picture
eighteenth-century America as simply a
reflection of eighteenth-century Europe.
Through copious quotations
he shows what Thomas Jefferson, Thomas
Cooper, James Otis, Joel
Barlow, and others meant when they used
such terms as Nature and
the Great Chain of Being. He traces the
impact of Romanticism on
certain aspects of the American scene,
pointing out that the Romantic
movement in the United States tended to
be more individualistic and
more democratically based than it was in
European countries.
If there is any single thesis for this
book, it is that Americans in their
art, literature, education, indeed in
all aspects of their cultural life,
sought to develop a sense of identity,
to foster what was unique in the
American experiment, to emancipate
themselves intellectually after
winning political freedom, and to make
the nation's adolescence a period
BOOK REVIEWS 371
of both creative rebellion and cultural
dependence on the heritage of
western civilization. Nye calls the
years from 1776 to 1830 "a period
of contradictions." It was a
self-conscious era, in which many aspects of
our environment, physical and
psychological, contributed to the shaping
of American nationalism. He shows why
Americans looked upon their
country as an asylum, a place where new
political and social concepts
could flourish.
There are only a few faults to find with
this book. Nye makes exten-
sive use of secondary rather than
primary sources. He omits reference
to the contributions of business and law
to the social life of this period.
In his chapter on religion, there is
only passing mention of the Plan
of Union of 1801. In his account of the
Second Great Awakening, he
does not make a sufficiently clear-cut
distinction between eastern and
western revivalism. In his brief account
of Charles Brockden Brown,
America's first professional novelist,
he has obviously ignored the
biographies by Clark and Warfel.
Although he devotes ample attention
to Washington Allston, John Adams, Joel
Barlow, and Timothy Dwight,
he slights Eli Whitney, Horace Bushnell,
and Herman Melville. The
bibliography is selective, not
exhaustive.
On balance, however, this is a
well-written account of an important
period in our past and a useful addition
to a noteworthy series.
Lafayette College CHARLES C. COLE, JR.
The Federalist Era, 1789-1801. By John C. Miller. The New Ameri-
can Nation Series, edited by Henry
Steele Commager and Richard B.
Morris. (New York: Harper and Brothers,
1960. xv??304p.;
illustrations, map, bibliography, and
index. $5.00.)
The first decade of America's national
history is as significant,
exciting, and crucial as certain later
periods our historians seem to have
favored. Issues of fundamental
importance--constitutional interpreta-
tions, federal relations, neutrality,
finance, and civil liberties--were
debated with zest and then venom, and
from these debates political
parties emerged and precedents were
established. It was an age of
giants. What other period has produced
the stellar constellation of the
1790's? Washington, Adams, Hamilton,
Jefferson, Madison, and a
host of lesser lights invest the
political quarrels of that era with
philosophical dignity. Their conflicting
personalities enliven and spice
the drama; but it is to their obvious
intellectual superiority and dedi-
cation that we can accredit the enduring
importance of that age.
372 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
For some time now we have lacked a
first-rate work of synthesis,
particularly since younger scholars--for
example, James M. Smith on
the alien and sedition acts, Noble E.
Cunningham on the early history
of the Republican party, and so
forth--have contributed important
additions to or re-interpretations of
our knowledge of this period. Pro-
fessor John C. Miller fulfills this need
with impressive scholarship
and felicitous style.
Professor Miller displays no particular
partiality to either the Feder-
alist or Republican position, a flaw
difficult to avoid and one which has
led to emotionally biased distortions
(to be found, for example, in the
writings of Claude Bowers). His
expositions of Hamiltonianism and
Jeffersonianism are clear and balanced;
he has not been caught up in
the purple rhetoric. This objectivity
does not preclude Professor Miller
from taking a position on matters in
dispute. For example, his interpre-
tation of the Antifederalists (pp. 20-25)
is questionable, though not
necessarily incorrect. Can he prove that
"some Antifederalists" were
"chagrined" at the bill of
rights; that "they perceived that they had
been outmaneuvered by Madison"? I
would imagine the Antifederalists
welcomed the bill of rights, though some
would have preferred further
amendments. Or, to select another
example, historians divide on the
relative importance of Jefferson and
Madison in America's early history.
Of late there has been a Madisonian
revival, an effort to redress the
imbalance of attentions devoted to
Jefferson. Miller agrees, and states
(p. 103) that "part of the
reputation Jefferson enjoyed as a leader of
the Republican party was owing to the
assiduity with which Madison
acclaimed him as a paragon of virtue and
wisdom. . . . If the reward
had gone to the man who had done most
for the Republican party,
James Madison would have been its first
candidate for the Presidency."
The reviewer feels the imbalance has
been more than corrected.
The book, I am sorry to say, is both
overfootnoted and poorly foot-
noted. The reviewer is properly
impressed with the fantastic number of
sources utilized; and distressed that
the footnotes fail to specify in
exactly which source a particular
quotation will be found.
In brief, The Federalist Era is a
highly successful synthesis, well
written, refreshing in its judgments,
and to be ranked among the best
of the New American Nation series.
Montana State University MORTON BORDEN
BOOK REVIEWS 373
The New Nation, 1800-1845. By Charles M. Wiltse. The Making of
America Series, edited by David Donald.
(New York: Hill and
Wang, 1961. xii??237p.; bibliographical
essay and index. $4.50.)
This book by the distinguished
biographer of Calhoun is a slender
volume in the new series entitled The
Making of America. Each volume
in the projected set is designed to
bring the "best of historical scholar-
ship . . . to the general reader."
It is apparent that Wiltse undertook a
staggering task, for he
attempted to blend the major economic,
intellectual, and social develop-
ments into a short account that is
grounded in the political history of
the epoch. As might be expected, the
section devoted to intellectual
and social movements, other than the
antislavery crusade, is a sequence
of hurried paragraphs. Those concerned
with painting, architecture,
belles-lettres, Mormonism, and the most
significant humanitarian re-
forms are so brief that the narrative is
thinner than that found in a
solid textbook. The handling of some
questions, such as the utopian
experiments of the age and education, is
more detailed and suggestive.
The inadequacy of the section is
counterbalanced by the stronger treat-
ment of the slavery controversy during
this pivotal period.
The chapters on the main political and
economic currents of the era
are the product of a confident author.
He touches on every important
development in the years under consideration.
On the whole, his sense
of proportion is sound. Without
detailing all of the strong sections,
mention might be made of the account of
the second Bank of the
United States and banking in general, of
the spirit of New England
during the War of 1812, and of the
various facets of the tariff question.
The study is so compressed,
nevertheless, that anyone familiar with the
period will be constantly frustrated by
the omission of essential material
or qualifications that would give
greater depth and balance to the book.
Certain of Wiltse's conclusions and
lines of emphasis can hardly fail
to disturb the serious student. The role
of labor in the Locofoco leader-
ship is overemphasized, and one wonders
if the North-South alliance
in the Democratic party was
"dissolved" by the admittedly crucial vote
taken on the tariff of 1842. His
judgment that the cautious Monroe-
Adams policy toward revolutionary Latin
America, while working for
a Florida treaty, was successful with
regard to Florida only because
Britain was herself cautious toward the
Spanish colonies, is unsatis-
factory. Wiltse stresses the theme of an
emerging nationalism through-
out the period, but his account points
to his conclusion that the "half
a century between the Kentucky
Resolutions and the Oregon settlement
374
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
was characterized by sectional strife
and sectional compromise." His
assertion that Webster's speeches in
1830 and Jackson's proclamation
of 1832 destroyed nullification and
"the whole states rights dogma from
which it was derived" is offset by
the attention given to Calhoun's
senate resolutions of 1838, and the
obvious fact that the dogma of state
sovereignty was not dead.
Although the work is aimed at a wide
audience, it is lamentable that
no contemporary portraits, drawings, or
political cartoons are to be
found in the book. Their absence,
coupled with the omission of a good
series of maps, weakens the study in
this reviewer's opinion. In the
same vein, the decision to print the
book without footnotes, while it
will be praised by many readers,
deprives even the casual student of
an opportunity to get at the scholarly
foundations of any particular
section of the work. An extensive,
critical bibliography of twenty-nine
pages is an asset for every class of
readers. Although written in an
easy style, this book offers little for
the serious student of the period
and has limitations for the general
reader.
Ohio Wesleyan University RICHARD W. SMITH
The Stakes of Power, 1845-1877. By Roy F. Nichols. The Making of
America Series, edited by David Donald.
(New York: Hill and
Wang, 1961. x??246p.; maps,
bibliographical note, and index. $4.50.)
This small volume inaugurates The Making
of America series in
American history, published by Hill and
Wang under the general
editorship of David Donald. Its six
projected volumes, of which The
Stakes of Power is the fourth in the chronological sequence, will span
the whole of the nation's experience.
For a series designed to bring the
best in historical scholarship to the
general reader, this is an auspicious
beginning indeed.
In accordance with its title, this book
pursues as its central theme the
almost revolutionary shift in the
location and purpose of political power
in the United States between 1845 and
1877. Until the eve of the
Civil War the South had control of
national policy, wielding its
authority through its dominance of
congress and the Democratic party.
As the chief inheritors of Jacksonian
laissez-faireism, southern spokes-
men sought primarily to defend the
country's agricultural interests. By
1877 national leadership had been
transferred to the captains of the new
industrialism. The new coalition of
southern conservatives, intellectual
successors of the prewar southern Whigs,
and northern Republicans
BOOK REVIEWS 375
appeared quite capable of determining
the future course of national
policy.
Without the Civil War this triumph of
whiggery would have been
slow and faltering at best, for it was
the sectional cataclysm that separ-
ated the southern agrarians from their
northern colleagues and reduced
the power of Jacksonianism in American
life. By 1861 politicians,
North and South, had exploited sectional
issues with such fantastic
success that they were powerless either
to retreat or to move forward.
Their very success had cast the nation
adrift, waiting for some crisis
that would shatter the uneasy peace. The
occasion for civil war hap-
pened to be the bombardment of Fort
Sumter. Of this outbreak of
hostilities Dean Nichols writes:
"Pride, politics, patience, prudence,
pique, petulance, and plotting had all
been mixed up in a highly complex
emotional melange. One safe
generalization remained: nobody planned
it that way" (p. 100). The author
traces the war years in four chapters,
effectively devoting one chapter to each
year. His final four chapters
relate the history of northern and
southern reconstruction.
Those who would expect an excellent and
thoughtful portrayal of
these middle years from the pen of Dean
Nichols will not be disap-
pointed. In style and character the
volume tends toward narrative
rather than analysis. Its
generalizations follow established patterns.
Because it includes social, military,
diplomatic, economic, and intellec-
tual as well as political history, its opening
chapters do not reveal the
full impact of successive events in the
sectional struggle. In keeping
with his theme, the author is less
concerned with offering specific or
unique explanations for the coming of
the Civil War than with tracing
the changing structure of national
politics. Yet the varied material has
been blended so carefully and the course
of shifting power rendered
so apparent that there is little of
major significance left unnoticed in
the history of these formative years.
The author has remained remark-
ably impartial, and he has written with
a clarity and sense of excitement
which reflects well the drama of the
Civil War era.
University of Illinois NORMAN A. GRAEBNER
The Anatomy of American Popular
Culture, 1840-1861. By Carl Bode.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959. xxi??292p.;
illustrations, note on the sources, and
index. $6.00.)
In commenting upon the meaning of the
word culture in his title,
Mr. Bode singles out two general
definitions of the term: the anthro-
376
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
pologist interprets it as "the sum
of man's learned activities"; the
literary historian describes it as
everything in print. Mr. Bode's appli-
cation of the term lies somewhere
between the two, he believes, as the
statement of his three aims indicates:
"To paint, in panoramic fashion,
a picture of our popular fine arts of
the 1840's and 1850's in all their
unexpected richness. To try with the
eyes of that time to search out,
assemble, and display the most prominent
varieties of works in print.
And to suggest how the American
character may have revealed itself
through its cultural preferences."
It seems, however, that Mr. Bode's
idea of culture is closer to that of the
literary historian, since about
two-thirds of his book is devoted to
popular publications of the two
decades before the Civil War, while the
remainder is divided among
drama, music, architecture, and visual
arts.
These subjects occupy the chapters of
the first part of the book,
under the general title, "The
Public's Arts." Popular melodramas like
W. H. Smith's The Drunkard, Bulwer's
The Lady of Lyons, and Dr.
R. M. Bird's The Gladiator are
featured in a discussion of the stage,
while Lowell Mason, Stephen Foster, and
the popular Scandinavian
visitors Ole Bull and Jenny Lind, serve
as examples of the musical
taste of the time. A survey of domestic
architecture considers the
vogue of the Gothic, the Greek Revival,
and the Italian modes in the
absence of anything resembling an
authentic native style. In the most
interesting chapters of this section,
those dealing with painting and
sculpture, the realistic and humorous
genre painting of Mount and
Bingham stands beside the historical
works of Emanuel Leutze, a once
enormously respected product of the
Dusseldorf school, now best known
for his "Washington Crossing the
Delaware." In sculpture, Hiram
Powers' genteel neo-classical nude,
"The Greek Slave," was a sensa-
tional success, and Mr. Bode speculates
upon some of the reasons for
its impact upon the American public.
A little-known phenomenon of the time
was the art association,
which issued a magazine to its members
and distributed works of art
through annual lotteries. Two of these
organizations, the American
Art Union and the Cosmopolitan Art
Association, flourished succes-
sively during the 1850's.
Of the remaining chapters, most are
given over to a discussion of
books and periodicals--mostly
books--published during the twenty-year
period. Mr. Bode's method of surveying
the many types of fictional
and non-fictional works is to present
plot summaries or descriptions
of the contents of representative
selections, together with some con-
BOOK REVIEWS 377
sideration of the reasons for their
popular appeal. The publications
include temperance novels, a genre in
which even Walt Whitman tried
his hand in a work best forgotten, but
which is more familiarly repre-
sented by T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights
in a Bar-Room. A description of
the activities of the enterprising
American Tract Society testifies to
the importance of the evangelical
religious press. The discussion of
the popular novel published and sold in
parts features such English
favorites as Scott and Dickens rather
than American authors, although
George Lippard's lurid Gothic novel of
Philadelphia, The Quaker City,
is introduced. Lippard's proletarian
sympathies set him apart from
most of his American contemporaries; Mr.
Bode considers them in
some detail and emphasizes the factor of
class feeling in this chapter
on the novel of the 1840's. In curious
contrast to this approach, an
elementary discussion of Jungian
archetypes (the "anima," the "ani-
mus," the "wise old man,"
the "earth mother") is provided as a per-
spective in the chapter dealing with the
domestic novel of the 1850's,
of which the most famous was Mrs.
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. A
chapter on travel literature describes
the contributions to this type by
Dana, Melville, and Bayard Taylor, while
the depressing state of popu-
lar verse (Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney,
Mr. Longfellow) receives
attention in a chapter appropriately
entitled "The Sentimental Muse."
Longfellow, whom Mr. Bode recognizes as
America's most popular
poet, is usually regarded as having had
a cultural influence comparable
to that of the author of the McGuffey
readers. Yet the discussion of
this "household poet" is
devoted to his remarkably shrewd marketing
techniques, while the question of the
relation of his poetry to his culture
is ignored.
Mr. Bode's work, which is based largely
on original sources and on
a viewing or reading of representative
works, is a useful and interesting
survey--selective rather than
exhaustive--of "our popular fine arts."
It is questionable, however, whether it
is an anatomy of popular culture,
as its title claims. If an anatomy is
understood as a close analysis of
the ideas and values underlying cultural
phenomena, Mr. Bode's inter-
pretation is hardly intensive or
consistent enough to justify the term.
The reader is also left with the sense
of intentions acknowledged but
unrealized. In his prefatory remarks,
Mr. Bode speaks of a pattern of
cultural change and development
occurring in the very important period
of his study: "It might almost be
said that the United States was a
simple nation culturally when the
'forties began and a complex one
when the 'fifties ended. This was a time
of maturing, a time when our
378
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
culture first assumed its modern
shape." Yet the book as a whole does
not provide a systematic analysis of the
complexity of American culture
or of its growth and maturation.
Syracuse University WALTER SUTTON
The Rising American Empire. By Richard W. Van Alstyne. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1960.
xi??215p.; maps and index.
$6.00.)
From its beginnings the United States
was an imperial power. This
is the conclusion of Professor R. W. Van
Alstyne of the University of
Southern California in his new book The
Rising American Empire.
The expansionist impulse stirred the
ambitions of the first colonists on
these shores, Mr. Van Alstyne holds, and
"when the United States
started its career as an independent
state its growth pattern was fully
established and visible to far-seeing
leaders." The expanding frontier
of the new republic did not follow a
simple westward path by land
across the continent: "As a coastal
country of the eighteenth century,
the United States looked seaward as well
as landward, and the paths of
its growing empire in the nineteenth
century stretched out to sea as
well as across the continent."
The idea that the New World was destined
as the exclusive domain
of English-speaking stock was an article
of faith among the colonists
who settled the North Atlantic seaboard.
After independence, the found-
ing fathers of the new United States
retained this belief that the conti-
nent belonged, as of right, to the
people of the thirteen colonies. Step by
step the American republic pushed
westward, until with the Mexican
War the territorial expanse of the
United States reached from coast to
coast. Less successful was the thrust
northward. Amid the very
struggle for independence, the Americans
aspired to seize Canada. Time
and again in the years that followed,
the expansionist tide threatened
to overflow the northern boundary and
engulf the entire continent.
But this northward advance was delayed
long enough by internal dis-
sension and civil war for a rival
nationalism--a Canadian nationalism--
to solidify and block further American
expansion.
Continental expansion provided one focus
for American imperial
ambitions; another lay southward in the
Carribbean. Cuba, Jefferson
prophesied, was destined to come beneath
the stars and stripes, and
the Monroe Doctrine marked off the
"Western Hemisphere" as an
exclusive American sphere of interest.
The war with Mexico gave
BOOK REVIEWS 379
impetus to these ambitions for turning
the Caribbean into an American
lake, but the slavery controversy
blocked action. The bids by Secretary
of State Seward and then by President
Grant after the Civil War to
resume expansion southward into the
Caribbean came to nothing. Not
until the end of the century did the
imperialist tide run strongly again.
Then the Spanish-American War made the
United States the dominant
power in the Caribbean. Britain
recognized this country's hegemony in
the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and one after
another of the Caribbean
republics fell under the suzerainty of
the colossus of the north in the
years that followed.
The Spanish-American War marked the
culmination of a third
historic expansionist drive--the thrust
westward across the Pacific to
China. As early as the 1780's, Yankee
traders sailed the Pacific to join
in the scramble for the wealth of Asia.
The interest in the Oregon
country and California reflected not so
much the land hunger of the
frontiersman as the ambition of the
seaboard merchants of the east
coast to annex those windows opening on
the great trade marts of the
Orient. With this newly acquired
frontage on the Pacific came new
appetites--the opening of Japan, the
purchase of Alaska, repeated bids
to annex Hawaii. But the sectional
conflict before the Civil War and
popular indifference afterward stalled
this drive until the end of the
century, when the Spanish-American War
carried the United States
to the doorstep of China. The
acquisition of the Philippines was no
"great aberration," Professor
Van Alstyne concludes. "It was, rather,
the climax to the drive for wealth and
influence in east Asia that had
started in the eighteenth century."
The present book--an outgrowth of the
Commonwealth Fund Lec-
tures which the author delivered at
University College, London, in
1956--contains many keen insights and
suggestive conclusions. This
reviewer, however, believes that
Professor Van Alstyne has overstated
the importance of conscious planning in
American expansionism. There
were aspiring geopoliticians aplenty
with grandiose schemes, and their
influence frequently reached into high
places, including the White
House; even more important, there was
throughout most of American
history a readiness by the American
people and its leaders to seize
whatever boons providence had to bestow.
Providence is an apt word
here; much of American expansion had a
providential quality. Take
the Louisiana Purchase, for instance.
The Americans grasped the
opportunity when presented, but can
hardly be said to have made the
opportunity. Even more to the point is
the Spanish-American War.
380
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Whatever the large-policy adherents may
have had in mind (and this
is by no means clear), the country as a
whole, and its responsible
leaders, blundered half-wittingly into
war. Perhaps Mr. Van Alstyne
felt that in a brief series of lectures
he should focus upon the less
familiar aspects of the story. The
result makes provocative reading--
but his book is scarcely the final word
on American expansionism.
Ohio State University JOHN BRAEMAN
Pen Pictures of Early Western
Pennsylvania. Edited by John W.
Harpster. (Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1938.
Facsimile reprint edition, 1960.
xv??337p.; maps, annotated bibli-
ography, and index. $5.00.)
The Keelboat Age on Western Waters. By Leland D. Baldwin. (Pitts-
burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1941. Facsimile reprint
edition, 1960. xiv??268p.; end-paper
map, illustrations, bibliography,
and index. $5.00.)
The University of Pittsburgh Press has
reprinted by facsimile two
of its earlier publications. Over two
decades have not affected the worth
of Pen Pictures; nor in about the
same span of time has subsequent
research added significantly to the
subject matter of the Keelboat Age.
Harpster combed through the accounts of
travelers who pushed west-
ward across the Appalachian Mountains.
He excerpted parts of thirty-
eight that concern western Pennsylvania,
which, according to his map,
includes a little less than the western
half of the state. The wide variety
of observers and their accounts are not
just a hodge-podge. By careful
selection and with editorial context
Harpster has reconstructed the
story of the development of western
Pennsylvania from 1748 to 1829.
That the literary quality of the
accounts varies widely and that the
observations omit much one might wish
were included are of little conse-
quence. What is important is that
generally these are eyewitness
accounts, significant raw material from
which history is reconstructed.
For example, Conrad Weiser tells of his
1748 mission to woo the Ohio
Indian trade from the French. Father
Bonnecamps, chaplain and map
maker on the lead plate planting Celeron
expedition, writes of the French
effort to assert ownership in the Ohio
country. James Smith, a member
of the Braddock expedition who was
captured by the Indians, lived to
recount his experiences. William Trent,
in command of the militia,
details the siege of Fort Pitt during
the Pontiac affair. George Wash-
BOOK REVIEWS 381
ington confides to his diary the problem
of squatters on his western
lands; James Elliot relates the life of
a soldier in the Whiskey Rebellion;
John May records the trials and
tribulations of a Boston merchant
launching his goods on western waters
for the Marietta settlement;
Benjamin Rush so observes the methodical
development of the frontier
to qualify himself as an early-day
Frederick Jackson Turner.
The Keelboat Age is a monographic study of a period which overlaps
Pen Pictures somewhat. Baldwin says "it was probably soon after
the
Revolution that keelboats came into
general use on the Ohio" (p. 44).
When the steamboat came into its own,
some keelboats continued in
competition; others became
"auxiliary carrier[s] towed by the steam-
boat" (p. 193); others retreated to
the upper tributaries and shallower
streams, "where they continued to
act as carriers for the goods brought
to the heads of steamboat
navigation" (p. 194). But the heyday of the
keelboat was over.
Baldwin's western waters are the
Mississippi and the Ohio systems,
with emphasis on the latter. He is
primarily concerned with the role of
rivers in the life of the early West.
His presentation is a detailed analy-
sis of kinds of boats, the building of
river boats and ocean ships, the
breed of men who navigated the streams,
river navigation as a skill, the
movement of goods and immigrants, and
snags and Indians and pirates
and other hazards of western navigation.
The simultaneous reprinting of these two
volumes may be more than
coincidental, for in many respects they
are companion pieces. They make
for delightful and informative reading.
Some of Harpster's editorial
comments are too oversimplified.
Unfortunately, the facsimile process
blurs some of Baldwin's illustrations.
Errors of fact are few and incon-
sequential and do not detract seriously
from the texts themselves. It
should be noted that valuable
bibliographies append both; the one in
Pen Pictures is an introduction to a vast and fascinating literature
which could not be included in the
volume.
Miami University DWIGHT L. SMITH
Michigan in the War of 1812. By Fred C. Hamil. John M. Munson
History Fund Pamphlet Number 4. (Lansing:
Michigan Historical
Commission, 1960. vii??44p.; map,
illustrations, and recommended
reading list. Paper, $1.00.)
This pamphlet, written originally as an
article in Michigan History
by a historian who combines Canadian
birth with a Canadian-American
382
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
education and years of teaching at Wayne
State University, has a prop-
erly objective approach toward the War
of 1812. It is a well-rounded
account of the war in the American
Northwest and adjacent Ontario,
with the Detroit area as the strategic
center.
There are few heroes, much blundering,
and at the end a stalemate,
with the Americans controlling the
Detroit frontier and harassing
Ontario, and the British the upper lakes
and the northern shores of
lakes Erie and Ontario. Poor planning
and inept leadership nullified
American numerical superiority in the
early months of the war. The
British had Indian allies, but at times
these were a liability. The supply
problem was serious for both sides, and
naval control of Lake Erie was
vital. Perry's victory was followed by
Harrison's successful, if limited,
offensive.
The author accepts too wholeheartedly
the expansionist interpretation
of the causes of the war. That restless
American frontiersmen were
"gazing with greedy eyes on the
rich and empty lands of Upper Canada"
is open to question. Bombastic War Hawk
oratory has misled too many
historians.
A map of the war area, a dozen
contemporary illustrations, and a brief
selective list of books for recommended
reading add to the pamphlet's
value for the classroom and the adult
general reader. This is one of a
series on Michigan history financed by
the John M. Munson Michigan
History Fund.
Ohio State University EUGENE H. ROSEBOOM
Indiana in the War of the Rebellion:
Report of the Adjutant General.
Indiana Historical Collections, Volume XLI. (Indianapolis: Indiana
Historical Bureau, 1960. xii??603p.;
illustrations, appendix, and
index. Cloth, $6.00; paper, $2.50.)
This is a new edition of Volume I of W.
H. H. Terrell's eight-volume
Report of the Adjutant General of the
State of Indiana, which the state
legislature published between 1865 and
1869. Volumes two through
eight contained military rosters and
statistics, but Volume I, the last
written and the most important, was a
general summary of Indiana's
political and military activity during
the Civil War.
Indiana's aid to the war was
substantial. Over two hundred thousand
Hoosiers saw service. More than one in
ten died in the 308 engagements
in which they participated. The
homefront furnished immeasurable
materiel. In these volumes the author,
who was Governor Oliver P.
BOOK REVIEWS 383
Morton's military secretary and later
adjutant general, conscientiously,
exhaustively, and often capably
chronicled the events and recorded the
statistics of this effort.
The chief fault of the work is the
author's overzealous devotion to his
native state and his chief. The work
abounds with bias. The campaign
of Western Virginia was, according to
Terrell, "largely carried on by
Indiana troops and planned and conducted
by an Indiana General." The
effort was, in fact, a joint venture of
the northern states, attempting to
secure the decision of Western Virginia
to secede from secession.
Ohio, most threatened by the proximity
of Confederate forces, supplied
the major part of the provisional army
of West Virginia. General Mc-
Clellan, actively in charge of the
campaign, was commander of the Ohio
department, which included the state of
Indiana. The significance of
Indiana's contribution to the war should
not have been marred by
exaggeration.
Many portions of the book, particularly
the chapter on "Internal
State Troubles," are apologies for
Governor Morton's administration.
Neither the author nor Morton could
accept opposition and both unhesi-
tatingly labeled any adversary a
traitor. When Indiana Democrats
protested against the suspension of
habeas corpus, government usurpa-
tion of power, and rabid abolitionism,
Morton notified Washington that
the Democrats were trying to sabotage
the war effort. Of the election
of 1862 (when the people of Indiana
replaced a Morton-dominated
legislature with Democrats), Terrell
wrote that Indiana had been taken
"out of loyal hands." When
Morton was virtual dictator of Indiana in
1863, running the government on funds
received from the war depart-
ment, Terrell recorded that the state
was saved only through Morton's
"iron will and unfailing
sagacity." Morton was an able patriot and did
much to aid the war effort, but we are
never permitted to view the less
admirable traits of this man whom
Lincoln described as "the skeeredest
man I know of."
Exasperating though the bias may be, the
book remains a fountain of
usually reliable facts and a basic
instrument in understanding Indiana's
part in the war. The Indiana Historical
Bureau is to be commended for
making this hard-to-obtain traditional
source easily available through
republication. Editing has eliminated
typographical errors, and punctua-
tion has been modernized. Bell Wiley's
admirable foreword warns the
reader of many of the book's pitfalls.
New sources have been uncovered since
Terrell's recording, time has
384
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
given us perspective, and competent
historians are available who might
write a new, definitive work. Hopefully,
the Indiana Historical Bureau
will climax the centennial recognition
by sponsoring a fresh study of the
very important role of Indiana in the
Civil War.
Ohio State University KENNETH WHEELER
American Indians. By William T. Hagan. The Chicago History of
American Civilization Series, edited by
Daniel J. Boorstin. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1961.
xi??190p.; illustrations, chrono-
logical check list, suggested readings,
and index. $4.50.)
Indian-white relations in America are a
record of raw brutality as
wretched as any in history. If we were
to imagine a landing today on
the American littoral by an alien race
from outer space, we could begin
to assay what happened here to the
American "Indians." Suppose, too,
that our latter-day space invaders
relentlessly possessed the land from
eastern shore to the western sea. And
that at last our "American Way"
came to be tolerated only as living
diorama in restricted places called
"reservations." The idea is
chilling.
Walter Hagan hardly goes as far as this
in his recitation of more
than three centuries of wrongs suffered
by Indians at the hands of
whites. But he does define quite
graphically the highlights of the
Indian-white juxtaposition from its
colonial beginnings to its present-
day frustrations.
This little volume is by no means a
little work. It is no simple task
to detail more than three centuries of
Indian-white confrontation. And,
in fact, this is not detail. It is
synthesis--expertly done. Step by step
the story of the opposing races is
traced from colonial days to our own
times. The great variation among whites
and the vast diversity among
Indians complicated matters so
tragically that solutions have always
seemed impossible. Yet, at last in our
own time, Professor Hagan sees
some real possibility of a Pan-Indian
movement in this country--and
an ultimate adjustment with whites.
Yet, until our own times, the
humanitarians who have had sympa-
thetic understanding of Indians were to
be found in the East; the whites
who tyrannized the "savages"
lived up against the receding frontier.
Much the same, one might reflect, as
with the Negro. The humanitarians
are in the North; the bigots are closer
to the problem.
If there are defects in this little
book, they are understandable. It is
BOOK REVIEWS 385
manifestly impossible to do an adequate
coverage of a subject of this
magnitude in such limited format.
Synthesis becomes kaleidoscopic.
There is no real picture of American
governmental policy toward the
Indian--except incidentally. And this
theme is long overdue for treat-
ment. Hagan has quite properly avoided
such a tempting byway.
Walter Hagan has done credit to the
Chicago History of American
Civilization series. This is a timely
book and it is excitingly written.
University of Southern
California RUSSELL L. CALDWELL
American Railroads. By
John F. Stover. The Chicago History of
American Civilization Series, edited by
Daniel J. Boorstin. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1961.
xiv??302p.; illustrations, maps,
bibliography, and index. $5.00.)
Despite their obvious importance to the
growth of the nation, Ameri-
can railroads have yet to be accorded a
thorough, complete, and scholarly
history. With some exceptions, works on
railroad history to date seem
to have been written either to glorify
individual corporations or to
commemorate "dear dead days beyond
recall." Thus the appearance of
John F. Stover's American Railroads as
part of the Chicago History of
American Civilization series is most
welcome. The work itself, however,
is a disappointment.
To judge from the excellent annotated
bibliography (there are no
footnotes), a good deal of research went
into the preparation of this
volume. Yet the main emphasis appears to
have been placed on secon-
dary materials; the work offers little
that is new in either subject matter
or treatment. The author touches upon
all of the major facets of Ameri-
can railroad history--beginnings,
expansion, the railroads in war, trans-
continental lines, consolidation and
standardization, corruption and regu-
lation, technical improvements, the
railroads in decline--but the brevity
of his account precludes his dealing
with any of these subjects in depth.
The strongest portions of the work,
perhaps, are those relating to the
twentieth century, especially to the
period of federal control during the
First World War and the period of rapid
decline after the Second. Fre-
quently, however, Professor Stover's account
amounts to little more
than a recitation of statistics.
Commendably avoiding the "romance of
the rails" approach, he has fallen
into the opposite trap of being, very
often, quite dull.
The reader who is at all familiar with
the history of American rail-
386 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
roads will find very little here that he
has not encountered elsewhere.
The general reader will no doubt come
upon much that is new to him.
There are, however, better accounts
available. In short, this work does
not replace Stewart H. Holbrook's
frankly nostalgic and highly anec-
dotal Story of American Railroads. The
definitive history of America's
railroads has not yet appeared.
Ohio Historical Society F. M. WHITAKER
The American Civil Engineer: Origins
and Conflict. By Daniel Hovey
Calhoun. (Cambridge: The Technology
Press of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1960.
xiv??295p.; appendices, bibliographi-
cal note, and index. $5.50.)
Until recent years, the early-nineteenth
century American engineer
had remained a relatively obscure figure
in American historiography.
This would have been understandable if
the importance of the subject
had been measured by the number of
engineers at work in the United
States in the period 1815-50. By another
measure, however, the
significance of the subject is
indisputable: The canal and railroad proj-
ects that employed most of the country's
civil engineers were at the
center of American politics in that
period. The proper role of govern-
ment in meeting transport needs, the
selection of specific projects, and
the operation of transportation
enterprises, all were critical political
issues involving the judgment and
competence of engineers. Moreover,
popular opinion regarding internal
improvements--and regarding the
men who designed, built, and ran
them--most likely reflected broader
social attitudes.
Forest Hill's recent study of the army
engineers has illuminated one
important aspect of American engineering
in the early period. The
present work deals with the civil
engineer's achievement of professional
status at a time when the ability to
handle surveying instruments was,
in many areas of the United States, as
common as is the ability to
operate an automobile today. The study
is confined to engineers em-
ployed on transportation projects, but
the author casts a wide net, dis-
puting some historians' characterization
of this era as an "individual-
istic" one. "It was not a
Jeffersonian America but a corporate America
that supported the engineer, sustained
the engineer, and quite early
defined his character," Mr. Calhoun
asserts. If the author himself
sometimes oversimplifies or gropes for
significances, it detracts only
marginally from a suggestive study.
BOOK REVIEWS 387
Calhoun describes the peculiar demands
that canal and railroad enter-
prises, both public and private, made
upon their engineering staffs, the
conflicting views among engineers of
what their proper role should
be, and the development of early
professional organizations. After 1816
the number of American engineers
gradually increased in response to
demand during the internal-improvements
boom. Some of these engi-
neers were trained at West Point and in
private academies, but a larger
group was given on-the-job training in
New York and other states and
was promoted through hierarchical
organizations.
One of the author's major contributions
is his discussion, in Chapter
3 and elsewhere, of the engineer's
function at various stages in the his-
tory of the typical transport
enterprise. Probably no discussion in print
is so informative or perceptive
regarding the technical and managerial
functions of engineers--or, more
importantly, regarding the areas in
which the two functions overlapped.
There is also valuable information
concerning the pay of engineers, the
estimated number of professionals
and their training, and the effects of
economy measures on engineers
employed by state projects in the years
after 1837.
The attitudes of the public toward
engineers is less successfully
treated. In his Government Promotion
of American Canals and Rail-
roads, Carter Goodrich makes the point that the Whig and
Democratic
parties had no fixed attitudes toward
internal improvements at the state
level. If in one state the Whigs were
critics of an improvements pro-
gram, in another state the Democrats
might be found voicing identical
criticisms. Mr. Calhoun asserts,
however, that there was a fairly clear-
cut division between what he terms
"whiggish" and "democratical"
views. The whiggish view, he states, was
sympathetic with the profes-
sional objectives of engineers and
favorable toward large-scale construc-
tion of internal improvements; the
democratical view preferred the
"practical man" to the
professional engineer and favored "projects
directed for and by local
interests." These "partyish" labels seem too
elusive to be useful. The author himself
appears uncomfortable with the
terms, having once created them.
Whiggish ideas, he writes, "if not the
strict property of political Whigs, do
deserve the label"; and he presents
similar qualifications for the term
democratical. We are left, therefore,
with the unhappy prospect of
"whiggish Democrats" and "democratical
Whigs," solely because of these
misleading definitions. It is clear that
two such views often came into conflict,
but to term "the real issue ...
social, even political" appears
overdrawn, given the evidence at hand.
388
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
In light of this approach, it is
unfortunate that the author's search for
manuscripts never carried him into the
various state archives, which are
replete with material relating to
engineers on the public works. In
consequence, the book does very little
to illuminate the critical question
of the relationship of the engineer to
the politics of the period; the
impact of patronage politics is not
discussed at all.
Two minor objections might be stated.
The author alludes (p. xi) to
a decline in canal construction
immediately after the panic of 1837; in
fact, the decline occurred only after
1839. An impression is left (p. 144)
that in 1840 Ohio halted major canal
construction involving new con-
tracts; this was merely a temporary
retrenchment measure, as the two
major western canals were completed in
1843 and 1845.
Such reservations do not alter the
contention that this is a valuable
book. The text itself comprises 199
pages, and the unusually lengthy
notes are a mine of bibliographical
information.
Dartmouth College HARRY N. SCHEIBER
The Health of the Presidents. By Rudolph Marx, M.D. (New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1960. 376p.;
index. $5.95.)
The American public has probably always
had an interest in the
health of the president. Attention to
the matter has increased in recent
years with enlightenment of the public
in health matters and with its
growing appreciation of the relation of
the president's health to his
conduct of national affairs, the
resulting continuity of governmental
policies, and the stability of our world
leadership. As evidence of this
concern one needs only to recall the
national and world-wide attention
given to the health of Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Eisenhower and the
health competition between the principal
political opponents during the
recent presidential campaign. The
appearance of The Health of the
Presidents is an instance of the public interest in the subject.
The author, Dr. Rudolph Marx, a surgeon
of Los Angeles and pro-
fessionally well recognized, is
medically qualified to bring together a
history of the presidents' health. He
evidently has been a student of
American history, as well, to have
produced so balanced an account of
medicine and national history. The
volume deals with the health of
thirty presidents from Washington to
Franklin D. Roosevelt (inclusive)
but excluding Hoover, each account being
presented in an individual
chapter without transitional text. The
length of chapter varies, depend-
BOOK REVIEWS 389
ing on the comparative amount of
information given on the illnesses
of each person.
The text, however, is not a recital of
dry clinical data and technical
descriptions of terminal pathology. If
pertinent, the health history of
childhood is given, with references to
family illnesses, possible genetic
inheritances, and environmental factors.
The state of health of wife and
children is described, together with
intimate accounts of family life and
death. Each president's physical features,
personal habits, and psycho-
logical makeup are described, and the
reader is given an understanding
of his personality and from this his
reactions to the problems of his per-
sonal and public life.
The illnesses of recent presidents are
described with expected accuracy
and completeness, but the earlier the
subject in presidential succession
the less is the certainty of diagnosis.
In such cases, Marx offers specu-
lations and interpretations to supply
the reader with the soundest advice
available in the light of modern medical
knowledge. While not avoiding
technical terms, he does not "talk
down" to his reader; an educated
layman can understand the terminology
used. Occasionally, there are
digressions in clinical descriptions
that explain briefly the disease process
involved and the significance of an
observation.
The account of illnesses suffered from
the time of Washington to
Franklin D. Roosevelt is an interesting
recapitulation of prevalent
diseases identifiable with succeeding
periods of time: smallpox, yellow
fever, malaria, tuberculosis; typhoid,
dysentery; heart disease, arterio-
sclerosis, cerebral vascular disease.
One could suppose that presidents of
earlier periods suffered more from the
effects of cardiovascular disease
than indicated by the records, inasmuch
as the group lived to remark-
ably advanced years. As to age itself,
only six of the thirty died as early
as their fifties and three of these by
assassination.
The progressive record is also a review
of the advances in science and
medicine. References to disease
processes, aids in diagnosis, and meth-
ods of treatment, and even to
terminology itself indicate the changes that
have taken place. Marx occasionally indulges
in the "if game" of what
might have been the diagnosis if it had
been made with modern accuracy,
if the treatment had been thus and so,
and if modern drugs had been
available. One wonders whether our
national history might have been
different if....
The author's important role of
interpretation is effectively carried
out, and only occasionally is an
observation made with which the
reviewer does not agree. The principle
of cause and effect is frequently
390
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
used to explain the meaning of an event.
Sometimes this practice strains
the credulity of the reader, and he
should be put on his guard against
potential pitfalls in reasoning. An
example of this is the psychiatric
explanation offered to explain a
presidential reaction, of which Marx
seems fond, when data are obviously
minimal, and when a basic factor
common to two events could be operating
instead of one incident pre-
disposing to the other.
Thus far this review has referred to the
main thesis of the book,
consistent with its title. It must be
made clear, however, that many other
facets of the presidents' lives are
intermingled with health matters:
political fortunes, governmental
affairs, relations with the congress,
international issues, the prosecution of
wars, national economics, and
life in Washington. The result is a
smoothly-running narrative, rising
to heights of drama by sheer description
without resort to sensational
expressions. The various topics, whether
of health or otherwise, fit
together to make a whole so that the
reader has a peculiar sense of
acquaintance with the personal and
official career of each chief executive.
There are no references, bibliography,
or illustrations. The index is
made up of names and medical terms, and
excludes reference to historical
or political events.
The Health of the Presidents is obviously for popular reading and for
that purpose is recommended as
interesting and informative. It com-
bines personal and national history, and
presents to American citizens
a balanced account of the health and
careers of their presidents.
Ohio State University N. PAUL HUDSON