Issac and Campbell Book Out!

[coastaltrash]

http://www.authorsonline.co.uk/book/960/Supplier_to_the_Confederacy:_S._Issac_Campbell_&_Co,_London/synopsis/

For all of those English supply geeks out there, the new version of this book is now available for order. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy.

[Bushrod Carter]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

As they say... "You can't judge a book by its cover." Jeeeeezzzzzz! My youngest daughter could have designed a better cover.

[coastaltrash]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

She would have had the man wearing a pink too-too.

[DBURT]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

The new version with about twice as much content published by Bright Pen (UK) is now available through Amazon and the other online
book retailers both in soft cover and e-book versions. It has been approved for Eastern National battlefield park bookstores, so it will
probably be available there in a few weeks, too. Here is the press release:

SUPPLIER TO THE CONFEDERACY, S. ISAAC, CAMPBELL & CO. LONDON
By
Craig L. Barry and David C. Burt

The story of Jewish entrepreneur Samuel Isaac and his founding of the commission house of S. Isaac, Campbell & Co in London in the 1850s.

Supplier to the Confederacy follows the firm of S.Isaac, Campbell & Co. through its inception to setting up one of the first shoe factories in England. The firm went on to become the main supplier of military goods to the British army but was later banned by army authorities for alleged corruption at the British army’s Weedon Bec storehouse in Northamptonshire.

Into all this in 1861, came one Captain Caleb Huse, Chief Purchasing Agent for the newly formed Ordnance Department for the Confederate States Government at the outbreak of the American Civil War. Huse quickly started to buy the enormous amounts of war materiel through S. Isaac, Campbell & Co, which was desperately needed by the largely agrarian Southern states in the struggle with the industrialised North.

This is the story of Huse’s dealings with S. Isaac, Campbell & Co and of the alleged corruption charges brought against Huse and SIC & Co by fellow Southern agents that would virtually bring all arms procurement to a stop at the time the Confederacy needed them most.

Also included are newly uncovered letters and documents relating to the Weedon Bec scandal, as well as original SIC&Co invoices for war materiel to the Confederate States.

About the Authors:

David Charles Burt and Craig Lee Barry are from opposite sides of the Atlantic. They had both become interested in how British companies supplied the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Separately, they started to research the various firms involved, the arms, equipage and uniforms supplied by these companies.

David published his first book Major Caleb Huse C.S.A. & S Isaac Campbell & Co in March 2009, which reached No 1 on the online retailer Amazon charts. After the publication of this book, David and Craig, author of The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy – Lock, Stock and Barrel got together to write The Civil War Musket: J.E. Barnett & Sons.

Supplier to the Confederacy: S, Isaac Campbell & Co, London is the revised and expanded second edition of David’s first book Major Caleb Huse C.S.A. & S Isaac Campbell & Co. This is the second book the pair have co- written together.

David lives in Congleton, Cheshire, England. Craig lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, U.S.A.


ISBN: 978 – 07552 – 0623 – 0
Publisher: Bright Pen

Price £9.99 (UK) $15.50 (US)
Also available as a downloadable eBook

Available through www.authorsonline.co.uk For wholesale orders call Gaynor Johnson on: (0044) 01633 676629, or email gaynorj@authorsonline.co.uk
Also available from: amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and all good online retailers or your local bookshop.

For a signed copy or interview requests email David at: dburt67@tiscali.co.uk or call: 078752 88305

See: Burt and Barry Suppliers to the Confederacy Publications on Facebook.

Dave Burt, England.

[DBURT]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

As well as the main chapters in the book dealing with the story of SIC&Co and their dealings with the CS Government, there are also detailed appendices which are as follows:

APPENDIX A….. British firms that conducted business with the Confederacy
APPENDIX B…….Partial text of report of the investigation of Weedon Depot
APPENDIX C……Elliott letter
APPENDIX D……Alexander Collie & Co
APPENDIX E……Huse’s British Imports
APPENDIX F…..The Springbok
APPENDIX G…..Northampton Shoe Factory
APPENDIX H….A contradiction with nothing to contradict
APPENDIX I…..Obituaries
APPENDIX J…..Accoutrement invoice
APPENDIX K….Greatcoat invoice

Dave Burt, England.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

The latently talented artists at Bright Pen designed the new cover. We (David & I) liked the
old cover artwork as well, for what that's worth. The research between the covers is where
we think the new edition has merit. There is a fair amount of newly found information that
has not been previously published concerning SIC&Co and their business practices. In addition,
the research debunks some of the long accepted conventional wisdom about the history of the firm.
Sections of it rely heavily on the McRae papers of which there is a large SIC&Co subsection.

A bit of literary criticism I have read so far implies that the SIC&Co book has a great deal of information about a
matter fairly narrow in scope (relative to the entire CS military supply chain). It's a lot about a little, in other words.
That was intentional. Obviously, it's not Entrepot by C Lon Webster and we can live with that.

The Peter Tait & Co monograph is due out in 2011, and it takes a similar approach as far as putting a magnifying
glass to one specific manufacturer and their role in supplying the CS.

[fedhead]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

i hate it when you have to buy a book twice, like i have

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

If it makes you feel better 50% of the author's royalties are donated to battlefield preservation.

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

I look at it this way - at least the authors cared enough to rewrite and release it to reflect new and updated information. Sure, it stinks buying two books, but at least they weren't priced like a textbook or a reference book. I believe both of the books were money well spent and priced quite affordably.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

We are toying with doing something a little more ambitious with the Barnett material. Found some
good material that was believed lost--I have lost work almost every way imaginable w/ new ways made
made possible by modern technology every day--on Barnett & Sons. It got me thinking, now there was
an interesting character, John Edward Barnett. The "Eli Whitney" of the British gun trade.

David Burt is of course, a well known fan of the Barnett P-53. Just thinking out loud. A lot of these projects
never come to fruition. See "Wearing the Gray" posts from a few years back, the CS research anthology
that is on indefinite hiatus. I do better w/ smaller projects like single subject monographs. And Barnett is
not under-researched as much as under published.

David pronounces it Bar-NIT', vs how I always heard it, which is Bar-NET'. The location of the old
Barnett factory at 134 Minories is in Old London is now a fancy hotel, conveniently situated just a short
walk from the Tower of London.

[Bill Cross]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

Everyone should calm down about buying the "second" book.

90% of authors never make any money from their books, and do it only for love.

And thank God we have folks who are willing to put hours and hours of research into what essentially is worthless to the general populace. I see this book as a real triumph of scholarship and history. The results of non-professionals writing books (like non-professionals in any profession) is sometimes good, but more often are less than Shakespeare-- From Round Ball to Rim Fire comes to mind as a glorious fund of information but so poorly-written as almost to defy patience. Still, we're lucky when occasionally an amateur actually can write-- Eugene Sledge's With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, for example.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

True enough. Two reasons I was interested in this topic are first, the amount of misinformation out there
about S. Isaac, Campbell & Co. And second, crooked military suppliers are still very much a feature of the modern
world. Bloodshed as they say, has always mixed well with prosperity.

[DBURT]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

If I may be permitted to put my side of the story...

I started to research S Isaac Campbell & Co some seven years ago with fellow countryman John Hopper. John used to work in their old factory in Northampton and we started to share information and write, slowly but surely, the history of the firm and the brothers Samuel and Saul Isaac.
Unfortunately, John died some two years ago, but I decided to publish what we had on the firm. the resulting book was not what I had planned, there were a lot of gaps in the story, but I had lots of information on SIC&Co equipment which was put in the book.

After it was published Craig contacted me and we began to share more information on SIC&Co, and I suggested a re write to include all the new information. We dug deeper into the story of the Isaac brothers and uncovered a lot more information, including new documents and letters. The result is a virtual new book on the subject, one we decided should have a new name "Supplier to the Confederacy" It was decided to put the 'magnifying glass' on to the Isaac brothers from birth right down to their obituaries. We now have pretty much the full story of them and thier dealings with the British Government, and the Confederacy. We should hopefully hear no more misleading quotes like " Samuel Isaac was a New Yorker"

There will be another "Supplier book out over the winter 2011. This will put the 'magnifying glass' on Peter Tait & Co, which we have been researching over the last three years.
Craig is a great historian and writer and I am immensly pleased he is my writing partner, I think we compliment each other well. There will hopefully be another in the "Supplier" series in the not too distant future, maybe on J.E Barnett, Salter or both.

Dave Burt, Congleton, England.

Co Author, Supplier to the Confederacy: S Isaac Campbell & Co, London.

[DBURT]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

Here is the link to the online magazine for Greater Manchester and Cheshire the "The Natter" with the interview I did with them.

http://www.thenatter.co.uk/2010/10/englishmans-civil-war-honour/

[DBURT]

Re: Issac and Campbell Book Out!

The first review has been posted on amazon.com. Please follow link to view it. We would welcome more reviews and comments on the book from anyone who has read it, either on here or the amazon sites.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0755206231/authorsonline-20

Regards

Dave Burt, Congleton, England.
Co Author, 'Supplier to the Confederacy: S Isaac Campbell & Co, London.'