Mr. Lincoln's Washington (review)

Book Reviews4SI Leaving out the exact definition of "historical fiction," I can imagine nothing more ludicrous than either James or Hemingway writing a novel about the Civil War, and it is a pity that space forbids one from enlarging this notion. But again to Mr. Foote who, after enlightening us as to the real difference between history and fiction, goes on in the true southern agrarian tradition to maintain that a trainload of whores on a siding by Chancellorsville is as an event every bit as noble as the Monitor-Merrimac duel or the charge up Missionary Ridge or (I suppose, though he doesn't say so) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Continuing with what is apparendy a plea for historical-fictional synthesis, Mr. Foote states that "our best current historians are learning that they can gain greatly from a study of our best novelists. Bruce Carton, for example, has been to school to Faulkner. . . ." Well, maybe he has, but thank God none of Faulkner's morbid linguistic behavior seems to have brushed off on Carton's crisp, nervous prose. Much of this nonsense could have been redeemed by the contents of the hook, and in part this is so. I find no vital objection to any selection, but on the other hand I do not regard my artistic education as having been greatìy extended by the two pieces that were new to me, Fitzgerald's and Foote's. Nor am I enthusiastic about reading an excerpt from The Red Badge of Courage when the whole point of the story lies in the total work. Likewise, the omission from John Brown's Body of Diefer, EIIyat, Wingate, and all the other human notes in the song seems to me a misuse of editing comparable to Olivier's omission in his film version of Hamlet of the soliloquy beginning, "OI What a rogue and peasant slave am I." I doubt that this book will appeal to the Civil War enthusiast who must have teethed on its selections, or even to any literate reader who is familiar with most of them. This leaves the Signet Book audience of "millions," and I am sorry that Mr. Foote, in an effort to spur them on to complete reading, did not prelude each selection with a paragraph about the author and his work. But I guess you can't expect too much for thirty-five cents. Robert B. Asprey Poughkeepsie, New York. Mr. Lincoln's Washington. By Stanley Kimmel. (New York: Coward-McCann , Inc. 1957. Pp. 224. $7.50.) this is a very interesting book for those who like books like this. Without a table of contents or index, it is essentially a picture-book to be thumbed through at leisure. As such it affords an entertaining experience, but read seriously as history it is not as rewarding. The pictures are interesting and, for the most part, well captioned. The history is often of the private-eye, keyhole, "inside" type; for example: "Rumors that day did hot include the fact that Wilkes Booth again was stalking about the city, his mind still intent upon some foul blow to the President." From a lawyer's point of view, the text is often inexact or careless. For instance, referring to the attempt of Washington policemen to increase their "scanty pit- 458civil war history tance," the author states: "After much deliberation they [the policemen] agreed to ask for, and got, a salary increase of seventy-five dollars per month." Did this raise increase their pay to $75.00 or did it add $75.00 to their former stipend? If the latter, what was their original salary, and what difference in their standard of living did the raise effect? Such ambiguities and incomplete information detract from the historicity of this work All in all, this is a "pleasant" picture-book which rates far below David Donald 's Divided We Fought, James Horan's Mathew Brady, and Fletcher Pratt's Civil War in Pictures. And its appeal is even more limited when it is compared with the scholarly, monumental ten-volume Photographic History of the Civil War, which Thomas Yoseloff has recendy reissued in a five-volume format. Samuel R...