John William De Forest

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De Forest, John William (1826–1906), Connecticut‐born novelist, utilized his experiences as a Civil War captain to write the first realistic novel of that conflict, Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1867), which gives a vivid picture of a soldier's feelings in battle, the sordid corruption and inefficiency during the war, and the subtleties of the feminine mind. Kate Beaumont (1872) is a realistic study of South Carolina life and manners, which De Forest had observed as a district commander of the Freedmen's Bureau. Further examples of his vigorous realism and study of character are Honest John Vane (1875) and Playing the Mischief (1875), political novels set in the corrupt Washington of Grant's administration. Other, lesser novels are Witching Times (serialized in Putnam's Magazine (1856–57), not separately published), about the Salem witchcraft trials; Seacliff or The Mystery of the Westervelts (1859), concerning a domestic tragedy in Connecticut; Overland (1871), set in frontier New Mexico and California; The Wetherel Affair (1873), a mystery story; Justine's Lovers (1878); Irene the Missionary (1879), set in Syria, where he had traveled in the 1850s; The Bloody Chasm (1881), dealing with the post‐Civil War era; and A Lover's Revolt (1898), a romance of the Revolution. De Forest also wrote a scholarly History of the Indians of Connecticut … (1851), Oriental Acquaintance: or, Letters from Syria (1856), European Acquaintance: Being Sketches of People … (1858), and Poems (1902). A Volunteer's Adventures (1946) and A Union Officer in the Reconstruction (1948) collect letters and articles written during and after the Civil War.

John William De Forest , 1826–1906, American author, b. Seymour, Conn. He served in the Civil War, chiefly as a captain. His vivid accounts of battle scenes in Louisiana and Sheridan's Shenandoah valley campaign, published in Harper's Monthly, were among the finest contemporaneous war records. Best known as a novelist, he was the author of Kate Beaumont (1872), a study of South Carolina culture, and Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1876), the first realistic novel of the Civil War.

Bibliography: See A Volunteer's Adventures (ed. by J. H. Croushore, 1946); biography by F. Bergmann (1971); study by J. F. Light (1965).