WRITING A BOOK IS OFTEN A TOUGH GRIND, BUT SOME ASPECTS OF the process never get old, and my favorite part of wrapping one up is getting to express my gratitude to friends and colleagues who helped along the way. I am absurdly lucky to count so many kind, supportive, and wonderful people as my pals.
Andrew Cohen read Chapter 1 and helped me sort out Peter Vogelsang’s confusing marriages and genealogy; his Contraband, as good fortune would have it, came out at just the right moment. Other exceptional scholars—Patrick Rael, Leslie Gordon, and Matt Mason—read some of the early sections and saved me from several errors, as did Thomas J. Brown, whose knowledge of the Fifty-fourth is encyclopedic. Tom’s co-edited volume Hope and Glory appears often enough in my notes to indicate what an immense help it was in crafting this book. Two more longtime pals, John Quist and John Belohlavek, put aside their own projects long enough to comment on portions of the manuscript; the tradition of Friday martinis with John B. at SHEAR conferences is now nearly three decades old and remains for me a highlight of the meeting.
Three very clever friends read Chapter 6 and provided me with detailed comments and suggestions. If in the end I did not accept Gary Kornblith’s suggestion that I rename that section “Hospital Sketches” in a nod to Louisa May Alcott, I did incorporate all of his other shrewd recommendations. (It is always wise, of course, to listen to a man who wears a Frederick Douglass tie, as Gary does on occasion.) Carol Faulkner also gave the chapter a good, close reading and brought several books to my attention that had escaped notice, as did Stacey Robertson, who bluntly told me what parts of the chapter didn’t work. Only a dear pal will do that.
During the spring semester of 2015, I was invited to be the Merrill Family Visiting Professor at Cornell University, which gave me the opportunity to try out portions of this material on a group of marvelous students and the time to write it up into some of these chapters. I am deeply grateful to Ed Baptist, Barry Strauss, and especially the wonderful Amy Kohout for making those months a terrific experience.
Two dear friends of many years, Alan Gallay and Don Wright, read every page of the manuscript, as they have for other projects in earlier years. Come to that, Alan has been reading my pages now for thirty-six years, since our long-ago days in graduate school, and it’s hard to imagine finishing a book without their insightful comments, tough criticism, and Don’s hilarious doodles in the margins. But both know, I hope, that that’s not why I so value their friendship. Their only flaws are that they both now live so far away. My pal Graham Hodges, at least, remains nearby at Colgate University, and Clarence Taylor and Carol Berkin—to whom I owe so much—are not too terribly far off in Manhattan.
At Basic Books, Dan Gerstle has been an absolutely superb and attentive editor, and this is a much better volume for his multiple readings and thoughtful editorial pen. Cindy Buck and Sandra Beris helped to transform the manuscript into a book. Thanks especially to my extraordinary agent, Dan Green, who supported this project from the first and who reads every page I send him and responds with wise and discerning comments. I am also grateful to Peter Ginna for his advice and support. And as luck would have it, I have generous cousins—Martha Ware and Steve Cole, and Frank Schroth and Annie Davis—who opened up their homes (and wine cellars) to me in Washington and Boston long enough for me to conduct much of the research in this book. Plus, they are just lovely people to talk books and music and politics with. Jeanann Wieners helped me with some of the images without laughing at my Luddite sensibilities (well, actually she did). At Le Moyne College, I am again indebted to research librarian Wayne Stevens, who can track down the most obscure monograph or document, and to the college’s Committee on Research and Development for its generous funding for the images and maps reproduced here.
Thunder at the Gates would not be the book it is without Leigh Fought’s advice, support, and editorial suggestions, and not merely because she is one of the nation’s leading experts on Frederick Douglass and his family. She tells me when pages work, makes perceptive recommendations on how to fix paragraphs that need help, and was genuinely heartbroken by the murder of James Henry Gooding at the hands of Andersonville guards. Most of all, Leigh listened patiently to my endless stories about the men and women who fill these pages and just generally puts up with me, which is no small feat, and so to her I dedicate this book. Final thanks, of course, go to my brilliant, gorgeous, and industrious daughters, Kearney and Hannah, who are perfect in every way. To quote the great philosopher Pete Townshend, they make me laugh and sing, now that I’m old and gray.