Here's the link for those who'd like to pre-order. Friday, June 17, 2016
Monday, May 16, 2016
Confessions of the Confederate Spymaster at Shiloh
This piece written for The Daily Beast and published in its entirety on May 5, 2016, grew out of a talk I gave while accompanying a New York Times Journeys tour of the Shiloh, Corinth and Brice's Crossroads battlefields earlier in the month.
SHILOH BATTLEFIELD, Tennessee—It’s rare in history that spymasters get credit for victories, but, then again, only occasionally are they blamed for disasters. Few are so bold or so foolish as to declare that something is an absolute fact, as CIA Director George Tenet did when he told President George W. Bush the intelligence confirming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was a “slam dunk.”
No, the language of espionage is a language of qualification. Do the Iranians have a nuclear weapons program? A key National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 concluded they sort of didn’t but, then again, might just. (“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.”)
One can imagine the frustration of presidents, or for that matter, generals, when they get that kind of fact-fudged information. So the question often becomes, for them, less about what information can trusted than about whose information and whose judgment can be trusted, and that person, whether as spymaster, chief of staff, or with some more mysterious title, becomes the bearer of good news, bad news, and, most importantly, trusted news.
But that person is not in the public eye. The leader he or she reports to gets the credit or the blame. And when it comes to the military, the spymaster or staff officer remains in the shadows, without a command, and without a reputation; a footnote in hundreds of histories, the central figure in few or none.
Such a man, here at the horrific Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, was Adjutant-General Thomas Jordan, who had been Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard’s right-hand man since before the first Battle of Bull Run the year before, who would stay with him through most of the war, and who defended Beauregard’s reputation ferociously—one might say as if it were his own—ever afterward.
Shiloh, which took place almost one year after the Rebel attack on Fort Sumter that started the American Civil war, was the first truly bloody battle in a conflict that eventually turned slaughter into an industrial activity. At Shiloh there were more casualties (killed, wounded and missing) than in all the previous American wars combined: from the Revolution to 1812, from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, the carnage pales by comparison.... MORE
SHILOH BATTLEFIELD, Tennessee—It’s rare in history that spymasters get credit for victories, but, then again, only occasionally are they blamed for disasters. Few are so bold or so foolish as to declare that something is an absolute fact, as CIA Director George Tenet did when he told President George W. Bush the intelligence confirming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was a “slam dunk.”
No, the language of espionage is a language of qualification. Do the Iranians have a nuclear weapons program? A key National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 concluded they sort of didn’t but, then again, might just. (“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.”)
One can imagine the frustration of presidents, or for that matter, generals, when they get that kind of fact-fudged information. So the question often becomes, for them, less about what information can trusted than about whose information and whose judgment can be trusted, and that person, whether as spymaster, chief of staff, or with some more mysterious title, becomes the bearer of good news, bad news, and, most importantly, trusted news.
But that person is not in the public eye. The leader he or she reports to gets the credit or the blame. And when it comes to the military, the spymaster or staff officer remains in the shadows, without a command, and without a reputation; a footnote in hundreds of histories, the central figure in few or none.
Such a man, here at the horrific Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, was Adjutant-General Thomas Jordan, who had been Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard’s right-hand man since before the first Battle of Bull Run the year before, who would stay with him through most of the war, and who defended Beauregard’s reputation ferociously—one might say as if it were his own—ever afterward.
Shiloh, which took place almost one year after the Rebel attack on Fort Sumter that started the American Civil war, was the first truly bloody battle in a conflict that eventually turned slaughter into an industrial activity. At Shiloh there were more casualties (killed, wounded and missing) than in all the previous American wars combined: from the Revolution to 1812, from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, the carnage pales by comparison.... MORE
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| A derelict filling station that's a relic of the South where I grew up. |
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| Rifles, including assault rifles, for sale at the Bass Pro Shop pyramid in Memphis. |
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| The statue of Jefferson Davis in Memphis, Tennessee |
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| A quiet corner of Corinth, Mississippi |
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| Wasps on a cannon at Shiloh Battlefield |
Talking about "Our Man" at The Metropolitan Club of Washington DC, 11:45 on Tuesday
If you are a member of The Metropolitan Club of Washington D.C., please do come join in the conversation tomorrow about "Our Man in Charleston." We'll be breaking some fresh ground in this innovative history that's changed the way we see the Civil War.
Conversations: Christopher Dickey on Our Man in Charleston
Tuesday, May 17
Please use the link above to make a reservation, or click here to email the Front Desk.Join us on Tuesday, May 17 for a Library Conversation when our guest will be the well-known journalist Christopher Dickey. He will be speaking about his new book, Our Man in Charleston: Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South. It tells the story of Robert Bunch, the British Consul in Civil War era Charleston, who used all the tools of diplomacy and espionage to keep Great Britain from recognizing the Confederacy and reopening the Atlantic slave trade. It is a deeply researched and thrilling account of the fight over slavery and of relations between the US and Great Britain, which has been praised by such noted Civil War historians as James McPherson and Harold Holzer. In addition, Joan Didion praised the book as “a perfect book about an imperfect spy” and ex-CIA operative Robert Baer called it “the best espionage book I’ve read.”
Christopher Dickey is currently the Paris-based Foreign Editor for The Daily Beast and has been a foreign correspondent for Newsweek and the Washington Post. He has written numerous other books, including With The Contras on Nicaragua, Securing the City on the NYPD and Summer of Deliverance on his father, the poet James Dickey. We are honored to have Christopher Dickey as our guest to share with us an unfamiliar aspect of the Civil War.
Conversations begin with a complimentary glass of wine (and a slice of cheese) at about 11:45 a.m. Catherine Porter will be the interlocutor for this Library Conversation. She will have us seated by noon, and we will wind up no later than 12:45 p.m. after which many of us will escort our guest to the Treasury Room on the Fourth Floor where we will have lunch and continue the dialogue. Although there is no charge for this event, it would be helpful if those planning to attend were to notify the Front Desk or register online.The Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington / 1700 H Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006 / (202) 835-2500
The Metropolitan Club of City of Washington
1700 H Street Northwest | Washington | District of Columbia | 20006
Sunday, April 24, 2016
The Texas Embassy in the City of Light: A Sorry History of Greed, Slavery and, now, New Talk of Secession
PARIS — Near Place Vendôme in the most luxurious corner of Paris, a few steps from the Ritz and across from a new Louis Vuitton store, but high above the street where nobody is likely to notice, a legend engraved in stone marks the site of the Ambassade du Texas, and informs the passer-by below that on 29 September 1839 France was the first nation to recognize that short-lived republic.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Black Spies in the Confederate White House (excerpt)
My latest coverage of the American Civil War for The Daily Beast:
The servants knew. The Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia, was not a happy home. The coachman had heard Varina Davis, the first lady of the South, wondering aloud if the rebellion her husband led had any prayer of success. It was, he heard her say, “about played out.” Less than a year into the war, she had all but given up hope. And the president himself, Jefferson Davis, gaunt and sere, was under tremendous strain, disheartened and querulous, complaining constantly about the lack of popular support for him and his policies.
What the servants at the dinner table heard could be even more interesting: insights into policy, strategy and very private lives. They could glimpse up close the troubled emotions of Varina, who was much younger than her husband. She was in her mid-30s, he was in his mid-50s, and her energy, even her sultry beauty, were resented by many in that small society. She had a dark complexion and generous features that led at least one of her critics to describe her publically as “tawny” and suggest she looked like a mulatto.
Varina’s closest friend and ally in the cabinet was Judah P. Benjamin, the cosmopolitan Jewish secretary of war and then secretary of state. He was a frequent visitor to the Davis residence. He shaped Confederate strategy around the globe. And over port after dinner, what intimacies might have been revealed about this man, whose Louisiana Creole wife lived in self-imposed exile in Paris, and whose constant companion in Richmond was her beautiful younger brother?
As in any of the big households of yesteryear (one thinks of “Downton Abbey,” to take a popular example), what the servants knew about the masters was a great deal more than the masters knew about them. And in the Davis household the servants were black slaves, treated as shadows and often as something less than sentient beings. The Davises knew little of their lives, their hopes, their aspirations, and they certainly did not realize that two of them would spy for the Union.
History is almost equally oblivious. When it comes to secret agents, or servants, or slaves, all learned to tell the smooth lie that let them survive, and few kept records that endure. When it comes to the question of the spies who worked in the Confederate White House, where solid documentary evidence has failed, legend often has stepped in to fill the gaps and, to some considerable extent, to cloud the picture. ... MORE
The servants knew. The Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia, was not a happy home. The coachman had heard Varina Davis, the first lady of the South, wondering aloud if the rebellion her husband led had any prayer of success. It was, he heard her say, “about played out.” Less than a year into the war, she had all but given up hope. And the president himself, Jefferson Davis, gaunt and sere, was under tremendous strain, disheartened and querulous, complaining constantly about the lack of popular support for him and his policies.
What the servants at the dinner table heard could be even more interesting: insights into policy, strategy and very private lives. They could glimpse up close the troubled emotions of Varina, who was much younger than her husband. She was in her mid-30s, he was in his mid-50s, and her energy, even her sultry beauty, were resented by many in that small society. She had a dark complexion and generous features that led at least one of her critics to describe her publically as “tawny” and suggest she looked like a mulatto.
Varina’s closest friend and ally in the cabinet was Judah P. Benjamin, the cosmopolitan Jewish secretary of war and then secretary of state. He was a frequent visitor to the Davis residence. He shaped Confederate strategy around the globe. And over port after dinner, what intimacies might have been revealed about this man, whose Louisiana Creole wife lived in self-imposed exile in Paris, and whose constant companion in Richmond was her beautiful younger brother?
As in any of the big households of yesteryear (one thinks of “Downton Abbey,” to take a popular example), what the servants knew about the masters was a great deal more than the masters knew about them. And in the Davis household the servants were black slaves, treated as shadows and often as something less than sentient beings. The Davises knew little of their lives, their hopes, their aspirations, and they certainly did not realize that two of them would spy for the Union.
History is almost equally oblivious. When it comes to secret agents, or servants, or slaves, all learned to tell the smooth lie that let them survive, and few kept records that endure. When it comes to the question of the spies who worked in the Confederate White House, where solid documentary evidence has failed, legend often has stepped in to fill the gaps and, to some considerable extent, to cloud the picture. ... MORE
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
My New York Times Journey in May - Grant and the Unexpected Victory at Shiloh
Monday, February 8, 2016
Civil War History and Contemporary Events: Essays by Christopher Dickey
After the publication in July 2015 of Our Man in Charleston, which, by pure coincidence, came just after the tragic murders at Emanuel A.M.E. Church, I wrote several essays drawing on the research for the book and suggesting what it might tell us about current events.
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