Drummer Boy Willie McGee, Civil War Hero and Fraud (review)

On the 7th of February 1866 the Assistant Adjutant General of the United States Army composed a very brief note to former Union Army Major General of Volunteers (and then-current congressman from Kentucky) Lovell Rousseau.

"Sir:

Referring to the letter of Rev. H.A. Pattison, Pastor of M.E. Church, Muskegon, Mich. bearing your endorsement of date Dec 15/65 recommending William Magee, late drummer, Co "C" 33rd NJ Vols for a med of honor, I have reply to inform you that the medal has been ordered engraved and will be sent to him in the care of Mr. Pattison at Muskegon, Mich as soon as completed.

(signed) E.D. Townsend
A.A. G."

Willie Magee, aka William McGee, was thus officially acclaimed a hero. As any historians worth their salt know, of course, there can be a distressingly long distance between "officially" and "deservedly." In Drummer Boy Willie McGee historian Thomas Fox demonstrates and explains in marvelous detail just exactly how far apart those two words can drift.

One of the enduring strengths of the field of military history is the open nature of the discipline. While it is almost impossible for one not deeply soaked in the blessed waters of academe to understand the nuances of a Derridean deconstruction or Foucaldian power-analysis, the simple storyline of a historical account is still valued within our sub-field. All that we ask is that one adheres to the standards of research and documentation expected in the profession. In Drummer Boy Willie McGee, retired high school basketball coach Thomas Fox does just that and more, bringing forth a tale of deception and fraud, bigamy and the Medal of Honor, the American Civil War and Custer's Seventh Cavalry, all within one fairly tight package. Mr. Fox, Ph.D. or no, deserves from us the title "historian."

In a brief 227 pages of text Fox tells the story of William McGee, perhaps the ultimate charlatan of, and in, American military history. As the author himself notes, a fictional account of the kinds of scams McGee pulled off would be criticized as implausible overreach on the part of the writer. Not even the most twisted creatures of a Dickens novel had the audacity to try most of what McGee actually pulled off in real life. But Fox nails down the truth.

His biography of this charlatan is complete, if initially somewhat confusing. With more than 600 footnotes, many of them explanatory, Fox also tells a parallel story of the long voyage of investigative history work which he did to unravel the real story of McGee. The journey took Fox from archives in New Jersey, to the National Archives and Library of Congress, to archives and historical centers in Michigan and Louisiana, among others. And this was no easy-to-follow trail, not least because the subject was a life-long conman.

Movie reviews often give a warning before they reveal the major plot elements of a Hollywood production. It is prudent to give a similar "spoiler alert" here. Do not read further if you don't want to "spoil" the ending of the drama that Fox uncovered.

McGee enlisted as a teenaged drummer boy in the 33rd New Jersey Volunteer Infantry. That much, at least, is true. In the closing days of the war a chaplain befriended him and he was adopted by the man. That too is true, though one wonders what McGee told the middle-aged man about himself, since McGee's mother was still very much alive at the time, and for decades more. But those were the least of his lies. McGee also spun the chaplain, the aforementioned minister Pattison, stories of his wartime derring-do which were apparently entirely fabricated. The minister bought into the tales, and in an honest effort to applaud his young ward, sent letters on his behalf. Letters that produced...