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- Feb 5, 2017
I'm posting this, but I also bought the Kindle book. It's currently .99 cents on Amazon.
emergingcivilwar.com
As one reads modern books analyzing Reconstruction by historians such as Alan Guelzo, Eric Foner, and Brooks Simpson, the name of one other author often pops up: Albion Tourgee. His novel, A Fool's Errand, is mentioned as having a unique point of view due to having been published in 1879, during actual Reconstruction. Albion Tourgee has some pretty impeccable credentials to back up his effort, although the book was initially published anonymously. Nevertheless, it was an immediate hit nationwide, selling over 200,000 copies.
As a Union soldier. Tourgee is on the far left
As a Union soldier, Tourgee sustained wounds at the First Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Perryville. He was also a Radical Republican, lawyer, politician, and sometimes diplomat. Returning home, he served as the lead attorney for Homer Plessy in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson, cementing his progressive as well as intellectual credentials. In 1897 President William McKinley appointed him U.S. consul to France, where he served until his death in 1905.
To write A Fool's Errand, Tourgee drew on his own experiences in the Deep South after the Civil War. Today, readers understand expressions like "carpetbagger" and "scalawag" as specific individuals who did particular things. A carpetbagger was a person from the Northern states who came South after the war to exploit the local populace for financial profit; a scalawag was a local white Southerner who collaborated with Northern Republicans after the war, again for profit. Tourgee puts faces and personalities behind these words. Yesterday's carpetbagger would be today's entrepreneur.
........Much later, Tourgee claimed Reconstruction was a failure "so far as it attempted to unify the nation, to make one people in fact of what had been one only in name before the convulsion of Civil War. It was a failure, too, so far as it attempted to fix and secure the position and rights of the colored race."
Book Review: A Fool’s Errand. By One of the Fools: A Novel of the South During Reconstruction
For historians, reading is a full-time job. Nothing is too insignificant not to read, from cereal boxes to torn bits of paper with evidence of pencil scratches. Reading books popular during a speci…
emergingcivilwar.com
As one reads modern books analyzing Reconstruction by historians such as Alan Guelzo, Eric Foner, and Brooks Simpson, the name of one other author often pops up: Albion Tourgee. His novel, A Fool's Errand, is mentioned as having a unique point of view due to having been published in 1879, during actual Reconstruction. Albion Tourgee has some pretty impeccable credentials to back up his effort, although the book was initially published anonymously. Nevertheless, it was an immediate hit nationwide, selling over 200,000 copies.
As a Union soldier. Tourgee is on the far left
As a Union soldier, Tourgee sustained wounds at the First Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Perryville. He was also a Radical Republican, lawyer, politician, and sometimes diplomat. Returning home, he served as the lead attorney for Homer Plessy in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson, cementing his progressive as well as intellectual credentials. In 1897 President William McKinley appointed him U.S. consul to France, where he served until his death in 1905.
To write A Fool's Errand, Tourgee drew on his own experiences in the Deep South after the Civil War. Today, readers understand expressions like "carpetbagger" and "scalawag" as specific individuals who did particular things. A carpetbagger was a person from the Northern states who came South after the war to exploit the local populace for financial profit; a scalawag was a local white Southerner who collaborated with Northern Republicans after the war, again for profit. Tourgee puts faces and personalities behind these words. Yesterday's carpetbagger would be today's entrepreneur.
........Much later, Tourgee claimed Reconstruction was a failure "so far as it attempted to unify the nation, to make one people in fact of what had been one only in name before the convulsion of Civil War. It was a failure, too, so far as it attempted to fix and secure the position and rights of the colored race."
Bringing the