Friday, November 8, 2024

Dust Jacket Stories: Lee Besieged (2025) and Winslow Homer

Prisoners from the Front, by Winslow Homer (1866), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

    I had planned to write this blog entry last month, but the galleys arrived near the end of that month for the book connected with the entry--Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864. The book is due out in spring 2025 and I'm still working on the galleys.

    Before my publisher Savas Beatie did its vastly superior job on the dust jacket, I had intended to use Winslow Homer's Prisoners from the Front in the dust jacket. Homer sometimes served as an aide to his friend, Brig. Gen. Francis Channing Barlow, a New York lawyer educated at Harvard. Circumstantial evidence indicates that Homer accompanied Barlow during Barlow's misadventures during the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road, June 21-24, 1864. 

    Barlow was a very brave but unlucky general. After the war, he demonstrated that he was a great lawyer. He helped clean up the New York bar, which at the time was notoriously corrupt.  He also proved to honest for the Grant Administration. Barlow, though a Republican, supported the Democrat vote count in Florida during the contentious aftermath of the 1876 presidential election. He was New York's Attorney General at the time but soon withdrew to private practice.

    The painting depicts Barlow confronting prisoners on what in my opinion is June 21, 1864. Barlow looks down on them imperiously. The only thing that indicates that the prisoners and not Barlow won the fight of June 21 is the cocky attitude of the Rebel closest to Barlow. My idea was thus a little too arch and plainly too static, compared to the excellent dust jacked produced by Savas Beatie.

    I like to start my presentation on the Wilson-Kautz Raid (June 22-July 1, 1864), with an amusing though possibly apocryphal story about Prisoners from the Front because of its connection with the raid. The Confederate cavalry that halted Barlow's vaunted division on June 21 belonged to Barringer's North Carolina Cavalry Brigade, which played a very significant role in the Southern response to the Wilson-Kautz Raid.  

    That allows me to observe that Homer posed Barlow to resemble Washington crossing the Delaware in an earlier painting by another artist. But Barlow was a scrawny fellow. To make the image of him in the picture more imposing, Homer reportedly painted Barlow's head atop the more robust body of Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, one of Barlow's subordinates in June 1864.

    After Savas Beatie produced the more dynamic dust jacket below, Prisoners from the Front declined to a mere illustration within the book.



Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Dust Jacket for "Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864," due out from Savas Beatie next spring



Above is the mockup for the dust jacket of my next book, Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864, expected out in the Spring of 2025. Savas Beatie has done a wonderful job with the dust jacket. I had Winslow Homer's "Prisoners from the Front" in mind but Savas Beatie's idea is much better. "Prisoners from the Front" is too static, while Savas Beatie's railroad wrecking idea is dynamic and I just love the ghosting of Grant and Lee. I'll have more to say about this, including some amusing stories about "Prisoners from the Front," on my blog entry (johnhorncivilwarauthor.blogspot.com) later this month.

It will be a dust jacket story to remember!

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Advance Praise for "Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864"

Production is officially under way.

We've changed the title to Lee Besieged:  Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864.

This book should be published by Savas Beatie in the spring of 2025.


The Moment of Truth for Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive
Map by Hal Jespersen

I’ve edited more than half a million words on the Civil War, but this book is something else.  Elegantly written, deeply researched, it abounds with judicious assessments of commanders at all levels.  More than a thousand quotes from participants on both sides take you back in time like no other book I have ever read.  Don’t miss it!

--Keith Poulter, publisher North & South magazine


The Second Petersburg Offensive of late June 1864 is among the least understood operations of the entire campaign.  Through exhaustive research, engaging prose, and thoughtful analysis, John Horn provides the most detailed account yet written of this Union effort to conquer the Cockade City.

--A. Wilson Greene, author of A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg


John Horn has added considerably to our knowledge of the Petersburg campaign with Lee Besieged:  Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864.  It is the first book that deals with Grant's ill-fated second offensive and is yet another excellent volume by Horn.

--Sean Michael Chick, author of The Battle of Petersburg, June 15-June 18, 1864


Horn has added a much-needed volume to his extensive writings and study of the Petersburg Campaign.  Grant’s second offensive is often overlooked and hard to comprehend but through scholarly research and writing, Lee Besieged:  Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864, takes the reader through all aspects of the offensive, providing enjoyment and understanding to the Civil War enthusiast.  First-hand accounts proliferate in the narrative adding powerful insights into the struggle and fighting of June 1864.

--Jerry Netherland, Petersburg Battlefields Foundation


Prisoners from the Front (1866), by Winslow Homer
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY


Wednesday, August 14, 2024

August 14, 1864: Second Deep Bottom Was the Turning Point of the Siege of Petersburg

Map by Hampton Newsome, from The Siege of Petersburg:  The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015)

Grant's launch of his fourth offensive at Petersburg on August 14, 1864, turned the tide in the Siege of Petersburg.  It was the most important action between the failure of the initial assaults (June 15-18, 1864) and the final breakthrough of the Federals to the Appomattox River above the city (April 2, 1865).

Why?

Arrival of the Federals at Petersburg's gates pinned Lee.  But in early July he was reaping the benefits of dispatching Early's Corps toward Washington, DC.  Early's threat to Washington shifted the initiative to Lee.  Grant had to dispatch most of his cavalry, VI Corps, and part of XIX Corps to the Shenandoah Valley to safeguard Washington.  

Lee reinforced Early's success by sending additional forces to northern Virginia in early August:  Kershaw's infantry division and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry division, as well as some artillery.

As of August 14, Hampton's cavalry division was also on its way to northern Virginia.  Field's infantry division had orders to go there.  Arrival of those units would put almost as many Confederates in the neighborhood of Washington as were at Petersburg and Richmond.  Lee was trying to lift siege of Petersburg by shifting the seat of war to the vicinity of Washington.

The Federal advance at Second Deep Bottom on August 14 gained little ground and only captured a few seacoast howitzers at the foot off New Market Heights, but it restored the initiative to Grant.  Lee recalled Hampton's division from its journey toward northern Virginia and cancelled the orders for Field's division to go.

After August 14, Grant never relinquished the initiative.



Tuesday, August 13, 2024

My Current Speaking Schedule for 2024 and 2025

My current speaking schedule for 2024 and 2025 will mainly revolve around my next book, Grant Lays Siege to Lee:  Petersburg, June 18-July 1, 1864.  The book should be out next spring from Savas Beatie.  

My presentations will largely focus on the Wilson-Kautz Raid of June 22-July 1, 1864, which my book covers.  The raid was part of an ambitious attempt by Grant to starve Lee out of Petersburg and Richmond. 

"Destruction of Genl. Lee's Lines of Communication in Virginia by Genl. Wilson" (Library of Congress)

A Confederate victory at First Reams Station on June 29, 1864, ended the raid.  Hal Jespersen drew 40 splendid maps for Grant Lays Siege to Lee.  Here's the one depicting the debacle at First Reams Station.

Map by Hal Jespersen for Grant Lays Siege to Lee

One exception to my focus on the Wilson-Kautz Raid will be my talk at the Raleigh Civil War Round Table (CWRT).  There I'll address the prominent role of North Carolinians in the Confederate victory at Second Reams Station on August 25, 1864, which I covered in The Siege of Petersburg:  The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015).

            The Charge of the 39th Illinois Veteran Volunteers at Fussell's Mill on August 16, 1864                   (Dust Jacket Painting by Keith Rocco)

September 12, 2024:  Milwaukee CWRT.  Topic:  The Wilson-Kautz Raid, from Grant Lays Siege to Lee, to be published in 2025.

September 13, 2024:  Chicago CWRT.  Topic:  The Wilson-Kautz Raid, from Grant Lays Siege to Lee

September 26, 2024:  South Suburban CWRT.  Topic:  The Wilson-Kautz Raid.

November 26, 2024:  Salt Creek CWRT.  Topic:  The Wilson-Kautz Raid.

March 21, 2025:  Kalamazoo CWRT.  Topic:  The Wilson-Kautz Raid.

May 12, 2025:  Raleigh CWRT.  Topic:  "Charge of the Tarheel Brigades," the Second Battle of Reams Station.  "Charge of the Tarheel Brigades" was the first article I ever had published.  It appeared in the Jan.-Feb. 1991 issue of Civil War Times Illustrated.  I covered Second Reams Station again in more detail in The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864, which contained 22 excellent maps by Hampton Newsome.

Map by Hampton Newsome for The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864

May 13, 2025:  Roanoke CWRT.  The Wilson-Kautz Raid, from Grant Lays Siege to Lee, to be published by Savas Beatie in 2025.

"Kautz's Cavalry coming back to camp in Gen Butlers lines after their raid" (Library of Congress)


Friday, July 26, 2024

An Excerpt from My Next Book, "Grant Lays Siege to Lee: Petersburg, June 18-July 1," Was Published in Emerging Civil War Today

 

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Back Up Documents that Are Available Only Digitally

Online research is very helpful.  It saves a lot of travel.

Many works in the public domain are available online, but those works aren't what I'm writing about.  Those works in the public domain are usually books or manuscripts available in one library or another but scanned into websites such as openlibrary.org and archive.org.

What I'm writing about in this blogpost are documents that are available only on websites that might disappear tomorrow.

Recently I had to do some researching to find the actual wherabouts of a diary I cited from such a website.  I had retrieved the document as late as February 2023 from a website that subsequently disappeared (along with the document).  If I had printed the document from that website while the website still existed, I wouldn't have had to go to the subsequent trouble of tracking down the owner of the diary.

As a result, I must print every document which I've cited as "retrieved" from any non-governmental, non-commercial website.  If I had things to do over again, I'd print those documents as I cited them.

That's my suggestion:  save immediately documents from websites you think may disappear.  They disappear from the internet without warning.

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