California and the Civil War
In the long and bitter prelude to war, southern transplants dominated California government, keeping the state aligned with Dixie. However, a murderous duel in 1859 killed "Free Soil" U.S. Senator David C. Broderick, and public opinion began to change. As war broke out back east, a golden-tongued preacher named Reverend Thomas Starr King crisscrossed the state endeavoring to save the Golden State for the Union. Seventeen thousand California volunteers thwarted secessionist schemes and waged brutal campaigns against native tribesmen resisting white encroachment as far away as Idaho and New Mexico. And a determined battalion of California cavalry journeyed to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to battle John Singleton Mosby, the South's deadliest partisan ranger. Author Richard Hurley delves into homefront activities during the nation's bloodiest war and chronicles the adventures of the brave men who fought far from home.
About Richard Hurley (Sacramento, California Author)
Richard Hurley was born in Upstate New York and lived there until he was 9. His family moved to Europe, where he attended Italian schools and a British school in Switzerland. After high school in California, he went to Harvard, where he pursued Medieval European history and Visual Studies. He was elected to the literary board of the Harvard Lampoon.
He worked for three years on the design staff of the Oakland Museum of California, restoring artifacts and preparing exhibits on California history. He returned to school for a master’s degree in architecture from UC Berkeley, then left the Bay Area for the Sierra Foothills and a career in CAD and computer-based multimedia.
Richard has been an avid history buff since the age of ten, when he visited a recently opened Etruscan tomb. He is also interested in languages, and is probably the only person to recite "Cædmon's Hymn," the oldest surviving poem in English (or Early West Saxon, actually), during an NPR radio interview.
Richard is co-author (along with TJ Meekins) of the historical fiction "Queen of the Northern Mines," finalist for the 2012 Independent Book Publishers Association Ben Franklin Prize for historical fiction. Richard and TJ also guest-curated an exhibit entitled "California and the Civil War" for the Folsom History Museum and have presented multimedia shows on historical topics at museums, libraries, and historical societies across Northern California.
