University of Mobile professor publishes book

Lonnie Burnett, associate professor of history at the University of Mobile, has written and released a new biography on John Forsyth, longtime editor of the Press-Register (formerly the Mobile Register), titled “The Pen Makes a Good Sword: John Forsyth of the Mobile Register.” Burnett, a member of First Baptist Church, North Mobile, in Saraland, said his acute, lifelong interest in newspapers eventually led to his discovery of Forsyth. The book documents Forsyth’s career as a Southern newspaper editor during the antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction periods. Burnett highlights the connections between Forsyth’s work as a journalist and a politician, examining the development of Alabama’s two-party system and exploring the reasoning that led Southern unionists like Forsyth to support secession.

Burnett is currently working on a second book about Henry Hotze, a Confederate propaganda agent to Europe from Mobile. He is also writing two articles on Forsyth and Hotze for the “Encyclopedia of Alabama History.” “The Pen Makes a Good Sword” is published by the University of Alabama Press and is available in local bookstores and online at uapress.ua.edu and www.amazon.com.