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Background Information and Links for In the Face of Death The best place to go for information about author Yarbro is her own website. We also have information on her books and her interests in the Yarbro pages in our "Authors" section. And don't forget her first e-book, Magnificat. Fred Frank's Gothic Bibliography Pages will link you to a seemingly infinite amount of information on the Gothic in literature, one of the categories in which a vampire novel such as this one can be said to fit. Elizabeth Miller is an authority on vampire literature and a Professor of English in Newfoundland. You must check out her pages. A fan's trip report on the Second World Dracula Congress (Poiana Brasov, Transylvania, Romania, 25-28 May 2000). Horrornet : highly commercial, but plenty of interesting stuff.
If you find yourself interested in learning more about just what the heck was going on in California, or among the tribes, or in Georgia during the Civil War, there are plenty of additional ways to do that: INFORMATIONAL WEBSITES AND LINKS The Making of America projects at Cornell and at the University of Michigan have put online an astonishing array of contemporary magazines and books. You can search on specific terms (say, Sherman, or Cochise) and then follow hyperlinks to page images from the major magazines of the 19th Century.
the Cornell Journal Collection: The American Missionary (1878 - 1901) the U. Michigan Journal Collection: Appleton's 1869-1881 (2 series) Additionally, Cornell has online two multi-volume sets of records on the Civil War: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies Finally, both sites have extensive collections of online books (which they refer to as "monographs"), with titles, authors, and *content* searchable by keyword. Select your item and follow the links, and the actual pages will be displayed on your screen. A search for "San Francisco" at Cornell turned up 3095 matches in 69 different works; and at UMich, where there are 8500 books available, turned up 1529 records. (Clearly it helps to be more specific in your search!) Again, let me emphasize that you can search the contents of all of these books and journals by keyword; further, you can construct, for example, an "advanced" search on "California" AND "William T. Sherman" on the same page.
HISTORICAL NEW YORK TIMES PROJECT Interesting and important stories from the New York Times in the Civil War era, scanned from microfilm and presented on the web with a nice navigational interface. Fall of Atlanta as reported, for example.
WILLIAM T. SHERMAN An interesting and reasonably detailed summary of Sherman's life, put on the web by Bill Eberius under the name "U.S. History Interactive," (with similar pages on other history topics). PICTURES! What would the world be without pictures? Here are some pictures of WTS, primarily in a military setting. Pictures and biography on the website of the Aztec Club. [You can also read here about General W. S. Harney, who will figure in both the Chandless and the Mackie books we're working on for future release.]
SAN FRANCISCO IN THE 1850'S Start with the San Francisco Public Library's History Center. The Museum of the City of San Francisco has a great website with plenty of useful and fascinating information online, and their online exhibit on the Gold Rush is particularly relevant to us. (Compare their story with the Sherman's personal recounting in the early chapters of Volume One of his Memoirs). Also at the museum are a short history of Sherman's stay in SF, complete with a picture of the bank building in which he worked (and which appears in the novel); it has survived fires and earthquakes to this day. There are also links to other museum pages on WTS, and an extensive bibliograpy of his life. Of particular note: William Tecumseh Sherman: Gold Rush Banker, by Dwight L. Clarke. San Francisco, California Historical Society, 1969. 446 + xviii pages, illus., map (on lining papers). [Includes extensive quotes from letters exchanged between Sherman and his banking partners, which are not otherwise available in print.]
THE AMERICAN SOUTH A fabulous resource: University of North Carolina's "Documenting the American South" website. Here you will find 960 books and manuscripts online, with library bibliographic records and background data. Their categories: First-Person Narratives of the American South
MAPS AND VIEWS You can't follow the territory without you got the map. First, a set of pointers to the grand online map collection at the Library of Congress, in their American Memory project. The LC maps only show you a smallish area at any one time, but you can select where you want to look in larger scale from a larger territory. A traveler's map of the United States, 1846, showing railroads, canals, and other means of transportation. You can zoom in and see where the actions of the novel take place, but only as far west as the Mississippi. There's another map, from 1851, of similar area but different aspect. A view of San Francisco in 1846-7, before it was transformed by the Gold Rush of 1849. A military map of California, 1847. Sherman was first stationed in Monterey, California, on this western tour of duty. San Francisco in 1849: the "Official Map" showing streets, blocks, lots, and the water. Birdseye View of San Francisco, 1851. Shows buildings, wharves, ships congregated in the harbor.... The change over these three maps is stunning. A panoramic drawing of San Francisco in 1856. From San Francisco Bay to the Plains of Los Angeles, 1859. From Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, about 1858. Indian Land Cessions state by state; more than you wanted to know. (Sixty-seven separate maps, drawn around 1896.) The former Cherokee lands in the South, before their removal. The lands assigned to the "Emigrant Indians" west of Arkansas and Missouri (1836). The Mississippi Valley from Cairo IL to the Gulf of Mexico, 1861. The Western Border States in 1861, on a British map that includes pictures of plenty of Union generals, most of whose careers foundered shortly thereafter. No picture of WTS. An original map of Sherman's campaigns in the South. Drawn by Capt. William Kossak, who was a member of his staff. (See Sherman's Memoirs for more information.) An 1864 map showing the Atlanta campaigns, also at LC. Other Maps: The area of San Francisco burnt in the great fire of 1851. A timeline of maps of San Francisco. Several appropriate maps of San Francisco and the Bay Area at UCBerkeley. UCB has plenty of other things to show you, too; try your own search. San Francisco is built on the hulks of ships abandoned by their crews in their haste to get to the Gold Rush. A nice essay on this, with modern map showing the location of the old wharves under present-day streets.
NATIVE AMERICANS (ALL NATIONS) The History pages of NativeWeb; lots of other good stuff on NativeWeb, too. Excite has a nice menu-tree approach to finding out about things, with lots of useful links. Here's their list of guides and directories, and also be sure to look at their list of historical figures in the Native American timeline. More books to go find: a long list of recommended reading on Indians, with one-line descriptions, put together by Bill De Stefano. He also has other guides to the history of the American West, and teaches courses on "The American West in History and Myth." Photographs of North American Indians by Edward S. Curtis, probably the most famous photographer of Indians and the author of the standard pictorial volume. Digitized by the Library of Congress as part of the American Memory project. Three cheers for the LC! Choctaw.com, a website with many links to Native American web pages (not just Choctaw). Documents relating to the history of the Chickasaw nation, a group closely related to the Choctaw and one of the "civilized tribes." [Not being updated.] How the American Civil War affected the Indians living in the Indian Territory, and how many were induced to fight the war on the Confederate side. Many good photographs.
APACHE AND COCHISE Excite's list-o-links for Cochise; start here. The supposed picture of Cochise, on Historynet, but without ads (see below for their ads). Geronimo's Own Story, part of the American Revolution HTML Project (it says here) in the Netherlands. Overall, a fascinating project on the pre-WWI history of the USA, undertaken by the Arts Faculty of the University of Groningen. "Descendants Of Apache Warriors Revisit Cochise's Final Battleground." From TUCSON WEEKLY, 14 December 1998. I love the web, and I love the way interesting pieces just appear like magic.
CHOCTAW An encyclopedia definition of what the Choctaw people are, with useful links. A chronological history of the Choctaw nation, with fascinating detail. "Choctaw History" with dozens of useful links, on Choctaw and other Native American groups. Nice graphics. Connected with a family genealogy project, and other history summaries, also. The 1805 treaty with the Choctaw (made necessary because of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803). The Choctaw "trail of tears" well summarized, with map showing lands by treaty. A fascinating paper on the history of the relations between the Choctaw and the various European and American governments they had to deal with, 1540-1825. The Mounds of Chucalissa Archaeological Park, near Memphis, Tennessee: "a partially reconstructed village and programs which present the details of the everyday lives of the Indians who inhabited the area from about A.D. 1000 to 1500." The Report of Mr. Wood's Visit to the Choctaw and Cherokee Missions, a 24-page document from 1855, is online at MOA-UMich.
OTHER THINGS TO LOOK FOR ON THE WEB Look on the web for e-books and e-texts, (many free), or
GENERAL RESEARCH Go to your local library, or
WILLIAM T. SHERMAN Sherman's own memoirs, in two volumes, capture the essence of this complex and brilliant figure. They are currently available in many different formats (hardcover, paperback, digital download e-book) at a variety of prices. Look for The Memoirs of General William T. Sherman or Personal Memoirs of General William T. Sherman on Amazon, for example. You can also find used copies on ABE or Bibliofind. You can even read them for free: Project Gutenberg has them online as downloadable e-texts (click here for the first and second volumes). The Gutenberg files are simple ASCII text, with lots of OCR errors; we've edited and corrected them, and formatted them as e-books for sale at $4.95 each:
See a contemporary ad for Sherman's Memoirs at the MOA project (in the back of another book published by the same publisher). Sherman's personal letters (to his wife, friends, family) were published in 1909 as Home Letters of General Sherman, edited by M. A. DeWolfe Howe (Charles Scribner and Sons, New York). This is where you find out what he was really thinking, as opposed to what he wrote in his business and military correspondence. We're doing this as an e-book in the near future. Also worth looking for is (Simpson and Berlin, editors) Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865 University of North Carolina Press (1999) ISBN: 0807824402.
NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AND HISTORY You can get a degree in Native American Studies, so anything I say here is only scratching the surface. A couple of coffee table books you can likely find in your local library: The American Heritage Book of Indians, Simon & Schuster (American Heritage), 1961—dated, but widely available, fascinating to read, and well-intentioned.
AMERICAN EXPANSION INTO THE WEST Again, a topic that has fueled many a Ph.D. Books with lots of pictures and words and maps: Exploring the West by Herman J. Viola; Smithsonian Books, Washington DC (1987) Historical Atlas of the American West by Warren A. Beck and Ynez D. Haase, University of Oklahoma Press (1989); with lots of maps showing movements, growth, expansion, crops, railroads, Indian judicial lands (treaty cases against state and federal governments)... This one is for the serious analysts and other map freaks among you.
SAN FRANCISCO IN THE 1850'S The Gold Rush! Vigilantes! High Society, dancing on the Edge of the World! San Francisco's Reign of Terror, by John Myers Myers, Doubleday, (1966). Pop history at its most pleasurable; the inner workings of the Vigilantes, why they began and how they ended. San Francisco, 1846-1856 / From Hamlet to City, by Roger W. Lotchin; Oxford University Press (1974). One of the "Urban Life in America" series, a serious, though readable look at what was going on while the press was covering all the shootings and riots. Heyday Books, a small press that concentrates on books about California. Hurrah! for small publishing. (They didn't pay us to say that.)
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR Ask your librarian, or see the "web" section above. Jeez. Oh, all right. Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign,by George N. Bernard; Dover (1977). Plenty of used copies for sale, and not expensive. The real thing, from contemporary photographers.
COMMERCIAL WEBSITES AND LINKS CIVIL WAR TIMES We used the CWT 1964 compilation "The Campaign for Atlanta" as a guide to understanding the military issues there. There's probably a more recent edition. Historynet also gives you access to the files for AMERICAN HISTORY, a good place to start if you want to learn more about the West, its original inhabitants, etc. Historynet doesn't pay us anything for mentioning them. (They don't even know who we are.) They're doing a pop-culture version of history, not the scholarly kind; but most of us aren't professional historians, and these are fun to read. No picture of Cochise is known today, but that doesn't mean one did not exist in the 19th Century. One dealer has a candidate picture apparently done 1900-1915, possibly from a photograph or from oral descriptions. Places you can go on the Hidden Knowledge websites:
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