Spotlight on Dane Pizzuti Krogman, author of Mendota and the Restive Rivers of the Indian and Civil Wars 1861-65 (The Simmons family saga)

 

This is the fictional story set in Mendota, Minnesota of the Simmons family who are faced with the consequences of the Dakota Sioux Uprising of 1862 that swept across the state as well as the Civil War.

The father, Dan enlists in the 1st regiment of Minnesota volunteers as a teamster. His two sons, who are both underage join the 2nd Regiment. John, aged 16 becomes a bugler and William, aged 15 becomes a drummer. Their sister, Sara is left behind with their mother, Louise to fend for themselves. Dan is sent east to fight with the Army of the Potomac while his sons are sent to the western theater to serve in the army of the Cumberland. Back in Mendota, their neighbor and close friend, Colonel Henry Sibley is ordered to stay in the state to control the Indian uprising.

Dan will see action up through the battle of Antietam. He will later find himself in the hospital in Washington DC where he befriends a comrade also from the 1st Regiment. His sons barely miss the action at Shiloh but after, are engaged in all the major battles in the West. While they are passing through Louisville, William falls for a young woman, Mary, who works as a hospital nurse. Back in Mendota, Sara befriends a young Chippewa native boy while her mother struggles with the breakup of her family. After Colonel Sibley defeats the Sioux, he is promoted to General and ordered to round up all the Dakota and resettle them in the Dakotas.

This leads to the punitive expeditions that he and General Sully will command up until 1864. William is captured at the battle up Missionary Ridge and then sent to the prison camp at Belle Isle, VA., and then onto Andersonville. GA. John receives a 30-day furlough and returns to Mendota before he re-enlists. Louise and Sara wait for the war’s end so the family can be reunited, but events may not turn out as anticipated.

 

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Dane Krogman

Fun Facts

(Stuff you may or may not already know!)

I studied visual arts in college. This led to a career as an Art director for TV commercial advertising and feature films. I got into the film industry when an art director saw me on a scaffold painting a huge outdoor advertising billboard years before everything went digital.

To pay for college I worked in the garment industry as a cutter and sewer for women’s lingerie. In graduate school, I studied the Japanese surface design of Kimonos and Obi. I spent over 3 years in Japan studying the art of Kimono fashion and learning the language. I was contracted in 1976 to design the first women’s “jog bra” and protective bra for female boxers.

As a Civil War historian, I was hired as a technical advisor on the films, Dances with Wolves, Glory, and Gettysburg. It was after reading the script for Dances with Wolves that I decided I would start writing. I thought the script was so bad that any idiot could write. It took a few more years to realize I was one of those idiots.

I owned a special effects design studio for over 10 years and designed analog, real-time in-camera effects for over 1000 TV commercials.

I have the very time-consuming and expensive hobby of restoring old cars.

I’ve always been fascinated with old vehicles and motorsports. From 1990 to 2010, I worked on a Grand-am Rolex series race team. We won the world championship in 2008.

 

Dane Krogman

 Dane Pizzuti Krogman was educated in the fine arts at the University of Minnesota, receiving BFA and MFA degrees. He also specialized in Asian art history, with a concentration in textile and surface design. After graduation, he worked as a freelance designer creating fashion samples for women’s athletic wear. He eventually relocated to California and taught at Cal-Poly Pomona in the Environmental Design program, then moved on to work as a pictorial artist for outdoor advertising. Moving back to the Twin Cities in 1981, he formed a scenic design company call Art demo which in 10 years did over 1000 designs and productions for sets, props, and special effects for television commercials and feature films. In the early ’90s, he relocated to Charleston, SC to work as a spec writer for feature film scripts. Six of his screenplays have won major writing awards and two of these have been optioned for production. During this time, he also taught scene design at the College of Charleston. This position led to an adjunct teaching position at Virginia Commonwealth University where he taught art direction for filmmakers. In 1998, he took a full-time teaching position at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he taught art direction, life drawing, set construction, and Asian film studies, eventually becoming chairman of the department.

The common thread through all of this has been his passion for Japanese design, art, and fashion. He has lived in Kyoto, Japan for the past 20 summers studying Japanese kimono and obi design of the Heian and Edo periods. In 2002 he won the Grand Prize for the best graphic novel at the Hiroshima manga competition. His graphic novel, Skeleton Boy, was selected for inclusion in the Hiroshima peace memorial library in 2007.

He was most recently an adjunct faculty member in the Graduate Program in Digital Filmmaking at Stony Brook Southampton. He is also an award-winning screenwriter. His screenplay, The Schooner was produced as the Australian film, AUSTRALIA in 2008. He has other award-winning films that have been optioned for production or are in production.

As a Civil War historian, he has worked as a technical advisor for the films, Dances with Wolfs, Gettysburg, and Glory. He currently has one Civil War novel in pre-publication; MENDOTA, AND THE RESTIVE RIVERS OF THE CIVIL AND INDIAN WARS 1861-65.

He also works part-time as a crew member on a Grand-Am Rolex series race team. The team won the national championship in 2008.