W.W. Loring: Florida's Forgotten General

Confederate General William Wing Loring had been soldiering since he was 14 -- for the Republic first and then for the Confederacy. But "even his enemies bore him tribute: a man of unflinching honor and integrity'. . . ." As part of the Army of the Republic, he had led a regiment, with 600 mule teams, some 2,500 miles across the mountains to Oregon, "without losing a man." Years and a generation later, this was called "the greatest military feat on record."

Loring began his career in Seminole wars in Florida at a time when most young men attended West Point. Later he studied law, and when Florida became a state he was in the state Legislature. When the Mexican War began, 27-year old Loring abandoned law and politics forever. He became a captain, a major, a lieutenant colonel. At Mexico City he led an assault on Belen Gate and lost his left arm. "Thereafter his empty sleeve bore its eloquent testimony to his courage and gallantry."

Loring left few personal letters to rely on for information about his life. He did not keep a diary and died before he could write his memoirs.

Author James W. Raab had to become a literary detective. After six years of research, Raab sets the record straight about "Old Blizzards."

James W. Raab was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, was drafted at age 18 into the military during World War II, and spent two and a half years in the U.S. Infantry at Camp Blanding, Florida, and in Compigne, France. After the war, he returned to Reading, and graduated form Albright College with a B.S. in economics in 1950. That same year, he and his wife moved to St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1987, Raab purchased a commercial building in downtown St. Augustine and discovered he then owned the "Loring plot," the homestead of General W. W. Loring. The lack of information on the General inspired Raab, a "transplanted Yankee," to research Loring's life and career.