Joseph
Alexander Altsheler
Rating:
5 out of 10 stars
My
term: “Streaky”
From Wikipedia: “Altsheler
was born in Three Springs, Hart County, Kentucky to Joseph and Louise
(Snoddy) Altsheler.[1] In 1885, he took a job at the Louisville
Courier-Journal as a reporter and later, an editor. He started
working for the New York World in 1892, first as the paper's Hawaiian correspondent and then as the editor
of the World's tri-weekly magazine. Due to a lack of suitable stories, he began writing children's
stories for the magazine.
Altsheler married Sarah Boles
on May 30, 1888, and had one son. He and his family were in Germany
when World War I began. The difficult journey home took a huge toll
on Altsheler's health and he was never the same. He died in New York
City in 1919.”
I stumbled across the works of
Joseph Altsheler a few weeks ago when browsing through the Librivox Forums. So far, I have read
twelve of his books, and find that they are interesting, and some of them convey a lot of information,
though often that information is not in a very condensed format (which is why his Civil War series is 8
volumes). His writing style is a bit modern for my taste, and is not very colorful, but he does a good
job describing his characters emotions. I don't completely trust his historical accuracy, though I think
he's pretty close on the main points.
Altsheler does not appear to have
been a Christian, and seems fond of making references to “the primitive man”, millions of years,
and occasionally, saber-toothed cats. He speaks negatively of parental authority in his book The
Young Trailers, and seems quite critical of the Puritans. He does make references to Christianity, often
in a positive light, but also seems to have viewed it as somewhat hypocritical. Therefore- although I do
think his books can be helpful to learn history from, I would definitely be careful with which ones I
allowed a child to read. The majority of the books below are available from Internet Archive,
Librivox, Project Gutenberg, or Google Books. So far, I have read:
The Civil War series:
(I liked the majority of these, and
learned a good bit about the Civil War.)
The Guns of Bull Run, a story of the
Civil War’s eve (1914)
The Guns of Shiloh, a story of the
great western campaign (1914)
The Scouts of Stonewall, the story
of the great valley campaign (1914)
The Sword of Antietam, a story of
the nation’s crisis (1914)
The Star of Gettysburg, a story of
southern high tide (1915)
The Rock of Chickamauga, a story of
the western crisis (1915)
The Shades of the Wilderness, a
story of Lee’s great stand (1916)
The Tree of Appomattox, a story of
the Civil War's close (1916)
In Hostile Red, a tale of the
Revolution (not recommended)
The Texan War series:
The Texan Star
The Texan Scouts
The Texan Triumph (I have not
been able to find a free version of this, so haven't read it. The
first two are pretty good.)
And I've read one book of the Young
Trailers series:
The Young Trailers: A story of early
Kentucky (I did not like this one at all. It is definitely not recommended. If you want a good story
of the settling of Kentucky, read Daniel Boone's autobiography, and the biography by
Francis Lister Hawkes. I highly recommend it.)
So, overall, I would give the
books of Joseph A. Altsheler about 5 out of 10 stars, because they
can be useful for presenting history in an
interesting and easy-to-read format, but he is what I call a “streaky” author, meaning that
while he has some good, his books are not always trustworthy, and discretion should be used. There are
enough good books available to probably avoid his altogether.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things
are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue, and if there be any
praise,
think on these things.
Phillipians 4:8
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