Sharpshooter: The Life and Times of Tilman Manus

Some books turn out to be more complex, to move on more levels, than a first reading might suggest. The Gospel of Mark comes to mind. As does John Bunyan's 1678 THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS FROM THIS WORLD TO THAT WHICH IS TO COME. Similarly, in my opinion, comes Keith Pruitt's historical fiction of 2013: SHARPSHOOTER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TILMAN MANUS. *** Who is Tilman Manus (1835 - 1941)? And who might care? Beyond the man himself what kind of narrative has author Pruitt woven as a model for others to "go and do likewise?" *** Tilman Manus was born Scots-Irish in Tennessee in 1835, the same year that former Tennessee Governor Sam Houston began to lead Texas to April 1836 independence from Mexico at the battle of San Jacinto. Manus died in 1941, the year that the Empire of Japan attacked the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. He died old. Around 5'6" tall and neither smoker nor drinker, he remained notably healthy almost to the very end. In his youth he had sired a son by a nearby Indian girl. At age 19 Manus and his slightly younger uncle trekked 500 miles to Shreveport helping a family move there from Tennessee. He then removed with his uncle to Illinois, worked on laying railroad tracks, married and in 1858 stood listening to one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. In the Civil War Tilman Manus was disowned by his Tennessee father for fighting for the Union at Vicksburg and elsewhere. In the Army of the Tennessee, he tied in a swimming race across the Mississippi River. Tilman alone, of several who tried, successfully wrestled a soldier's pet bear and threw it onto the ground. He said: "You all trying to wrestle this bear like it was another man" (p. 149). Manus was literate but had only a second grade education. He became famous within his multi-generational family as a story teller. He died old, comfortably beyond the century mark. *** Educator/writer Keith Pruitt uses one not terribly remarkable man's biography (such little of it as has been preserved and documented) to teach young readers of 2013 how to write vividly and with disciplined imagination about their own family history. Pruitt's tale is narrated by a fictitious woman who allegedly interviewed the ancient hero and one of his sons around 1937 for a local Illinois newspaper or historical society. Most of the text is presented by the narrator in the words of Tilman Manus himself. Some is rather breathy commentary by the narrator herself and some are the words of other contemporaries as Mr Manus appeared to them. The book is generously illustrated by contemporary black and white photographs. *** SHARPSHOOTER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TILMAN MANUS is timely. It rides the wave of growing current enthusiasm for blogging, self-revelation to friends and family, memoir writing and oral histories. The deceptive simplicity of its narrative can empower shy teens and others to write their family histories or monographs (wee and not so wee) of individuals whom they have heard their elders reminiscing about. The author spent four years immersed in the life and times of one man about whom, when you come right down to it, not as much is known as we might wish. But that one man interacted with giants like Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln. Tilman Manus and author Keith Pruitt let us see those mighty men and others like Senator Stephen A. Douglas as thousands of other little people might have taken notice of them. *** Tilman Adams, Civil War sharpshooter, paterfamilias, farmer, who walked 3,000 miles during hostilities 1862-1865: it was little people like him who helped make the rest of us what we are today. -OOO-