Many books have been written on the Civil War, the battles and the significant figures. Some of the familiar names when reading about the War are Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
Ever heard of Samuel P. Heintzelman? Unless you know the Civil War inside and out, chances are you haven’t.
In his latest book, Civil War to the Bloody End: The Life & Times of Major General Samuel P. Heintzelman, Dr. Jerry D. Thompson, Regents Professor of History, sheds light on an obscure figure in U. S. History.
Writing a biography on a relatively unknown figure in history may pose a daunting task primarily due to lack of sources, but that was not the case for Thompson. His biggest problem consisted of having too much information. His sources included diary entries and letters. The source he lacked was the letters Heintzelman wrote to his wife. He wrote more than a 1,000, and only three survive.
It is hard to believe that there exists a place that is hotter than Laredo, but one of Heintzelman’s accomplishments includes the establishment of Fort Yuma, located on the California bank of the Colorado River. The temperature would rise to 117 degrees, and the soldiers would have to sustain “terrible dust storms.”
Another problem Thompson encountered was the more he researched the more he did not like Heintzelman. But this problem is not new – it is something that he’s come across numerous times when he has written other biographies.
Thompson was able to connect with Heintzelman when he recalled the death of his second son, Henry.
“I used to have a sign that says, ‘A Page a Day Is a Book a Year.”
There are times when other things get in the way when writing such as doing research or grading papers. The book took him “roughly between 1,600 to 1,800 hours” to complete. Thompson said that “students complain when they have to study for an exam for an hour.”
Heintzelman attended West Point and became a general in the Civil War
Thompson was honored earlier this year with the T.R. Fehrenbach award for his book, Civil War and Revolution on the Rio Grande Frontier. He wrote for the Laredo Times throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He is currently working on another biography entitled To Defend the Mexican Name in Texas: A Biography of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina.