My name is James L. Gaddis, Jr, better known as "Jim" Gaddis. I am a new author, an old musician, and a would-be economist in keeping with my BA in Economics from NC State. This blog will be open to whatever interests me and whatever I feel like discussing at any given time. Initially though, the blog is intended to publicize and promote my first book, Richard Gatlin and the Confederate Defense of Eastern North Carolina, now available for pre-order from amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Feel free to visit those sites and check out the book cover and the promo blurbs.
Gatlin (1809-1896) was a Kinston, Lenoir County, NC native who was the first from his home county to graduate from West Point (1832). He went on to a distinguished career in the US Army before resigning in 1861 to lend his services to his home state which had seceded in May 1861. I've studied his comings and goings since about 1999, learning bits and pieces about his intriguing trek through the history of the 19th century. The turbulent 19th century carried Gatlin to Indian Territory and Texas during Indian Removal,to upstate New York for the Patriot's War, Florida for the 2nd Seminole War, New Orleans in a brief peacetime, Mexico for the Mexican War, St Louis and Fort Smith for the 1850s, Nebraska and Utah Territory during the so-called Utah War, and finally back to North Carolina as the ill-fated commander of the Confederate Department of North Carolina. Along the way he was blinded in one eye, was wounded in action, buried his parents and siblings, was praised and excoriated by the press, and married twice and lost a wife and seven of his nine children to illnesses. Gatlin's career is historic in its own right, but around here, in Kinston, NC, his biggest claim to fame is being Kinston's own Civil War general. I'll be telling you more about Gatlin as time goes by, but you will get to know him fairly well by reading my book.
I am also intensely interested in the US monetary system which I believe is one of the least understood, or most misunderstood, topics of our times. I have come to believe that federal taxes destroy money and do not fund federal spending, that the federal "debt" is better viewed as private sector "savings", and that federal deficit spending is responsible for any and all aggregate private sector net savings and financial assets. You can file those ideas under the headings of Monetary Soverignty and Modern Monetary Theory.
So join me if you will. Let's talk about Gatlin, Civil War, monetary and fiscal workings and policy, and, oh yes, Ian Tyson music. 81 year-old Ian will be flying east for a one-time concert up in Alexandria, Virginia in May and I already have my tickets.
Hope to see you along the way.
And check out these two booksellers:
amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Confederate-Defense-Eastern-Carolina/dp/162619842X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424140299&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+gatlin
barnes and noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/richard-gatlin-and-the-confederate-defense-of-eastern-north-carolina-james-l-jr-gaddis/1121010525?ean=9781626198425
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