Critic's Corner

Steve Davis’s Critic’s Corner — August 2016

By Stephen Davis · Originally published August 2016 · p. 35

Editor’s Question: Who doesn’t have Mark Boatner’s Civil War Dictionary? Feel free to e-mail Steve at [email protected].

How often does a Civil War book become so cool, so indispensable, that an article about how it came to be written has been published in the esteemed journal Civil War History? Well, Mark Boatner’s Civil War Dictionary (New York: David McKay, 1959) is one. Mark Mayo Boatner III was born in Louisiana in 1921, the son of a career army officer. The young Boatner won appointment to the Military Academy, graduating in 1943. He served in Italy during the rest of World War II, and also saw active service in Korea. In 1956, as he writes in Civil War History in 1988, he began teaching military history at West Point. He was writing reference works for the army, such as Military Customs and Traditions, published by the David McKay Company of New York in 1956. He had been thinking of a Civil War reference book; his colleagues at West Point seemed unenthusiastic. But then something happened. When he went to New York about 1956 to meet with Ken Rawson, the president of David McKay, as Boatner writes, he casually brought up the idea for his Civil War encyclopedia. “He hit every button on his desk!” “Half a dozen people trooped in, somewhat mystified by the sudden summons, but even more to find that their chief had been reduced to a state of incoherence. After several false starts, Ken finally jabbed a finger in my direction and sputtered,

‘Tell them what you just told me!’” Rawson’s enthusiasm was predicated on the prediction of “centennial fever.” The American Civil War Centennial was coming, and book publishers were salivating. Boatner knew Bruce Catton, and asked him about his project. Catton was encouraging: “I am contracted with Doubleday for a three-volume centennial history to start appearing in 1961.” Thus encouraged, Boatner set to work on his dictionary. “In planning the book,” he later wrote, “my most important initial decision was to make it ‘comprehensive’ rather than ‘selective.’” “To achieve ‘comprehensiveness,’” he confesses, “I had to make many of the sketches very short.” The author achieved his goal. When Boater’s Dictionary appeared in 1959, it boasted more than 4,000 entries on generals, campaigns, battles, armies, military departments, weapons, politics, just about everything. There were even maps. Boatner explained that he roughed out the ones he wanted, then found specialists to execute them. In his choice of topics, Boatner approached even the most arcane. An example is the entry, “Sunrise, Sunset, and Daylight,” offering visibility ranges for various times of the year with different latitudes. The entry I probably most have consulted over these years is Boatner’s “Calendar of Days, 1860, 1865.” For me, when I read a soldier’s letter of such-and-such-a-date (example), “On last Tuesday we drove the enemy back in a big fight,” I can look at the Dictionary and verify the date of the fight. Obviously, Boatner strove for accuracy. To help ensure it, he got a number of experts to read his final drafts. James I. Robertson, Jr. was among them. Reviewers were much impressed and very complimentary. “From the entry A.A.G. (Assistant Adjutant General) to General Samuel Morton Zulick,” wrote an enthusiastic reviewer for Tennessee Historical Quarterly, “the book is crammed with information on the War.” E. Merton Coulter, writing for Georgia Historical Quarterly, expressed his satisfaction that even “Hay Foot, Straw Foot” had an entry. The Dictionary is not error-free, but it takes a keen eye to discern any one. Professor Coulter observed that McKean Buchanan, brother of Franklin Buchan, was not killed in the naval battle of the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor. Boatner acknowledged that a number of mistakes crept in from his use of the Dictionary of American Biography. When done, an author is always proud of his sales. “In 28 years through the end of 1987,” Boatner beams, “CWD has sold about 38,000 copies.” History Book Club kept the book on its selection list for nearly thirty years. Back to that Civil War History article. Around 1986 Boatner was invited by the Chicago Civil War Round Table to speak about his book. The editor of Civil War History got wind of it and invited him to submit an article on the subject. “You may recall recent articles in Civil War History on Battles and Leaders and the genesis of the Official Records,” the editor wrote; The Civil War Dictionary would fit in with that esteemed genre of publications. Boatner was quickly convinced. Writing in Civil War History, Boatner expressed a bit of concern that the Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (1986) eclipsed his work. I think not. In talks I give around the country, I’m fond of noting a huge typographical blunder in the Historical Times Encyclopedia. It’s in the biographical entry for General William T. Sherman: “…Sherman, called ‘Chump’ by his friends….’” Try finding something like this in Boatner.

For all of these reasons, writing in 1988, Boatner proudly acknowledged, “The Civil War Dictionary is not ready to fade away, much less die.” Amen to that.

Steve Davis of Atlanta is a regular contributor to Civil War News. His new book, A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River May 5-July 18, 1864, has just been published as part of Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War paperback series. The companion volume, carrying the Atlanta Campaign to the city’s surrender on September 2, 1864, will be published later this summer.