Bergeron, Arthur W., Jr. 1946- (Arthur William Bergeron, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born December 5, 1946, in Alexandria, LA; son of Arthur W. (an accountant) and Elsie S. (a secretary) Bergeron; married Phyllis Martina (a registered nurse), June 19, 1969 (divorced); married Carol Flashenburg (an executive), June 6, 1996; children: (first marriage) Geoffrey Scott (deceased), Kathleen Suzanne. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Louisiana State University, B.A., 1968, M.A., 1972, Ph.D., 1980. Politics: Republican. Religion: Baptist.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Shippensburg, PA. Office—U.S. Army Military History Institute, 950 Soldiers Dr., Carlisle, PA 17013-5021. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge, archivist, 1977-81; Louisiana Office of State Parks, Baton Rouge, curator of Port Hudson State Historic Site in Zachary, 1981-86, chief of interpretive services, 1987-96; Pamplin Historical Park, Petersburg, VA, historian, 1996-2004; U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA, archivist, 2004—. Louisiana State University, visiting assistant professor, summers, 1980 and 1987. Historical researcher for Louisiana State Tourist Commission, 1973-77, Louisiana Department of Education, 1975-76, Hearne Brothers map of Louisiana, 1978, and others; commentator and public speaker to genealogical and historical associations; consultant to Louisiana Office of Historic Preservation for Historical Markers, National Register of Historic Places, and Coastal Environments, Inc. Military service: U.S. Army, 1969-71; served in Vietnam; received Army Commendation Medal.

MEMBER:

Southern Historical Association, Society of Civil War Historians, Louisiana Historical Association (president, 1995).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Charles L. Dufour Award, New Orleans Civil War Round Table, 1993; certificate of achievement, Department of the Army, 2004.

WRITINGS:

(Compiler) Calendar of Documents of the Opelousas Post, 1764-1789, Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane (Baton Rouge, LA), 1979.

(Editor) Reminiscences of Uncle Silas: A History of the Eighteenth Louisiana Infantry, Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane (Baton Rouge, LA), 1981.

(Editor, with Lawrence L. Hewitt) Post Hospital Ledger, Port Hudson, Louisiana, 1862-1863, Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane (Baton Rouge, LA), 1981.

(Associate editor) Dictionary of Louisiana Biography 1983-88.

(With Lawrence L. Hewitt) Boone's Louisiana Battery: A History and Roster, Elliott's Bookshop Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 1986.

Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865, Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 1989.

Confederate Mobile, 1861-1865, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 1991.

(Editor and author of introduction) The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A., Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 1993.

(Editor, with Lawrence L. Hewitt) Louisianians in the Civil War, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 2002.

(Editor) The Civil War in Louisiana, Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Lafayette, LA), Part A: Military Activity, 2002, Part B: The Home Front, 2004.

(Editor) A Thrilling Narrative: The Memoir of a Southern Unionist, University of Arkansas Press (Fayetteville, AR), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Iberville Parish History, edited by Judy Riffel, Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane (Baton Rouge, LA), 1985; Leadership during the Civil War, edited by Roman J. Heleniak and Lawrence L. Hewitt, White Mane, 1992; The Louisiana Governors, edited by Joseph G. Dawson III, Louisiana State University Press (Baton, Rouge, LA), 1990; The Confederate General, edited by William C. Davis, National Historical Society, 1991-92, and Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era, edited by John David Smith, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 2002. Contributor to history journals, including Civil War History, Civil War Regiments, Blue and Gray, Civil War Times Illustrated, Military History of the West, North Louisiana Historical Journal, Alabama Quarterly, and Le Raconteur. Editorial assistant, Louisiana History, 1971-73.

SIDELIGHTS:

Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., once told CA: "My interest in history dates back to about the fifth or sixth grade. It was nurtured by my parents, my teachers, and an older friend and his father. The focus of my reading and study quickly turned to the American Civil War. By the time I was a junior in high school, I was already conducting simple research projects. My first publication was a short story titled ‘The Last Guidon,’ which appeared in the national Beta Club magazine after winning third place in a contest sponsored by that organization. I knew back then that research and writing on the Civil War would be a major part of my life.

"Next to the American Revolution, the Civil War was the most pivotal event in our country's history. The primary goal of my writing is to share with others what I consider interesting but little-known aspects of that conflict. Most of my research has concentrated on events and personages in the western and trans-Mississippi theaters of the war [and more recently, the author later added, the battles and personalities of the eastern theater]. Historians have long neglected those areas, and I hope to help correct that oversight. A secondary objective of my work is to inspire others to pursue research and writing on similar topics.

"Although I have not yet tried my hand at writing fiction, I would like to do so one day. I particularly enjoy the works of Arthur Conan Doyle (the Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger stories), and an idea for a Sherlock Holmes pastiche has been buzzing around in my head for several years. Novels about the navies of the Napoleonic era have long interested me. My favorite authors of that genre are C.S. Forrester, Alexander Kent, and Patrick O'Brian. Besides these books of historical fiction, I have sought inspiration in the ‘Flashman’ novels of George MacDonald Fraser and in the greatest of all Civil War novels, The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, April, 1992, T.F. Armstrong, review of Confederate Mobile, 1861-1865, p. 1287; November, 1993, E.K. Eckert, review of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A., p. 523.

History: Journal of the Historical Association, October, 1995, Adrian Cook, review of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A., p. 445.

Journal of American History, March, 1991, Steven H. Newton, review of A Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865, p. 1482.

Journal of Military History, October, 1993, review of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A., p. 753.

Journal of Southern History, May, 1993, Henry J. McKiven, Jr., review of Confederate Mobile, 1861-1865, p. 377; November, 1994, Judith Gentry, review of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A., p. 822; February, 2004, Edith Ambrose, review of Louisianians in the Civil War, p. 159.

Small Press, April, 1990, review of A Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865, p. 29.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 2003, review of Louisianians in the Civil War, p. 8.