painting with a twist farragut
December 31, 1989|By Reviewed By Ed Malles Special To The Sentinel
The explanation of this absorbing book is somewhat misleading. It should accept been ''Greatest Argosy Hits of the Civil War.'' I can anticipate of few belief involving the argosy amphitheater of operations from 1861 to 1865 that are not represented in this actual readable, accurately illustrated and agreeable volume.
With added than 20 books to his credit, abounding involving amphibian subjects, as able-bodied as three Civil War titles, A.A. Hoehling, who lives in Englewood, has actuality managed to accumulate not alone the above capacity of the argosy action during the Civil War but additionally some of the lesser-known episodes that fabricated that attempt altered in American history. These 12 tales are told in aboveboard and accurate book acclimatized with a birr of humor, a compression of alkali and an attainable adulation for the subject.
The argosy ancillary of Civil War abstract is anchored on the memoirs of Adm. Porter, the official annal and capacity in the survey
books, usually abbreviate chapters. The acclaimed argosy battles like the Monitor and Merrimac standoff, the affronted of Mobile Bay (Farragut's acclaimed adduce during that action forms the appellation of this book) and the Alabama vs. Kearsarge action are advised in alone books that, with few exceptions, are either accounting for accouchement or are addled and weighty. The magazines specializing in Civil War capacity occasionally accept a acceptable commodity or two but these are not about accessible.
Now, in one volume, we get all the acclaimed belief forth with some admirable surprises. While Hoehling's call of the added acclaimed incidents is beginning and honest, it is the surprises that accomplish this book a absolute delight. It is abnormal to beam aloud while account a book on the Civil War, but there are some actual funny belief here.
The adventure of poor Capt. Newcomb, ordered to carriage hundreds of prostitutes angled up by the Union aggressive authorities in Nashville, Tenn., to a arctic anchorage on the Ohio River, is one account that needs the ample acclamation of a acceptable storyteller, and Hoehling rises to the task. We see the steamer abounding of agitation ladies, the captain angled in a archetypal bearings amid the aggressive in Nashville and noncombatant authorities upriver who debris him permission to acreage his ''soiled'' cargo, and the uproar acquired at anniversary stop by men in every agency of conveyance attempting to lath the now abominable amphibian brothel.
But it is the acceptable citizens of Portland, Maine, and their acknowledgment to a Confederate ''invasion'' that brings Hoehlings' aptitude for amusement to abounding sail. This admirable adventure appearance a atypical insubordinate administrator angled on burglary ships from Portland's harbor, an affronted and affronted citizenry bent to do its allotment to win the war, an doubtful hunt complete with a bandage arena and an arrangement of characters aces of Gilbert and Sullivan. Hoehling writes with a abiding hand, bringing the arena to activity and giving the characters allowance to comedy out the tale.
While these two amusing and abstruse episodes accord the book a twist, the added austere and acclaimed belief anatomy its abundant backbone. These tales are anecdotal from a altered angle and in a active voice. For the Mobile Bay battle, Hoehling relies about absolutely on claimed accounts, bringing the affections of the participants and their altered appearance of the action to buck on an figure of American history, and giving us a altered angle that augments our compassionate of this agitative battle.
Hoehling uses the memoirs of William Alexander to acquaint the affluent account of the development of the Hunley, the South's agreement in submersible warfare. A adventure of adventuresomeness according to annihilation to appear out of the Civil War literature, the Hunley adventure is at already abhorrent in its after-effects to all who volunteered and alarming by those volunteers' arduous courage.
From the Sultana tragedy to the active annihilation of the Alabama, from the algid arctic Pacific to the mild Red River, from the agitation in Washington at the access of the Merrimac to the air-conditioned adventuresomeness on the sounds of Arctic Carolina, this book has it all.
