John William De Forest was an American soldier and writer of realistic fiction, best known for his Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty is an American Civil War novel by veteran John William DeForest. In contrast to much of the Civil War fiction that had gone before it, Miss Ravenel's Conversion portrayed war not in the chivalric, idealized manner of Walter Scott, but as a...

.

Early life and career

De Forest was born in Seymour, Connecticut

Seymour, Connecticut

Seymour is a town located in western New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town was named for Governor Thomas H. Seymour. The population was 15,454 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...

, (then called Humphreysville), the son of a prosperous cotton manufacturer. He did not attend college, but instead pursued independent studies, mainly abroad, where he was a student in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, and became a fluent speaker of French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. While yet a youth, he spent four years traveling in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and two years in the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

, residing chiefly in Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. In 1850, he again visited Europe, making extensive tours through Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, and Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. From that time, he wrote short stories for periodicals, having already authored several books.

One of his earliest works, The History of the Indians of Connecticut, from the Earliest known Period to 1850, shows his interest in history. Written from 1847 to 1850, The History of the Indians of Connecticut is critical of the settlers treatment of the Pequots and of King Phillip's War, which is somewhat surprising given the early date of the scholarship. The non-fictional work also foreshadows De Forest's later fiction in its subject, realism, and occasional violence.

The honorary degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 in 1859.

Civil War

With the advent of the American Civil War, De Forest returned to the United States. As a captain in the Union Army

Union Army

The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...

, he organized a company from New Haven

New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...

, the 12th Connecticut Volunteers. He served constantly in the field until January 1865, taking an active part under Maj. Gen.

Major General

Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...

 Godfrey Weitzel

Godfrey Weitzel

Godfrey Weitzel was a major general in the Union army during the American Civil War, as well as the acting Mayor of New Orleans during the Federal occupancy of the city.-Early life and career:...

's command in the southwestern states, and under Philip Sheridan

Philip Sheridan

Philip Henry Sheridan was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close association with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S...

 in the Shenandoah Valley

Shenandoah Valley

The Shenandoah Valley is both a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians , to the north by the Potomac River...

.

Graphic descriptions of battle scenes in Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, and of Sheridan's battles in the valley of the Shenandoah, were published in Harper's Monthly

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

 during the war by Major De Forest, who was present on all the occasions thus mentioned, and though experiencing forty-six days under fire, received but one trifling wound.

De Forest mustered out from the volunteer army in 1865 with the brevet

Brevet (military)

In many of the world's military establishments, brevet referred to a warrant authorizing a commissioned officer to hold a higher rank temporarily, but usually without receiving the pay of that higher rank except when actually serving in that role. An officer so promoted may be referred to as being...

 rank of major

Major (United States)

In the United States Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, major is a field grade military officer rank just above the rank of captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel...

.

Postbellum

After being mustered out of the army with the rest of the Veteran Reserve Corps

Veteran Reserve Corps

The Veteran Reserve Corps was a military reserve organization created within the Union Army during the American Civil War to allow partially disabled or otherwised infirmed soldiers to perform light duty, freeing able-bodied soldiers to serve on the front lines.-The Invalid Corps:The corps was...

 of which he was the adjutant general, De Forest transferred to the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (more commonly known as the "Freedmen's Bureau" and was appointed Assistant Commissioner in charge of the post in Greenville, South Carolina

Greenville, South Carolina

-Law and government:The city of Greenville adopted the Council-Manager form of municipal government in 1976.-History:The area was part of the Cherokee Nation's protected grounds after the Treaty of 1763, which ended the French and Indian War. No White man was allowed to enter, though some families...

. His experiences there, published in magazines of the period and eventually in collected form as A Union Officer in the Reconstruction (1948, new edition LSUP 1999) shed light on the conditions in the South during the Reconstruction.

His magazine articles of his time in the army were also collected published posthumously as A Volunteer's Adventures (1946, new edition LSUP 2001).

In 1867, De Forest published his most significant novel, Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty. William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...

 praised him as a "realist

Literary realism

Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...

 before realism was named," but most early critics argued that the Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 elements of De Forest's plot mixed poorly with the admirable realism of the battle scenes, and the novel fell through with the audience in 1867. Reeditions in 1939 and 1956 reintroduced De Forest as an author, but the full range of his experimentalísm in this early novel has still not been fully understood. In Miss Ravenel's Conversion, De Forest tried to come to grips with writing experiences De Forest himself had, and which did not fit any of the idealist and romantic patterns that war literature had followed so far. Consequently, there are a number of scenes that portray war with a graphic sense of bloody reality (f. i. the siege of Port Hudson), but there are also burlesque and comical passages, as well as reflective moments.

Writing for The Nation

The Nation

The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

a year later, De Forest called for a more general movement in American literature toward realism; the essay's title, "The Great American Novel," is generally credited as being the first known use of the term.

He died in New Haven, Connecticut, of heart disease.

Writing

De Forest wrote essays, a few poems, and about fifty short stories, numerous military sketches, and book reviews, most of which were anonymous. In 1873, he contributed to The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

a short serial story entitled "The Lauson Tragedy."

His published books include:

• The History of the Indians of Connecticut, from the Earliest known Period to 1850 (Hartford, 1851)
• Oriental Acquaintance, a sketch of travels in Asia Minor (New York, 1856)
• Witching Times (1856)
• European Acquaintance (1858)
• Seacliff, a novel (Boston, 1859)
• Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (New York, 1867)
• Overland (New York, 1871)
• Kate Beaumont (Boston, 1872)
• The Wetherell Affair (New York, 1873)
• Honest John Vane (New Haven, 1875)
• Justine Vane (New York, 1875)
• Playing the Mischief (1875)
• Irene Vane (1877)
• Irene, the Missionary (Boston, 1879)
• The Oddest of Courtships, or the Bloody Chasm (New York, 1881)
• A Lover's Revolt (1898) (set in the American Revolution)
• The De Forests of Avesnes (and of New Netherland) a Huguenot thread in American colonial history (New Haven, 1900)
• The Downing legends; stories in rhyme (New Haven, 1901)
• Poems; Medley and Palestina (New Haven, 1902)
• A Union Officer in the Reconstruction (1948)

External links