At the beginning of the Civil War, Southern militias moved swiftly to secure the military assets within their borders. In several instances, the action required no more than demanding the key to the fort from a lone ordnance sergeant. By and large these seizures were peaceful, and in one case the militia even signed a receipt. Yet what had the South achieved? Most of these forts were little more than damp dungeons sheltering time-worn cannon, some of the War of 1812 and Mexican War vintage.

Forts are, by nature, defensive structures. Thus the South dug in and waited for the Northern invaders. And they came. But they came mostly by ship and, in the case of the inland waterways and rivers, by boat―gunboat. Although more Yankee sailors were lost to exploding weaponry than to Rebel fire, naval barrages were relentles, and more forts were abandoned than defended.

Dave Page's "Ships Versus Shore" narrates ship-to-shore engagements in the eleven states of the Confederacy along their riverways as well as their coasts. A brief tour guide follows each description, noting what visitors can find today when they see the area. Page has visited each site and notes what remains of the Confederate forts and what historical places have been preserved that were part of the nearby struggle. The text is illustrated with 130 photos and engravings.

For his keen social insight, glib sophistication, and breathtaking lyricism, F. Scott Fitzgerald stands as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. His biographers all note the importance of his boyhood in St. Paul, where, as he put it, he lived in "a house below the average on a street above the average." Fitzgerald's sensitivity about wealth and position?later made evident in such classics as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night--was bred of his St. Paul family and associations. F. Scott Fitzgerald's St. Paul is a city of winter dreams and ice palaces, lakeside parties and neighborhood hijinks. These are stories of ambition and young love, insecurity and awkwardness, where a poor boy with energy and intelligence can break into the upper classes and become a glittering success. This selection brings together the best of Fitzgerald's St. Paul stories?some virtually unknown, others classics of short fiction. Patricia Hampl's incisive introduction traces the trajectory of Fitzgerald's blazing celebrity and its connections to his life in the city that gave him his best material. Headnotes by Dave Page provide specific ties between the stories and Fitzgerald's life in St. Paul. "Fitzgerald is a presence in St. Paul, a ghost who patrols his old neighborhood and keeps talking to us. He sits on Mrs. Porterfield's porch on Summit Avenue, smoking and talking about writing, and it is always that gorgeous summer just before he finished the book, hit it big, went to New York, married the girl. This lovely book sets out our claim on him. We have no Fitzgerald museum in St. Paul, no boyhood home restored--the family lived in apartments--but this book is the only monument he needs, his own stories, with historical notes, and Patricia Hampl's graceful shining essay for absolution, and Zelda's benediction." -- Garrison Keillor "These are wonderful stories, including several of the greatest Fitzgerald ever wrote. Anyone interested in Fitzgerald or the importance of place in fiction will want to read this book. And anyone who does will find it a delight." -- Scott Donaldson, author of Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald "In one of the ironies of fate of which life is so fond, the literary world knows the biography and work of F. Scott Fitzgerald better than it knows the particulars of the city where he was born. Fitzgerald loved, hated, and was obsessed by St. Paul, and in her brilliant introduction to these stories, Patricia Hampl shows us why. These stories and this wonderfully informative introduction give St. Paul a local habitation and a name, and they place Fitzgerald's ambitions and gifts in a cultural context too often ignored or forgotten." -- Charles Baxter, author of Saul and Patsy

When F. Scott Fitzgerald was fourteen and living in the Crocus Hill neighborhood of St. Paul, he began keeping a short diary of his exploits among his friends, friendly rivals, and crushes. He gave the journal a title page--"Thoughtbook of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald of St. Paul Minn. U.S.A."--and kept it securely locked in a box under his bed. He would later use "The Thoughtbook" as the basis for "The Book of Scandal" in his Basil Lee Duke stories, and brief sections were copied over the years for use by scholars and even published in Life magazine.

"Are you going to the Ordways'? the Herseys'? the Schultzes'?" Here, for the first time, is a complete transcription of this charming, twenty-seven-page diary highlighting Fitzgerald's escapades among the children of some of St. Paul's most influential families--models for the families described in "The Great Gatsby." Presented in a simple format for both scholars and general readers alike, "The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald" includes a new introduction by Dave Page that covers the history and provenance of the diary, its place and meaning in Fitzgerald's literary development, and its revelations about his life and writing process.

One of the earliest known works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Thoughtbook" provides a unique glimpse of Fitzgerald as a young boy and his social circle as they played among the grand homes of Summit Avenue, making up games, starting secret societies, competing with rivals, and (at all times) staying up-to-date on who exactly is vying for whose attention.