Symonds, Craig L. 1946-

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Symonds, Craig L. 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born December 31, 1946, in Long Beach, CA; son of Lee and Virginia Symonds; married Marylou Hayden, January 17, 1969; children: Jeffrey K. Ethnicity: "White." Education: University of California—Los Angeles, B.A., 1967; University of Florida, M.A., 1969, Ph.D., 1976.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Annapolis, MD. E-mail—macsymonds@aol.com.

CAREER:

U.S. Naval War College, Washington, DC, assistant professor of strategy, 1973-74; U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, assistant professor, 1976-80, associate professor, 1980-85, professor of history, 1985-2005, department chair, 1988-92, professor emeritus, 2005—. Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, England, visiting lecturer, 1994-95. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1971-74; became lieutenant.

MEMBER:

American Military Institute, Southern Historical Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

John Lyman Award, 1995, for The Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, and 1999, for Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan; S.A. Cunningham Award, 1997, for Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War; Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize for Naval History, 2006, for Decision at Sea; recipient of Superior Civilian Service Award.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Editor) Charleston Blockade: The Journals of John B. Marchand, USN, Naval War College Press (Washington, DC), 1976.

Navalists and Antinavalists: The Naval Policy Debate in the United States, 1785-1827, University of Delaware Press (East Brunswick, NJ), 1980.

(Editor) New Aspects of Naval History, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 1981.

A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War, Nautical and Aviation (Annapolis, MD), 1983.

(Editor) William H. Parker, Recollections of a Naval Officer, 1941-1965, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 1985.

A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution, Nautical and Aviation (Annapolis, MD), 1986.

(Editor) Alvah F. Hunter, A Year on a Monitor, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 1987.

Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.

(With William J. Clipson) Gettysburg: A Battlefield Atlas, Nautical and Aviation (Annapolis, MD), 1992.

The Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 1995.

Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 1997.

Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 1999.

American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth Naval History Symposium, Held at Annapolis, Maryland, 23-25 September 1999, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 2001.

Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to books, including The Chiefs of Naval Operations, edited by Robert W. Love, Jr., Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 1980; Command under Sail, edited by James Bradford, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 1985; Against All Enemies: Interpretations of American Military History from Colonial Times to the Present, edited by Kenneth J. Hagan and William R. Roberts, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1986; and Jefferson Davis's Generals, edited by Gabor Boritt, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Craig L. Symonds is a historian who has frequently focused his research and writing on the Civil War. In his book Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War, he wrote about the life of Cleburne, an Irishman who became captain of a Southern militia unit known as the Yell Rifles. The biography explores the reasons Cleburne was drawn to the Southern cause and how he eventually became one of the Confederate Army's influential leaders. Cleburne actually proposed that Southern slaves be armed and used to defend the Confederacy. He had already done service with the British Army, where he had learned the value of discipline and pride. He had his first major battle at Shiloh, and from there he developed his battlefield skills until he was known as one of the South's most effective combat commanders. His relationships with other important Confederate generals, including Bragg, Hood, and Johnston, are portrayed. His later career in the American West is also explored. "This is a good book, one worth reading, not so much because of any new material brought forward, but because of the author's judicious assessment of Patrick Cleburne and his times," stated Michael C.C. Adams in a Civil War History review. Adams felt that in addition to giving good treatment to Cleburne's military career, the author "also fits him into a wider social and political context so that this volume provokes thoughts about topics as diverse as the immigrant experience in the nineteenth century and the importance of slavery as a cornerstone of Confederate values."

Symonds chronicled the life of another high-ranking Confederate officer in Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan. Buchanan joined the navy when he was only fourteen years old, and his career spanned fifty years. During that time, he was in charge of two ironclad vessels, the Virginia and the Tennessee; he saw combat in the Mexican War; he accompanied Commodore Perry on an early diplomatic mission to Japan; and he became superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy. Symonds's biography "is beautifully written, demonstrates a firm grasp of the subject, remains both sympathetic and objective, and uses just the right quote of anecdote to illustrate a point," wrote Robert J. Schneller in the Journal of Southern History.

Symonds wrote the American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg, an illustrated chronicle of the three-day battle that produced the most casualties of any battle in American history. Letters, diaries, and autobiographies use the words of the participants to bring the historic battle to life. It is "a must for the history shelves and Civil War buffs," wrote George Cohen in Booklist. Symonds and cartographer William J. Clipson explore the subject further in Gettysburg: A Battlefield Atlas, a work featuring explanatory text, enhanced maps, and historical photographs. A reviewer for Internet Bookwatch called the atlas "a superb supplement for students of the battle."

Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History offers readers some "exceptionally well written and fascinating accounts" of five highly significant naval battles, according to William Lloyd Stearman in Naval War College Review. The battles included are Perry's defeat of the British on Lake Erie in 1813; the battle of Hampton Roads in 1862, which pitted the first ironclad ships in the United States against each other; the battle of Manila Bay in 1898; the battle for Midway Island in the Pacific in 1942; and Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf in 1988. "This book's considerable historical value resides as much in Symonds's highly interesting and detailed description of the British background as in the actual battles," stated Stearman.

When asked which book is his favorite, Symonds told CA: "It is always the book I most recently finished."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1999, Roland Green, review of Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan, p. 228; January 1, 2002, George Cohen, review of American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg, p. 802; June 1, 2005, Roland Green, review of Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History, p. 1728.

Civil War History, June, 1998, Michael C.C. Adams, review of Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War, p. 153.

Internet Bookwatch, August, 2006, review of Gettysburg: A Battlefield Atlas.

Journal of Southern History, May, 2001, Robert J. Schneller, review of Confederate Admiral, p. 465; November, 2002, Richard M. McMurry, review of Jefferson Davis's Generals, p. 965.

Library Journal, April 1, 1997, W. Walter Wicker, review of Stonewall of the West, p. 108; February 1, 2002, Charles L. Lumpkins, review of American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg, p. 113.

Naval War College Review, winter, 2007, William Lloyd Stearman, review of Decision at Sea, p. 148.