Saturday, August 22, 2015

A Constant School of Excitement

Congratulations are in order for Jane Johansson, who recently announced that LSU Press accepted her latest manuscript for publication in the fall of 2016. The title will be A Constant School of Excitement: Albert C. Ellithorpe and the Civil War on the Frontier. Ellithorpe was an officer in the First Indian Home Guard regiment. In the bigger picture, no formal unit history exists for this unusual formation so hopefully Jane's work can also go some way toward addressing that deficiency. On her blog she notes that Ellithorpe kept a war journal and penned nearly two dozen Chicago Evening Journal articles along with a number of other documents so he sounds like a useful source for studying the war along the strife torn Kansas-Missouri-Arkansas-Indian Territory borderlands. I am very much looking forward to reading this upcoming work.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks so much for highlighting my forthcoming book! Ellithorpe's writings do offer insights into the inner workings and campaigns of the First Indian Home Guards but really do not serve as a unit history. He served with the First Indian from the spring of 1862 until the spring of 1863 which covered a time period that marked a decided shift toward guerrilla warfare. Ellithorpe's writings are particularly valuable for his observations on the Border War and, in particular, on the developing guerrilla conflict. His association with the army actually continued beyond the spring of 1863, and some of his writings describe that later time period. Albert Ellithorpe was quite an interesting man--adventurous, opinionated, and somewhat quirky. I had a marvelous time editing his papers!

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