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...

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...