Bayville resident Bill Bleyer has been officially retired from Newsday for nearly a year, but he has still been as busy as ever. His latest book on the Civil War, Long Island and the Civil War: Queens, Nassau and Suffolk During the War Between the States, co-authored with Harrison Hunt and published by The History Press, will be available April 6, and a slate of book signings are scheduled for the next few months.
“Long Island is the microcosm of the North,” said Bleyer, noting that the island had both pro-war and anti-war sentiment, drafts, people who volunteered, a maritime movement and manufacturing. “Most people didn’t see any direct fighting, but they were directly affected…it sent ripples through the economy.”
According to Bleyer, more than 3,000 men served in the army or navy. There were training camps for regiments on their way to the front, Confederate ships marauding within eight miles of Montauk Point, anti-war protests and a little-remembered draft riot in Jamaica in 1863. Local women raised thousands of dollars for Union hospitals, and Long Island companies manufactured uniforms, drums and medicines for the army.
Bleyer said he has been a Civil War buff since he was about 3 or 4, even winning a history award at his Queens elementary school.
“It’s been a lifelong interest that hasn’t diminished,” he said.
Bleyer wrote for Newsday for 33 years before retiring last summer to work on this book, and has written extensively about history during the course of his career. He was also a contributor and editor of the Bayville history book published by Arcadia in 2009.
Hunt was his go-to expert source for Newsday articles on history, and he said they first had the idea for this book because of this year’s150th anniversary of the end of the war.
“It’s a topic I’ve lectured about for 20 years, and the public reaction is always, ‘wow, I didn’t know that’” said Hunt, a former Port Washington resident who now lives in Catskill. “It’s an important bit of local history and I expect people will learn from it and enjoy reading about the area they live in.”
Hunt has written two other books about the conflict: Hallowed Ground, an overview of 17 key battles, and Heroes of the Civil War, brief biographies of 70 wartime figures. Before his retirement, Hunt was the Senior Curator of History and Supervisor of Historic Sites for the Nassau County Department of Parks. Hunt said his previous books are more like “coffee table books” and “not as focused as this one.”
About the Civil War, Hunt said, “It’s such a watershed event in American history. You think about the war in terms of battles, but the effect it had on everyone’s lives is tremendous.”
They both said the writing process was harmonious as they split the writing and already had a good bit of research behind them. Still, there were a few surprises that popped up while researching the book.
“I had no idea there had been a draft riot in Jamaica,” Bleyer said.
Another surprise both had was that during the war, 10,000 pounds of tobacco was grown out east, and Bleyer also said he was surprised by the “blatantly partisan press” of the times.
“The attitudes on blacks and slavery are pretty horrifying by modern standards,” Bleyer said.
Since the story of Long Island’s part in the Civil War has never been told in its entirety, Hunt said he feels that this book is “filling a major gap” in the Civil War history.
Bleyer and Hunt will be speaking about the book on the following dates: Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities/Cold Spring Harbor Library: April 9, 7 p.m.; Long Island Museum: April 12, 2 p.m.; Walt Whitman Birthplace, Sunday, April 19, 3 p.m. and Oyster Bay Historical Society on Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m. More dates are scheduled for June.
