Researchers read, dogear, value and organize books in all sorts of ways. ..I personally read with a red pencil then later use Plastiklips (a great product) to mark the pages I will want to reread later. ..Just as important is to know the failings of each research resource.
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I received an e-mail critiquing Muncrief's book that should be noted. Immediately below is from my bibliography and below that is the critical e-mail.
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Muncrief, Dennis Muncrief, "A History of Ft. Arbuckle, It’s People and Times", self-published 2004, Murray County OK (printed Bloomington IN), 274pp; ISBN 1-4184-4205-4. Primary data from Post Reports; Morning Reports, letters, Old Files of Ft. Arbuckle. A treasured reference.
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Regarding Muncrief's book on Ft Arbuckle: The chapter on the Civil War
is merely an essay of his politically correct views which could not be
supported by contemporaneous records. He states something to the effect that
the Choctaw and Chickasaw would have never signed the treaty with the
Confederacy had it not been for the treasonous acts of their US Indian
Agent, D.H. Cooper. He is apparently uninformed or ignores that the majority
of the US Indian Agents, particularly in the southwest, were Southern men.
The same "treasonous act" was common throughout the Indian Department, the
US Military, Congress, and the Southern states. Further, he passes over the
fact that the Choctaw were the first and most universal in their support of
the Confederacy. He promotes the idea that the Choctaw and Chickasaw had
been so well treated by the US for so many years it was only by Cooper's
treachery that they were convinced to side with the South. He is certainly
entitled to his opinions but his arguments seem unsupportable, particularly
regarding how well the US had treated the Indians. He is clearly unfamiliar
with what the Confederacy promised in their treaty which spells out what the
Indians wanted and never got from the US government.
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Dennis Muncrief's book is a treasure because of his transcriptions, not his opinions. Opinions can border on fiction. I quit reading historical fiction when I found myself looking in book after book for a "fact".
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My book is about 90% transcriptions with my opinion clearly marked as "Editor's note". After spending 30 man hours transcribing a rather short letter, I was reluctant to sully all that work with my opinion. After several years of the "Editor's note" practice, C-SPAN showed a Library of Congress historian speaking about how many records have been lost because writers paraphrased then tossed the original documents.
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Patti, prochette@Juno.com
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