The Boys draws on the diaries and writings of North Dakota s enlisted men and officers, and other participants and witnesses, to tell the story of the 1st North Dakota Regiment of Volunteers. Sent to the Philippines to fight in the War with Spain, the Volunteers ended up fighting the Filipinos they had gone to free from Spain's oppressive rule. The Boys also traces the increasingly contentious debate in the U.S. over America s new role as a colonialist nation. Maps, photos, endnotes, and appendices help explain and preserve the regiment s history.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
P. David Searles (PC staff 1971-76) John Durand has written a fascinating account of a little remembered event at the very beginning of America s entry onto the world stage as an imperial power: the struggle to subdue and annex the Philippines. These days if anyone remembers the Spanish American War it is probably with images of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, yellow journalism, the island of Cuba, and the slogan Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain. But that was Cuba. The war in the Philippines was far bloodier, it lasted far longer, and it created tensions and legacies that continue to affect American foreign policy to this day. Durand s The Boys: 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines recounts the experiences of a group of men, mostly young, who volunteered to avenge the sinking of the battleship Maine by joining a quickly assembled regiment of North Dakotans. The author s command of the facts is remarkable; and his use of original sources including diaries, newspaper accounts, letters home, speeches, and official reports add a sense of authenticity that is convincing. This book will be of interest to three different groups. The first, and probably the most intensely interested, will be the families and descendents of all those North Dakotans who participated in the regiment and whose exploits were never fully understood, or if they were, have since been forgotten. The second will be those folks who have an unquenchable thirst for the strategies and tactics of war, a thirst which will be satisfied by the astonishingly detailed descriptions of battle plans and their outcomes contained in the book. The third group, and this one includes me, will be made up of those who have often puzzled over the love/hate nature of the Filipino/ American relationship. During my time in the Philippines, seventy years after the events described in the book, it was not unusual to encounter very angry demonstrations in front of the American Embassy or at one of the several American military bases, hot-tempered outbursts by Filipino politicians, and angry editorials in the local press. Yet, time and time again we Americans were treated with such warm and unstinting friendship that we had to wonder which Filipino was the real one. Durand s book makes it abundantly clear that from day one the Philippines had grounds for charging the US with double-dealing, or worse. The Filipino patriots who helped the U.S. quickly rout the Spanish forces soon found themselves the target of American rifles. The American forces treated the Filipinos with undisguised contempt; stole animals, foodstuffs, furniture, whole houses and anything not nailed down. The American leadership even mocked the very idea that Filipinos could govern themselves, despite the fact that it was independence which energized the Filipino uprising against the Spanish in 1898 before the Americans arrived. It would be years later (years not covered in the book) before William Howard Taft began a more conciliatory approach. Still later, on July 4, 1946, the United States granted full independence to the Philippines, accompanied by a round of self-congratulations for its own magnanimity... The book is superbly researched, well written, and filled with period photos, maps, and diagrams of the many battles in which the 1st North Dakota regiment participated. Perhaps the only drawback in the book, at least for some of us, is the overabundance of detail provided for individual battles and skirmishes. To make sense of the information Durand provides the reader will need hours of paper and pencil work to understand which unit did what to whom, when and where they did it, and how it all unfolded. --Peace Corps Writers
Author John Durand started this book based on diaries kept by his grandfather, Tom Stafne, and a fellow volunteer, John Kinne. Stafne used his diary to write a narrative he entitled A Short History of My Personal Experience in the Volunteer Army of the United States during the War with Spain. The Boys is the result of the author's very successful and well-researched work in transcribing and footnoting his grandfather's short history to make it more understandable to younger family members. The focus of this book is the 1st North Dakota Volunteers, 685 volunteers from all across North Dakota (plus some from Minnesota) who assembled at Fargo in May 1898, in response to President William McKinley's call on April 23, 1989, for 125,000 volunteers to fight the Spanish in Cuba, following the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor on Feb. 15, 1898. The 1st North Dakota Volunteers were organized into two battalions. The 1st Battalion consisted of Company A - Bismarck, Company B - Fargo, Company G - Valley City and Company H - Jamestown. The 2nd Battalion consisted of Company C - Grafton, Company D - Devils lake, Company I - Wahpeton and Company K - Dickinson. The author notes that in 1898 North Dakota s population was about 300,000, and was mostly rural, with Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks having a combined population of less than 35,000. Although the call for volunteers was to fight the Spanish in Cuba, they wound up fighting not the Spanish, but Filipinos seeking self-government and freedom from Spain. Having easily crushed the Spanish, the United States decided to colonize the Philippines without consulting the Filipino people. The 1st North Dakota Volunteers were in the vanguard of that effort, which for more than four years cost 7,000-plus American lives as well as the lives of an estimated 16,000 to 20,000 Filipinos. After 39 days on board a cramped troop transport, the 1st North Dakota Volunteers arrived in the Philippines on July 31, 1898. Even though Admiral George Dewey's ships had destroyed the Spanish naval squadron in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, it wasn't until August 13, 1989, that Manila was seized by U.S. units, including the 1st North Dakota Volunteers. The 1st North Dakota Volunteers served in the Philippines for one year, leaving Manila Bay on July 31, 1899. For those of us who enjoy military history, The Boys is an excellent company/squad level view of their year at war with the Filipino insurgents. The author's use of the diaries of two of the volunteers, supplemented by the observations of other volunteers, gives you a real sense of their experiences and the conditions under which they fought many small actions and several major campaigns. Nine of the volunteers were awarded the Medal of Honor. For those of us who served during the Vietnam War, it is all eerily familiar. And today, as we watch our Guard and Reserve units deploy for a year in Iraq or Afghanistan, The Boys will make us realize other North Dakotans before us have answered the call to service in wars and conflicts. Particularly enjoyable and interesting aspects of The Boys are the chapters on their homecoming and what happened to some of the volunteers later in life. The detailed appendices include a list the volunteers with their rank, company, hometown and occupation; the organization of the battalions; photos of two companies; personnel statistics; a record of actions; and brief descriptions of some of the volunteers in Young's Scouts. (Robert O. Wefald is a North Dakota State District Court Judge in Bismarck, serving the 12 counties of the South Central Judicial District. He will retire when his term ends on Dec. 31, 2010. Wefald served on active duty as a Naval officer from 1964 to 1967 followed by 24 years in the Naval Reserve retiring in 1991.) --Bismarck Tribune
Durand uses visually stimulating prose, supported by excellent research, to transport us into the muck of the tropics, the stench of the trenches, the itch of wool uniforms, the wit of farm boys turned heroes, and the tragic results of poor leadership. Reading "The Boys," I couldn't help but think of how our Nation's history might have been different had we learned the lessons of the Spanish American War, when nation-building replaced good sense and led to the Philippine Insurrection. Durand has accomplished a remarkable task in telling this long overlooked story. --Merry Helm, Writers Guild of America (WGA) and "Author of Woodrow Wilson Keeble: The Man Called Chief"
Author John Durand started this book based on diaries kept by his grandfather, Tom Stafne, and a fellow volunteer, John Kinne. Stafne used his diary to write a narrative he entitled A Short History of My Personal Experience in the Volunteer Army of the United States during the War with Spain. The Boys is the result of the author's very successful and well-researched work in transcribing and footnoting his grandfather's short history to make it more understandable to younger family members. The focus of this book is the 1st North Dakota Volunteers, 685 volunteers from all across North Dakota (plus some from Minnesota) who assembled at Fargo in May 1898, in response to President William McKinley's call on April 23, 1989, for 125,000 volunteers to fight the Spanish in Cuba, following the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor on Feb. 15, 1898. The 1st North Dakota Volunteers were organized into two battalions. The 1st Battalion consisted of Company A - Bismarck, Company B - Fargo, Company G - Valley City and Company H - Jamestown. The 2nd Battalion consisted of Company C - Grafton, Company D - Devils lake, Company I - Wahpeton and Company K - Dickinson. The author notes that in 1898 North Dakota s population was about 300,000, and was mostly rural, with Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks having a combined population of less than 35,000. Although the call for volunteers was to fight the Spanish in Cuba, they wound up fighting not the Spanish, but Filipinos seeking self-government and freedom from Spain. Having easily crushed the Spanish, the United States decided to colonize the Philippines without consulting the Filipino people. The 1st North Dakota Volunteers were in the vanguard of that effort, which for more than four years cost 7,000-plus American lives as well as the lives of an estimated 16,000 to 20,000 Filipinos. After 39 days on board a cramped troop transport, the 1st North Dakota Volunteers arrived in the Philippines on July 31, 1898. Even though Admiral George Dewey's ships had destroyed the Spanish naval squadron in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, it wasn't until August 13, 1989, that Manila was seized by U.S. units, including the 1st North Dakota Volunteers. The 1st North Dakota Volunteers served in the Philippines for one year, leaving Manila Bay on July 31, 1899. For those of us who enjoy military history, The Boys is an excellent company/squad level view of their year at war with the Filipino insurgents. The author's use of the diaries of two of the volunteers, supplemented by the observations of other volunteers, gives you a real sense of their experiences and the conditions under which they fought many small actions and several major campaigns. Nine of the volunteers were awarded the Medal of Honor. For those of us who served during the Vietnam War, it is all eerily familiar. And today, as we watch our Guard and Reserve units deploy for a year in Iraq or Afghanistan, The Boys will make us realize other North Dakotans before us have answered the call to service in wars and conflicts. Particularly enjoyable and interesting aspects of The Boys are the chapters on their homecoming and what happened to some of the volunteers later in life. The detailed appendices include a list the volunteers with their rank, company, hometown and occupation; the organization of the battalions; photos of two companies; personnel statistics; a record of actions; and brief descriptions of some of the volunteers in Young's Scouts. (Robert O. Wefald is a North Dakota State District Court Judge in Bismarck, serving the 12 counties of the South Central Judicial District. He will retire when his term ends on Dec. 31, 2010. Wefald served on active duty as a Naval officer from 1964 to 1967 followed by 24 years in the Naval Reserve retiring in 1991.) --Bismarck Tribune
Durand uses visually stimulating prose, supported by excellent research, to transport us into the muck of the tropics, the stench of the trenches, the itch of wool uniforms, the wit of farm boys turned heroes, and the tragic results of poor leadership. Reading "The Boys," I couldn't help but think of how our Nation's history might have been different had we learned the lessons of the Spanish American War, when nation-building replaced good sense and led to the Philippine Insurrection. Durand has accomplished a remarkable task in telling this long overlooked story. --Merry Helm, Writers Guild of America (WGA) and "Author of Woodrow Wilson Keeble: The Man Called Chief"
About the Author
Born and raised in Spooner, Wisconsin, John Durand has written four books, of which The Boys is the most recent. After earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire and the University of Tennessee respectively, John served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines, was active in Wisconsin politics for several years, and served in various administrative capacities in Wisconsin's human services system in both the private and the public sector. His first published work, The Taos Massacres, is a well-regarded historical novel dealing with the rebellion of Mexicans and Indians against American authority in 1847 in the aftermath of the Mexico-American War. It was published through Puzzlebox Press, which John established to get his work before the reading public. His second book is The Odyssey of Mary B, another well-received historical novel that follows a young convict woman sent to Australia in the First Fleet. She later escaped and was returned to England, where James Boswell of biography fame took up her cause. His third book is a memoir titled Behind Enemy Lines, which tells of his childhood polio and its effect on his early life. Readers admire the memoir s honesty and rich detail about small town life in northern Wisconsin. The Boys grew out of John s interest in making his grandfather s unpublished narrative of his service with the 1st North Dakota Volunteers more accessible and understandable to younger readers. It is his first purely historical work. John is unmarried, lives in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and has one surviving son, and three grandchildren.
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More About the Author
I was born and raised in Spooner, Wisconsin, a small town in the northern part of the state.
After earning my bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire and the University of Tennessee respectively, I served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines, was active in Wisconsin politics for several years, and served in various administrative capacities in Wisconsin's human services system in both the private and the public sector.
My first published work, The Taos Massacres, is a well-regarded historical novel dealing with the rebellion of Mexicans and Indians against American authority in 1847 in the aftermath of the Mexico-American War. It was published through Puzzlebox Press, which I established to get my work before the reading public. During that process, I discovered how much I enjoy creating a ready-to-print book and cover.
Some writers use history as a departure point, and basically create a story. I stick as close as I can to what we consider to be historical fact, and try to make the history interesting. However, I feel free to create (or to re-create) in what I call the "interstices of history," where events are connected, but we do not know how they are connected, or characters are mentioned, but we know little about them.
My second book is The Odyssey of Mary B, another well-received historical novel that follows a young convict woman sent to Australia in the First Fleet. She later escaped and was returned to England, where James Boswell of biography fame took up her cause.
My third book is a memoir titled Behind Enemy Lines, which tells of my childhood polio and its effect on my early life. Readers admire the memoir's honesty and its rich detail about small town life in northern Wisconsin.
The Boys: 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines grew out of my interest in making my grandfather's unpublished narrative of his service with the Volunteers more accessible and understandable to younger readers. It is my first, purely historical work. It is a comprehensive history of the early days of the war in the Philippines, and I am happy to see that it has garnered good reviews.
In working on The Boys, I compiled extensive information on an elite military unit that earned great praise for its derring-do. I turned that information into a monograph I published on Kindle, Young's Scouts: A Complete History.
I recently edited and published a memoir written by a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, A Wedding in Samar, by John Halloran. I think it is an honest, rich, and unique work that deserves publication, even posthumously.
I am unmarried, live in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and have one surviving son, and three grandchildren.
After earning my bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire and the University of Tennessee respectively, I served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines, was active in Wisconsin politics for several years, and served in various administrative capacities in Wisconsin's human services system in both the private and the public sector.
My first published work, The Taos Massacres, is a well-regarded historical novel dealing with the rebellion of Mexicans and Indians against American authority in 1847 in the aftermath of the Mexico-American War. It was published through Puzzlebox Press, which I established to get my work before the reading public. During that process, I discovered how much I enjoy creating a ready-to-print book and cover.
Some writers use history as a departure point, and basically create a story. I stick as close as I can to what we consider to be historical fact, and try to make the history interesting. However, I feel free to create (or to re-create) in what I call the "interstices of history," where events are connected, but we do not know how they are connected, or characters are mentioned, but we know little about them.
My second book is The Odyssey of Mary B, another well-received historical novel that follows a young convict woman sent to Australia in the First Fleet. She later escaped and was returned to England, where James Boswell of biography fame took up her cause.
My third book is a memoir titled Behind Enemy Lines, which tells of my childhood polio and its effect on my early life. Readers admire the memoir's honesty and its rich detail about small town life in northern Wisconsin.
The Boys: 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines grew out of my interest in making my grandfather's unpublished narrative of his service with the Volunteers more accessible and understandable to younger readers. It is my first, purely historical work. It is a comprehensive history of the early days of the war in the Philippines, and I am happy to see that it has garnered good reviews.
In working on The Boys, I compiled extensive information on an elite military unit that earned great praise for its derring-do. I turned that information into a monograph I published on Kindle, Young's Scouts: A Complete History.
I recently edited and published a memoir written by a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, A Wedding in Samar, by John Halloran. I think it is an honest, rich, and unique work that deserves publication, even posthumously.
I am unmarried, live in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and have one surviving son, and three grandchildren.
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Well done,
By kapolei kurmudgeon "kakurmudge" (Honolulu, HI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Boys: 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines (Paperback)
This is a book that looks at a time and place and the people that occupied this time and place. The American war in the Philippines is little known and certainly not understood. This book tells the story from the point of view of those involved. Very much worth reading.
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