BLUNT WAS SHARPER THAN THAT
For the last fifteen years I have been collecting primary-source material on Major General James G. Blunt. So I was quite shocked by the mistake in “Hindman’s Grand Delusion” (October 2000). The assertion in the last paragraph, that Schofield unleashed the raid on Van Buren, Arkansas, is blatantly wrong. Blunt planned the raid with Herron. They moved quickly, because they knew Schofield was on his way back to take command of the army. Had Schofield been in command, the raid never would have occurred. Blunt has never received the attention he deserves, and shoddily researched articles about the man certainly will not rectify the situation.
Matt M. Matthews
Ottawa, Kansas
DIGGING FOR ROOTS
In the article “Hindman’s Grand Delusion” (August 2000), I came across the name Corporal James Dungan of the 19th Iowa Infantry. I believe this person to be related to me, as the name Dungan was my mother’s maiden name. I would like to hear from any one who has knowledge of the following people with the surname Dungan: Joseph Rees, born 1822; Isaac, 1795; Benjamin, 1853; William L., 1857; Isaiah, 1861; Isaac R., 1866; Ernest Franklin, 1884. Ernest was my granddad. William was my great-granddad. He married Corabelle Cridlebough in 1881, having taken her from the Cheyenne reservation in 1880.
Billy L. Henry
Santa Barbara, California
WRITINGS ABOUT THE WRITERS
While in no way meaning to detract from former National Observer political reporter James Perry’s new book about Civil War journalists, A Bohemian Brigade, I must take exception to reviewer John E. Stanchak’s statement, “Previously, accessible scholarship on these subjects was confined to books such as J. Cutler Andrews’s hefty works The North Reports the Civil War and The South reports the Civil War, articles in scholarly journals, and bombastic or self-congratulatory autobiographies written by the 19th-century newsmen themselves” (“Reviews,” October 2000). Stanchak appears unaware of Bohemian Brigade by Louis M. Starr, a reporter for the Chicago Sun, whose 367-page book was published in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf, and Yankee Reporters, 1861-65 by New York Herald Tribune war correspondent Emmet Crozier, whose 441-page book was published in 1956 by Oxford University Press. Both of these are excellent reads, full of detailed information. Neither is a journal, and neither is bombastic. And though both are out of print, neither can be considered inaccessible, thanks to the Internet, where they can still be found and purchased.
Thomas Nolan
Escondido, California
SECOND TO FALL
“First to Fall” (August 2000) states that Private George Washington Sandoe, mortally wounded near Gettysburg on June 26, 1863, “had become the first Union soldier to die in the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania. ” He was the first Union soldier to die at Gettysburg. A few days prior, Corporal William F. Rihl of the 1st New York Cavalry’s Company C was killed by Confederate cavalry at Greencastle, Pennsylvania.
Dr. E. H. Rucker, Jr.
Newport News, Virginia
THE SOUTHERN PARTY RESPONDS
Your editorial (“Behind the Lines,” August 2000) talked about how the people of the 1860s voted in a block for either the Republican party, the party of Lincoln; or the Democratic party, which at the time was the conservative party. You must also remember that because of their knowledge and their sheer passion for their home states, they were voting to make sure their states, especially in the South, were equally represented.
What you have today are people in the South who are in fact at the same point. They have lack of representation. Our flags, our symbols, our heritage is being ripped down. The Republican party has promised to protect our heritage, symbols, and flags, but in every case they have turned on the Southern people. The Southern people are becoming very dissatisfied with the form of government that they now have. Let’s remember that even your own Abraham Lincoln stated that if the people felt that the government was not representing them properly that they could replace that government with another form of government in any manner they so choose. Let us look at what is going on:
1. The Southern party maintains that the Republican and Democratic parties are not representing their people the way the people have asked.
2. The Southern party also maintains that the Republican party is a party that has decided to go back to its original roots; the party of Lincoln.
3. The Southern party also maintains that the Republican party has decided to play the middle against both ends, and unfortunately, their candle is burning quickly. If they continue on this course, they will lose a larger mainstream voting bock, the Southern vote.
Sir, your political insight is wrong because you have missed one great truth: The Southern people are back. The South is rising again. If we were to remove ourselves from the nation, we would be the fourth largest in population in the world, the fourth largest in land mass, and first in finances. The rank and file Southerners who live out in the hither lands and who work every day has become a major movement. They are fed up with the direction of the country and see the progress of the Southern party. It is their party.
Jerry Baxley
Chairman of the Southern Party
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