THE ADVENTURES OF ABEL JONES WILL CONTINUE IN
Shadows of Glory
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History and Thanks
In writing Faded Coat of Blue, I struggled for accuracy of detail. I walked the Welsh valleys—so different now than in their black heyday—and the streets of Washington were home to me for years. I grew up in the Pennsylvania coal fields, where the shadows of history and Philadelphia’s old money fell heavily upon us. I even went to Attock Fort and old Lahore. Whether the high water along the first several blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue on the morning of Scott’s departure, the books available in the shops, or the practice of the quack healer, Dr. La Bonta, the backdrop of this novel is drawn from contemporary and eyewitness sources, or from personal knowledge of the shape of the land and the many shapes of humanity.
There is so much richness in our Civil War era, so much beyond the oft-described battles and repertory heroes, that I yearn to draw the reader deeper into that age. The Civil War made the America we know, but we hardly know the America of the Civil War. It was a time of immeasurable courage and noble hopes, but also of stunning prejudice and the brutalization of immigrants—our New Jerusalem was built on Babel. The impact on the war of refugees from Europe’s failed revolutions goes largely unremarked, and yet it was enormous. Although not all immigrants relished military service, they brought with them expectations that reformed our country. We might say that the old Americans began the war, but the new Americans finished it, for the Union won with the blood of the foreign-born, who reinforced its manpower and material advantages. An ancestor of mine was killed before he mastered English.
It was also an age of sudden, splendid wealth, of whopping wartime corruption and deep moral reflection—and of levels of prostitution and its consequences that do not accord with our notions of the Victorian era on either side of the Atlantic. It was a time when ideas mattered, and men wrote well and wondered about God’s design for humanity. It was a profane age of pervasive religion, of savagery, and of transcendence. We have contented ourselves with myth, when the really makes the sacrifice on both sides all the more resonant.
I am fascinated by the details of daily life, of how men and women lived and thought, what they ate and used and desired. Without burying the reader under catalogs of description, I aim to tease him or her into thinking just a bit differently about the world behind the guns of our rebellion.
In the interests of accuracy, however, I must point out three instances where I have bent history to meet the demands of the plot. First, General McClellan’s typhoid struck him in mid-December, 1861. I moved the onset of the disease up to Thanksgiving week. Next, the horrible fire at the government corral and remount stables occurred just after Christmas; that, too, I shifted forward to Thanksgiving. Otherwise, the details are presented as reported by the daily press of the period. The cause of the inferno has never been clarified.
Finally, I created a fictitious company for our hero to command at First Manassas. The sons of Pottsville Pennsylvania, were among Washington’s First Defenders in the spring of 1861, but they did not appear on the field of Bull Run where I needed to place our hero. Otherwise, the battle is described as accurately as such a confused event may be, down to that redheaded colonel’s formation of a defensive square during the Union retreat.
Errors will emerge. I bear full blame. But any success in capturing the soul of the age owes much to the gracious assistance or merciful criticism provided by a number of experts on the sources, period, and locations. Two deserve special mention. My heartfelt thanks to; Mary Kay Ricks, director of ‘Tour D.C.’ and grand guide to the past, whose knowledge of the Civil War era in Georgetown and Washington is as daunting as it is revealing, and to Matthew B. Gilmore of the Washingtoniana Division of the District of Columbia Public Library, whose knowledge of sources and enthusiasm for his vocation are exceeded only by his courtesy. The library’s Washingtoniana Division itself is a treasure-house.
Our Civil War is an inexhaustible subject, and an interested reader must go through, literally, hundreds of books to get near the complexity of character and event. Yet, I would like to recommend a few key books for anyone who wishes to know more about the environment in which Abel Jones conducted his first investigation. Of all the books and monographs that deal with the period history of Washington itself, Margaret Leech’s Reveille in Washington remains unsurpassed for precision, range, and readability. On Philadelphia, the remarkable historian Russell F. Weigley has edited a massive, yet readable text, Philadelphia, a 300-Year History. On Lincoln and his cabinet, there are innumerable works, and so much of quality that one can only name favorites. My two candidates are J. G. Randall’s Lincoln the President and the highly readable Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald. That greatest of president’s own words are a joy and inspiration to read.
On the dark side of the street, the interested reader will find The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, by Thomas P. Lowry, M.D., whose research makes it clear that not all of the dangers of the time waited on the battlefield. For intelligence operations, the best single volume by far is Edwin C. Fishel’s The Secret War for the Union. On General McClellan, against whom I must admit the prejudice of a one-time soldier who encountered his descendants right and left, Stephen W. Sears has written the most attractive biography possible, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon; there is, however, no substitute for reading McClellan’s own papers, with their misapprehensions and stunning vanity. And for the reader of deeper curiosity and sufficient time, The War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies teaches timeless lessons about war and timely lessons about the deterioration of our writing skills over the last century and a half.
Now, as Abel Jones would say, go on with you and do your duty. And may God bless.
The End
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