Speculating on Confederate land

As I mentioned in my post about the Baldknobbers vigilante group in the Ozarks, when Confederate veterans returned home, many found their land had been confiscated for failure to pay taxes during the war and was now occupied by Union men.

Speculation in land skyrocketed in Missouri and many border and Southern states after the war as monied Northerners hurried in to grab cheap plots. One of the was Daniel Fogle, who in a letter from 1867 observed that he couldn't even get off the train without being offered land for sale, "There are a great many that are thronging the railroad stations, exceedingly anxious to sell lands."

The best deals were to be had from county governments, who had seized rebel farms when the taxes weren't paid. Fogle reported, "These lands sell for near nothing--but it is considered very hazardous to buy and occupy them as they mostly belong to men who went into the Southern army and dare not return, and there is a large band of them sworn together, and unknown to authorities, who will and do kill every man who attempts to occupy their former homes."

The enduring bitterness of displaced and disenfranchised Southerners led to many outlaw groups (often made up of former bushwhackers) and well as larger organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. The legacy of the war continued long after the last battle was over.

Book Review: Time is the Oven

Time Is the Oven by Richard G. Sharp
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a tale of a young Missourian coming into his own in the years following the Civil War. The book spans a couple of decades from his first wanderings as a callow youth, through various romantic relationships, his friendship with Frank James, and his ultimate success while working on the Panama Canal. Vast in scope, this is an ambitious novel told with wit and historical detail.

"Told," unfortunately, is the key word. Most of the book is narration, with little actual scene. While the narration is insightful and often funny--I even laughed out loud a couple of times, a rare thing for me to do with a book--it lends a certain distance between the reader and the plot.

This was frustrating because I could see the great book trying to break out of the constraints of the good one. The author overly explains everything, when in fact he has the skills to show us far more effectively. I hope in future volumes the author gains confidence to put us right in the scene instead of simply narrating everything.

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Interview with men's adventure author Hank Brown

Today we're chatting with action author Hank Brown, who is doing a blog tour for his most recent release, Tier Zero. Hank has come out with several novels and short stories in the men's adventure genre, a genre that was in the doldrums before the current publishing revolution. So with no further ado. . .

Checking out your list of publications, one that jumped to my attention was Radical Times, a Civil War story. Actually it's a Reconstruction story set in Arkansas right after the war. What made you pick a setting well away from the epic drama of the major battles?

Mostly it was because of history and my exposure to it. In school I had only learned the superficial facts about the Civil War...North, South, slaves, Abraham Lincoln...that was about it. Public school taught us even less about Reconstruction, which is to say: nothing.

Then about a year or two before I wrote Radical Times, I checked out a book from the library about that historic period. It blew me away how much I didn't know about it. And when that happens I'm compelled to set off on a researching spree. It annoys me how the truth of this tumultuous period are ignored, at best; or censored, at worst. Our present political dynamic depends on that ignorance (or censorship). Anyway, as all this information was floating around in my mind I began conceiving characters (as often happens). The story grew out of all that.

You served in the Armed Forces. Beyond the obvious, what are the main differences between warfare in the 1860s and the modern day? How is the soldier's experience different? Are there any similarities?

Beyond the obvious, I'd say it's the officers and men themselves that are most different, followed by the command doctrine. The US armed forces have become extremely top-heavy organizations, with a cumbersome bureaucracy only slightly less inept than the non-uniformed government institutions. The technology which enables unprecedented micromanaging runs the risk of turning fighting men into robots. The technological advantages and overwhelming air support our troops have enjoyed since WWII glosses over the chinks in our armor, of which I believe this is an example.

When Von Steuben was drilling Washington's troops to fight the British he remarked on what made the American soldier unique: You couldn't just institute a policy and expect Americans to follow it, without first explaining its purpose. That does not seem to be the case any longer. Once when training with some soldiers from the Mother Country, after Desert Storm, I remember the ironic moment when one of the Brits cried out in frustration about all the suffocating regulations he had to abide by while attached to the US Army. Holy historic role-reversal, Uncle Sam!