Book Reviews
The Government and Administration of
Ohio. By Francis R. Aumann and
Harvey Walker. American Commonwealth
Series, edited by W. Brooke
Graves. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1956. xiv??489p.;
frontispiece, appendix, bibliography,
and index. $5.95.)
Students of Ohio's government have had
their task greatly facilitated in
the 1950's by the publication of two
volumes. In 1953 Professor Albert Rose
of the University of Dayton published
his Ohio Government, State and
Local. In 1956 Professors Aumann and Walker of Ohio State
University
produced the subject of this review.
During more than twenty-five years they
have been studying, teaching, and
writing about various aspects of Ohio's
government. There has been almost no
duplication or overlapping in their
interests. Citations of their earlier
writings almost always occur in different
chapters: for example, Walker, in the
chapters on the legislature, the office
of governor, financial and personnel
administration, and local government;
Aumann, in chapters dealing with
administrative and judicial organization,
law enforcement, and conservation. It
should not be inferred, however, that
there was not close collaboration in
writing this volume. There is no evidence
that one independently wrote certain
chapters, leaving the other free to
write as he pleased in the others. There
is no marked difference in style
of writing or treatment of the material
as one reads through the book.
At the outset, the authors warn the
reader "that no study of this kind
can ever be entirely free from errors,
or ever be complete." The reviewer
noted "1912" on page 89 where
1921 was intended; "1924" on page 96
where 1922 was indicated. Legislative
and constitutional changes are in-
evitable. Already there is a
constitutional amendment which will give senators
terms of four years. Some factual
statements seem inadequate. For example,
it may be true that the office-type
ballot "makes voting a straight ticket more
difficult" (p. 47), but it leads
one to wonder whether there has actually
been less straight-ticket voting since
this change was made in Ohio. Has
anyone investigated even one precinct?
The authors do not say.
Moreover, a factual statement may
mislead. "In 1952 the interest in
holding a constitutional convention was
much higher than it had been in
1932" (p. 35). True; but much of
the interest was in preventing the calling
BOOK REVIEWS 201
of a convention. Consequently, while the
total vote on the issue was much
larger in 1952, even after allowing for
the state's growth in population, the
percentage of the vote cast for holding
a convention was lower. Doubtless
the careful reader will note this fact
when he compares the figures given
for the votes in the two elections.
It is probably true that "Ohio has
had many strong governors" (p. 98).
More questionable is the sentence which
next follows, "Surprisingly enough,
some of those whose achievements in the
Presidency or the United States
Senate were most outstanding, did not
make the most successful governors."
Governors Hayes and McKinley are not
usually considered to have been
outstanding presidents. It would be difficult
to name many governors (suc-
cessful or not), translated into
senators, who have been outstanding among
the members of that august body.
Apart from these minor aspects, the
important fact is that this volume
will prove to be valuable to many
citizens of Ohio and to those in other
states who want to learn about Ohio's
government. Study units in the
League of Women Voters will find it very
helpful. Citizens who seek
legislation or assistance from
administrative agencies and even citizens who
find themselves elected to state, local,
or political-party office will find
enlightenment in its pages.
It is as a text for college students,
and as a reference work for high school
classes studying Ohio's government, that
this book will be mainly used.
(Some of these students will later be
found among the 200,000 or more
who will then be employed by the state
and its subdivisions.) How helpful
will this volume be in starting some of
the abler students toward a career
in public service, political or
administrative? The less inquisitive will be
appalled by the detailed information
relating to the various agencies which
serve the citizens of the state. Some
students will see in the mass of detail
a challenge to comprehend and master it.
The latter may be the ones best
able to serve the state in responsible
positions. They are likely to object,
not to the detail, but to unnecessary
repetition. Why devote a chapter to the
constitution when its provisions will
again be discussed in the chapters
dealing with the legislature, the
governor, the courts, and other agencies?
I realize that teachers tend to be
repetitious. Experience in the classroom
convinces us that most students fail to
grasp facts, or fail to appreciate their
significance, when first presented.
Classroom experience tends to be reflected
in texts which teachers write. But the
brighter students may find the repeti-
tion boring. If there must be a chapter
on the constitution, let it deal with
aspects which will not have to be
repeated when the various branches of
government are discussed.
202
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Nevertheless, the authors are to be
commended for the thorough, pain-
staking organization of information
about the government of this great
state. The publishers, too, are entitled
to commendation, not only for this
volume in its attractive format but also
for undertaking the ambitious project
of the American Commonwealth Series,
which proposes a similar treatment
for each of the states. Already, eight
volumes have been published and three
more are to appear soon. The general
editor is W. Brooke Graves, of the
legislative reference service, Library
of Congress, who is the author of a
widely used text on American state
government.
Miami University HOWARD WHITE
The Pursuit of Science in
Revolutionary America, 1735-1789. By
Brooke
Hindle. (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press for the Institute
of Early American History and Culture,
1956. xi??410p.; illustrations,
bibliographical note, and index. $7.50.)
Since eighteenth-century thinkers
closely identified science with the useful
and practical, the term science in
this study has a broader meaning than we
associate with it today. Professor
Hindle's survey covers American contribu-
tions not only to natural history,
astronomy, physics, and mathematics but
also to developing technology in such
diverse areas as agriculture, textile
manufacturing, transportation, and
military engineering, to name only a
few of the outlets for the practical
scientist of that day.
In places the book is almost
encyclopedic in detail. Fact-crammed para-
graphs become little more than recitals
of names, dates, and titles. Many men
receive no more than a sentence or two;
still, the substantial contributions
of the Bartrams, Franklin, Winthrop, and
Rittenhouse are not thereby
neglected.
However, it is not the particular
contributions of American scientists that
Professor Hindle is primarily concerned
with; his originality lies in trying
to assess the place of science in
American life during this crucial period. He
devotes much of his narrative to the
rise of cooperative efforts cutting across
colonial boundaries, to the
establishment of learned and professional societies,
and most importantly to explaining the
relationship between political events
and the development of science. Some of
the best material in the book
deals with cooperative observations of
the transit of Venus in 1769 and with
the rivalry between the two learned
societies in Philadelphia which culminated
finally in a flourishing American
Philosophical Society.
Professor Hindle holds that the
intensifying nationalism accompanying
the passage of the revenue acts created
a climate of nationalism in the world
BOOK REVIEWS 203
of science and letters which helped to
make scientific activities successful.
A second period of cultural nationalism
arose when the breach between
colonies and mother country was
recognized as permanent. The fruit of
nationalism was not so much positive
accomplishments in science as "the
adjustment of the Americans to a new
political and cultural status in which,
even though bereft of important British
supports, they proved capable of
continuing scientific work at a productive
level and, in some respects, of im-
proving it." War and separation
also intensified the practical emphasis in
American science, and the new political
arrangements brought by independ-
ence had their effect upon the forms of
organized activity.
This is a book to consult rather than
one to read at long sittings. Of special
interest and value is the picture given
of the close relations which prevailed
between American scientists and those in
England and on the continent.
One must respect the vast research,
based chiefly on original materials, that
underlies this study, but the larger
story of the impact of social change upon
American science sometimes gets lost
amid the welter of detail. Fortunately,
the author has provided a helpful bibliographical
essay and an excellent
index to make the book of maximum
usefulness.
Marietta College ROBERT J. TAYLOR
Half Horse, Half Alligator: The
Growth of the Mike Fink Legend. Edited
by Walter Blair and Franklin J. Meine.
(Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1956. ix??289p.; illustrations
and bibliography. $5.00.)
Since John Josselyn and his associates
first set out to startle the folks back
home with awesome accounts of the New
World, American literature has
ever welcomed the wonderful and the
exaggerated. The development of the
tall tale and boast, like jazz, has been
one of our really unique contributions
to world culture, and its evolution from
the New England settlers through
Davy Crockett and Mark Twain to the
modern western chamber of commerce
is a fascinating part of our history.
The present book deals competently and
thoroughly with one chapter in the story
of the western yarn.
Thanks to Walt Disney, Mike Fink is best
known today as the man who
tried to cheat Davy Crockett during a
boat race down the Mississippi.
Folklorists and historians know he was
far more than a "Bre'r Bear" buffoon
without dignity or nobility. Born near
Fort Pitt about 1770, Indian scout,
river boatman, Rocky Mountain trapper,
killed in a quarrel at Fort Henry
on the Yellowstone about 1823, Fink was
an incarnation of the restlessness
and recklessness, the uncontrolled power
and heartless pride that was the
204
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
American West. What America is today in
the eyes of Europe and Asia
is in a real sense what Fink was
yesterday in fact and fancy.
In Half Horse, Half Alligator, Walter
Blair and Franklin Meine anthol-
ogize a host of original Fink yarns in
their authentic form. The book, which
has been planned by the authors since
1933, when they published Mike Fink:
King of the Mississippi Keelboatmen, is divided into three parts. Part I
tells, as accurately as research can
make possible, who Fink actually was,
what he did, and how he died. It also
traces the growth of his legend through
the oral accounts inspired by his deeds
and personality to the sub-literary
tall tales composed for the
frontier-starved presses of the mid-nineteenth
century. Part II presents eighteen of
the sub-literary accounts taken from the
works of T. B. Thorpe, Davy Crockett,
and the like. All eighteen are colorful,
if not completely true. Part III is
devoted to varying versions of Mike's
death. Generally, the outlines of these
versions agree with the truth. Mike,
an expert marksman, shot too low in
attempting to knock a can from the
head of a youth named Carpenter.
Carpenter was killed. Talbot, one of
Carpenter's friends, with what seems to
have been good reason, questioned
Mike's motives and aim. Mike, enraged,
offered to kill Talbot as well.
Talbot then drew a pistol and ended
Fink's spectacular existence.
In Half Horse, Half Alligator, the
reader is in the hands of the two great
authorities on the American tall tale
and sub-literary account. Blair's Native
American Humor, Horse Sense in
American Humor, and Tall Tale
America
have long been standard texts for
students of American culture. Meine's Tall
Tales of the Southwest and work with the Crockett Almanacks, while less
general, is just as well known. The
present book is sound, well annotated,
with a good bibliography. At the same
time it is fully readable. In these
days when Americans, filled with
nostalgia for vanishing occupations, are
in need of verifying their national
tradition as they attempt to dominate
world thought, a book on so typically
national a man as Mike Fink must
receive a warm welcome. Happily, it
deserves the best reception that it
can get.
Denison University TRISTRAM
P. COFFIN
The American Railroad Network,
1861-1890. By George Rogers Taylor and
Irene D. Neu. (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1956. viii??113p.;
maps, appendix, and index. $3.75.)
"Mark what ills the scholar's life
assail," quipped the redoubtable Samuel
Johnson. Had he lived two centuries
later the writing of railroad history
would have provided numerous additions
to his own list of ills--inadequate
BOOK REVIEWS 205
and inaccurate data, and
misapprehensions created by popularizers and
textbooks.
Prominent among the misapprehensions
have been those disseminated by
railroad maps. A well-known example is
the long-cherished exaggeration
of the amount of public domain given to
the railroads, a legend laid to rest
by Robert S. Henry in 1945.
This new book deals with a
misapprehension which is more subtle and
complex. Railroad maps for the 1860's
are misleading in that they suggest
that uninterrupted shipments could be
made between any two points con-
nected by the imposing lines
representing the thirty-odd thousand miles
of track then in existence. Taylor and
Neu show that this was emphatically
untrue, and they fully explain the
obstacles: gauge differences, breaks at
rivers and within cities, and the
absence of arrangements for the exchange
of rolling stock.
In three chapters written by Taylor two
important facts are developed.
First, the dominance of local interests
in the early period of railroad con-
struction often meant that the incentive
was commercial rivalry among
cities rather than profitable
investment. Second, these interests, especially
in the East, often encouraged gauge
differences as a means of excluding
competition and monopolizing the trade
of a tributary region. Taylor also
deals with the barriers to through
shipments which those profiting from
breaking bulk at terminal cities erected
and defended.
The trend toward integration is then
taken up by Neu in four chapters.
First came the development of procedures
for car exchange, particularly the
fast freight lines, which greatly
accelerated the increase of through business,
though not without some damage to the
railroads themselves. A short chapter
on the ways of solving gauge differences
is highly interesting. There were
four: compromise cars, whose
five-inch-wide wheels could run, albeit haz-
ardously, on both standard and four feet
ten inch tracks; cars with adjustable
wheels, which were generally a little
too adjustable; car hoists for changing
trucks; and third rails for
double-gauging a line. All were unsatisfactory,
and by 1880 about eighty percent of
railroad mileage had shifted to standard,
as compared with fifty-three percent in
1861.
This book is solidly based on sources
carefully appraised, is fully foot-
noted, and has an index and three
meticulously prepared and executed maps
which show the different gauges in 1861
by a color code. The work is well
organized and written, and definitely
clarifies a long-obscure problem. One
hopes it will not take twenty years for
this research to penetrate history
textbooks.
Pennsylvania State University JOHN PIXTON
206
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Immigrants and Their Children,
1850-1950. By E. P. Hutchinson. (New
York: John Wiley and Sons, and London:
Chapman and Hall, for the
Social Science Research Council in
cooperation with the U. S. Depart-
ment of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
1956. xiv??391p.; appendices
and index. $6.50.)
The author, a professor of sociology at
the University of Pennsylvania,
has prepared this volume with the
helpful cooperation of the bureau of the
census and the Social Science Research
Council. A previous census monograph,
Niles Carpenter's Immigrants and
Their Children, 1920 (Washington, 1927),
covered much of the field indicated in
the title of the work here reviewed.
Hence Professor Hutchinson's
contribution stresses changes since 1920 in the
composition and geographical
distribution of the first and second generations
of immigrant stock. He gives detailed
attention to occupational data con-
cerning such groups that he gleaned from
the census of 1870 and later
censuses which was not utilized by
Carpenter. Hutchinson realizes that the
"question of what influence
immigration has had on the population and
economic growth of the United States has
not been--and perhaps cannot
be--fully answered," but he
believes that a positive contribution can be made
to an understanding of that question.
The beginning date for the scope of the
study was necessitated by the fact
that the census of 1850 was the earliest
one to classify the composition of
the American people according to native
or foreign birth. Data concerning
native-born children of foreign-born
residents has been provided by the census
of 1870 and each one since that time.
The period since 1920 has of course been
marked by decreased immigration
because of quota provisions, the
depression of the 1930's, and World War II.
Hence the recorded number of
foreign-born in the United States reached a
maximum (about 14,200,000) in the census
of 1930. Since 1920 immigrants
have increasingly been southern
Europeans and natives of the western
hemisphere, and the decline in
immigration numerically has meant an
obvious aging of the foreign-born
population as well as of the second
generation of immigrant stock.
Geographically, the foreign-born and
their children in 1920 were found
in greatest numbers in the northeastern
states, and they were even more fully
concentrated in the same area in 1950.
Immigrants from Ireland, Poland,
Russia, and Greece were most inclined to
be city-dwellers, while those from
Scandinavia and Mexico were most likely
to be found in rural districts. As to
occupational trends, people from Mexico,
the Netherlands, and Scandinavia
have had strong agricultural
inclinations, while those from France and
Scotland have been especially well
represented in the professions.
BOOK REVIEWS 207
One can find little to criticize in a
volume based upon a careful analysis
of census records with restrained
generalizations from such data. Almost a
quarter of the book is devoted to
appendices which include valuable
statistical tables.
Ohio State University FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER
The Livingston Indian Records,
1666-1723. Edited by Lawrence H.
Leder.
(Gettysburg: Pennsylvania Historical
Association, 1956. 240p.; maps,
illustrations, pictographs, bibliography,
and glossary. $5.00.)
To the scholar who locates--if need be
translates--edits, and sees through
the press a collection of documentary
material, his colleagues, both present
and future, owe a debt of gratitude. We
acknowledge such debt in the case
of the Livingston Indian Records, a
manuscript collection concerned, chiefly,
with Anglo-Iroquois relations in New
York State at a relatively early period.
These Records, written mainly in archaic
English but also sometimes in
Dutch, sometimes torn or otherwise
impaired, could not have been easy to
handle. Their present form attests to
Mr. Leder's care with them.
However, there are two features of the
present volume, one negative and
one positive, which merit critical
comment. The first is the notable lack of an
index, a lack unconvincingly
rationalized by Mr. Leder in his introduction
to the volume as being due to
limitations of space. The second feature is the
unfortunate inclusion of a text, with
accompanying pictographs, narrating
the founding of the Iroquois
Confederacy; a sentence or two of text, with
accompanying pictograph(s), appears at
the bottom of many of the pages
of the Records.
Whether Mr. Leder or Paul A. W. Wallace,
who contributed an intro-
ductory chapter on "The Iroquois: A
Brief Outline of Their History" to
the present volume, is responsible for
the inclusion of the "Legend" and
its pictographs is not clear; all we are
told, at the end of the chapter by
Mr. Wallace, is:
Intermingled with the text of the
Livingston Indian Records in the
following pages, is a picture version of
the Legend of the Founding, done
by Ray Fadden (Aren Akweks) of the St.
Regis Mohawks. As far as possible
the artist has depended on conventional
Indian pictographs. When, however,
he has had something to express for which no ancient
symbols were avail-
able, he has tried to imagine what the
old-time picture-writers would have
done, and in that light made up his own
characters. (p. 28).
The scholarly convention holds, among
anthropologists, that the source
208
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of American Indian narrative material be
named and identified. We presume
that Ray Fadden was the source not only
for the pictographs but for the
accompanying textual material, but if
this is the case, we doubt that his
narrative is reproduced verbatim in the
Records without editorial touching
up. The inclusion of such a feature in a
volume devoted to the faithful
reproduction of documents, is startling
to an anthropologist, who regards
oral material from American Indians as
primary source material, and is
accustomed to treat it accordingly in
his scholarly publications. Nor will the
intermingling of fact and fancy so far
as the pictographs are concerned be of
much value to the anthropologist, with
no notations as to which are "Indian"
(St. Regis Mohawk?) and which Mr.
Fadden's. Both classes of pictographs
are of course of interest to the
anthropologist, but to make any use of them
he must know which are which, as the
historian must know which parts
of a document are original text, and
which are editorial insertions.
To expedite ethnohistorical research we
need many more volumes of the
sort Mr. Leder has brought out. But if
these must be embellished with
Indian material to give them added
interest (and we really see no reason
why they should be cluttered with such),
we hope that the provenience of
such material will be made clear, and that
it will be treated with the same
meticulous care that a historian accords
written primary source material.
Indiana University ERMINIE WHEELER-VOEGELIN
Old Bullion Benton, Senator From the
New West: Thomas Hart Benton,
1782-1858. By William Nisbet Chambers. (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1956. xv??517p.;
frontispiece, bibliography, and index. $6.00.)
Until now we have had no satisfactory
biography of Thomas Hart Benton.
Historians and biographers have largely
taken him at his own conceited
estimate and have borrowed heavily from
his recollections, Thiry Years View.
The influence of that partisan work,
even on modern scholars, can scarcely
be exaggerated.
The work before us leaves something to
be desired, but it has substantial
merits that should not be minimized. It
is conscientious, scholarly, and
sincere. The author sees Benton as he
really was, a superb politician who,
for over thirty years, bamboozled the
voters into keeping him on the public
payroll. With remarkable restraint Mr.
Chambers withholds opinion and
lets Benton himself reveal his vulgarity
and pomposity and egotism.
Benton is a tedious subject for a
scholarly biographer. His career was
long, he took a stand on every public
issue, and he was highly articulate.
To know Benton thoroughly is to
understand each of the numerous public
BOOK REVIEWS 209
issues of his time. The biographer has
an even more compelling task. He
must ask himself whether he can discern
any single theme that informs and
unifies the diverse aspects of the
career.
Benton advertised himself as a friend of
the workingman and the small
settler, and posed as what we would call
a nationalist. Professor Chambers,
like others before him, has been partly
taken in by Benton's assertions. He
recognizes that in the first and last
phases of Benton's political career he was
a hardworking errand boy for the St.
Louis businessmen, but he seems to
believe that for twenty years Benton was
a great statesman of social
democracy. Doubtless Benton's durability
can be explained by his ability
to convince the plain people that he was
working for them. But as his
position on each issue is analyzed
thoroughly, one comes to see that the
real clue to his career is fidelity to
the interests of the St. Louis business
community. Benton wanted westward
expansion, for example, but he wanted
it to hinge on St. Louis rather than on
Chicago, Memphis, or New Orleans.
He wanted federal aid to transportation,
provided it benefited St. Louis. His
monetary policy meant local credit
autonomy combined with maximum prices
for the Santa Fe specie that flowed in
through Missouri. He looked on Texas
ever with a jaundiced eye and supported
the Mexican War only when he
saw that it meant the acquisition of a
California that he hoped to make tribu-
tary to St. Louis. Above all, he saw
that preservation of the Union was es-
sential to the prosperity of St. Louis.
As slavery became a crucial issue
in Missouri, Benton progressively lost
his state-wide constituency and was
thrown back upon his home town. In 1844
he was reelected only because both
senate seats were vacant; six years
later he was defeated, but St. Louis would
send him to the house later.
In the judgment of the reviewer this
book does not fully resolve the
Benton problem. We are told that Benton
was privately in the pay of St.
Louis capitalists while he was pressing
for legislative and administrative
actions sought by them, but the
significance of this dual role is not clearly
indicated. Scholars will acknowledge the
virtues of this book without neces-
sarily accepting all the
interpretations.
Oberlin College THOMAS LEDUC
Military Heritage of America. By Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy and Colonel
Trevor N. Dupuy. (New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Company, 1956.
xvi??794p.; maps, diagrams, appendices,
bibliography, and index. $10.00.)
The writing of Military Heritage of
America grew from the discovery by
one of the authors that there existed no
up-to-date, reliable survey or analysis
210
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of American military history suitable
for use in a college course which he
was presenting to ROTC students. This
book is more than a college textbook.
The elements of our military heritage
are of interest and significance to any
citizen, and the objective of this book
is to provide for all Americans a
military history presented from the
American point of view. Unit records
as such have been eliminated because
these are available in The Army Lineage
Book and similar publications. The Dupuys organize the
subject under
chronological periods with topical
breakdowns within the periods.
Approximately ten percent of this volume
is devoted to a preliminary
analysis of the principles of war,
military techniques, and illustrations from
the period prior to the American
Revolution, including a section on North
American colonial wars. Another ten
percent brings the story through the
Mexican War to 1848. Some twenty-five
pages are devoted to a chapter
on "Writers on Military
Strategy," and twelve pages to a chapter on "The
Industrial Revolution and Warfare."
Approximately one hundred pages deal
with the American Civil War, seventy
with World War I, two hundred
with World War II, and thirty-five with
the Korean War. Another ten
percent of the book covers the minor
wars, and such subjects as "Military
History and the Future of War," and
"Cold-war Evaluation of Hot-war
Lessons." The volume also has a
well-chosen selected bibliography of some
six hundred items; an index of forty
pages, with single entries followed
by as many as fifty, sixty, and once
over ninety-five unassorted page refer-
ences; and, in the appendices,
well-arranged charts on "The Wars of History
from Antiquity to Mid-Twentieth
Century" and the "Development of
Weapons and War Materiel," both
individual weapons and group weapons,
from the club and rock, the chariot and
war galley to the bazooka and the
atomic-powered submarine.
In every section of this volume the
Dupuys reveal their skill in sound
analysis, deep insight, critical
judgment, and clear presentation. Examples
demonstrate lessons to be learned by
students, as well as information and
interpretations valuable to citizens of
a popular government. They show that,
by Custer's "ill-considered charge
for glory, . . . Sheridan's strategy, Terry's
tactics, Crook's victory at the Rosebud,
and (the real tragedy) more than
300 brave soldiers were all wiped out by
one man's refusal to play with
the team--by what we now call
'grandstanding.'" In analyzing actions in
a later war, the background of the
battle of Leyte Gulf is well built up
by the Dupuys, and then Halsey's
decision, the near approach to disaster,
and the final analysis of the radically
faulty command organization are all
presented in a lengthy quotation from
the writings of a British naval officer.
BOOK REVIEWS 211
The conclusions are clear, but they are
not permitted to rest without citation
of other authorities.
Some historians may question the merit
of certain historical assumptions,
such as that "the Union Jack might
be flying over New Orleans today,"
if Jackson had acted differently in
January 1815; and some Texans may
question the balance in a volume of over
eight hundred pages that devotes
only five words to the Alamo, and
seventeen words to the battle of San
Jacinto; but all will agree that these
are merely items in a work that really
makes a significant contribution both to
the training of prospective officers
and to the enlightenment of the general
reader.
Air University CHARLES
M. THOMAS
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.
Edited by Ned Bradford. (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1956.
xiii??626p.; illustrations and index.
$8.95.)
From the original four-volume series Battle
and Leaders of the Civil War,
first published as a serial in Century
Magazine in the 1880's and consisting
of several hundred articles, Mr.
Bradford has selected forty-four, of which
twenty-nine are from the pens of
northerners and fifteen from those of
southerners. On the one side are
included such leaders as Grant, McClellan,
Porter, Pope, and Wallace; and on the
other, Beauregard, Hood, Longstreet,
and Early.
Through these selections one gets a
continuous and well-unified story of
the war, though it may be suggested that
the part played by the navy is not
emphasized adequately. Illustrations and
maps are not present in great
numbers, but such as are included
contribute much toward a more effective
presentation of the mighty conflict.
The statement on the book's jacket that
the "running commentary" by
the editor "makes this volume in
effect a history of the Civil War told in
new form" will be regarded by many
as an overstatement of the kind some-
times indulged in by publishers. The
"running commentary" does present
in clear perspective the factual
material dealt with in the respective articles;
however, there are few interpretative
comments upon the way that material
is presented. Evidently the editor felt
that the participants in the struggle
should tell their own story in their own
way. By pursuing this policy he
does preclude any allegation or charge
of partisanship. The only exceptions
that the reviewer found to the above
statement were Mr. Bradford's efforts
to disparage McClellan as much as
possible, and his apparent acceptance
212
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of what Professor Randall regards as the
disproved charge that Secretary
of War Floyd used his position to weaken
the North from a military angle
and to strengthen the South.
This lengthy volume should be considered
from still another angle.
Military leaders, no less than political
figures, naturally like to be favorably
viewed by posterity, and that favorable
view, it is supposed, may result from
convincing evidence of positive
achievements or superior judgment or con-
vincing evidence of serious mistakes on
the part of someone else. All wars
give rise to claims as to the relative
merits of military leaders, and certainly
the Civil War was no exception in this
respect. In this volume there is
much of the strategy, drama, and tragedy
of the colossal struggle; in it, too,
subjectivity, quite naturally, is very
apparent. For instance, McClellan's
account of the preparations for, and the
conduct of, the Peninsular campaign
of 1862 could convince one that he knew
just where he was going and how
to get there. On the other hand, the
article of Richard B. Irwin could
convince one that McClellan was almost
entirely at fault in his controversy
with the Lincoln administration, and the
one by General Jacob Cox plausibly
suggests serious shortcomings in
McClellan's strategy at Antietam. That Lee
and Longstreet frequently differed as to
military methods is a matter of
common knowledge. Some feel that, all
factors considered, Lee acquitted
himself at Antietam as well as could be
expected. Longstreet, however,
suggests that a different strategy could
have resulted in an impressive
southern victory.
Ohio State University HENRY H. SIMMS
Lincoln and the Tools of War. By Robert V. Bruce. Foreword by Benjamin
P. Thomas. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 1956. xi??368p.;
illustrations, bibliography, and index.
$5.00.)
As the centennial of the Civil War
approaches, the number of volumes in
this already well-stocked field may be
expected to multiply at an accelerating
rate. Robert Bruce, who teaches history
at Boston University, has turned out
a solid, worthwhile study in Civil War
military history, a field that has
been attracting increasing attention for
the past decade.
This work explores the relation of
President Lincoln to the process of
examining, testing, selecting, and
ordering weapons with which to equip
Union armies in the field. From his
early experience as a surveyor, Lincoln
had long been fascinated by mechanical
devices and technological improve-
ments, had once even delivered a lecture
on "Discoveries and Inventions."
BOOK REVIEWS 213
As a layman he was intrigued by the
practical applications of technology.
As president he was anxious to secure
for the armed forces the most efficient
"tools" for pushing the war to
a successful and speedy conclusion. Con-
sequently, he was willing to take time
from a crowded official schedule
personally to examine and even test new
weapons brought to Washington
by a flock of inventors and
manufacturers' agents in a growing stream after
the war began.
If the desirability of securing the most
advanced, effective weapons for the
armed forces seemed an objective that
all officials managing the war could
agree upon, such a calculation left out
of account bureaucratic red tape
and the hidebound narrowness of military
officialdom. General James W.
Ripley, chief of army ordnance,
convinced that the war would be a short one,
insisted on ordering only the
traditional muzzle-loading rifle long after
the breech-loader had clearly
demonstrated its effectiveness in the field. Ripley
successfully forestalled the ordering of
many other "new-fangled" weapons
on the ground that it would be
expensive, inefficient, and leave the army
clogged with surplus useless gear when
the war ended. Often Lincoln's
requests to Ripley to examine new weapons
were disregarded, or, if tests
were run, they were merely perfunctory,
Ripley's decision already having
been made.
This volume examines the work of other
men--those who helped as well
as those who hindered the war effort.
Men like Captain John A. Dahlgren,
the navy's ordnance expert, and Stephen
Vincent Benet (grandfather of the
poet), who tested arms for Lincoln at
West Point. Inventors like John D.
Mills, with his curious
"coffee-mill" machine gun, Christopher Spencer, with
his seven-shooting rifle, J. S. Smith,
with his "suit of steel armor," and others
move across these pages toting a
staggering variety of ingenious and some-
times incredible devices designed to
insure Union victory.
Author Bruce brings to his self-imposed assignment
the unique combina-
tion of undergraduate training as a
mechanical engineer and graduate training
in history. He understands well himself
and makes dearly understandable
to the reader the mechanical
technicalities whereof he writes. His research
in the manuscripts and in the
contemporary and secondary literature has been
extensive and rewarding--especially so
since he succeeded in turning up a
number of hitherto unpublished Lincoln
items and a journal kept by Mrs.
Gustavus V. Fox, wife of the assistant
secretary of the navy. He writes in a
pleasing style and has done a
workmanlike job in illuminating the problems
of weapons procurement in the Civil War.
Los Angeles State College DAVID LINDSEY
214
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Lincoln Finds a General: A Military
Study of the Civil War. By Kenneth P.
Williams. Vol. IV, luka to Vicksburg.
(New York: Macmillan Company,
1956. xv??616p.; illustrations, maps,
source notes, bibliography, appendix,
and index. $7.50.)
This volume, the fourth in Professor
Williams' projected seven-volume
military history of the Civil War,
presents a study in command covering the
campaigns in the West from July 1862 to
General Grant's capture of
Vicksburg. After discussing the season
of reverses, the confusion in command
occasioned by General Henry W. Halleck's
transfer to Washington, the
problems of incomplete military
intelligence, and the action of Confederate
guerrillas, the author outlines the
Union strategy in the western theater, which
included the capture of Chattanooga and
the opening of the Mississippi
River.
In his scholarly, meticulous, readable,
heavily documented, but not un-
conventional narrative, Williams
presents a detailed account of General
Carlos Buell's role in the
administration's strategy designed to liberate the
Unionists in the Volunteer State,
interpose an army between the forces
of Smith and Beauregard, and cut vital
railroad lines that led from Virginia
to Georgia. Buell, plagued by logistic
problems, hampered by faulty in-
telligence, and occasionally subjected
to unjust criticism for his failure to
take the offensive, failed to reach his
objective and was forced to engage
in a retrograde movement to check the
progress of the Kirby Smith -- Bragg
invasion of Kentucky designed to cut the
Blue Grass State from its reported
wavering Union moorings and to threaten
the security of Ohio. While the
Confederate invasion of Kentucky was
effective in demoralizing Ohio, as
evidenced by the panic in Cincinnati and
the mustering of the "Squirrel
Hunters," Buell reoccupied his base
at Lexington; repulsed Confederate forces
at Perryville, thanks to the
aggressiveness of Colonel William Carlin and
Ohio's Phil Sheridan; and prepared to
resume his campaign in Tennessee.
In evaluating the Tennessee-Kentucky
operations the author brands as a
myth the contention that Buell's
movement on Chattanooga failed because
Halleck, heretofore depicted as a
bookish meddler, "required him to rebuild
the Memphis and Charleston Railroad as
he advanced." He concludes, also,
that Buell missed a rare opportunity at
Perryville "because he lacked the
controlling instincts of a real field
soldier." Ohio's General William S.
Rosecrans, Buell's successor, proved to
be a difficult and boastful subordinate,
whose cautious, tortoise-like movements
eventually culminated in an inde-
cisive Union victory at Stone River.
While the Tennessee-Kentucky campaigns
are fully discussed and evaluated,
BOOK REVIEWS 215
the "main theme" of the volume
is the Union plan of opening the Mississippi
River from New Orleans to Vicksburg in
an attempt to deprive Confederate
states east of the river of supplies
from the productive regions of the West.
Grant, relegated to the position of a
subordinate during Bragg's operations,
emerged somewhat refurbished following
his engagements at Iuka and
Corinth. Yet Grant was still hindered by
a divided command and the back-
of-the-scenes machinations of General John
H. McClernand. The Illinoisan's
petty letters to higher echelons, feebly
evaluating the work, ability, and
progress of his comrades in arms, bore
mute testimony to his duplicity,
incompetence, and unfitness for his
position.
Williams relates, with a wealth of
detail, the gradual evolution of Grant's
unorthodox, but in retrospect flawless,
strategy, which according to General
William T. Sherman, who disagreed with
his chief, was impelled by "clamor
in the rear, clamor by 'the same damned
cowardly herd, who disgrace our
nation,' and who remained in Ohio and
other places, raising a hue and
cry that made it necessary to 'disregard
all sense and wisdom to risk the
impossibilities.' " During the
initial phases of the operation Confederate
forces repulsed the Grant-Sherman joint
land and river operation, with
Grant losing his supply base at Holly
Springs, Mississippi. General Grant,
after witnessing the failure of his
canal, Lake Providence, Yazoo Pass, and
Steel Bayou projects, concluded that the
citadel, protected by swamps and
marsh lands on the north and heavy
entrenchments on the east and southeast,
could be reduced only from the south or
southwest. Accordingly Grant, en-
dowed with an "unconquerable
spirit," sent Sherman north in a diversionary
movement while he and his transports ran
the Confederate batteries.
Assuming personal command, Grant drove
Johnson out of Jackson, dis-
persed Pemberton's forces, seized vital
Confederate railways, and secured
the approaches to the reputedly
impregnable fortress. The volume ends with
a dramatic account of the siege of
Vicksburg (May 18-July 4, 1863). The
vociferous McClernand, violating orders
by releasing to the press his troop
congratulatory order, in which he
attempted to arrogate to himself credit for
the success back of Vicksburg, was
replaced by General O. C. Ord, "a
soldier." In the final chapter
evidence is presented to refute contemporary
charges that Grant exceeded his
authority during the campaign and dis-
regarded instructions from his
superiors.
When it comes to evaluating this volume,
the reviewer is confronted
with a pleasant task. Based on an
examination of the Official Records, and on
newspapers, memoirs, diaries, and
recollections of participants, the study is
an outstanding work of scholarship and
represents a significant contribution
216
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
to an understanding of the military
operations of the Union forces in the
West. The book, well printed,
attractively bound, and comparatively free
from slips in proofreading (there is no
map on page 38 as cited on page
67), contains a bibliography, critical
source notes, an index, and an ap-
pendix, in which the author discusses
critically some mooted points in
Civil War history and evaluates recently
published Civil War literature. The
volume should be made required reading
for all students who labor under
the misapprehension that the earlier
studies of the Union army were
definitive.
Columbus, Ohio JOHN O. MARSH
Gray Ghosts and Rebel Raiders. By Virgil Carrington Jones. Introduction by
Bruce Catton. (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1956. xiv??431p.;
end paper maps, illustrations, and
index. $4.50.)
"I thought Virginia was to be the
theater of war for six or eight weeks.
We would have a battle in which one
Southern man would whip five
Yankees with cornstalks. England would
intervene, peace would be declared,
and we would return home finding all our
servants smiling at our home-
coming." Mr. Jones in his study of
the Virginia partisan rangers and their
daring exploits makes clear that not
only was such southern optimism
wishful thinking, but that the eventual
long war was prolonged for eight
or nine months due to the success of
southern guerrilla activities. Voluminous
literature already exists on many of the
actions of the "irregulars," Mr. Jones's
earlier work on John S. Mosby being a
prominent example. However, this
study, although in style frequently
resembling the current "true adventure"
tale, successfully synthesizes numerous
divergent accounts into a meaningful
whole and relates the synthesis to the
general activities of the major Union
and Confederate armies in the eastern
theater of war.
Once again the struggle of the sixties
is revealed as the first truly modern
war. Certainly guerrilla warfare was not
new in world history, but now
partisans became "organized troops
. . . subject to the Articles of War and
Army Regulations" and their legality
as such was even recognized by the
Union in November 1862. Acting upon an
opinion by Francis Lieber, it
was acceded that rangers "whose
officers are commissioned by the Confederate
Government and who are regularly in the
service of the Confederate States
are to be exchanged when captured."
However, this did not insure acquies-
cence in their actions by either North
or South, and Lee, for one, stated late
in the war, "I regard the whole
system as an unmixed evil." The attraction
BOOK REVIEWS 217
of partisan participation, with its
freedom from the conformity of regular
army life and its opportunities for
individual glory, to say nothing of
looting, often created serious
recruiting problems for the organized forces.
On the other hand, the northern response
to the harassment of the guerrillas
was also to produce later total war
techniques. Barn-burning, looting, and
general devastation finally proved to be
the one effective antidote of northern
armies, and it was such actions which
eventually stopped both "irregular"
marauders and the war itself.
Mr. Jones is at his best when dealing
with personalities. Adopting
Catherine Drinker Bowen's technique of
superimposing contrived con-
versations upon historically accurate
factual situations, he brings to life
such little-known figures as Elijah
White, Harry Gilmor, John McNeill and
his son Jesse (who captured and carried
off two Union major generals at
Cumberland, Maryland), and especially
Turner Ashby, the legendary
gentleman farmer turned raider. Heroism
prevails. Guerrilla activities along
the Baltimore & Ohio, well analyzed
some years ago by Festus P. Summers,
are now integrated into the fast-moving
narrative, and the Shenandoah
Valley reprisals of Sheridan come in for
colorful treatment.
The book represents once again the type
of historical study which the
commercial presses more and more are
publishing and promoting, but when
academicians leave important research to
the popularizers, they have no
choice but to accede graciously to the
results and even to commercial success.
Ohio State University PAUL L. MURPHY
This Hallowed Ground: The Story of
the Union Side of the Civil War. By
Bruce Catton. (New York: Doubleday and
Company, 1956. ix??437p.;
bibliography and index. $5.95.)
To tell the story of the Civil War on
400 pages, in about 200,000 words,
as Bruce Catton tells it is no small
accomplishment. Pulitzer Prize winner
and the man who won the National Book
Award in 1954 for A Stillness at
Appomattox, Mr. Catton has written, in This Hallowed Ground, a
thrilling
and unusual one-volume dramatization of
the Civil War.
The development of the "Anaconda
Plan" of northern over-all campaign
strategy provides an excellent
bird's-eye view of the objectives set up early
in the war to bring victory to the
Union. Frequent reference is made to that
basic plan as the story progresses
through the forty-eight months of blood-
letting. It is a striking fact that this
conception of General Winfield Scott
proved to be the basis of the federal
war effort throughout. Mr. Catton does
218
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
full justice to the over-all aspects of
this gigantic strategy, which, like all
such early-conceived strategy, had to be
changed many times and in many
details.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about
this book is the gifted author's
success in portraying the feelings,
emotions, and everyday conversations of
the Union soldier. And at times he
achieves the same feat of reporting those
aspects of the camp and field life of
the Confederate warrior. This deep
insight into the day-by-day thinking and
conversation of the "rookie"
volunteer and the battle-seasoned
veteran alike lends interest to the tale and
makes the volume a vibrant, lively piece
of reporting.
Bruce Catton, editor of that
distinguished magazine of American history,
American Heritage, in giving us This Hallowed Ground has set a high
mark of achievement in writing Civil War
history.
Worthington, Ohio WILLIAM R. COLLINS
The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the
Union Army, 1861-1865. By Dudley
Taylor Cornish. (New York: Longmans,
Green and Company, 1956.
xiii??337p.; notes on sources, critical
bibliography, and index. $6.00.)
This volume by Professor Dudley T.
Cornish should serve not only as an
important source on the military history
of the American Negro but also
as a medium for better race relations.
The book is well written, properly
documented, and carries a wealth of
information.
The essential value of this work stems,
primarily, from the fact that it
deals with a military episode in the
history of the Negro-American as a
separate and distinct development. It
therefore avoids the weakness of other
rather inadequate attempts to deal with
the Negro as a soldier which confuse
the picture with multiple issues.
There are several very good arguments
that one could advance in supporting
a book like this one. First of all, the
report appears to be fair and unbiased.
Such a requirement is certainly of the
utmost importance, particularly when
dealing with the Negro as a military
man. Even today there is still much
undue controversy surrounding the combat
potential of the Negro soldier.
One who reads this portrayal of Negro
combat performance in the Civil
War ought to enjoy some relief from
these misgivings. This is indeed the
contention of the author, who feels that
without Battery Wagner, Brice's Cross
Roads, Deep Bottom, Honey Springs,
Nashville, Petersburg, and Port Hudson,
the American Negro must have
been excluded indefinitely from the
rights and responsibilities of American
BOOK REVIEWS 219
citizenship. For him the Civil War was
indeed a prodigious revolution. Had he
not fought his way into the Union Army,
had he remained passive observer
instead of active participant, the
history of the American people in general
and of the American Negro in particular
must have been far different from
what it has been.
Professor Cornish says that
approximately 180,000 Negroes served as
soldiers in the Union military arm
during the Civil War. He relates that
these men served in capacities ranging
all the way from menial labor to
experienced combat efficiency. A special
emphasis is placed on combat per-
formance, because as Professor Cornish
says, there is "much misconception,
misunderstanding, and
misinformation" which has "grown up around the
Negro soldier" to twist and
mutilate his true military history.
Another treatment by the author that
deserves special attention is the
relationship between the development of
overall administration policy and
the military policy permitting the
incorporation of Negro troops as an
integral part of the military
establishment. The reader gains additional insight
on the positive effect of the broadened
Lincoln administration war aims
on the employment of the Negro as a
soldier. This the author believes was
a necessary prerequisite for the use of
the Negro as a part of the official
military establishment.
Reasons for the restricted overall
policy at the outset are satisfactorily
dealt with. However, one wonders whether
the indirect persuasion of Great
Britain through close
British-Confederate relationship ought not to have
figured more prominently in policy
change.
The discussion of radical, moderate, and
conservative points of view are
both interesting and illuminating.
Objectives and motives of the several
personalities, along with their varied
thinking, is handled with considerable
fairness. The author does a good job in
allowing these personalities to speak
for themselves.
The intricate task of raising, training,
and organizing troops adds to one's
storehouse of knowledge. Prior treatment
of this phase by other writers
was far too inadequate. It is to the
everlasting credit of a host of individuals,
both Negro and white, that this long,
drawn out, cumbersome undertaking
was accomplished to the benefit of the
Union effort.
The book carries an excellent foreword
and a most revealing critical
bibliography. It bids fair to allay
fears and bring about a more healthy
understanding of the role of the
Negro-American as a soldier participant
in the history of the United States.
Wilberforce University ARTHUR P. STOKES
220
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Lincoln's Supreme Court. By David M. Silver. Illinois Studies in the Social
Sciences, Vol. 38. (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 1956. ix??236p.;
frontispiece, appendix, bibliography,
and index. Cloth, $4.00; paper,
$3.00.)
For the purist the title of this book is
misleading--the court was not
Lincoln's until several weeks after his
assassination, when the death of Justice
Catron gave Lincoln appointees a five to
four majority. Rather this is a study
of the court while Lincoln was in the
White House, with some reference to
post-Lincoln decisions, especially the
Milligan case of 1866.
When Lincoln took the oath of office
there was one vacancy, Justice
Daniel having died approximately ten
months before. Only a few weeks
before Lincoln took office President
Buchanan nominated his attorney general
for the position but at that late date,
with several southern states having
already seceded, it was impossible to
get a confirmation. Within a few weeks
two other vacancies developed, one
through the death of Justice McLean and
the other through the resignation of
Justice Campbell, who joined the
Confederacy. Of the six remaining justices,
Silver says that three were friendly
to the Lincoln administration and three
"were largely unfriendly" (p. 24).
Yet in what Silver calls "Their
Gravest Decision"--the Prizes Cases--the
court, after three Lincoln appointees
had been added, split five to four. One
of Silver's friendly justices voted
against the administration. If President
Buchanan had nominated Jeremiah Black in
May or June of 1860 instead
of the following winter, he would likely
have been confirmed. With only
two Lincoln appointees on the bench by
1863, when the Prize Cases were
heard, the administration would have
been pretty certain to have lost those
cases; or they would have been compelled
to do more drastic packing than
just raising the number of justices to
ten, as was being done even as the
decision was being written on those
cases.
Until his death in the fall of 1864
Chief Justice Taney was the central
figure of the court. While the radical
Republicans constantly fulminated
against him, those who met him regularly
in the court grew to respect him.
Even Justice Miller (a Lincoln
appointee), who later recorded that he had
hated Taney for his previous decisions,
also recorded that he came to respect
and admire him; and Lincoln's attorney
general, Edward Bates, also came
to appreciate him.
Silver titles his final chapter
"Taney Absolved." It is well written, on the
whole, but seems to this reviewer to end
with a very confused paragraph--
a confusion which creeps in elsewhere in
the book:
BOOK REVIEWS 221
A "government of laws"--that
was the object of Chief Justice Taney and
the object of President Lincoln as well.
And that was the object of the
Supreme Court in the Milligan decision.
In the broadest sense, the Milligan
decision stands as a monument to the man
who strove for a "government of
laws" though the cause was not only unpopular but
suspected, and the tide
ran against him and everything for which
he stood. (p.236).
As Silver states on page 228, the
Milligan case "called vigorously for a
return to constitutional guarantees.
Taney's 'government of laws' was re-
stored." This plainly implies that
"government of laws" did not exist when
Milligan was tried by a military
commission. Since the military commissions,
as well as the withdrawal of the habeas
corpus protection, against which in
the Merryman case of 1861 Taney used the
phrase "government of laws,"
were the work of Lincoln, it seems hard
to explain how he stood for govern-
ment of laws. On page 120 the author
makes it clear that the administration
made clear the "contempt it felt
for judicial authorities," hardly a state
of mind to show regard for government of
laws.
The same careless thinking can be found
on page 63: "Justice Swayne
[another Lincoln appointee] had an
abiding interest in the subject of
arbitrary military arrests." To
prove this point Silver refers to Swayne's
correspondence with President Lincoln in
regard to the arbitrary military
arrest of a Mr. Harris. The justice
wrote, in part, "Nothing but my firm
conviction of the innocence of the
accused could have induced me thus to
interpose." It would appear that
the justice had "an abiding interest in the
subject of arbitrary military
arrests" of people he considered innocent.
Probably not all innocent people who
were arbitrarily arrested by the military
under orders of the president had a
powerful supreme court member to
intercede in their behalf.
There is an excellent chapter on the
packing of the court. (Why is the
fact that Lincoln and the radicals
enlarged the court so seldom mentioned
in the literature dealing with this
period?) There is another on the attempts
of the extreme radical Republicans to
destroy or further modify the court.
There are excellent sketches of the
members of the court at the time and
accounts of the debates in congress
relative to the court. The district court
system was completely overhauled during
the war. There are accounts of the
work of the justices on circuit,
although these accounts are largely limited
to war issues. Despite the weak spots
mentioned there is much good material
in this study.
Hiram College PAUL I. MILLER
222
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Years Were Good. By Louis B. Seltzer. Introduction by Bruce Catton.
(Cleveland and New York: World
Publishing Company, 1956. 320p.;
illustrations, index, and biographical
note about the author. $4.00.)
Fortunately, the buoyant
"Louie" Seltzer, editor since 1928 of the
Scripps-Howard chain's Cleveland
Press, did not put off the writing of his
first book another year. Thus the
"lonely and unhappy" weeks, the "personal
suffering and emotional upset" (his
words, quoted in Editor & Publisher for
December 1, 1956) of Cleveland's first
Newspaper Guild strike last Novem-
ber, that started against his paper,
could not leave their blemish on this
memoir with title connoting reflections
in warm contentment.
Although Mr. Seltzer will not be sixty
until September, he can reminisce
upon and look ahead from nearly
forty-seven years of journalistic experience
--all of it in his native city. During
those years since he left the seventh
grade for the newsroom of the old Leader
he has recorded much home-town
history as it happened and, according to
what one hears around town, has
in more mature years helped shape some
of it.
Flashes of contemporary Cleveland
history appear in The Years Were
Good--right down to the Sheppard murder case. But "Louie"
Seltzer is not
writing history here. This is a personal
review of his years as Clevelander
and newspaperman. The emphasis is on
associations with people.
Besides himself and family, people of
his home town who get into the
book include other newspaper
personalities; Newton D. Baker, Harry L.
Davis, Fred Kohler, Maurice Maschke,
Burr Gongwer, Ray T. Miller, and
other political figures; the Brothers
Van Sweringen, Johnny Risko, and a
nameless ex-GI and wife who have just
become parents of a congenitally
deformed infant which almost immediately
becomes the "Heartache Baby"
in one of the Press-sponsored charitable
promotions. Readers expecting an
intimate account of Frank J. Lausche's
political progress from start to senate
by his good friend of the Press will
find it, and also a fill-in on the career
thus far of a younger maverick, Mayor
Anthony J. Celebrezze. There is
a longer and still more intimate account
of the rising and passing of a
Clevelander who preserved the Old West
in fiction, Charles Alden Seltzer,
the author's father.
In few places does the book reach beyond
the bounds of the Cleveland
beat. There is one chapter on the Press's
covering of that classic battle
fought in Toledo July 4, 1919, between
Jess Willard and Jack Dempsey.
In another the scene shifts to Madison
Square Garden, New York, where
the principal interest is the
confirmation at the 1924 Democratic national
convention of a tip the author had
received as payment of a long-standing
poker debt from an Ohio party strategist
before leaving Cleveland. The tip:
John W. Davis "of Virginia"
would emerge as a compromise candidate for
BOOK REVIEWS 223
president to break the deadlock between
the McAdoo and Smith forces.
Twice in one paragraph, page 159, Davis
is referred to as "of Virginia."
But reproduction of a Press clipping
in the plate opposite page 128 shows that
Mr. Seltzer had him identified with the
correct state when he wrote his
"big scoop" in 1924.
Chronology in The Years Were Good is
hard to follow--if that matters
in a memoir--and in respect to some
phases of the Seltzer career the
biographical note at the end of the book
differs with the text. The essentials
of what the Cleveland editor has to say
concerning his profession, his com-
munity, and his times are clear enough.
Marietta Daily Times ERMAN DEAN SOUTHWICK
Report of the Princeton Conference on
the History of Philanthropy in the
United States. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1956. 84p.;
ap-
pendices and bibliography. $1.00.)
The conference whose deliberations are
recorded in this Report met under
the auspices of the Russell Sage
Foundation in February 1956. Professor
Merle Curti served as chairman of the
two-day meeting, which was attended
by other well-known historians and by
representatives of the Ford and
Russell Sage foundations. The
participants examined the ways in which
historical studies might elucidate the
role of philanthropy in American
culture, suggested various approaches to
the history of philanthropy, and
discussed methods of stimulating further
research. Their conclusions, although
necessarily tentative and somewhat
random, merit consideration by students
working in this field or contemplating
entering it. Appended to the Report
are a list of possible research
projects, a topical outline of American phil-
anthropy, and an extremely helpful
bibliograpy (prepared by Margaret M.
Otto in consultation with F. Emerson
Andrews) dealing with historical back-
grounds and current trends in
philanthropy.
Ohio State University ROBERT H. BREMNER
Weddings in the Family. By Dale Fife. (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Cudahy, 1956. 248p.; illustrations.
$3.50.)
With this work of a former Toledoan
another delightful family scene
comes to light. The Houcks are not so
brilliant nor eccentric as the families
in Cheaper by the Dozen or Life
with Father, but they are lively enough
from Shatzie, who writes the book, right
through to Uncle Theofil, who went
back to Alsace for his bride.
Theofil's wedding is only one of several
which prompted the title
224
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"Weddings in the Family."
Shatzie's mother came from Alsace and made
it her goal in life, as a Frenchwoman,
to rescue her orphaned sisters and
brothers from Prussian rule. One by one
these relatives came across "to get
to something" in the new land. Mama
Houck considered the first step in
this procedure was to get the new
immigrant married. As she hung up each
new wedding picture beside the one of
her father in his French army
uniform, it was as if she said,
"Well, now, and here we have again outwitted
Herr von Bismarck!"
Sometimes plans went amiss, as when the
"tearful bride" was almost
paired with the wrong brother, and when
Louis, cocksure as ever, arrived
to take Julie for a bride before he had
even proposed. There was really
some excitement then, for
German-speaking Frenchmen when excited "sound
like a bunch of firecrackers set off in
a wash boiler."
There is some of the heartache of
immigrants here. To the shiftless Grow
family that lived in a shack down in the
hollow, these Alsacers were
"furners." And little Shatzie
felt just as keenly the rebuff from the millionaire
Mama might have married, Mandell Karl.
Karl had really "got to something,"
but when the Houcks visited him on his
estate, they found themselves "fur-
ners" also. Uncle Theofil
philosophized: An immigrant "is a man who has
come to this country with hands
outstretched for something he could not find
in his native land. He must not come
empty-handed. He must bring the best
of his culture. It would seem that
Mandell Karl is ashamed of his beginnings.
He takes all. Gives nothing"
Toledoans will especially enjoy meeting
the Houck family as it makes
its way through familiar
turn-of-the-century scenes--the East Side, taking
the interurban out to a picnic grounds
at Rattlesnakes Corners, riding free on
the city streetcar during Toledo's
famous transportation war, going to
the zoo, the Casino, sliding down the
hill of the "Hollow," visiting the
"Pond," attending their
"German" church and visiting the "Irish" church
across town for Uncle Bertie's wedding,
Cherry Street Bridge, Tiedtke's
store, and "Oh Yerra!" (to
quote Mama Houck) so much more.
Toledo, Ohio KATHRYN M. KELLER
Ships of the Great Lakes. Full-color drawings by Lemuel B. Line; text and
line drawings by Walter Buehr. (New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1956.
[46p.]; map and illustrations.
$2.75.)
An attractive, odd-sized book, ten
inches wide by eight high, double-
columned, large type, with drawings
interspersed in the text, its plan and
BOOK REVIEWS 225
general appearance indicate that it is
designed for young readers. In the brief
forty-six pages it tells the story of
the importance of lake shipping and of
the lakes themselves, reviews the
history and legend of early days on the
lakes, names four milestones in lake
navigation--The Walk-in-the-Water, the
Erie Canal, the ore discovery at Mesabi,
and the building of the "Soo" locks--
and discusses Great Lakes shipping today
at length.
It is quite an achievement in
selectivity and one that the author has done
with admirable skill, writing with
simplicity and accuracy. Boys will be
especially interested in how the great,
modern freighters operate--the loading
and unloading of cargo, the size and
speed of some of these lake giants, how
the crew live while on board, and what
their duties are, and particularly what
the requirements are for getting a job
on a lake ship.
The full-page color illustrations by
Lemuel Line are scale drawings, from
the tug Louisiana to the bulk-ore
carrier Wilfred Sykes. They first appeared in
Fortune Magazine. Walter Buehr has made the striking, clearly detailed,
black-and-white drawings which appear in
the text.
Although chiefly suited to small boys
with a yearning for boats and
sailing on the lakes, this book's
attractive pages will make many a father
lean over his son's shoulder with a
curious and interested eye.
Cleveland Public Library DONNA
L. ROOT
The Road to Realism: The Early Years,
1837-1885, of William Dean
Howells. By Edwin H. Cady. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press,
1956.
xii??283p.; bibliographical notes,
index, and illustrated end papers.
$4.00.)
No American writer as distinguished as
William Dean Howells has gone
so long without a full-scale biography.
This book, the first of a two-volume
work, carries Howells through the
writing of The Rise of Silas Lapham in
1885, when he was at the peak of his
creative powers and the leading
American man of letters.
Mr. Cady's close-packed, scholarly
volume does not alter our general under-
standing of the uncomplicated Howells,
but it gathers and intelligently re-
flects upon all the scattered facts and
critical views of him, and fills in some
hitherto blank spaces. The new Howells
material begins with a detailed
chronicle--of special interest to
Ohioans--of Howells' family and its news-
paper wanderings from St. Clairsville in
1831, to Mt. Pleasant, to Chillicothe,
to Cincinnati, to Martin's Ferry (then
Martinsville), where the novelist
was born in 1837, to the Hamilton Intelligencer
in 1840, to the Dayton
226
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Transcript in 1849, to Eureka Mills, to Columbus, and to the
Ashtabula
Sentinel in 1852, which the Howellses moved to Jefferson in
1853. Mr. Cady
has pored over the files of the Howells
family newspapers, and his detailed
account of their make-up and that of the
elder Howells himself is not only
interesting regional history but helps
us to understand the mature William
Dean Howells' character, and the western
tints in his personality and ideas.
Because of his family's need, young Will
spent much of his boyhood at
the typesetter's case--probably a better
education than the schools, either
then or now, could have given him. In
studying Howells' literary beginnings
(which he wrote about in this magazine
in January 1944), Mr. Cady has
sifted the young author's unpublished
notebook and earliest printed pieces
for insights into his sensitive, even
neurotic, nature. Drawing upon family
letters as well, and upon hundreds of
other scattered sources for facts and
human interest, the biographer traces
Howells' smooth, rapid rise from
country journalism to editorship of the
majestic Atlantic Monthly in Boston--
a tale of talent, hard work, and
fortunate timing.
Mr. Cady engagingly describes the
Howellses' marriage in Paris, their
consular sojourn in Venice during the
Civil War, their travels, their eight
homes in the twenty years following the
war, and Howells' living and work-
ing habits. He retells the Ohioan's
gradual acceptance, almost as an equal,
by the literary elite of Cambridge and
Boston, of his delicate editorial
problems with them in the Atlantic, of
his simultaneous closeness to such
howling opposites as young Henry James
and red-headed Sam Clemens.
Finally, Mr. Cady reconstructs the
gestation of Howells' novels, and writes
an analysis of each. He does not,
however, deal much with literary theory,
presumably because Everett Carter did so
at length in Howells and the Age
of Realism (1954).
Like any good biography, this book will
arouse criticism by some of its
emphases and conclusions. It shows, for
example, a persistent penchant for
amateur psychoanalysis, and it rather
tends to see the elder Howells'
Swedenborgianism lurking in every shadow
in his son's novels. More
important, it seems to this reviewer to
be too uncritical about Howells' temper-
amental and artistic limits, and to
overrate his dainty, dated, rather dull
fiction. After all, almost nobody but
professors of English and their more
docile students read Howells any more;
his novels in print are nearly all
textbook editions. And, good as it is,
few who have taught The Rise of Silas
Lapham to college students--who object to its interminable
scruples--will
agree with this biography that "it
has endured with great vitality." It seems
likely that we will finally value
Howells not so much for his fiction as for
his progressive leadership as editor and
critic.
BOOK REVIEWS 227
But Mr. Cady, a professor of English at
Syracuse University, has done
an accurate and useful job, and the
concluding volume of his life of Howells
is awaited with interest. It may be
mentioned, incidentally, that several other
scholarly books about Howells are
appearing in 1957. Academically, at least,
the long-promised Howells
"revival" has arrived.
University of Illinois (Chicago) JAMES B. STRONKS
Buffalo Bill: King of the Old West. By Elizabeth Jane Leonard and Julia
Cody Goodman. Edited by James Williams
Hoffman. (New York: Library
Publishers, 1955. 320p.; illustrations,
notes, Cody genealogy, Frederici
genealogy, bibliography, and index.
$4.95.)
No American "good guy" ever
won out over his "bad guys" with more
dash, more glamor, and more publicity
than Buffalo Bill. And not just
sometimes but every time. When he
finished doing his heroics on the prairies,
he did them all over again, twice every
day (Sundays excepted) under canvas,
and for years.
His life as a frontiersman had enough
death, danger, and daring to
satisfy even today's hardened (by now
almost wizened, no doubt) TV
viewers. At least most of his
biographers believe this, although a minority
view insists on a very heavy discount.
In any case, no one disputes his hand-
some looks, his magnificent bearing, his
horsemanship, and his showmanship.
No wonder that for thirty years his Wild
West Show packed them in, that
every small boy and many grown ones
hero-worshipped him with a fervor
intense enough for several Hopalong
Cassidys.
Buffalo Bill's appeal was practically
world-wide. As the authors of a
recent judicious study of him wrote, he
"fixed the image of the Wild
West in the world's mind more vividly
than Fremont the Pathfinder, Kit
Carson the Army Scout, Custer the Indian
Slayer or their predecessors Daniel
Boone and Davy Crockett." (Buffalo
Bill and the Wild West, by Henry
Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright. New
York: Oxford University Press,
1955.) He has been the subject of some eight
hundred books, nearly all
of them dime novels. The latter fact
doubtless accounts for a considerable
part of his standing as a folk hero.
Scholarly writers, like the two just
quoted, have also written admiringly of
him.
The present book is the work of several
hands. It was originally put on
paper by Julia Cody Goodman, Buffalo
Bill's eldest sister, who wanted to
present to the public "the first
true history of our family, especially the life
story of my famous brother."
228
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
As a collaborator she chose Dr.
Elizabeth Jane Leonard, former president
of the National Federation of Women's
Clubs, author and editor of other
works on the American West. Dr.
Leonard's contribution was to "revise and
rearrange for publication" what
Mrs. Goodman had written. James Williams
Hoffman, one-time member of the faculty
of the University of Wisconsin,
as editor, then "collated and
arranged, after research and authentication,
the material which [Mrs.] Goodman had
furnished and which [Dr.]
Leonard had written so well." The
finished work "bears the full endorse-
ment of the CODY FAMILY
ORGANIZATION."
As an official biography (royalty has
often had to be satisfied with worse)
this is no academic, well-rounded account
of a colorful frontier and
theatrical figure of the not-so-long
ago. It is, rather, a fairly successful
attempt to present a popular picture of
Colonel William F. Cody as his
sister idealized him: the famous man
"who loved and revered his mother
and his mother's God"; "the
griefstricken father as he prayed"; "the
modest, kind, cheerful man" who
loved the red man and loved children.
Perhaps that is after all the best way
for most people (except dry-as-dust
historians and fellow meticulists) to
think of Buffalo Bill. He is of far
greater importance as a symbol, a folk
hero, than as a carefully dissected
character in history. Let's leave him in
boyhood's happy hunting grounds,
not as he was but as he ought to have
been.
Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana WALTER RUMSEY
MARVIN
Library Association