Джон Джейкс: Love and War

To one deliberate long step from the true path, I plead guilty. I voted against trying to duplicate what Douglas Southall Freeman rightly termed the period's "ornate conversational style." For a reason. "Even the casual conversation ... was, by present-day usage, deliberate and stiff." Billy's fellow engineering officer, Farmer, is a character meant to give a flavor of this style, but only a flavor.

The third ingredient I needed was help. Help from experts who knew the answers to specific questions. Help from individuals who assisted in areas not directly connected with research. And help from those who gave support just by being there. I want to thank them all publicly and at the same time absolve them of all responsibility for possible mishandling of any reference material they provided. Nor are they responsible for my interpretations of fact, or the story, in part or in total.

I begin with Ruth Gaul, of the Hilton Head Island Library, who patiently processed and kept track of my long list of requests for interlibrary loan materials. The secondary source books, the diaries, letter collections, monograph and training manual photo copies, maps, and other references consulted approach three hundred. There's even a slim but fascinating collection of Confederate wartime recipes, many of them food substitutes. Without Ruth and the equally helpful people at the Beaufort County and South Carolina State libraries, the research job would have been all but impossible.

I also owe much, as does every Civil War student, to The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies — the O.R., as it's commonly called. This monumental and justly famed work was begun in 1864 and completed in 1927. It runs to 128 volumes, not counting the separate atlases. I have a friend who owns one of the very few complete sets in private hands in this country. For invaluable help, I hereby thank him, though not by name, because he prefers to remain anonymous.

In Liverpool, K. J. Williams, honorable secretary of the Merseyside Confederate Navy History Society, and Cliff Thornton, curator of the Williamson Museum and Art Gallery, Birkenhead, became new friends while proving themselves expert guides to the various sites connected with the Confederacy. To Jerry, my thanks are almost inexpressible. And I shall never forget the windy summer afternoon Cliff and my wife and I received dispensation to enter a fenced patch of land on the bank of the Mersey, where we gazed down, at low tide, on some slipways Cliff himself had never seen before — perhaps the very ways where Alabama was built. No one knows exactly which ways held her, but the abandoned land is the site of Laird's in the 1860s. That is a thrill of discovery to be remembered always.

Senator Ernest Hollings and Ms. Jan Buvinger and her staff at the Charleston Public Library helped me track down a copy of the fascinating, if prolix, West Point appropriation bill debate.

My friend Jay Mundhenk, whose Civil War expertise is matched only by his skill as chef and host, solved several difficult problems about operations in northern Virginia when I was at a dead end.

Robert E. Schnare, chief, Special Collections Division of the Library at the U.S. Military Academy, was generous and helpful in matters as diverse as the daily whereabouts of the Army of the Potomac's Battalion of Engineers throughout the war and the contents of the cavalry tactics manual in use at the beginning. As with North and South , the cooperation of the West Point library has been all an author could wish for.

Arnold Graham Smith, M.D., was invaluable on medical matters. Other special questions were answered with the help of Belden Lee Daniels; Peggy Gilmer; Dr. Thomas L. Johnson, of the South Carolinians Library; Bob Merritt, of the Richmond Times-Dispatch ; Donna Payne, president of the Rochester, New York, Civil War Roundtable; John E. Stanchak, editor of Civil War Times ; and Dan Starer. Two of my daughters, Dr. Andrea Jakes-Schauer and Victoria Jakes Montgomery, helped with work on special topics.

In addition to the gratitude expressed to my editor in the dedication, I cannot overlook a number of other people in publishing.

Julian Muller's assistant, Joan Judge, handled quite literally reams of computer-printed manuscript with her customary efficiency and good cheer. Rose Ann Ferrick brought her speed and fine judgment to preparation of the fine typescript, which then benefited from the talents of Roberta Leighton, copy editor nonpareil.

My old friend and colleague classmate Walter Meade, of Avon Books, contributed in a special way he understands.

And my publisher, Bill Jovanovich, continued to stand behind the project.

My attorney, adviser, and friend, Frank Curtis, was along during every step of the two-year journey to this point of completion.

So, too, were all the members of my family, but especially my wife, Rachel, to whom I once again tender my gratitude and love.

John Jakes

Hilton Head Island

April 30, 1984