Civil War Book Review: General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West

General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West by Albert Castel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a thorough study of an important (although not very good) Confederate general in the Trans-Mississippi. General Price was a major figure in leading Missouri into rebellion and continued the fight after the rebel armies were pushed into Arkansas. After the South was defeated, he was one of the rebel leaders who fled to Mexico to start a new life.

This book covers his entire Civil War career, including the period when he was transferred east of the Mississippi. Books on Civil War Missouri and Arkansas skip this part of his career and books on the war east of the Mississippi tend to give him short shrift, so these chapters are of interest.

Of main interest to me were the chapters on Missouri, especially his 1864 invasion that serves as a backdrop to my novel, A Fine Likeness. These are very detailed and give a lot of insight into Price's strengths and many weaknesses. Always brave, always determined, he was not always competent and led his army to disaster on more than one occasion.

The maps are well done as well. All too often, military histories fall down on the maps. Luckily the author and publisher did a good job on simple yet detailed maps of the region in general and specific battles.

If you're interested in the war west of the Mississippi, you should definitely read this book.

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Civil War Photo Friday: hardtack

Hardtack was one of the staples in the diet of both armies in the Civil War. It was supposed to last longer than regular bread and be more portable. Maybe it was, but that didn't stop soldiers from complaining about it. They had various names for it, from "tooth breakers" to "sheet metal crackers" to "worm castles." Judging from that last one I'm thinking it wasn't so long-lasting after all.

Hardtack was rarely eaten straight. The men dunked it in any liquid available in order to soften it up. Mixed with salt pork and dried vegetables, the other two army staples, it would make a reasonably balanced but unsavory meal.

Early in my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness, the protagonist and his band of bushwhackers ambush a Union supply wagon. Once they send the soldiers running, they steal a barrel of gunpowder but leave the salt pork and hard tack. They're being fed by local secessionists so they see no reason to fill up their stomachs with bad army food when a home-cooked meal is waiting for them!

This Wikimedia Commons image shows some hard tack preserved in the Wentworth Museum in Pensacola, Florida. If you want to try making your own hardtack, check out this hardtack recipe.

Tell my boss to send me to Afghanistan

As many of you know, I'm a travel blogger for Gadling, the world's most popular travel blog. I've done several series on adventure travel, including one on taking a road trip around Ethiopia, and another on living in an African city. I did another on visiting Somaliland.

In my more than 20 years of adventure travel, I've never been to Afghanistan, and it's always been at the top of my list. I visited Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province in the 1990's and spent several pleasant weeks among the Afghan communities there. Afghanistan's long history and varied cultures would make a great Gadling series. . .

. . .but I can't afford it. So I need your help. If you'd like to see a boots-on-the-ground series on Afghanistan written by yours truly, tell Gadling to be my sugar daddy. I'll write about culture, history, and daily life, all the things the news ignores. I already know an adventure travel company that can take me there. If enough people vote, maybe Gadling will send me!

Please leave a comment at this link, telling Gadling they need a series on Afghanistan.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Booker Prize vs. Literature Prize: how self-appointed guardians of "art" just don't get it

As the entire literary world knows by now, Julian Barnes has won the Man Booker Prize. I haven't read any of the Booker shortlist this year so I can't judge whether his was the best, but he's a damn good writer and many pundits are saying this is more of a lifetime achievement award for him.

Also in the news is the whole kerfuffle over a rival prize being launched, The Literature Prize. Backers of the new prize claim this needed to be done because the Booker "now prioritises a notion of 'readability' over artistic achievement".

The Booker people fired back that they don't see how those two things are mutually exclusive.

The Literature Prize people said that, "a space has opened up for a new prize which is unequivocally about excellence - even if that sometimes means shortlisted books are more challenging and don't necessarily fall under the easy description of readable."

OK, while I may not write for the TLS or be on the Booker shortlist, let me just weigh in here. The purpose of writing is communication! Too much self-styled "literature" these days is overly elaborate prose with no center, no meaning. It's tinsel, pretty but essentially worthless. MFA programs are churning out writers by the thousand every year who have no real idea what makes a good novel, so they emphasize style or substance.  They're poseurs, almost exclusively upper middle class, with little or no real-world experience. Trust me, I've met plenty. I've been to the readings. I've read the books and journals. I gave that whole world a chance. Really, I tried.

One successful travel writer and author I know graduated from a leading MFA program and complained that they never discussed plot in her classes! She had to learn how to do that by actually (gasp!) reading and writing a lot.

I don't care how much your prose shines, if you don't have a story, you don't have a novel. And if you can't make a reasonably intelligent reader understand what the fuck you're trying to say, you're not a writer.

The third interesting thing about the Booker Prize this year was the first Western to make a shortlist. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, a fellow Canadian. I'm glad to see a genre I love being accepted by the publishing elite. Here's hoping more great Westerns will be noticed by them in the future. The Sisters Brothers is now on my own personal shortlist of books to read. Expect a review here when I do.

Ride Around Missouri: Shelby's Great Raid 1863 out now!

Today Osprey Publishing released Ride Around Missouri: Shelby's Great Raid 1863, my latest in a series of Civil War books. This one's nonfiction, but my Civil War novel will come out next month!

This book focuses on one of the Civil War's longest cavalry raids--Confederate cavalryman J.O. Shelby's ride up from Arkansas and through Union-held Missouri. His raiders destroyed infrastructure, skirmished with Union detachments, captured small forts, and led thousands of bluecoats on a merry chase that almost ended in disaster for Shelby at the Battle of Marshall.

This raid secured Shelby's reputation as one of the greatest raiders of the Civil War, yet it is often overlooked like so many other exciting events in the Trans-Mississippi Civil War. Two earlier raids he was on, led by General Marmaduke, are also covered.

Shelby was on Price's 1864 invasion of Missouri and is mentioned briefly in my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness. Shelby makes an appearance in the as-yet-unnamed sequel. One of the protagonists in that book is in Shelby's Iron Brigade, but deserts in order to fight the war within the war, the supernatural battle between Order and Chaos. The second book will be out sometime in 2012.

Welcome all new followers!

Participating in the Pay it Forward blogfest was lots of fun. I got a bunch of new followers and found some cool blogs I'd never heard of. It also turns out that one of the bloggers I picked, David over at Guerrilla Explorer, has just published his novel, a thriller filled with conspiracies and cryptids. So hit the link and check it out.

In a further attempt to make this blog more visible, I'm registering with Technorati, which explains the claim code that follows. T44E5PJRF3PX

That means nothing to my readers. Back with some more Civil War tomorrow!

Guest blogging about Ethiopia on the Osprey Publishing blog

I have a guest post over at the Osprey Publishing blog about the city wall in Harar, Ethiopia. As regular readers of this blog know, I spent two months living in Harar earlier this year and wrote a series of posts about it.

Osprey being a military history publisher, this post focuses on how the medieval city wall helped preserve Harar's unique culture from outsiders. Head on over there and check it out! I'll be doing some more guest posts over there soon.