John McBride.

by Terry Foenander.


As of early August, 2008, it has been noted that Mr. Gray has removed his biography of this person, an obvious result of Gray's having noted all the evidence shown at this web site. However, the damage has already been done, since his numerous errors and inaccuracies (which are included on every single biography at his web site), have now spread all across the Internet.

In late May of 2008, a dedication ceremony was held at the Frankton Cemetery, near Queenstown, New Zealand, at the grave site of John McBride, who had died nearly a hundred and eleven years before.   John McBride was indicated to have been a veteran of the American Civil War, who had gone to New Zealand, after his term of service, and settled and died there.   The dedication was attended by a large number of persons, including descendants of McBride, as well as several dignitaries, including the United States ambassador to New Zealand, Mr. William McCormick.   The occasion was reported in a local newspaper, the Otago Daily Times, and online, at its web site.

The newly installed grave plaque, which had been sent over by the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C., had been applied for, and sent through the efforts of the American Civil War Round Table of Queensland, a group operating out of Brisbane, who, it would have been assumed, had done the necessary research work and application for military service and other records relating to the Civil War veteran, John McBride.   The plaque installed at the grave indicates that McBride had been a soldier in the 38th New York Infantry, and had served his entire service in that unit, and joined his family members in New Zealand in 1863, after his “three year tour of duty”.


A photo of the offensive grave marker, obtained by the American Civil War Round Table of Queensland, and installed at the grave of John McBride, in New Zealand. The inscription includes the totally inaccurate data that this John McBride had served in the 38th New York Infantry, as well as the inscription of the ACWRTQ - Australia. No effort was taken to ensure accuracy, as with all work conducted by Gray, and one or more other members of the ACWRTQ. There are other such grave markers or headstones obtained by one or more members of the same group, and for persons who were never Civil War veterans, or with inaccurate inscriptions, thus ensuring that posterity is provided with incorrect data.

It was only after the ceremony had been reported on the Internet, that this author began to raise some doubts, and, on consultation with Mr. Barry Crompton, secretary of the American Civil War Round Table of Australia (ACWRTQ), as well as the web site of the 38th New York Infantry, it was found that the John McBride who had served in that particular unit had actually been killed in action at the Stone Bridge, at the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas), in July, 1861.   Thus it became increasingly clear that absolutely no research was ever conducted at all, prior to the application for a grave marker being sent in to the Veterans Administration in Washington, and that information on John McBride’s service was accepted, at face value, and obviously from the web page biography placed online by ACWRTQ member, James Mason Gray, who is already very well known for numerous such errors and utter incompetence in any research involving veterans of the American Civil War buried in Australia and New Zealand.   However, the error was obviously not just the fault of only one member, as another member, Mr. Robert Taylor, has indicated, at another web site online, that the ACWRTQ, as a whole, is involved in attempting to mark the graves of all Civil War veterans throughout Australasia.   No mention is made by Mr. Taylor, about whether, before markers are obtained for these graves, any thorough research is to be conducted to prove, beyond doubt, that a person had indeed served in the Civil War, and, from all the signs emanating from that organization so far, it would seem that no effort is to be made to conduct such research.   As a result, several grave markers and headstones have already been obtained for persons who never served in the Civil War, as well as persons who were not in the units indicated on these markers.   It would seem that markers or headstones are to be obtained only based on the so called “research” conducted by James Mason Gray, who has failed miserably in such “research”.

Mr. Gray is well known in Australia, as well as overseas, for his numerous assumptions, errors, and total incompetence in Civil War research.   His biographies all contain numerous errors, many of which show a total lack of any knowledge of the Civil War, or the veterans who resided in Australia and New Zealand.   Mr. Gray has been known to refer to others, who make small errors (yet who have taken the trouble to apologize for such errors), as fools, yet his own errors, multiplied a hundred fold (perhaps a thousand fold) are quickly removed, and covered over, and no apology is ever given by Mr. Gray for such errors.   A well known American Civil War author, a resident of the United States, has stated that it would seem that Mr. Gray seems to have “some difficulty” in even making a minor apology, and he certainly owes a very large number of persons such apologies.   His errors, including accepting persons who never ever served in the Civil War as veterans of that war, have actually been published in his own volume, so no amount of trying to cover the errors by removing them from his web site will correct the incompetence of this so called “researcher.”

Sadly, the descendants of John McBride were falsely led into believing that Mr. Gray's "research" was perfect in every way, and that their ancestor had been a member of the 38th New York Infantry, which was complete and utter hogwash. As he has done on so many occasions before, Mr. Gray has placed false and incorrect data online, and boasted to many about his web site being used by the National Library of Australia, yet has failed to indicate that so many of his web biographies contain falsehoods and have not been researched at all. And he has now removed quite a number of these biographies, after they were proven, through proper and thorough research (an area not conducive to Mr. Gray's frame of mind), to be totally incorrect. Unfortunately, the grave marker will remain at the grave of John McBride, in New Zealand, another monument to "incompetent research", as was the marker at the grave of John Henry Graydon, in Australia

SOURCES:

Otago Daily Times issue of May 26, 2008. See also the online version at http://www.odt.co.nz/print/7139

For more inaccurate biographies, see "A Litany of Errors."

Page Created, August, 2008 (Updated October, 2008).