2/16/2005

"South Mountain" - end of thread

I had mentioned, in starting this thread, that Steven R. Stotelmyer's article "South Mountain" had the explicit purpose of refuting Timothy J. Reese's work on Crampton's Gap and that the two had apparently corresponded.

In fact, the very first endnote in Stotelmyer's article reads,
i Reese, Timothy J., Letter September 24, 2002, Letter November 30, 2002, Letters May 8, 2000, Letter June 2003, Sealed With Their Lives, p. vii, and High-Water Mark, p. 34.

I asked Reese about the letters cited as his, as they had no recipient shown and no subject indicated. He said that he had no recollection of ever directly or indirectly corresponding with Stotelmyer; that he avoided contact with the man; and that the one communication he received from Stotelmyer he returned unopened.

It then occurred to me that if I was trying to deal fairly with an article with dubious references at the very first citation, argument was a waste of time and a fool's errand was underway.

Let me therefore write FINIS to this thread.

*** Postscript 2/17/05

Mr. Stotelmyer wrote to point out that the Bivouac Banner had left his endnotes in the article while cutting his bibliography out, items of which were called out in the endnotes. Thus, the letters cited were more fully described in the bibliography and I have now seen the bibliography myself; none of the letters attributed to Tim Reese were part of a Reese/Stotelmyer correspondence as I assumed.

I regret the harshness of painting him in anti-Philidor colors, since this characterization was based on a misunderstanding about the correspondence cited.

Having screwed up this thread from the outset, I do intend to leave the analysis of his article rest at present.