TCNJ profs say they've solved Civil War mystery
A literary mystery that has lingered since the Civil War has apparently been solved by a pair of professors from The College of New Jersey.
Their findings ended up as a new book, "A Secession Crisis Enigma," by Daniel Crofts, a professor of history who turned to David Holmes, professor of statistics, while looking for an answer to a longstanding question.
They wanted to determine who was the author of "The Diary of a Public Man," which was published anonymously in four installments in the 1879 "North American Review."
Crofts said the diary was really a memoir because no one could have been at all of the places the author purported to be at the time. The diary gave verbatim accounts of secret conversations of incoming President Abraham Lincoln and other significant figures in the government such as William H. Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state; Stephen Douglas, a wealthy political rival to Lincoln; and others in the tense weeks before the Civil War started.
Historians have struggled without success to name the diary's author and determine its authenticity, according to Crofts.
Crofts become interested in the topic in the early 1970s when one of his students, Ryan Christiansen, suggested that William Henry Hurlbert, an unconventional journalist, was the author. That piqued Crofts' interest, and the research project began....
"There were other contenders," said Holmes. "We quickly eliminated, and got it down to three or four. Samuel Ward and William Hulbert were the finalists. Some people argued for Ward but we felt strongly it was Hulbert.
"What it came to was my (statistical) analysis confirmed his (literary) analysis," Holmes said about his and Crofts' work....
Read entire article at NJ.com
Their findings ended up as a new book, "A Secession Crisis Enigma," by Daniel Crofts, a professor of history who turned to David Holmes, professor of statistics, while looking for an answer to a longstanding question.
They wanted to determine who was the author of "The Diary of a Public Man," which was published anonymously in four installments in the 1879 "North American Review."
Crofts said the diary was really a memoir because no one could have been at all of the places the author purported to be at the time. The diary gave verbatim accounts of secret conversations of incoming President Abraham Lincoln and other significant figures in the government such as William H. Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state; Stephen Douglas, a wealthy political rival to Lincoln; and others in the tense weeks before the Civil War started.
Historians have struggled without success to name the diary's author and determine its authenticity, according to Crofts.
Crofts become interested in the topic in the early 1970s when one of his students, Ryan Christiansen, suggested that William Henry Hurlbert, an unconventional journalist, was the author. That piqued Crofts' interest, and the research project began....
"There were other contenders," said Holmes. "We quickly eliminated, and got it down to three or four. Samuel Ward and William Hulbert were the finalists. Some people argued for Ward but we felt strongly it was Hulbert.
"What it came to was my (statistical) analysis confirmed his (literary) analysis," Holmes said about his and Crofts' work....