A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren (review)

i8oCIVIL war history Indiana, an attractive location for crossing the Ohio surreptitiously. There she taught the children of Newton Craig, the keeper of the Kentucky Penitentiary who had become infatuated with her. Acquiring land across the river in Kentucky in 1 854 with the help of a sizable loan from Craig, she set up a free labor farm that her neighbors quickly concluded was being used for slave escapes. The controversy eventually caused a break with Craig as well as numerous acts of vandalism that led to the abandonment of the farm. Failing to establish a school on the property even during Reconstruction, Webster finally moved from the area. She eventuaUy died at the home of a niece, the first female graduate of the medical school of the University of Iowa, in 1904. Because her deceptions have left a confusing trail, historians have largely ignored Webster. Even her aboUtionist contemporaries preferred the more outspoken and martyred John Brown to symboUze the war against slavery in the borderland. Attracted to Webster's unusual story, however, Randolph Paul Runyon, a Kentucky resident whose field is French literature, has undertaken to clear up what Webster and her associates really felt and did. Pursuing every shred of documentary evidence, he has assembled a credible account. His assessment of contradictory sources is superb and his background in literature proves useful in careful textual analyses of the ways in which Webster presented herself to others. He estabUshes, for example, that a letterWebster wrote in captivity seemingly helping Kentucky authorities locate Hayden was actually a warning to those aiding him. Runyon also does much to substantiate Lewis Hayden's charge that Henry Clay sold Hayden's first wife and child and that Clay's vigorous denial was based on confusion about who Hayden was. While Runyon must be congratulated for untangling a supremely compUcated story, the larger meaning of Webster's life is left unexplored. Webster violated norms for nineteenth-century womanhood yet also carefully manipulated female images to avoid punishment and to pursue her own ends. She was an extraordinary individual, and no study of her can be complete without analyzing the ways in which she exploited her society's gender conventions. Webster's story also speaks to the issue of the danger to white Southerners posed by Northern aboUtion.The responses toWebster and her associate Fairbank deserve analysis for what they reveal about the state ofmind in the border South. While Runyon has not undertaken these tasks, his spadework will make Delia Webster far more accessible and understandable to those who would do so. Phyllis F. Field Ohio University A Questfor Glory:A Biography ofRearAdmiralJohnA. Dahlgren. By Robert J. Schneller, Jr. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Pp. xvii, 452. $37.95.) In this well-written, complete biography of the nineteenth century-American ordnance expert, Schneller contends that "Above all, he [Dahlgren] desired glory. BOOK REVIEWSl8l The pace and direction of ordnance innovation in the United States Navy during the period 1846-1869 depended more upon Dahlgren's quest for glory than upon any other single factor" (365). The author asserts that "Dahlgren did not set out to become an innovator," but during most of his career there were limited chances for command at sea. Therefore, Schneller argues that Dahlgren's personal drive to gain naval glory led him to become a specialist in metals and casting cannon. He thus became one of the first officers to establish a noncombat track toward flag rank that would be more well-accepted in the modem navy of the twentieth century. Bom in 1809, the oldest of five children in a Philadelphia middle-class family (a Swedish father and an Irish mother), Dahlgren got a sound education, received an appointment as a midshipman in 1826, and served in the U.S. Navy for the rest ofhis life. Schneller shows that Dahlgren pressed for reforms in the navy, including "technological change, the creation ofprofessional standards, a regularized system ofpromotion by merit, and professional education" (25). He saw, however, that other conscientious officers sometimes did not agree with him about reforms. Such disagreements usually sharpened Dahlgren's views, making him more determined to achieve his goals and "more sensitive than ever...