Jim Murphy on the "Bloody Road to Freedom"
RSSJennifer M. Brown, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 08/04/2009
TeachingBooks.net resources on this interview »»»
Jim Murphy has explored the subject of the Civil War before in The Boys’ War (Clarion, 1990) and The Long Road to Gettysburg (Clarion, 1992). So why write another book on the topic? After reading Stephen Sears’s Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (Ticknor & Fields, 1982), Murphy became fascinated with that historic, day-long conflict. “[I wanted to] see if I could put together a history of the battle, the politics of the nation at the time, and the personal differences between Abraham Lincoln and General George B. McClellan [who led Union forces at Antietam],” the author notes.
That research turned into A Savage Thunder: Antietam and the Bloody Road to Freedom (S & S, 2009). “I didn’t want to do a book about a battle, I wanted to do a book about the people in the battle,” Murphy explains. Throughout the volume he incorporates first-person accounts—letters, diaries, primary documents—contributing to the sense of immediacy, which is Murphy’s goal, “every time I start a book.”
With your earlier titles, An American Plague (Clarion, 2003) and The Great Fire (Scholastic, 1995), you chose events that, like the battle at Antietam, changed the course of society as a whole. What attracts you to a subject?
What I discovered, and this has happened over the course of years, is that sometimes my books are broad in approach, but by choosing a specific event there’s a natural story line that emerges that gives the book a certain structure, a certain forward momentum. Then I can work in the details. All the facts have been verified—I don’t make anything up—but it feels like someone is telling you a story.
You mention that Lincoln came under heavy criticism from those who opposed slavery and his political opponents for not overtly addressing the slavery issue. Is that the reason why the he held off delivering the Emancipation Proclamation?
Lincoln wanted to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, but was urged by his cabinet to wait until the Union had a solid victory, so it didn’t seem as if it had been delivered out of desperation. Many of the Union soldiers were fighting the Civil War to preserve the Union; they weren’t fighting to free slaves. When I began to research the Emancipation Proclamation and understood what happened after it was issued, I realized there had been the possibility of an Army boycott or rebellion. I wanted young readers to understand there was a lot going on and a great deal at stake when Antietam was being fought.
But your history makes it clear that the Emancipation Proclamation had little immediate impact at the time it was delivered.
This is where history is complex. Everyone wants a decisive president. But Lincoln had sworn to uphold the Constitution and slavery was legal, so he couldn’t [simply] abolish it. He had to walk a very fine…line. Also, he had to deal with the border states; they were with the Union and he didn’t want to drive them to the South. The decision [when to deliver the Proclamation] couldn’t have been simple for him.
You offer a very balanced view of the issues confronting the North and the South.
I began with the notion that Antietam was the best battle General Robert E. Lee fought tactically for the Confederate side; I wanted to be sure readers understood that, and the human sacrifice that was involved. Young soldiers were standing for their sides against amazing odds. In terms of the politics, I’m clearly very happy that the Union prevailed, but I wanted the South represented fairly.
The discussion of General Lee's “Lost Orders” perfectly illustrates how huge events can turn on “small actions and chance,” as you put it.
Without General Lee's “Lost Orders” [marching orders issued by Lee, misplaced by a Confederate soldier, and found by two Union soldiers just prior to the battle] there wouldn’t have been a Battle of Antietam, it might have happened someplace else. To this day, no one knows who lost those orders and put his entire army in jeopardy.
When I write I try to create a narrative story line, but also something that feels dramatic. It’s a process of finding out where the important turning points are. I added a lot of information in the “Notes,” material I wanted to include but didn’t want to halt the narrative line.
How did you go about your photo research? The photo of Lincoln and McClellan, who butted heads so many times, is especially powerful, with the Union and Confederate flags lying side by side.
I started the research right here [in my home library], then widened it to the Library of Congress, which has the largest collection of Civil War images. I realized that many of the sketches done by the [battlefield] artists are more dramatic than the finished products. They add a sense of motion or action, whereas some of the finished illustrations seem static.
That photo of Lincoln and McClellan is fairly famous. I think there were three versions of this photograph taken moments apart. It’s a glass plate photograph and the glass was broken, which creates a divide between McClellan and Lincoln. In this one McClellan’s face is the clearest. There was a practical reason to include it, as well as a symbolic reason.
Jennifer M. Brown is the children's editor for Shelf Awareness, a daily enewsletter for the publishing trade. She recently launched the Web site Twenty by Jenny, which recommends titles to help parents build their child's library one book at a time.
TeachingBooks.net resources on this interview »»»
Read School Library Journal's review of Ann Rinaldi's My Vicksburg (Harcourt, 2009), a fictional account that describes an encounter with the soldier who lost General Lee's orders.
