Royce Shingleton

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Dr. Royce Shingleton

Royce Shingleton was a professor and author. Among his publications are three Civil War era biographies. He received a Darton College Foundation Grant to commission the eight original maps for John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy, and its second printing (in both hardcover and paperback) was a National Historical Society Book Club edition.  For Richard Peters:  Champion of the New South, he received an Atlanta Foundation Grant. High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt (Studies in Maritime History), also had a second printing with a redesigned dust jacket, and won the Clarendon Award.

Early life

Shingleton was born in 1935 in the small eastern North Carolina town of Stantonsburg, to Wiley Thomas “Babe” and Lossie Vick Shingleton, the second son and fourth child of six. His father, a veteran of World War I, was a merchant and farmer.

Productive farmland surrounded Stantonsburg with historic Contentnea Creek (a tributary of the Neuse River that flows to the port of New Bern) forming the western boundary. In the town's business district, his father was a partner in Shingleton Brothers Hardware and Appliance (1914-1959), and the brothers also acquired some of the farmland there on Contentnea Creek.

Thus Shingleton's formative years centered around his home, the hardware store, the farms, the creek that he liked to explore, and the local school where he became proficient in academics and athletics.

Shingleton married Frances Ruth Bennett of Asheboro, North Carolina and they had two sons and six grandchildren. They met in Wilson, North Carolina, the county seat of Wilson County, a few miles north of Stantonsburg, where she was a hospital medical records administrator.

Education

Stantonsburg (NC) High School, class president, 1954; East Carolina University, BS, Social Studies, 1958; Appalachian State University, MA, Social Studies, 1964; Florida State University PhD, History, 1971; Dissertation “Rural Life in the Old South: The British Travelers' Image, 1820-1860” (Photocopy Ann Arbor, MI, University Microfilms, 1971, 338 pp.), completed under the supervision of Dr. William Warren Rogers

Career

Dr. Shingleton's teaching career began through the University of Maryland extension program, while he was serving in the US Army in Germany. From there he went on to teach high school in both Dinwiddie, VA, and Snow Hill, NC. He then began his collegiate career as Dean of Men at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, NC, moving on to Georgia State and Oglethorpe Universities in Atlanta, Ga, before completing his career at Darton State College in Albany, GA. He retired after 25 years as a professor to an estimated 10,000 students, and lives in Gatlinburg, TN with his wife Ruth.

Honors and awards

• Darton Foundation Community Service Award, 1979
• Darton (formerly Albany Junior College) Foundation Grant for Maps in John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy, 1979
• Southeastern Writers Association Award for non-fiction entry, 1981
• National Historical Society Book Club Selection for John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy, 1982
• Atlanta Foundation Grant for Richard Peters:  Champion of the New South, 1985
• Franklin Garrett Award for Richard Peters article in Atlanta Historical Bulletin, 1985
• Darton Foundation Advising Award, 1993
• National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) Award for excellence in teaching, 1994
• Clarendon Award for High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt (Studies in Maritime History), 1995

Selected works and editorial reviews

1. John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy, University of Georgia Press, 1979. Second printing, 1982. (National Historical Society Book Club Selection)

• "This is for all buffs of the Civil War, naval affairs or swashbuckling sea tales. Wood's Civil War history is affectionately portrayed by Shingleton, who has used primary sources very well, such as the Wood family diaries and scrapbooks. Wood was a northerner by birth, and his father, a career Union Navy man, remained in Union service through the Civil War. Wood was drawn to the Southern side before the war by the marriage of one of his aunts to Jefferson Davis. After the death of this aunt, Davis's first wife, he married Varina Howell, whom Wood referred to as Aunt Varina. Through Davis, Wood was able during the Civil War to secure assignments he wanted, in between serving on Davis's staff with the rank of Colonel of Cavalry. Wood's assignments included a position on the C.S.S. Virginia, when she fought the epic battle with the Monitor; leading a number of raids on Federal vessels blockading the North Carolina coast, and serving as captain of the raider C.S.S. Tallahassee. With the collapse of the Confederacy, Wood attempted to flee the Confederacy with Davis. After they were captured, Wood escaped and made a fantastic voyage South along the east coast of Florida. Commandeering a small boat Wood, along with several others, including John Breckinridge, made it safely across the Florida straits to Cuba. Wood eventually settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he became a successful businessman and enjoyed flying the Confederate flag over his establishment." - Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society
• Professor Shingleton has shown again that despite the voluminous Civil War history which ahs been published there are other aspects of the conflict that are yet untold. Such is the story of John Taylor Wood. Shingleton's book is interesting because it treats an aspect of Confederate naval warfare that is relatively unknow, and experienced by the naval counterpart to John Singleton Mosby and John Hunt Morgan, who are more celebrated men. Primarily through the Wood papers, Shingleton has constructed an adventure story that is written and researched with skill, and further enhanced by excellent portraits, sketches and maps that are united into a handsome volume that should be on every Civil War bookshelf.

2. Richard Peters: Champion of the New South, Mercer University Press, 1985. (Received Grant from the Atlanta Foundation)

• "This important book chronicles the life and entrepreneurial activities of Pennsylvania-born Richard Peters, who came to Georgia in 1835 as assistant railroad engineer and stayed to help lay the foundations for building the town of Terminus, Georgia [this was the earliest name of Atlanta because the locale was the terminus of a railroad], into the modern city of Atlanta.  Shingleton is to be commended for rescuing Peters from relative historical obscurity in this well-researched and beautifully written addition to the literature of southern history.  Photographs.  Bibliographic essay.  Index.  Public and academic libraries at all levels."--J. D. Born, Jr., Wichita State University, Choice
• "If there was a single Southern business leader of the nineteenth Century who promoted New South tenants in as many ways and for so long a time as did Peters, says Professor Shingleton, he has escaped my scrutiny.  Why then has this significant person been forgotten?...chiefly because Grady, the one man most likely to perpetuate Peters' memory, died prematurely....Shingleton's absorbing account...is solid scholarship....has more than compensated for the near-century of neglect....has told Peters' story much better than Grady could ever have done."--Mark T. Carleton, Louisiana State University, The Filson Club  History Quarterly
• "Shingleton sees Henry W. Grady [editor of the influential newspaper Atlanta Constitution, and a friend of Peters] as the greatest symbol and publicist of the New South, he believes that Richard Peters was the major practitioner of the movement.  Long before Grady was making his powerful addresses in the North concerning the New South, Peters was practicing the major tenets of the movement with his work in Georgia in the areas of transportation, urbanization, industrialization, and diversified farming....an excellent biography of a major figure."--John F. Stover, Purdue University, American Historical Review

3. High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt, University of South Carolina Press, 1994. Second printing, 1995. (Won the Clarendon Award)

• From Publishers Weekly - Before the Civil War, Maffitt (1819-1886) was recognized as one of the U.S. Navy's finest officers. After joining the Confederacy in 1861, Maffitt organized blockade-running operations from the West Indies. The high point of his career, however, was his captaincy of the commerce-raider C.S.S . Florida. In only two cruises, Maffitt took 57 prizes, wreaking over $4 million worth of damage to Union shipping. Reassigned to blockade-running in 1863, Maffitt continued to baffle Yankee captains and bring vital military cargoes into Southern ports until nearly the end of the war. Shingleton ( John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy ) highlights the legal and political aspects of Maffitt's operations, which were still imperfectly regulated by international law. Maffit's ingenuity, courage, seamanship and high-spirited leadership rendered him an ideal hero for a lost cause. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
• Maffitt's colorful career as a Confederate commander of the commerce raider C.S.S. Florida and as a blockade runner receives its due in this biographical recounting by Shingleton (Richard Peters: Champion of the New South, Mercer Univ. Pr., 1985). Maffitt's daring and skill helped in the capture of some 45 Union ships, including 23 seized by the Florida itself. These exploits marked him as a thorn in the side of the Union, as did his efforts to run the blockade. Shingleton conveys the excitement of blockade running and commerce raiding in his lively narrative; he is less helpful when it comes to evaluating their significance to the Confederate war effort, for many historians question whether these activities had much impact upon the conduct, course, or outcome of the conflict. The author's admiration and sympathy for both Maffitt and the Confederate cause are evident throughout the narrative, to the point that some may mistake this account for a romantic tale of the Lost Cause. For informed readers. - Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
• "In this succinct biography of John Newland Maffitt, Royce Shingleton devotes six of the fifteen chapters to the pre-and post-Civil War life of his subject.  The book, then, is more than a study of a Confederate navy officer, it is a complete biography.  Shingleton's treatment of Maffitt's Civil War career is thorough and well documented....His best known exploit aboard the [C.S.S.] Florida, running through the Union blockade of Mobile and out again, is excitingly and accurately described; the cruise of the Florida is also well presented....High Seas Confederate is a well-documented, interesting, and succinctly written biography of John Newland Maffitt that presents him both as a human being and as a naval officer....for all Civil War buffs it is a must....This one thoroughly enjoyed it!"--Warren F. Spencer, Emeritus, University of Georgia, The Georgia Historical Quarterly

References

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