Between Two Fires

Main Review:

I never intended to develop an interest in the American Civil War. Hell, I spent the first two and a half decades of my life largely ignorant of the whole thing and never thought of myself as diminished or incomplete as a result. But over the last couple of years, it’s grown like a particularly determined succulent, and so it keeps making its presence felt here on Fully Booked. 

The latest resurgence of interest in the period came from having recently attended Salute – a big wargames convention positively packed to the brim with tiny plastic and metal men (and very large queues for coffee – but that’s not strictly relevant right now). Whilst I managed to resist picking up seven(teen) more boxes to add to my pile of shame, I didn’t come away entirely unscathed. As I left, I found myself compelled to read the book I'd acquired at the last wargames show I went to: Between Two Fires by Laurence Hauptman. 

On a Venn diagram plotting my fledging interest in the American Civil War on one circle and my longstanding interest in the history of Native Americans and their persecution at the hands of settlers and federal government alike on the other, Between Two Fires would rest perfectly in the centre. Hauptman’s book is essentially a series of case studies, discussing specific groups, tribes, or individuals and their experience of and engagement in the Civil War. Whilst in principle Native Americans fought for both the Confederacy and the Union, the impression built by Hauptman is that the vast majority thought of themselves as fighting for their own nations first and foremost. Often, they did so in the hope that military service would lead to more goodwill or support from whichever white power bloc had dominance over their ancestral lands. Working together, the various chapters of the book do much to show the high degree of nuance in what motivated such factions or figures to engage with the war and how they went about doing so. This is no small feat, particularly given the relatively short length of the book.  

Sadly, the sobering reality is that the only real constant in their experiences is that no matter who they fought for or how much blood and sweat they shed, none of them really come out the war any better than they went into it. Even figures like Ely Parker, a Seneca tribesman who served as General Grant’s military secretary at the conclusion of the war eventually died in poverty, dependent on handouts and charity from former military allies.  

Hauptman constantly foregrounds how precarious tribal power and authority was in both the North and the South and how a culture of forced dependency had been cultivated by government and business interests long before the ‘War Between the States’ began. The scale of this is shown very succinctly by the two maps presented right at the very beginning, which show the scale of the land ceded and stolen from the various Native American tribes in less than twenty years between 1850 and 1869. Whilst the extent of the changes is dramatic, I was also struck by the sheer number of tribes and groups who I had simply never heard about before I started reading. There’s certainly something a little uncomfortable about only knowing about a group through such a lens of defeat and tragedy.  

Between Two Fires is peppered with some fascinating nuggets of information, and I found myself making notes of groups or events that I wanted to look into in greater detail. Chief amongst these were the Lowry Band, a diverse group of Native Americans from the Lumbee tribe, freed slaves and Union Soldiers who had escaped from Confederate prisons who came together to become a guerilla fighting force, stymying Confederate efforts during the war and eventually becoming a vigilante group opposing white supremacist groups (including the KKK) in the Reconstruction era. I, for one, would pay good money to watch a 10-part TV series about their exploits.   

In many ways, Hauptman’s book was custom tailored to appeal to my interests and so I was bound to enjoy it. But with that said, whilst the content of the book might have been really interesting, there were a couple of pitfalls with the execution overall. Mainly, this stems from the fact that Hauptman’s writing style tends towards just constantly listing streams of names, places and dates without a moment’s respite. This can get overwhelming in places, making it difficult to fully wrap your head around without clear focus on the part of the read. In many ways, it has the feel of a pre-programmed audio narration in a museum or the opening text crawl you get in a Star Wars movie.  By that I mean that regardless of whether or not you’re actually engaged with what’s being discussed, Between Two Fires is going to continue on its merry way without hesitation, deviation or repetition. I worry that a more casual reader might be put off by this as a result.   

My other issue was that Hauptman’s writing style frequently skirts into the grandiose in a way that didn’t sit entirely right with me. The most egregious example of this is his habit of making reference to General Sherman’s ‘outstanding’ or ‘magnificent’ army achieving ‘devastating’ results in its ‘March to the Sea’ seemingly without any appreciation of the thousands of people who died as a result.  

These issues aside, Between Two Fires was a very enjoyable read and I'm glad I was able to find a copy because its content (if not the presentation) was very much my cup of tea. It certainly won’t be a book for everyone, but if you’re an ACW buff looking for something slightly out of the ordinary, I can freely recommend that you give it a go.  

Until the next time – happy reading!