Ohio History Journal

70                                     OHIO HISTORY

Marietta, he is writing (in a journal

kept only for himself, remember) that

"the Muskingum trips on as nimble as

sprightly as a miss in her teens." Though

he still arises at 3 A. M. to write, he now

sometimes plunges first into the river--

"it looked so tempting I could not re-

frain."

His second trip went badly, until at

one point he wryly commented that he

was reading funeral sermons to cheer

himself up, as they seemed humorous

compared to his situation. There were

too many traders in the new country, and

not enough money. Through his eyes we

observe much of the West of the day:

the pulpit in the wilderness with no house

within seven miles; the rapid change--

a village huddling where the year before

had been forest; the touching poverty of

the country people--"money terrible

scarce yet the people want everything and

cannot pay for them." And so it goes.

salted with New Englander sea phrases.

with here a quotation from the Good

Book, and there a soldier's curse.

Publishers are fond of saying that

volumes appeal as well to the general

reader as to the specialist. Reviewers

often demur, but not in this case. This

volume should be as useful in a high

school library as it will be in a univer-

sity seminar, as at home in a historical

society collection as by an armchair. It

is both meticulous scholarship and prime

Americana.

HUGH G. CLELAND

State University of New York

at Stony Brook

BENJAMIN LOGAN: KENTUCKY FRONTIERS-

MAN. By Charles Gano Talbert. (Lex-

ington: University of Kentucky Press,

1962. xi??³³²p.; bibliographical essay

and index. $7.50.)

Benjamin Logan   (c.1743-1802) has

now found a biographer and early Ken-

tucky another historian. The ground ex-

plored and charted in this study has been

traversed and mapped before, but new

detail and greater familiarity lead to a

better understanding and fresh interpre-

tations, especially with Logan as the cen-

tral figure.

A hunter and woodsman "in every

way Daniel Boone's equal," an Indian

fighter "second only to George Rogers

Clark," a public figure whose only seri-

ous shortcoming was his lack of formal

education--these are characteristics at-

tributed to Logan. On the frontier, where

one's ability to hunt, to fight Indians, and

to participate in public affairs made a

difference, partisans of Boone, James

Harrod, Clark, and others might dispute

the degree of Talbert's claims for Logan:

but that he was able and prominent and

that he was one of the founding fathers

of his state no one can deny.

Of Scotch-Irish stock, a sergeant in

Bouquet's Indian campaign of 1764, a

lieutenant of the Virginia militia in Lord

Dunmore's War a decade later, Virginia

frontier born Logan moved into the Hol-

ston Valley, bought a farm, married, and

settled down. Not for long, however, be-

cause he went west in 1775 and helped

to establish a settlement at St. Asaph's

near present Stanford, Kentucky. During

the Revolution and the subsequent Indian

Wars he participated in and led several

retaliatory expeditions against the In-

dians north across the Ohio River. He

served three terms in the assembly of

Virginia, played a prominent role in the

constitutional conventions and the estab-

lishment of statehood for Kentucky, was

a three-term member of the house of

representatives of the new state, nar-

rowly missed election as governor, and

ably filled a number of other political

and militia offices. His speculations in

real estate made him one of the prin-

cipal landholders in Kentucky.

There are inherent difficulties for any

biographer of Logan to conjure with. To

conjecture and to impute where inade-

quate documentation is available reveals

the biographer's bias. Also, to assure

continuity when Logan does not promi-

nently figure in the story, it is necessary

to dwell at considerable length on others

--enough so that the title might be more

BOOK REVIEWS                                          71

properly reworded to include "the life

and times of. . . ."

The treatment of the topics in the

volume is not even in quality. Talbert is

weakest when he asserts unqualified fail-

ures and unequaled successes as in the

campaigns of the Indian Wars north of

the Ohio. On the other hand, he is es-

pecially strong in his consideration of

such complicated subjects as the guber-

natorial race in which Logan figures

prominently, and the problem of loyalty

as opposed to reality concerning the navi-

gation of the Mississippi River.

These shortcomings do not seriously

detract from the worth of the volume and

Talbert's Logan will be the standard biog-

raphy and one of the principal accounts

of the settlement and establishment of

Kentucky statehood for some time to

come. As such it is most welcome.

DWIGHT L. SMITH

Indiana University

THE HOLY SEE AND TILE NASCENT CHURCH

IN THE MIDDLE WESTERN UNITED

STATES, 1826-1850. By Robert Freder-

ick Trisco. (Rome: Gregorian Univer-

sity Press, 1962. xii??408p.; maps,

bibliography, and index. $5.90.)

The large immigration of Catholics

around the middle of the nineteenth cen-

tury presented the Church in America

with a challenge for which it was largely

unprepared, and for which it lacked both

funds and adequate personnel. It was

necessary to serve the religious needs of

thousands of new arrivals, and to deal

with the racial and national frictions

which developed among French, Irish,

and German Catholics. Although these

problems were more acute in the East,

they existed to a lesser degree in the

nascent Church in the Middle West.

Here we have the story, in great detail,

of the creation of dioceses and the men

who served them, as the Catholic Church

in the Middle West developed from iso-

lated little log chapels to flourishing bish-

oprics and archbishoprics. The task of re-

cruiting adequate personnel, the drafting

of individuals from religious orders

which were reluctant to lose their mem-

bers, the shifting boundaries of dioceses,

the necessity of finding priests who were

fluent in two or three languages and

could deal with antagonistic nationality

groups, and the need to provide material

support for this missionary effort, posed

difficult and highly complicated problems

for the Holy See. A discussion of the

guidance and authority that came from

Rome in these matters constitutes the bulk

of this volume.

The Holy See directed recruits from

the Irish, Belgian, French, and German

priesthood to the Middle West; educated

a few Americans at the Urban College

in Rome for service in the United States;

encouraged the educational activities of

religious orders; provided material help;

dealt with jurisdictional disputes among

the bishops; and occasionally had to

take disciplinary action to preserve order

and harmony among the American hier-

archy. Rome's record in these matters

was essentially a good one, but the Holy

See was not infallible and some of its

choices were less felicitous than others.

This study of the influence of leaders

of the American Church upon Rome, and

vice versa, will be of primary interest to

those especially concerned with the in-

ternal structure and operation of the

Catholic Church, but it makes rather

heavy and sometimes dull reading for

others who have only a general interest

in the history of religion in the Middle

West before 1850. The research has been

exhaustive, careful, and thorough; the

bibliography is a good one, and the foot-

notes (mostly in Latin) numerous and

long. The index is adequate but strangely

enough omits the Irish, who are men-

tioned rather frequently in the text. The

story is enlivened by such incidents as

the account of two American Indians at

the Urban College; the unseemly row

between Bishop Rese and the Poor Clares

of Pittsburgh in the 1830's (recounted

72                                        OHIO HISTORY

in nearly fifty pages); and the procedure

by which the tempestuous German bishop

of Detroit was finally relieved of his juris-

diction in 1840.

CARL WITTKE

Western Reserve University

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN AMERICAN

CULTURAL HISTORY. Edited by John

Francis McDermott. (Lexington: Uni.

versity of Kentucky Press, 1961. viii??

²⁰⁵p.; index. $6.00.)

With obvious enthusiasm twelve schol-

ars (only three of them college professors

of history) have set forth their views on

research opportunities in their favorite

fields of interest. Meeting at Washington

University as a round table in October

1959, they read and discussed the papers

which, with revisions, appear in this vol-

ume. Lester J. Cappon writing on the

colonial period, John F. McDermott on

the French in the Mississippi Valley,

Howard H. Peckham on Indian relations,

Thomas D. Clark on travel literature,

Theodore C. Blegen on the saga of the

immigrant, Joseph Ewan on the scientist

on the frontier, Richard M. Dorson on

folklore and cultural history, John T.

Flanagan on middlewestern regional liter-

ature, David Kaser on the book trade

and publishing history, David Mead on

popular education and cultural agencies,

E. P. Richardson on the visual arts and

cultural history, and Philip D. Jordan on

tastes in recreation clearly enjoyed the

occasion to talk about their themes.

The essays do not pretend to be defini-

tive. Written by experts, they are, how-

ever, excellent surveys. In general each

includes a review of literature on the

subject, emphasizing works published

since 1945 (nearly a thousand titles are

cited in footnotes). The contributors pro-

pose for research hundreds of topics

which they believe have not yet been

adequately studied. They do not define

cultural history, but the literature re-

viewed and their suggestions imply that

it does not include institutional history

or the statistical, quantitative, or norma-

tive methods of social science. They urge

the collection and publication of infor-

mation. Most of the works proposed

would be descriptive. No priorities are set

up, however, and no basis appears from

which a student might determine such

order. One subject after another simply

"needs to be done." More explicit con-

cern with standards, relative importance,

and values would probably have given

the recommendations greater significance.

Historical studies need to be meaningful.

HARRY R. STEVENS

Ohio University

VIRGINIA RAILROADS IN THE CIVIL WAR.

By Angus James Johnston, II. (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina

Press for the Virginia Historical So-

ciety, 1961. xiv??336p.; illustrations,

tables, maps, bibliography, and index.

$6.00.)

It is gratifying to read a work that

develops a somewhat forgotten phase of

the war instead of emphasizing the glori-

ous or obvious. Wartime transportation

problems in Virginia during the war

years were basic to the more obvious

judgments and actions of the leaders.

Mr. Johnston is concerned with this

theme throughout his work.

He has thoroughly maintained the

initial importance that the railroads had

in Confederate military operations, the

most noteworthy example being the serv-

ices of the Manassas Gap Railroad at the

first battle of Bull Run. Although the

railroads were to continue to be a major

consideration in the military operations

of the Confederacy, their performance

was not sufficient to meet the needs. For

those railroads that had suffered from

the war there was little repairing that

could be done, and the deficiency of re-

pair materials was deeply felt by the

BOOK REVIEWS                                73

winter of 1862-63. There were no new

rails available to make the much-needed

repairs, since all foundries had been

shifted to military production. Shortages

of wood and food were drastically felt

by the civilian population of the Con-

federacy by 1863, and as the problem

worsened there were not a few railroads

that preferred to haul this more profitable

private freight than the necessary military

items. The government of the Confeder.

acy had little choice but to take what it

needed from one railroad for another.

The Confederacy, although needing

their railroads, could not overcome these

problems. They were not fortunate

enough to have, as the Union had, the

ability of a Herman Haupt or the cooper-

ation of a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,

As a result, there was a close relationship

between the deterioration of Confederate

railroads and the increasing restrictions

placed upon military movements of the

Confederacy in Virginia. The Union

armies, on the other hand, with far fewer

problems, used water transportation as

much or more than the railroads.

The author's concern with the prob-

lems of wartime transportation extends

beyond the Virginia borders and the rails

themselves. His deviations are necessarily

limited by the scope of his subject, but

his critical analysis and the careful re-

lationship he establishes with the broader

subject of wartime transportation is ex-

tremely pertinent.

Mr. Johnston's theme is exceptionally

well organized, pointed, and conclusive.

and the entire work is well written. There

is no scarcity of documentation. Virginia

Railroads in the Civil War should be a

welcome addition to any serious Civil

War library.

ROBERT L. DAMM

Mystic Seaport

THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH IN THE

ATLANTIC STATES: BASED UPON THE

COLLECTIONS OF THE LINGUISTIC ATLAS

OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. By

Hans Kurath and Raven I. McDavid,

Jr. (Ann Arbor: University of Mich-

igan Press, 1961. xi??182p.??180

maps; index. $15.00.)

This technical study of patterns of

pronunciation in American English offers

fascinating data for students and ob-

servers of civilization in the United

States. It continues the major enterprise

initiated in 1939 with the publication,

under the direction of Kurath, of the first

of three volumes titled Linguistic Atlas of

New England, and its companion work,

Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of

the United States. Subsequent special

studies have extended the analyses to the

whole eastern seaboard. The present book,

another meticulously ordered selection

from the field materials gathered by

workers on the Linguistic Atlas project,

is produced by Kurath in collaboration

with his chief disciple, McDavid, a spe-

cialist in the south Atlantic area.

Where previous monographs had con-

centrated on regional and social differ-

ences in vocabulary and word usages, this

work focuses on differences in pro-

nouncing the same word. By a clever

sampling method of selecting speakers,

the Atlas interviewers recorded the speech

behavior of Americans from all social

classes in the seaboard states. They or

their co-workers then constructed maps de-

fining the areas and subareas (isoglosses)

emerging from the collected and phonemi-

cally analyzed materials. For the cultural

historian these isoglosses are of keen

interest, since the language boundaries

serve also as indexes of subcultural

boundaries. In addition, the distinctions

offered between the language habits of

educated, common, and folk speech illum-

inate the social cleavages.

Two chapters introduce the body of

the materials with a description of the

technical methods employed in grading

the pronunciation of vowels and con-

sonants in key words, and a survey of

74                                      OHIO HISTORY

the regional dialect areas of cultivated

speech. To arrive at these areas, 157

cultivated speakers were interviewed in

136 communities--a small sampling, the

authors admit, of a fifty million popula-

tion. Brief biographies are printed (pp.

23-27) of all these informants, followed

by a reproduction of work sheets for

over half on sixty-six common words

(pp. 31-100). Then come three central

chapters, dealing successively with re-

gional and social differences in pronun-

ciations of stressed vowels, of the con-

sonant r and its preceding vowels, and

of the incidence of vowels and consonants

in certain selected words. Descriptive

synopses in these chapters present the

conclusions from the evidence, and are

supported by the one hundred and eighty

maps to which they are keyed. An index

preceding the maps (pp. 181-182) lists

the words analyzed, from  "again" to

"your aunt," with their corresponding

synopsis numbers and map numbers. A

portion of the map pages contains small

insert maps showing pronunciation pat-

terns in England, for comparison with

the Atlantic coast.

The word whose pronunciation carries

the most emotional overtones is Negro.

Kurath and McDavid find the use of

"nigra," with the i of "big," most com-

mon in the old plantation South. In New

England and New York the preferred

usage is "neegro," with the e of three. An

intermediate shading is "nigro," predom-

inant in border states like Maryland.

Delaware, and West Virginia. The latter

two pronunciations are about evenly di-

vided in Pennsylvania, although cultured

speakers in Philadelphia and Baltimore

definitely prefer "neegro." In Charleston

the whole spectrum of "neegro, neegra.

nigro, nigra" appeared, with most speak-

ers, however, using the derogatory

"nigga." Yet in folk speech this is a

neutral or even a friendly term, and ten

of twenty-two Negroes interviewed found

it unobjectionable. The maps clearly dem-

onstrate the northern cultivation of the

long e and long o in Negro.

Less charged words are still equally

revealing of class and regional habits.

The vexing creek has the long e through

most of the South, with pockets of short

i along the lower Potomac and in western

North Carolina, where Pennsylvania in-

fluence is felt. The long e is a prestige

pronunciation by cultured speakers

around Baltimore and Annapolis. How-

ever, in Charleston and along the South

Carolina coast speakers vacillate from

one form to another, no clear class lines

emerging. Western New York and Penn-

sylvania run strongly to "crick," but

along the New England coast, where

creek means a tidal inlet rather than a

fresh water stream, pronunciation

changes back and forth all along the line

until Maine, where "crick" triumphs. The

authors believe that the spelling of creek

has contributed to the long e sound in

parts of New England.

In the midst of their summaries of the

empirical evidence Kurath and McDavid

pause to speculate and comment shrewdly

on historical questions. Thus they find

bristle with a u sound plentiful in the

folk speech of northern New England and

New York, and with an insert map trace

it to English folk speech in East Anglia

and Essex; but the problem remains why

all classes in the South, educated and

folk alike, use the short i. The long i of

neither they believe to be a recent de-

rivative from British English, its use in

England having become popular only in

the nineteenth century. They point to

American innovations, as the phoneme e

in married and barrel, and to relic areas.

such as eastern Massachusetts and upstate

New York, where poor and sure rhyme

with four and shore, the standard usage

in the South and the northern New Eng-

land coast. Cleverly they account for the

widespread trisyllabic pronunciation of

mushroom, often with an n ending, as

a continuous survival from British Eng-

BOOK REVIEWS                                       75

lish of all classes in the seventeenth cen-

tury, when Old French mousseron was

still exerting its influence; folk speech in

the southern counties of England today

retains the form.

But Kurath and McDavid do not al-

ways claim to have the answers. Why is

deaf overwhelmingly pronounced "deef"

among the folk in the East, when current

British English accounts only for the

cultured "deff" and the folk "diff" in the

South? The experts merely conjecture

that a possible former use of "deef" by

folk in England has been swallowed by

the educated "deff."

As a status symbol, tomato may well

assert priority, for "cultured urbanites"

from Boston and Newport to Richmond

and Norfolk reject the long a of "potato"

for the purring a of "car." Outside the

social register, "tomayto" is standard; in

England "tomayto" is unknown. Hence

the cultured speakers of New York City

and Philadelphia may be emulating Eng-

lish or New England aristocracy, or both.

Presumably they do not know that the

word descends from the Nahuatl tomatl

through the Spanish tomate, which dis-

placed love-apple after 1775 on both sides

of the Atlantic.

One of the many virtues in this splen-

did book is the recognition by the authors

of the continued flux of American Eng-

lish. Nevertheless, they have revealed dis-

tinctive and definite focal areas of Amer-

ican dialects. Layman as well as special-

ist, historian as well as dialectologist, will

find rewards in this latest production of

the remarkable Linguistic Atlas of Amer-

ica enterprise.

RICHARD M. DORSON

Indiana University

THE TERRITORIAL PAPERS OF THE UNITED

STATES. Compiled and edited by Clar-

ence E. Carter. Volume XXVI, THE

TERRITORY OF FLORIDA, 1839 - 1845.

(Washington: National Archives, 1962.

v??1238p.; maps and index. $8.00.)

This volume is not merely the fourth

and last of those dealing with territorial

Florida; it is also the last to be edited

by the late Clarence E. Carter (1881-

1961), who served as editor of the Ter-

ritorial Papers from their authorization

in 1931 up to his death, and the last

volume that will appear for some in-

definite time, since the editor's death and

the fact that subsequent volumes would

lie in an area and period considerably

different from those covered earlier have

led to a decision to re-appraise the en-

tire undertaking both as to scope and

methodology.

In the present volume several major

themes emerge from the ruck of letters of

appointment, petitions for river and har-

bor improvements, and the like. They in-

clude the statehood controversy, which

was complicated by a strong East Florida

movement for the continuance of terri-

torial status in that region and which

contributes to our knowledge of party

conflict and intraparty factionalism in

this period of political flux; the winding

up of the Seminole War; and problems

arising out of the armed occupation act

of August 1842, which aimed at "con-

taining" the remaining Indians by a land

grant to every man, "able to bear arms,"

settling in the region from which the

natives had recently been removed. Con-

spicuous among these latter problems was

the protection of live-oak timber on pub-

lic lands, which was badly needed for

naval construction but was often illegally

removed by pretended "settlers"--a situa-

tion not unfamiliar to the department of

the interior today. The brunt of this task

of protection was borne by a gentleman

with the almost unbelievably prickly and

appropriate name of Hezekiah L. Thistle,

whose zeal led to his being assaulted by

a member of a timber firm. The most

scandalous act of violence, however, was

the murder of General Leigh Read, mar-

shal of Middle Florida, by a man whose

76                                        OHIO HISTORY

brother he had killed in a duel. For the

first time, too, antislavery becomes an

issue. Numerous protests occur against

the escape of slaves to the Bahamas--

the episode of "Branded-Hand" Walker

belongs to this period--and an East Flor-

ida grand jury in March 1844 empha-

sized the "great looseness . . . in the

management of the Slave population,"

such as permitting slaves to "hire them-

selves by the day."

Miscopyings and other errors--inevita-

ble in a work of such scope, based on

manuscripts in a variety of hands--are

remarkably few: "inch and fertile" (p.

505) should obviously be "rich and fer-

tile"; "Nikeka" (p. 509) is an error for

"Chekika"; "Mules the celebrated . . .

conspiracer [sic]" (p. 674) refers to the

notorious land pirate Murrell. "Passacca

. . . (brother of Cloud)" (p. 552) could

not be "Paseoffes [sic]," a commander of

Creek Indians (p. 552n). Some names--

for example, "Par-suck-e-ohola" (p. 284)

--are omitted from the valuable index,

which would, however, be more useful if

the topics under each entry were ar-

ranged chronologically instead of alpha-

betically.

A welcome innovation in this volume

is the careful locating of forts and the

like in present-day terms.

Students of American history will look

forward to the early resumption of this

important and well-edited series.

KENNETH WIGGINS PORTER

University of Oregon

EARLY AMERICAN WOODEN WARE. By Mary

Earle Gould. (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E.

Tuttle, 1962. xii+243p.; index. $8.50.)

The primary difference between the

earlier and this revised edition of Miss

Gould's book is the addition of some

thirty-four plates. The textual matter has

remained unchanged except for a brief

paragraph in the foreword.

When Miss Gould began her collect-

ing some thirty years ago, she did not

confine herself to purely decorative

pieces; rather, she was interested in the

functions performed by these objects.

This was fortunate; unless such items

display unusual decoration or wood pat-

tern they are seldom collected. As a re-

sult, kitchen and household utensils and

other articles used in the preparation of

everyday necessities were preserved and

identified. The United States provides an

excellent basis for such a work, for ob-

jects can be located which date from the

earliest settlements and their evolvement

traced to the present day. Few luxury

items were brought from the parent coun-

tries by the early colonists. The iron ax,

adze, hoe, knife, cooking pot, and firearm

provided shelter and food; wooden ware

supplied the household tools. The colo-

nists were familiar with making many

objects from wood; the Indians appar-

ently contributed to this knowledge with

their methods of woodworking, especially

the weaving of various items of ash, oak,

and hickory splints. Wooden ware moved

westward with the frontier as well as re-

maining in the East with the more im-

poverished settlers. Here in the Middle

West wooden ware was common at least

until the Civil War, less so to the close

of the nineteenth century, and can still be

found in use today.

Miss Gould covers the types of wooden

ware extremely well. She has been very

conscientious in examining each piece for

tell-tale stains or bleaching, for construc-

tion and wear, in assigning them    a

particular task. Many incidental facts and

folklore are included in the text, adding

to the interest of the book. The illustra-

tions are reasonably good. There are a

few criticisms. The text could be reduced

in length if repetition were avoided. A

critical editing is needed; for example,

this sentence is present in the old and

new editions: "In Pennsylvania, marzipan

or marchpane cakes were made as early

as 1563 [sic] for the Christmas tree to

BOOK REVIEWS                                          77

be eaten before Twelfthnight" (p. 79).

An attempt could have been made to

idate the objects; it is also confusing to

read "colonist" and "settler" without

knowing the approximate period meant.

Facts are presented without qualifying

evidence: "The trade of making barrels,

buckets, tubs and kegs dates back to

70 A.D." (p. 177); or, "The Egyptians,

500 years before Christ, discovered the

properties in clay for making paint"

(p. 288). It is doubtful if coopering gen-

erated itself so precipitantly, or that pale-

olithic man did not know the value of

clay in preparing his "paint." There are

numerous other examples. Miss Gould's

book must be considered as an excellent

guide to collectors and those in the an-

tique field; this was the reason for its

writing and it fills this purpose well.

DONALD A. HUTSLAR

Ohio Historical Society

HANDBOOK ON INDIANA HISTORY. By Don-

ald F. Carmony. Foreword by William

E. Wilson, state superintendent of pub-

lic instruction. State of Indiana, De-

partment of Public Instruction, Bulletin

No. 245. (Indianapolis, Indiana De-

partment of Public Instruction, 1961.

vii??77p.; selected texts, references,

and audio-visual materials and append-

ices. Paper, free to teachers.)

As Indiana approaches the sesquicen-

tennial observance of its statehood in

1966, its historical society has under-

taken the monumental and long-overdue

task of assembling a detailed, authorita-

tive account of the state's past in five

volumes. Anticipating the inevitable

heightening of interest with the approach

of this anniversary and to encourage the

more effective study of Indiana's state

and local history, State Superintendent

William E. Wilson in 1959 appointed an

advisory committee chaired by Donald F.

Carmony, editor of the Indiana Magazine

of History, to compile a Handbook on

Indiana History for the use of teachers

and adult study groups. Containing a

dozen chapters or units, the Handbook is

arranged both chronologically and topi-

cally, with principal emphasis upon poli-

tics but with due regard for economic,

social, and cultural developments. Partic-

ularly valuable are the lists of texts,

reference materials, and audio-visual aids

included at the close of each chapter,

though Dr. Carmony frankly admits that

some "marginal items" have been in-

cluded in the absence of anything better.

In addition, "especially desirable items

have been included even when not read-

ily available."

Despite these professed limitations and

notwithstanding a lamentable absence of

clarity and definition in the treatment

of Indiana's prehistory, the Handbook

should serve the teacher and serious adult

reader well. Ohio's historians will find

particular interest in the chapters deal-

ing with the struggle of the French and

British for control of the Ohio Valley,

the settlement of the Old Northwest,

pioneers and pioneer life, and politics

during the Civil War era.

PHILLIP R. SHRIVER

Kent State University

THE GREAT LAKES CAR FERRIES. By George

W. Hilton. (Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-

North Books, 1962. xv??²⁸²p.; illus-

trations, appendix, and indexes. $6.00.)

As the title indicates, this work is in-

tended as a history of a little-known facet

of railroading, the ferrying of both pas-

senger and freight cars across the Great

Lakes by Canadian and American rail-

roads. This, the reader will discover, has

been going on for a hundred years; and

although railcar ferrying has declined

somewhat like   railroading itself and

many a once proud ship has been igno-

miniously reduced to the status of a

lowly barge, the few ferries now plying

the lakes still perform an important func-

tion in American transportation.

78                                           OHIO HISTORY

"There is nothing particularly note-

worthy," says the author, "about a

normal voyage across Lake Michigan."

Mr. Hilton's history, therefore, leans

heavily on numerous brief accounts of

such things as the accidents which oc-

curred among these ships and of their

battles with the winter ice. In addition.

the book contains an excellent collection

of old and new photographs of the many

ships once engaged in the service and

also includes numerous diagrams which

help the reader through the labyrinth of

design changes over the years.

Unfortunately all this is not apt to en-

thrall the average reader, or even the

professional historian. The book is di-

vided into chapters and sections strictly

according to the various companies which

owned the ships. Within each of these

sections, after a brief discussion of the

company and of the origin and develop-

ment of its service, its ships are described

and a short account given of their in-

dividual fates. Since at best these were

rather unlovely ships engaged in an un-

glamorous business (in many cases their

owners simply gave them numbers rather

than bothering to christen them with new

names), the book takes on some of the

qualities of a hardware company cata-

log. The author has no discernible thesis

and he makes no effort at interpretation.

The text ends abruptly on page 253 with

a short paragraph describing the last

ship of the last railroad which the author

wanted to discuss. There are no con-

clusions.

The book obviously has value, how-

ever, as a reference work. Railroad and

marine historians will undoubtedly want

to dip into it. Although it contains no

footnotes and no bibliography, Mr. Hil-

ton, who has written several books on

railroading, is unquestionably an expert

on the subject he is discussing and has

apparently engaged in extensive research

in preparation for the book. It is well

indexed and toward the end includes a

"Fleet List" with details on the over-all

dimensions, tonnages, engine sizes, boiler

capacities, and so forth of most of the

ships mentioned in the text. Some of

the members of the Steamship Historical

Society who thrive on such details can

have a feast.

ROBERT W. TWYMAN

Bowling Green State University

THE PAGEANT OF THE PRESS: A SURVEY OF

125 YEARS OF IOWA JOURNALISM, 1836-

1961. By William J. Petersen. (Iowa

City: State Historical Society of Iowa,

1962. x??¹²⁰p.; illustrations. Cloth,

$7.50; paper, $6.00.)

This book is literally a pageant of sorts

of a century and a quarter of the Iowa

press. After a brief editorial introduction

and an ⁸-page survey of the period cov-

ered, it devotes the next 118 pages to

reproductions of nearly 60 Iowa news-

papers, daily and weekly, in about eighty

percent of their actual size.

It resembles somewhat Robert C.

Wheeler's Ohio Newspapers, A Living

Record, published in 1950 by the Ohio

State Archaeological and Historical So-

ciety. There are certain other Ohio over-

tones. The first newspaper published in

the then territory of Iowa was the

DuBuque Visitor, which made its appear-

ance May 11, 1836. This resulted from a

contract entered into on March 31, 1836.

in Chillicothe, Ohio, between John King

and William Cary Jones under which the

latter was to go to Dubuque to superin-

tend the publication of a paper for King.

For this Jones was to get $350, plus

"board and lodging during one year."

As the brief editorial introduction ex-

plains, emphasis was placed on the Iowa

territorial papers during the period 1836

to 1846, "but just as many have been

included in the period 1846-1865." After

that the number dealt with down to 1890

was "reduced to a fraction." The last

paper shown is the Cedar Rapids Gazette

BOOK REVIEWS                                       79

of December 31, 1961, with the timely

bannerline "BERLIN WARNING TO

KREMLIN."

Twelve other page ones of the modern

period are reproduced, from the sinking

of the Maine in 1898 to the successful

aerospace flight of Alan Shepard in May

1961. Four pages of the Council Bluffs

Nonpareil for April 22, 1865, with turn-

rules throughout, are reproduced report-

ing Lincoln's assassination. Under a

Chicago dateline, oddly, the six-para-

graph lead story, with the headline,

"MURDER!! MOST FOUL!!," reports

Lincoln's death, with this postscript:

"Later! Washington, April 15. Seward

died at 9:15 this A.M. E. M. Stanton."

Seward had been attacked in his home

but did not die. Yet a week after the

event the fact had not caught up with

the earlier report in distant Iowa.

Despite the disappearance of many

newspapers, thirty-four Iowa newspapers

established prior to the Civil War were

still being published as of the end of

1961. Among these was the Burlington

Hawk-Eye Gazette, which dates from

1837. This paper was bought in 1874 by

Frank Hatton, an Ohioan, then only

twenty-eight years old. Ten years later

President Arthur named him postmaster

general. He was said to be the youngest

cabinet member appointed, at least up

to that time.

Iowa's newspaper pageant is a useful

book. Other states would do well to

emulate Iowa and Ohio in this respect.

JAMES E. POLLARD

Ohio State University

THE CAUSES OF THE WAR OF 1812. By

Reginald Horsman. (Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press,

1962. 267p.; bibliography and index.

$6.00.)

This volume, in great and often con-

fusing detail, attempts to outline the

reasons why, eventually, the United

States went to war with Great Britain in

1812. The emphasis is decidedly British;

that is, the study primarily is devoted to

a step by step enumeration and explana-

tion of Britain's role in the pre-war

period.

The narrative actually begins with the

renewal of the Napoleonic Wars after the

lull in hostilities following the Peace of

Amiens and concludes with the United

States' declaration of war in June 1812,

just as the British were about to find

some modus vivendi for solving the

Anglo-American difficulties.

On the one side, Horsman shows

Britain, despite cries of distress from

home, holding on to its traditional policy

on commerce and neutral rights and, on

the other, the United States engaged in

a variety of artifices, including the em-

bargo coercion, in an attempt to break

down British restrictive practices. Short

chapters are devoted to affairs in the

West, where Britain was stirring up the

Indians, but Mr. Horsman correctly ac-

knowledges that even the westerners were

more interested, emotionally and eco-

nomically, in neutral rights and impress-

ment than in Indian raids and Canada.

The final portion of the volume deals

with America's preparations for war in

late 1811 and early 1812. Unfortunately,

the detail found elsewhere in the book

somehow is missing here, and the prin-

ciples of argument, while agreed with by

this reviewer, are a bit too thin to be

persuasive.

This attractively bound and printed

volume comes as a severe disappoint-

ment. It is poorly organized and gives

the reader the feeling that the author has

grouped his research cards under broad,

general headings, and then has simply

recorded them as his narrative. Too, the

volume, as a whole, presents nothing new

and actually carries on certain long-

established but poorly founded myths

concerning the actual expansionist move

against Canada. Interestingly enough,

Mr. Horsman admits that the evidence of

expansionism is rather poor, but, ne'er-

theless, perhaps fearing to tread on un-

80                                             OHIO HISTORY

blessed ground, turns right around and

promotes the fable.

Though the bibliography exhibits a

mass of source materials, the actual inter-

pretation of these leaves the reader with

the idea that they were not explored in

depth and that, even when the sources

indicate otherwise, he is too willing to

accept past interpretations and is dis-

trustful of both the sources and his own

judgment.

RICHARD C. KNOPF

Kent State University

THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR, 1781-1795. By

Harry M. Ward. (Pittsburgh: Uni-

versity of Pittsburgh Press, 1962. xi??

287p.; appendices, bibliography, and

index. $4.95.)

The period of American history known

as the Confederation (1781-89) has often

been portrayed as one full of dangers and

barren of accomplishment--a "critical

period" of transition between the Ameri-

can Revolution and the new nation under

the constitution. In recent years some

historians--particularly Charles A. Beard

and Merrill Jensen--have challenged this

old view and have shown that, despite

many weaknesses, the general govern-

ment can be credited with solid accom-

plishments. Among the achievements of

the Confederation period were the estab-

lishment of a national land system and

the creation of a bureaucracy. This book,

dealing with the establishment of the

department of war, shows that there was

a great deal more administrative con-

tinuity between the periods of the con-

federation and constitution than has

often been supposed.

During the Revolution the continental

congress dealt with military matters

through various ad hoc committes and

through a board of war. Though far

from  ideal this arrangement lasted

throughout most of the actual fighting.

From its establishment in 1781 to 1795

the war department had only two secre-

taries, General Benjamin Lincoln and

General Henry Knox. Thus the early his-

tory of the war department is largely a

story of the personalities and problems

of these two men, both of whom Ward

maintains were men of exceptional ad-

ministrative abilities. General Lincoln,

who, in accordance with British usage

was called the "secretary at war," as-

sumed many burdensome details formerly

devolving on the congress and its com-

mittees. According to Ward, his "level

leaded administration" dispelled the fear

of a permanent war executive encroach-

ing upon civil authority and convinced

congress of the need for a single-headed

war executive. After the surrender at

Yorktown the department of war, in ad-

dition to a host of routine duties per-

taining to such matters as pensions, pay,

and patronage, had the important task

of dealing with the Indians. General

Knox, who succeeded Lincoln in 1785

and served continuously until 1795,

though "too bookish" on military tactics,

was nevertheless a sound administrator.

He had the complete confidence of Wash-

ington in the early years and, until the

outbreak of the political quarrel between

Jefferson and Hamilton, was one of the

most influential members of the execu-

tive branch of the government. Though

his views on the desirability of a strong

national government coincided with those

of Hamilton, Knox's influence steadily

declined, partly because he was the equal

of neither Hamilton nor Jefferson in

powers of expression. Furthermore, his

obese wife played a rather ridiculous role

socially. Far more important, however,

in reducing Knox's prestige were the

ignominious defeats of Generals Harmar

and St. Clair in the Ohio country. By

the time of the Whiskey Rebellion Knox

had become so inconsequential that he

simply left town and allowed his depart-

ment to be administered by Hamilton.

who by that time had become a sort of

prime minister.

In the light of much that has hap-

pened since, two aspects of the early

department of war are noteworthy. In

the first place, it is an interesting fact

that the United States government was

BOOK REVIEWS                                      81

launched with a unified defense depart-

ment. General Knox presided not only

over the army but also what there was

of a navy. With the outbreak of a gen-

eral European war following the French

Revolution, congress authorized  the

building of six frigates. According to

Ward, "the construction program did not

gain full momentum during his admin-

istration, although the fault was not

Knox's." Perhaps so, but congress soon

decided that naval matters should be put

in a separate department. Further details

on the inability of the department of war

to handle naval affairs would have been

enlightening. Another interesting aspect

of the old department of war was the

absence of a general staff. After the

resignation of General Washington there

was no single military head (or chief of

staff) to advise the secretary and no gen-

eral staff to plan and direct military

operations. The secretary in fact had no

professional advisers, civil or military.

It is little wonder that his grasp of mili-

tary intelligence, logistics, and operations

was generally feeble.

Though one might question some of

the author's judgments on both men and

issues, this monograph is a thorough

piece of research that adds significantly

to our knowledge of the administrative

history of the confederation and early

republic.

HARRY L. COLES

Ohio State University

THE SCOTCH-IRISH: A SOCIAL HISTORY. By

James G. Leyburn. (Chapel Hill: Uni-

versity of North Carolina Press, 1962.

xix?? 377p.; maps, appendices, biblio-

graphy, and index. $7.00.)

This book is the first general history

of the Scotch-Irish since Henry Jones

Ford's The Scotch-Irish in America

(1915), which was preceded by Charles

A. Hanna's well-known compendium of

information published in 1902. Professor

Leyburn's work, with its straightforward

historical narrative, has the merit of pro-

viding a comprehensive consideration of

the subject in both its European and its

American phases. The first half of the

book is devoted, in equal parts, to the

Lowland Scots in 1600 before they mi-

grated to Ireland and during their so-

journ in Ireland; the second half (Part

III) deals with the Scotch-Irish in Amer-

ica. It is helpful to begin by reading

Appendix I, on the name "Scotch-Irish,"

in order to appreciate fully the misunder-

standing and controversy that long pre-

vailed regarding the identification of the

Ulster Scots, biological, geographical,

and historical.

Certainly the first century of the story,

before the great migrations to the Ameri-

can colonies, needed most to be retold.

Untrammeled by national and ethnic

prejudices, the author has provided a

cultural study, realistic and objective,

with no axe to grind. As for the century

of emigration and spread of the Scotch-

Irish in America, Professor George Shep-

person has observed recently that this

"stream has been well dredged by schol-

ars" (William and Mary Quarterly, 3d

Ser., XI [1954], 168); however, this is

the climax of the story, which, in view

of the far-flung areas to be covered, the

author has kept within reasonable com-

pass. He concludes his narrative on the

eve of the Revolution, because the pio-

neers who crossed the mountains to settle

in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Ohio

Valley were "a generation of Americans,

not of Englishmen or Germans or Scotch-

Irish."

For the most part, Professor Leyburn's

study is not based on primary sources.

Although intermittent citations to them

appear throughout the footnotes, he has

examined a wide range of secondary

works of present and past generations

and then assessed his accumulated data

in the light of available contemporary

printed documents and, in a few in-

stances, of manuscripts. In Part III on

America he is not always abreast of mod-

ern historical scholarship; occasionally

he resorts to citations to textbooks; and

sometimes he launches into a collateral

82                                         OHIO HISTORY

subject with no references at all. The

book contains two sets of notes: those

explanatory and descriptive appear as

footnotes with the text; those consisting

only of citations in numerical sequence

are relegated to the back of the book.

This is a convenient device for the gen-

eral reader, though it puts the scholar to

some inconvenience.

As a sociologist the author is con-

cerned in part with exploding some of

the myths that have clustered about the

Scotch-Irish: that they were of the Scot-

tish gentry or the Highland clans; that

Scotland was a country of great culture

rather than proverty-stricken and lawless

at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-

tury; that the Scotch-Irish contributed

toward the development of American

nationality as a superior "race," in con-

trast to most of their contemporaries.

Professor Leyburn portrays, in turn, the

characteristics of the Lowlanders, the

Ulster Scots, and their descendants the

Scotch-Irish; and he emphasizes their

notable contribution to American life and

culture in education, religion, and poli-

tics. Although he has not written the

"definitive" work on the subject, his

book is commendable and very readable.

LESTER J. CAPPON

Institute of Early American History

and Culture