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The Gunboat Series #5
Frank on the Lower Mississippi
Excerpt from Frank on the Lower Mississippi
Vicksburg had fallen, and the army had marched in and taken possession of the city. How Frank longed to accompany it, that he might see the inside of the rebel stronghold, which had so long withstood the advance of our fleet and army He stood leaning against one of the monster guns, which, at his bidding, had spoken so often and so effectively in favor of the Union, and for two hours watched the long lines of war-worn soldiers as they moved into the works. At length a tremendous cheer arose from the city, and Frank discovered a party of oldiers on the cupola of the court-house, from which, a few moments afterward, floated the Stars and Stripes. Then came faintly to his ears the words of a familiar song, which were caught up by the soldiers in the city, then by those who were still marching in, and "We'll rally round the flag, boys," was sung by an immense choir. The rebels in the streets gazed wonderingly at the men on the spire, and listened to the song, and the triumphant shouts of the conquering army, which proclaimed the beginning of the downfall of their confederacy.
Vicksburg had fallen, and the army had marched in and taken possession of the city. How Frank longed to accompany it, that he might see the inside of the rebel stronghold, which had so long withstood the advance of our fleet and army He stood leaning against one of the monster guns, which, at his bidding, had spoken so often and so effectively in favor of the Union, and for two hours watched the long lines of war-worn soldiers as they moved into the works. At length a tremendous cheer arose from the city, and Frank discovered a party of oldiers on the cupola of the court-house, from which, a few moments afterward, floated the Stars and Stripes. Then came faintly to his ears the words of a familiar song, which were caught up by the soldiers in the city, then by those who were still marching in, and "We'll rally round the flag, boys," was sung by an immense choir. The rebels in the streets gazed wonderingly at the men on the spire, and listened to the song, and the triumphant shouts of the conquering army, which proclaimed the beginning of the downfall of their confederacy.
120 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1867
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About the author
Harry Castlemon
331 books4 followersCharles Austin Fosdick (September 6, 1842 - August 22, 1915), better known by his nom de plume Harry Castlemon, was a prolific writer of juvenile stories and novels, intended mainly for boys. He was born in Randolph, New York, and received a high school diploma from Central High School in Buffalo, New York. He served in the Union Navy from 1862 to 1865, during the American Civil War, acting as the receiver and superintendent of coal for the Mississippi River Squadron. Fosdick had begun to write as a teenager, and drew on his experiences serving in the Navy in such early novels as Frank on a Gunboat (1864) and Frank on the Lower Mississippi (1867). He soon became the most-read author for boys in the post-Civil War era, the golden age of children's literature.
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December 4, 2019
I've picked up a number of these "boys adventure stories" from the 1800s and early 1900s, and it's instructive and amusing to read them for the storytelling and historical interest. This is from Castlemon's Gun-Boat Series, Civil War stories, which includes tales of Frank before the War, as a budding Naturalist, and continues after the War, back in Nature. The various sources disagree as to when these were first published, and what narrative order the novels were in, but I think I'll be quitting with this one, so I'll never know for sure. (I previously read Frank before Vicksburg from 1864.) This appears to have been first published in 1867, after the war was over.
The specific edition I own is an amusing mess of anachronism. It's a much later reprint by Hurst & Company. The story is set in the Civil War, in the Mississippi River Squadron of the Union Army and Navy (it was a curious amalgam.). The cover illustration shows a Marine in the outfit of the 1890s, and behind him is what appears to be a Maine-class pre-dreadnought battleship (though there's no sign of a turret), which was ocean-going, not appropriate for the Mississippi, and anachronistic by 30 years.
Likewise, the one illustration is a frontispiece plate that shows a British naval officer, from behind, with sabre raised, in a boarding battle with Barbary pirates. Needless to say, there's nothing like that in this book.
Boy's literature was just as carelessly slapped together in my day, and much of it still is.
The book is a page-turner, it reads easily, and it has lively (if mostly illogical) incidents. It's the kind of thing that sparks the imagination, and gets reused in daydreams and backyard skirmishes thereafter. It's very "dime novel" in its sensibility (think Star Trek, especially Next Generation), with so little description that a lad would have no real idea what a tin-clad was as opposed to an iron-clad, or any of that.
Not to mention that (though the officer was a clerk and supervisor in the Mississippi River Squadron) it muddles what descriptions there are. As I mentioned in my review of the earlier volume, he creates nonsense ships, putting forecastles on sidewheel riverboats and quarterdecks (outside the armor) on ironclads. He has Admiral David Porter as a character, but misspells the name of his flagship, Black Hawk. In the previous book he used the naming conventions of the New England ocean Navy, not the Western fleets. This time he uses a few correct (or correct as to type) ship names, but has a 14-gun ironclad, Michigan, on the river. The Union Navy had a Michigan, a side-wheel steamer on the Great Lakes. River ironclads were named after Western River cities, as a rule. There's a similar problem with using Key-West, a misspelling of an existing ship name. There's another ironclad, Manhattan (not a Western city), but the two actual Manhattans in Union service were a screw revenue cutter, and a monitor that saw service in the Gulf of Mexico. The one correct name and description is the dispatch boat, General Lyon.
The story is full of Star Trek nonsense, like the captain of a vessel heading up two and three man "away teams" for dangerous missions; Frank (at that point the executive officer of a ship) sneaking around on land, at night, to arrest a saboteur, without backup from the readily-available provost guard; shooting men out of the saddle at long range with buckshot; and the like.
This one was less irritating than the previous volume, so I'll actually give it three stars for readability. But it's nonsense and pretty much crap. Castlemon knew that what his boy readers wanted was adventure, but he didn't have to give it to them with such condescension.
The specific edition I own is an amusing mess of anachronism. It's a much later reprint by Hurst & Company. The story is set in the Civil War, in the Mississippi River Squadron of the Union Army and Navy (it was a curious amalgam.). The cover illustration shows a Marine in the outfit of the 1890s, and behind him is what appears to be a Maine-class pre-dreadnought battleship (though there's no sign of a turret), which was ocean-going, not appropriate for the Mississippi, and anachronistic by 30 years.
Likewise, the one illustration is a frontispiece plate that shows a British naval officer, from behind, with sabre raised, in a boarding battle with Barbary pirates. Needless to say, there's nothing like that in this book.
Boy's literature was just as carelessly slapped together in my day, and much of it still is.
The book is a page-turner, it reads easily, and it has lively (if mostly illogical) incidents. It's the kind of thing that sparks the imagination, and gets reused in daydreams and backyard skirmishes thereafter. It's very "dime novel" in its sensibility (think Star Trek, especially Next Generation), with so little description that a lad would have no real idea what a tin-clad was as opposed to an iron-clad, or any of that.
Not to mention that (though the officer was a clerk and supervisor in the Mississippi River Squadron) it muddles what descriptions there are. As I mentioned in my review of the earlier volume, he creates nonsense ships, putting forecastles on sidewheel riverboats and quarterdecks (outside the armor) on ironclads. He has Admiral David Porter as a character, but misspells the name of his flagship, Black Hawk. In the previous book he used the naming conventions of the New England ocean Navy, not the Western fleets. This time he uses a few correct (or correct as to type) ship names, but has a 14-gun ironclad, Michigan, on the river. The Union Navy had a Michigan, a side-wheel steamer on the Great Lakes. River ironclads were named after Western River cities, as a rule. There's a similar problem with using Key-West, a misspelling of an existing ship name. There's another ironclad, Manhattan (not a Western city), but the two actual Manhattans in Union service were a screw revenue cutter, and a monitor that saw service in the Gulf of Mexico. The one correct name and description is the dispatch boat, General Lyon.
The story is full of Star Trek nonsense, like the captain of a vessel heading up two and three man "away teams" for dangerous missions; Frank (at that point the executive officer of a ship) sneaking around on land, at night, to arrest a saboteur, without backup from the readily-available provost guard; shooting men out of the saddle at long range with buckshot; and the like.
This one was less irritating than the previous volume, so I'll actually give it three stars for readability. But it's nonsense and pretty much crap. Castlemon knew that what his boy readers wanted was adventure, but he didn't have to give it to them with such condescension.
Displaying 1 of 1 review