CANR
WORK TITLE: Rising in Flames
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Dickey, Jeff
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Portland
STATE: OR
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL EDUCATION:
University of Oregon, B.A. (magna cum laude); University of Southern California, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and researcher. Motion Collective, Portland, OR, principal, 2005-12; Bulletproof, Inc., Capitola, CA, editor and proofreader, 2006—.
AWARDS:Best experimental film award, Los Angeles Festival of Cinema and Technology, 2009, for The Carbon Augury.
WRITINGS
Writer and director of the short film screenplays The Carbon Augury, D.I.Y., and Sub Rosa. Also author of other travel guides. Contributor to periodicals, including Rhapsody, Fix, Budget Travel, Void, Independent, and Daily Mail. Contributor to the Takeaway radio program and the Book TV television show.
SIDELIGHTS
J.D. Dickey is a writer and researcher. He graduated from the University of Oregon and went on to earn an M.F.A. from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema and Television. Dickey has worked as an editor and proofreader since 2006. He has coauthored a number of travel guide books and also wrote and directed screenplays for short films, one of which won an award for best experimental film at the 2009 Los Angeles Festival of Cinema and Technology.
Dickey published Empire of Mud: The Secret History of Washington, DC in 2014. The account serves as a history of Washington, DC, citing how extreme its origins were compared to the other North American cities that got their starts as agricultural or trading posts or as Native American meeting sites. The account posits that the national capital was imagined in the late eighteenth century in order to create a distance between it and the unruly military units in the area around the temporary capital of Philadelphia in 1783. President George Washing, as a result of the Residence Act of 1790, set the location of the new planned capital city in its current location on the Potomac River. Dickey goes on to show how urban architect Pierre L’Enfant had grand dreams for the city but that much of it was never realized before 1878 when the post-Civil War construction boom came to the nation’s capital. Washington City, as it was then known, was not a place where Congressmen lingered when Congress was not in session. The city had no paved roads and, as it was built on swampy lands, was a very muddy settlement. As such, there was a high rate of disease and illness among the inhabitants. Gambling, slave markets, and prostitution rings dotted the city while open sewers and stagnant pools of water produced the opposite of the beauty that L’Enfant had once imagined. As the city grew in size and in prominence, however, corruption moved in. The district came under the control of national-level politicians and its inhabitants were not given the right of a voting member to represent them in Congress. In eleven chapters, Dickey chronicles the lives of Washington, DC’s significant players and what role, for better or worse, they played in its development. Other than L’Enfant, these figures include prominent Washington madam Mary Ann Hall, post-bellum mayor Sayles Bowen, journalist gadfly Anne Royall, Civil War-era nurse Hannah Ropes, and kingpin Alexander “Boss” Shepherd.
Writing in the Washington Post Book World, Louis Bayard stated: “Make no mistake. Empire of Mud, J.D. Dickey’s history of early Washington, is a bracing and graceful read, but upon finishing its calamity-laden pages, you may conclude that a lot of people had a lot of years to get a job done and failed to do it—and that their failure haunts us in ways too numerous to count. So if you can stomach learning how our beautiful, vexed city became a cat toy for national politicians and an ongoing rebuke of democracy, this is as good a place as any to start.” Reviewing the book in the Civil War News, Charles H. Bogart observed that “the individuals introduced by the author tell their stories through a lens focused on what is happening around them. The much larger story of what was shaping those local events is missing.” Bogart suggested that “readers with an interest in urban development or the rise of the federal government will find much of interest in this well-written and researched book.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly mentioned that “even as Dickey expresses a wistful nostalgia for long-vanished neighborhoods, he bemoans the District’s unique political nature.” Still, the contributor pointed out the author’s “flowing style” when writing about the capital. In a review in Library Journal, Thomas J. Davis called the account “an entertaining story for local history enthusiasts or general readers eager to peek into the curiosities and scandals” of the capital city. Booklist contributor Jay Freeman commented that “this is a useful if slanted account of the development of our capital.”
In Rising in Flames: Sherman’s March and the Fight for a New Nation, Dickey profiles William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War general, and chronicles the march on which he led his troops in 1864 and 1865. He also provides information on people connected to Sherman through the march, directly and peripherally, including John Logan, Mary Bickerdyke, and Abraham Lincoln.
Writing on the New York Journal of Books website, Francis P. Sempa commented: “J.D. Dickey’s new book Rising in Flames could be subtitled A Politically Correct Guide to Sherman’s March. It is equal parts social history and military history. It highlights the good deeds and laudable social views of soldiers, social workers, and former slaves who contributed to the success of Union General William T. Sherman’s famous ‘March to the Sea.'” Mark Levine, contributor to the online version of Booklist, described Rising in Flames as “a valuable contribution to Civil War history.” A Kirkus Reviews critic called the volume “a readable blend of military and political history; though not in the first rank of recent Civil War studies, a valuable addition to the literature.” In a more favorable assessment of the book in Publisher Weekly, a reviewer asserted: “This superlative, impeccably researched account of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s march through Georgia in 1864-1865 brings to life Civil War history.”
Dickey told CA: “A range of historians have had an influence on my work—Richard Hofstadter, H.R. Trevor-Roper, Richard Rhodes, James McPherson, as well as novelists who describe the impact of historical memory on contemporary life, such as: Faulkner, Proust, Zola, Hilary Mantel.
“After finding a suitable topic, I begin amassing a great deal of research that may or may not be relevant to the subject. Once I’ve slowly winnowed out that research, I arrive at the outline of the story I mean to tell. Sometimes the narrative can depart markedly from my initial assumptions of where the research would lead me, but by following the facts, wherever they meander, I arrive at a more interesting destination than if I had forced the story down a different path based on my original road map. With the end of the journey in mind, I write the book. I’d like the reader to come away with a more complex view of historical eras or characters than he or she might get from the sketches or clichés we sometimes accept as fact. There’s a tendency for all of us to assume superiority over people from prior eras, because we may be more tolerant or open-minded, have better science or medicine, or possess more fancy gadgets. But the core elements of the human condition: hope, fear, honor, pride, greed, the full constellation of our strengths and weaknesses are immutable, and part of any good story. By recognizing these universal elements, we can better relate to those who lived in eras that seem far removed from our own.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, August 1, 2014, Jay Freeman, review of Empire of Mud: The Secret History of Washington, DC, p. 28.
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2018, review of Rising in Flames: Sherman’s March and the Fight for a New Nation.
Library Journal, September 1, 2014, Thomas J. Davis, review of Empire of Mud, p. 119.
Publishers Weekly, July 7, 2014, review of Empire of Mud, p. 58; May 7, 2018, review of Rising in Flames, p. 60.
Washington Post Book World, September 5, 2014, Louis Bayard, review of Empire of Mud.
ONLINE
Booklist Online, https://www.booklistonline.com/ (June 1, 2018), Mark Levine, review of Rising in Flames.
Civil War News, http:/ /www.civilwarnews.com/ (November 1, 2014), Charles H. Bogart, review of Empire of Mud.
Empire of Mud website, http://www.empireofmud.com (December 12, 2014), author profile.
J.D. Dickey website, http://www.jddickey.com (September 17, 2018).
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (September 17, 2018), Francis P. Sempa, review of Rising in Flames.
J.D. Dickey has been writing books for 20 years, first as an author for Penguin/Rough Guides, now as a writer of narrative nonfiction about American history, society and culture. Of his current book, Rising in Flames, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "No one interested in Sherman's March should be deprived of his lively narrative. Absolutely spellbinding." His earlier book, Empire of Mud, was a New York Times bestseller and described the troubled landscape of Washington, D.C., in the nineteenth century. Mr. Dickey has also written articles on a broad range of historical, political and travel-related topics for newspapers and magazines, and appeared in media from C-SPAN's Book TV to Public Radio International's program The Takeaway. In addition to his nonfiction work, he has penned short stories for print and the web, and created several short films that have appeared at U.S. film festivals. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
J.D. Dickey has been writing books for 20 years, first as an author for Penguin/Rough Guides, now as a writer of narrative nonfiction about American history, society and culture. Of his current book, Rising in Flames, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "No one interested in Sherman’s March should be deprived of his lively narrative. Absolutely spellbinding." His earlier book, Empire of Mud, was a New York Times bestseller and described the troubled landscape of Washington, D.C., in the nineteenth century. Mr. Dickey has also written articles on a broad range of historical, political and travel-related topics for newspapers and magazines, and appeared in media from C-SPAN's Book TV to Public Radio International's program The Takeaway. In addition to his nonfiction work, he has penned short stories for print and the web, and created several short films that have appeared at U.S. film festivals. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
QUOTED: "This superlative, impeccably researched account of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's march through Georgia in 1864-1865 brings to life Civil War history."
Rising in Flames: Sherman's March and the Fight for a New Nation
Publishers Weekly. 265.19 (May 7, 2018): p60.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Rising in Flames: Sherman's March and the Fight for a New Nation
J.D. Dickey. Pegasus, $29.95 (420p) ISBN 9781-68177-757-3
This superlative, impeccably researched account of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's march through Georgia in 1864-1865 brings to life Civil War history through personal accounts and vivid descriptions of military strategy. Sherman, an avowed and largely unrepentant racist who came to despise slavery as both the driving force and supporting labor of secession, is thoughtfully portrayed as a complex figure whose unflinching military strategy eviscerated the rebel armies' military capabilities. Dickey, a perceptive and agile writer, masterfully evokes the momentous military campaign, sweeping up the tales of homefront politics, newly freed slaves, an army chaplain, front-line officers, and fascinating portrayals of diverse Union Army members. He gives particular focus to Mary Bickerdyke, who worked for the U.S. Sanitary Commission channeling war relief funds and medical care efforts on a massive scale to save lives and feed troops as they carried out the invasion of the deep South, and "Black Eagle" John Logan, an Illinois legislator who began the war an ardent foe of Abraham Lincoln and author of proslavery laws and, after seeing the horrors of slavery firsthand, became aligned with Lincoln's goals. Dickey fuses tactical analysis and terrifying descriptions of combat to make Sherman's military strategy clear, and his accounts of the Battle for Atlanta, its subsequent burning, and the fight for Missionary Ridge are riveting. Dickey tells the story of Sherman's march unforgettably, with power on every page. Agent: Adam Chromy, Movable Type. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Rising in Flames: Sherman's March and the Fight for a New Nation." Publishers Weekly, 7 May 2018, p. 60. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538858721/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0165d6b0. Accessed 3 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538858721
QUOTED: "a readable blend of military and political history; though not in the first rank of recent Civil War studies, a valuable addition to the literature."
Dickey, J.D.: RISING IN FLAMES
Kirkus Reviews. (May 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Dickey, J.D. RISING IN FLAMES Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) $29.95 6, 5 ISBN: 978-1-68177-757-3
A study in unintended consequences as a reactionary Civil War commander unleashed a series of progressive forces.
William Tecumseh Sherman was a man who, in the field, spared his enemies no violence and showed little mercy. He leaned toward the despotic and was a law unto himself, and his troops were similarly situated on the edge of lawlessness. As Washington-based historian Dickey (Empire of Mud: The Secret History of Washington, DC, 2014) writes at the beginning of his book, when Union forces staged a victory parade after the Confederate surrender, Sherman's Army of the West "sported the same uniforms they had fought in--worn and tattered, ripped and frayed, riddled with bullet holes, speckled with mud, and stained with blood." The piratical look emphasized the fact that Sherman had fought a relentless, punitive war, cutting a swath across the Deep South on his famous March to the Sea. But, pointedly, parallel to Sherman's army was a force of African-American men and women who had served as road builders, nurses, ambulance drivers, telegraph lineman and in other support roles. Dickey ably captures the shape and feel of the desperate battles Sherman's forces waged, "scorching the Southern earth and issuing no quarter to those who stood in his way." That black forces marched in support of Sherman's victorious army emphasizes numerous points: that African-Americans were essential to the Union's military success even if their contributions were long devalued; and that Sherman himself, though full of racist sentiments, contributed to the postwar push for civil rights through orders for the redistribution of seized plantation lands with self-determination for communities of newly freed slaves--a program later known as "40 acres and a mule" and promulgated by a commander who at the time was not "known for his sympathies for black people."
A readable blend of military and political history; though not in the first rank of recent Civil War studies, a valuable addition to the literature.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Dickey, J.D.: RISING IN FLAMES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A536571104/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1dcdb081. Accessed 3 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A536571104
QUOTED: "J. D. Dickey’s new book Rising in Flames could be subtitled A Politically Correct Guide to Sherman’s March. It is equal parts social history and military history. It highlights the good deeds and laudable social views of soldiers, social workers, and former slaves who contributed to the success of Union General William T. Sherman’s famous 'March to the Sea.'"
Rising in Flames: Sherman's March and the Fight for a New Nation
Author(s):
J. D. Dickey
Release Date:
June 5, 2018
Publisher/Imprint:
Pegasus Books
Pages:
400
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Francis P. Sempa
J. D. Dickey’s new book Rising in Flames could be subtitled A Politically Correct Guide to Sherman’s March. It is equal parts social history and military history. It highlights the good deeds and laudable social views of soldiers, social workers, and former slaves who contributed to the success of Union General William T. Sherman’s famous “March to the Sea.”
Union General John Logan began the war as a political opponent of Lincoln and abolition. His exposure during the war to the harsh and brutal realities of slavery transformed him into a fierce abolitionist and a Radical Republican after the war.
The Reverend John Hight served in the 58th Indiana regiment during the March. He expressed righteous anger at the South’s slavemasters, and what he witnessed in Georgia and South Carolina—whipping posts, chains, collars and other tools of human bondage—convinced him that the rebels were “reaping their just reward of their long oppression of the slaves.”
John McCline was a 13-year-old escaped slave who traveled as a paid orderly with the 13th Michigan and helped construct roads for the Union troops through Georgia and South Carolina.
Mary Livermore and Mary Ann Bickerdyke raised money, and solicited charitable donations of food, medicine, and bandages for the troops. Livermore, writes Dickey, became a “nationally known champion of the Union, the war and abolition,” and later championed women’s suffrage and “Christian Socialism.” Bickerdyke, meanwhile, traveled with Sherman’s troops, cared for them, and ran military hospitals.
These are the heroes of Dickey’s book. The Union did not win the Civil War, however, by good deeds and laudable social views. The war was won and slavery was ended by brute force and attrition warfare. Sherman’s March back then was called “hard war;” we know it today as “total war.”
It involved what Dickey rightly calls “a campaign of destruction” across Georgia in 1864 and into South Carolina in early 1865. Sherman’s plan, he informed General Ulysses S. Grant, was to make the South “howl.”
The March was preceded by a stunning Union victory at Chattanooga, where Union forces dislodged Confederate forces atop Missionary Ridge. The victory, Dickey notes, was not the result of a brilliant plan or good generalship. Instead, groups of Union soldiers moved forward up the slope in the face of Confederate fire from the crest of the ridge.
“First in the dozens, then in the hundreds, then in full regiments and brigades,” writes Dickey, “the Union soldiers seized the ridge.” Confederate soldiers surrendered or fled. The road to Atlanta was open.
Sherman’s Atlanta campaign combined mobile warfare and turning movements with deadly frontal attacks, such as the one at Kennesaw Mountain. But in the end, Atlanta fell to Sherman’s troops, just in time to help President Lincoln’s reelection effort.
From Atlanta in November 1864, Sherman’s forces, sixty thousand strong marching in multiple columns, burned and destroyed barracks, bridges, factories, foundries, warehouses, and private homes in town after town. His troops lived off the land, foraging for their meals. “Destroying slavery,” Dickey writes, “meant crippling the labor base of the South, which in turn meant crippling the rebellion.”
As the March proceeded, slaves were liberated and they tried to tag along with Union forces. Sherman could not afford to carry such human baggage, and he allowed Union General Jefferson C. Davis (no relation to the Confederate President) to abandon hundreds of former slaves at Ebenezer and Lockner Creeks, where many drowned and others were captured by Confederate troops.
Reverend Hight called Davis’ abandonment of the freedmen cruel and wicked. “May God Almighty save the nation from the responsibility of General Davis’ acts,” he exclaimed.
Sherman’s forces reached Savannah in late December. His next target was Columbia, South Carolina, the cradle of secession. In mid-February 1865, Union troops destroyed everything of military value in the city. Several buildings caught fire, and strong winds spread the conflagration to much of the city.
“The logic of hard war,” writes Dickey, “led to anarchy, and anarchy led to mass destruction, and the result of that immoral calculus was Columbia.” More than 450 buildings burned to the ground; many others were damaged. Other towns also felt the wrath of total war. “William Sherman,” Dickey writes, “left South Carolina a smoldering wreck.”
Sherman was denounced then and ever since as a “remorseless killer” and the “great vandal” of the Civil War. Dickey acknowledges the brutal nature of Sherman’s strategy and tactics, but also recognizes that Sherman and his armies “found success beyond anyone’s measure, crippling the Confederacy’s ability to fight the war and hastening the end of it.”
Sherman’s forces moved into North Carolina, captured the capital Raleigh, and negotiated an end to the fighting with Confederate General Joseph Johnston on April 26, 1865. By then, Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox and Lincoln was dead.
In the end, Dickey praises Sherman for finally understanding that the war was about “equal justice” and “civil rights.” Perhaps. What is certain is that Sherman understood the true nature of war when he remarked, “War is cruelty; you cannot refine it.”
Francis P. Sempa's most recent book is Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier's Journey through the Second World War. He he has also contributed to other books as well as written numerous articles and book reviews on foreign policy and historical topics for leading publications. Mr. Sempa is Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The views reported in this review are those of the reviewer and not those of the U.S. government.
QUOTED: "a valuable contribution to Civil War history."
Rising in Flames: Sherman’s March and the Fight for a New Nation.
Dickey, J. D. (author).
June 2018. 420p. illus. Pegasus, hardcover, $29.95 (9781681777573). 973.7.
REVIEW. First published May 22, 2018 (Booklist Online).
It is one of the paradoxes of the Civil War that William T. Sherman, one of the most reactionary figures on the Union side of that war, helped to shape its progressive consequences, especially for women and African Americans. His famous march, still denounced in the South, caused, Dickey asserts, the dramatic postwar transformations he goes on to describe. This is more than straightforward biography, as Dickey seeks to understand “the way a military genius, unhinged madman, unexpected liberator, and lawless tyrant can all exist in the reputation of the same legendary figure.” In assessing Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, the March to the Sea, Dickey (Empire of Mud, 2014) concentrates not only on Sherman but also on lesser-known unionists—Mary Livermore of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, former Democrat turned Union general John Logan, mega-nurse Mary Ann“Mother” Bickerdyke, the boy John McClain (a former slave), and others—and thus provides a unique perspective on this oft-written-about topic. The military aspects of the march and what Sherman called “hard war” are vividly recounted in their dreadful detail. A valuable contribution to Civil War history.— Mark Levine