The Civil War Sesquicentennial
The goal should be an enlightening commemoration
By DAVID W. BLIGHT
In 1961-65, the centennial commemoration of the Civil War was a political and historical debacle. Fraught, to say the least, by cold-war nationalism, racism among its leadership as well as the general populace, an enduring hold of the Lost Cause on popular imagination, and a country violently divided by the civil-rights movement, the official Civil War centennial refused to face the challenge of causes and consequences. Instead, a reconciliationist, Blue-Gray celebration of soldiers' valor and re-emergent national greatness forged out of conflict dominated the scene. At 100 years, North and South had managed a long, complex reconciliation rooted in a master narrative of mutual heroism in a war in which everyone had fought for their sense of the "right." But the national reunion of the sections had been purchased by the Jim Crow system and a racially segregated, tragically stunted national memory.
Now fast forward to the kickoff of a commemoration of the sesquicentennial. Jumbotrons in basketball arenas and panels of academic historians are not normally associated with each other. But an event held at the University of Richmond recently, "America on the Eve of the Civil War," was anything but normal. Planned and moderated by Edward L. Ayers, president of the university and a distinguished historian of the South and the Civil War, the all-day symposium, with 16 of us, historians, on panels of four each, attracted an extraordinary audience of some 2,000 people from Virginia and 26 other states. It was the first of six annual events planned by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission. No state suffered more loss and devastation than Virginia during the Civil War, and nowhere have people remembered that conflict with as much reverence and controversy. The Virginia commission opted to begin the sesquicentennial early to stress the theme of the war's causation.
What would bring so many people on a weekday to listen to historians reflect on why the United States collapsed into disunion in the late 1850s? First, the symposium drew its energy and vision from Ayers himself. An advocate of what he calls "deep contingency" (keeping our understanding of history within its own changing context), Ayers instructed all panelists to focus on the year 1859 and to discuss nothing that happened after that year. We were to be in that time, of its conditions and circumstances, not yet aware of the impending secession crisis and war. By and large that approach worked, as Ayers posed questions and the historians delved into details as well as debated the political and economic situation on the ground. The novel approach prevented us from quoting or referring to other scholars, which is our habit. It also led to some awkwardness as many panelists jokingly spoke of "the great events to come which will go unmentioned."
A second reason for the popularity of the symposium is simply that the Civil War still attracts legions of "buffs," a term that is sometimes far too dismissive and encompasses serious readers, collectors, reenactors, battlefield preservationists, and educators at all levels. With the sesquicentennial looming in 2011-15, we are likely to experience a flood of attention to the Civil War era from film and publishing, tourism and school curricula, and possibly even from American political culture.
But a third, and perhaps most important, reason for the turnout in Richmond may be that in recent decades, powerful new winds have been blowing through Civil War history, from the academy to the furthest reaches of public memory. Revolutions in social, African-American, and women's history, as well as the advent of new modes of military history — treating the war from the perspectives of common soldiers, homefronts as well as battlefronts, slaves and captive prisoners, as well as generals and strategy — have transformed a field once seemingly dominated by the "view from headquarters" or the valor of the Blue and the Gray. An increasing number of historians, moreover, have written about the memory of the Civil War in American culture as one of the most dominant elements of an ever-changing American national identity and as a driving force in the history of race relations. And most significant, these new winds have been felt deeply and widely in public-history forums. It is not your father's or your grandmother's Civil War history anymore, even — and especially — in the South.
Or is it? We shall see.
The Lost Cause tradition — as both a version of history and as a racial ideology — is certainly still very much alive in neo-Confederate organizations, on numerous Web sites, among white-supremacist groups, in staunch advocates of the Confederate battle flag, and even among some mainstream American politicians. Multitudes still cannot bring themselves to confront the story of slavery as both lived experience and as the central cause of the Civil War.
But countless others have done so, often overcoming the essence of their early education or family lore. Above all, the greatest challenge for academic historians of this pivotal era has been to persuade the interested public, including some politicians and public historians (those who work in museums and at historic sites), that the causes and consequences of the Civil War are easily as important as the drama of the third day at the battle of Gettysburg. In other words, the deepest answers to why that terrible war occurred, and why we have struggled as a people to face and solve its eternal legacies, may have more lasting meaning than the heartfelt pathos one feels standing today on the "sacred ground" of one of its beautiful battlefields.
Such was the tenor and purpose of the Richmond symposium. We were there to understand the society, South and North, the political and economic systems, the ideologically driven defenders of slavery as well as its fierce opponents, and especially the lives of ordinary people (white and black, free and enslaved, slave-owning and not, bankers and dirt farmers) living at a time when their country teetered on the edge of the abyss of fratricidal war. The conference opened with welcoming remarks by Ayers, who urged everyone to look back at the Civil War era with "fresh eyes," but also made it clear he was thrilled this could happen in the "former capital of the Confederacy." When William J. Howell, the Republican speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia and chairman of the state's sesquicentennial commission, announced openly that this anniversary season would focus on the "causes" and "enduring legacies" of the conflict, I had to pinch myself and drop my cynical guard, realizing that 50 years earlier such a remark would never have been uttered by the leader of a Southern state legislature. This was not to be a remembrance of the Lost Cause. Then Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, addressed us and demanded that this time the Civil War must be treated with "analysis and commemoration" and that the events of 1861-65 were "not in the past at all," but alive in our present every day. Analysis? Bravo, I said, under my breath.
And so the analysis commenced, with panels on "Taking Stock of the Nation in 1859," "The Future of Virginia and the South," "Making Sense of John Brown's Raid," and finally, "Predictions for the Election of 1860." Only rarely did panelists veer off into arcane subjects; Ayers kept us on course. In most cases, the audience was spared the certainty of well-honed interpretations in favor of open discussion of the unsettled and huge character of American expansion in the 1850s, of that era's swirling issues of immigration and anti-Catholicism, of a transportation and communication revolution that boggled the imagination of its time even more than the Internet does in our age. And I suspect many were stunned at what they learned of the scale of the domestic slave trade, in Richmond's own streets and across the South. (One recent study concludes that in 1859-60, the value of slaves sold in the domestic market was $9.56-million, many millions more in today's dollars.)
As it turns out, we had to admit that Americans of the late 1850s were as confused, excited, and frightened about their futures as people in any other era. Their politics consisted of a raucous, transforming party system, quickly dividing over the slavery question and thriving on huge voter turnout. Virginia had a booming and diverse economy, despite growing very little cotton and exporting to the deep South ever-increasing numbers of slaves, the nation's single largest financial asset. A couple of the panelists on the John Brown session waxed somewhat romantic in their defense of the radical abolitionist, stimulating a useful exchange about what constitutes justifiable revolutionary violence.
The rise of that relatively unknown lawyer from Illinois to the presidency in 1860 was imagined only by a few Midwestern political managers at the end of 1859. As our historian-pundits handicapped the impending election with both deep knowledge and a sense of wonder, most suggested William H. Seward as the likely candidate of the new Republican Party. And slavery and race certainly seemed to be tearing the nation apart, while not everyone thought about those issues every day. The past, much less the future, most of us historians concluded, is an unstable story even when we know a great deal about it. Back in the green room and over lunch, we chuckled over our strange roles as near occupants of an actual 1859, but out on stage displayed our humbled expertise.
Audience members submitted hundreds of questions through the course of the day that were processed by graduate students. Ayers has kindly provided me with the full list of questions, including many submitted online from the Webcast audience. As a whole, the queries reflect an informed audience eager to know more. Many asked about the anomalous situation of free blacks in the South, and several were fascinated by John Brown and violence. Even more pushed for a longer discussion of "states' rights" as a cause of America's predicament in the 1850s. In a Q&A during one of the panels, we confronted the issue of states' rights, most of us trying to demonstrate that the significance of the doctrine is always in the cause to which it is employed, whether by Northerners or Southerners in antebellum America or by judges and politicians today. The relationship of states' rights to slavery in all discussions of Civil War causation appears to be an eternal riddle in American public memory. Federalism and "state sovereignty," as Southerners tended to call it, demands an understanding beyond slogans and uses that often skirt the deeper issues at stake in the 1850s — slavery, race, and the future of labor in an expanding republic. The sheer range of audience questions indicated a serious desire to stop, take stock, and comprehend why that war came about when it did.
If the self-selected audience can be any kind of model, and if the Richmond event can be even modestly duplicated elsewhere, the sesquicentennial will be very different from the fiasco of the centennial of the Civil War in 1961-65 (a story detailed in the excellent book by Robert J. Cook, Troubled Commemoration, published by Louisiana State University Press in 2007). Gen. Ulysses S. Grant III, retired, chairman of the federal centennial commission, declared his "close feeling" for the Civil War in 1960 as though it were a family inheritance. "The war did not divide us," he announced. "Rather, it united us, in spite of a long period of bitterness, and made us the greatest and most powerful nation the world had ever seen." To Grant, the centennial provided a nationalistic celebration among white people, full of "colorful ceremonies ... exhibitions of war trophies," and plenty of "memorials, parades, and new historical markers."
Such language would have been utterly out of place at the Richmond sesquicentennial opening in April. But we should approach this anniversary and its myriad events with caution born of the past. We are living in a new era, inspired by the election of an African-American president and by widely disseminated new understandings of the causes and consequences of the Civil War. But how wide? We do not fully know.
The Lost Cause still endures in the 21st century because it serves many sentimental and racial desires in the present. And I suspect that if we could conduct a national referendum on why and how Americans want their Civil War history and memory served up, the majority would still opt for the military drama, for the narrative of battles and leaders. We still need that history too, but this time the story ought to be as much about emancipation as it is about Robert E. Lee's daring invasions of the North or Ulysses S. Grant's determination in the Wilderness Campaign. This time, we need events and publications with mass appeal that will explain not only the complex causes of the war, but its legacies as well.
In his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, in the midst of the centennial, Martin Luther King Jr. took his time getting to the "dream" metaphor. The central metaphor of the beginning of that speech was the "promissory note" that had come back labeled "insufficient funds" in the "bank of American justice." One hundred years after emancipation, said King so memorably, "the Negro is not free." Last November 4, as Barack Obama strode onto the stage in Grant Park in Chicago, something in excess of 50 percent of the people all over America were cheering or weeping uncontrollably. In his speech that night, Obama declared his political lineage by invoking King as well as Lincoln. The next morning in The New York Times, the columnist Thomas Friedman declared November 4 the day the Civil War ended in America. As the sesquicentennial nears, we are likely to witness the foolishness of Friedman's exuberant claim. With jobless numbers soaring and the poverty rate among all children predicted to reach 27 percent in the next year — and among African-American children, a frightening 50 percent — we should declare nothing truly ended in our history.
Legacies can take endless forms — physical, political, literary, emotional. This time, we must commemorate our Civil War in all its meanings, but above all we must commemorate and understand emancipation as its most enduring challenge. This time, the fighting of the Civil War itself should not unite us in pathos and nostalgia alone; but maybe, just maybe, we will give ourselves the chance to find unity in a shared history of conflict, in a genuine sense of tragedy, and in a conflicted memory stared squarely in the face.
David W. Blight is a professor of American history at Yale University. Among his books is Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard University Press, 2001), winner of the Bancroft Prize for excellence in American history.
I know of a couple. One, that I only vaguely remember, was in a New England state (it may have been CT) during the war of 1812. I do not recall the issue, but the way the war of 1812 is taught today is weird anyway.
That book i emailed you about (1812:War with America) goes into great detail about how 1812 has been taught( or mistaught) these past few centuries.
Posted: Tue 02 Jun 2009 03:06 Post subject: Civil War
Quote:
The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue, by Lawrence R. Tenzer.
Tenzer shows that the white Southern slaves produced by a combination of racial mixture and the maternal descent rule were viewed as white people by Northerners, who had good reason to fear that any white person ("mixed" or "pure") could be kidnapped by slave catchers and sold into slavery in the South.
Tenzer also destroys the argument of those neo-Confederates who contend that the Southern states (called The Slave Power in the North) were merely resisting the tyranny of a federal government. The Slave Power effectively controlled Congress and the Presidency for most of the antebellum period. The "3/5 Rule" gave congressmen from the slave states the right to represent slaves (people who obviously couldn't vote), thereby giving them far more power than they would have received if they had been limited to repre! senting free persons.
Free states exercised "states' rights" by passing personal liberty laws to nullify the effects of the federal Fugitive Slave Law. This law gave the accused slave no rights to bring witnesses, have a jury, or any other forms of due process. The judge was authorized by the law to receive a larger fee if he ruled against the slave than if he ruled in his favor. Tenzer also shows that, when you consider the low wages of the average Southern white male, coupled with sharp rises in slave prices, slave catching was a tempting business. The slave catcher would earn more with one kidnapping expedition than he could earn by a year or two of hard labor.
Many liberals historians ask why Northern whites would fight a civil war to free "blacks" they didn't consider equal. The obvious answer is that they saw slavery as a threat to whites. There was not only the issue of the white slaves, but the constant denigration of a free society by the intellectual defenders of slavery. Slavery apologists constantly stated that their slaves were better off than free white laborers in the North. More than that, the pro-slavery intellectuals defended slavery as a good in and of itself, regardless of "race" or "color." Tenzer shows that Republican party political literature of the antebellum period took the threat of white enslavement seriously.
One final praise. Tenzer defines his terms well. He reminds us that "The Slave Power" or "the South" represented the planter elite and not Southern people in general. Also, "Negro blood" by itself did not confine anyone to slavery. If the maternal descent line was from a white female or had been broken by manumission, the descendants were free. Southern White persons could legally have more Negro ancestry than some unfortunate slaves.
Posted: Tue 02 Jun 2009 03:20 Post subject: Popular Culture and the Civil War
Quote:
Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know About the Civil War (Caravan Book) by Gary W. Gallagher
Gary Gallagher is right to point out the fact that the union cause in the American Civil War has been almost banished from popular memory, cinema, and works of art. However, he totally ignores the importance of the Slave Power as a cause of the war and the danger that slavery posed to ordinary white citizens and the existence of the American republic. That is a reality that has been totally buried.
For example, contrary to the neo-confederate view that the "War Between the States" was fought to free Southern states from the "tyranny" of the federal government (Lost Cause), the antebellum period was characterized by Northern states asserting their rights and sovereignty against a proslavery federal tyranny. In addition to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, the North felt the power of the South and the tyranny of proslavery forces in these ways:
-From 1836 to 1844 pro-slavery forces in the House of Representatives passed and implemented the so-called "gag rule," a nullification of the First Amendment right of free speech whereby antislavery petitions to Congress were no longer heard.
-From the 1830s until the Civil War, the Southern pro-slavery forces censored the United States mail. Postmasters were forbidden to deliver antislavery literature into the slave states.
-In 1845 Texas was annexed as a slave state.
-In 1846 the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery from the territories acquired in the Mexican-American War was defeated by proslavery forces in Congress.
-The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 negated the Missouri Compromise and made slavery possible in any of the territories. New states that came from the territories could easily become slave states, thereby increasing Southern power.
-A proslavery U.S. Supreme Court existed from the 1840s until the Civil War.
I strongly recommend the following books on the Slave Power in addition to Gallagher's work:
-The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860 by Leonard Richards
-The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue by Lawrence R. Tenzer
Who iyho, were the most overrated/underrated generals(North & South) in the war?
For Union underrated, I vote for the Grant/Sherman team. They set up a combat officer's training school to identify and train promising young officers in advanced military science. Their program eventually became the postgraduate Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth. And they built it right in the middle of a war, while working as general officers themselves. Not only did they have the foresight to see that the army lacked well-trained field-grade officers, but they solved the problem.
For Union overrated, I say McClellan. He was a superb organizer and created the efficiently organized Army of the Potomac out of a rabble of individual regiments, each with its own logistics, ordnance, commisarry, and medical coprs. But he was psychologically incapable of risk-takng. He should never have been given a general officer's job in wartime.
For Confederate underrated, I have to say Joseph E. Johnston. He understood that the goal was to gain CSA independence, not to win public "victories" on the battlefield. His Fabian defense against Sherman so frustrated the northern public that they were ready to vote out Lincoln and vote in McClellan to sign a peace treaty. Lincoln discussed plans to handle his remaining months as a defeated lame-duck president. Fortunately for the Union, Jefferson Davis had no clue and fired Johnston for not being agressive enough. He replaced Johnston with John Bell Hood, who followed Davis's orders to the letter and utterly destroyed his own army in two suicidal charges. Northerners took heart, re-elected Lincoln, Sherman marched unopposed, and the war ended.
For Confederate overrated, no question it was Lee. Every battle he fought was hailed as a great victory in the South (and most are hailed as great victories in history books today). And yet, without exception, every single battle that he ever fought killed more CSA soldiers than Union soldiers, as a fraction of their respective nations' military-aged men. Hence, every Lee battle without exception carried the CSA one step closer to defeat. 'Nuff said.
Powell wrote:
What was the name of the family?
Oh gosh! I do not even remember where I read the story. It may have been McPherson, Freehling, or Tenzer. Come to think of it, if it was Tenzer you would already know. Let me check McPherson and Freehling.
Chuck Baldwin: Praise for Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson
January 16th, 2009 · 50 Comments
By Chuck Baldwin
ChuckBaldwinLive.com
January is often referred to as “Generals Month” since no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed January as their birth month: James Longstreet (Jan. 8, 1821), Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19, 1807), Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (Jan. 21, 1824), and George Pickett (Jan. 28, 1825). Two of these men, Lee and Jackson, are particularly noteworthy.
Without question, Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson were two of the greatest military leaders of all time. Even more, many military historians regard the Lee and Jackson tandem as perhaps the greatest battlefield duo in the history of warfare. If Jackson had survived the battle of Chancellorsville, it is very possible that the South would have prevailed at Gettysburg and perhaps would even have won the War Between the States.
In fact, it was Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the British armies in the early twentieth century, who said, “In my opinion, Stonewall Jackson was one of the greatest natural military geniuses the world ever saw. I will go even further than that–as a campaigner in the field, he never had a superior. In some respects, I doubt whether he ever had an equal.”
While the strategies and circumstances of the War of Northern Aggression can (and will) be debated by professionals and laymen alike, one fact is undeniable: Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson were two of the finest Christian gentlemen this country has ever produced. Both their character and their conduct were beyond reproach.
Unlike his northern counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, General Lee never sanctioned or condoned slavery. Upon inheriting slaves from his deceased father-in-law, Lee immediately freed them. And according to historians, Jackson enjoyed a familial relationship with those few slaves that were in his home. In addition, unlike Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, there is no record of either Lee or Jackson ever speaking disparagingly of the black race.
As those who are familiar with history know, General Grant and his wife held personal slaves before and during the War Between the States, and, contrary to popular opinion, even Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves of the North. They were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed after the conclusion of the war. Grant’s excuse for not freeing his slaves was that “good help is so hard to come by these days.”
Furthermore, it is well established that Jackson regularly conducted a Sunday School class for black children. This was a ministry he took very seriously. As a result, he was dearly loved and appreciated by the children and their parents.
In addition, both Jackson and Lee emphatically supported the abolition of slavery. In fact, Lee called slavery “a moral and political evil.” He also said “the best men in the South” opposed it and welcomed its demise. Jackson said he wished to see “the shackles struck from every slave.”
To think that Lee and Jackson (and the vast majority of Confederate soldiers) would fight and die to preserve an institution they considered evil and abhorrent–and that they were already working to dismantle–is the height of absurdity. It is equally repugnant to impugn and denigrate the memory of these remarkable Christian gentlemen.
In fact, after refusing Abraham Lincoln’s offer to command the Union Army in 1861, Robert E. Lee wrote to his sister on April 20 of that year to explain his decision. In the letter he wrote, “With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the army and save in defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed . . .”
Lee’s decision to resign his commission with the Union Army must have been the most difficult decision of his life. Remember that Lee’s direct ancestors had fought in America’s War For Independence. His father, “Light Horse Harry” Henry Lee, was a Revolutionary War hero, Governor of Virginia, and member of Congress. In addition, members of his family were signatories to the Declaration of Independence.
Remember, too, that not only did Robert E. Lee graduate from West Point “at the head of his class” (according to Benjamin Hallowell), he is yet today one of only six cadets to graduate from that prestigious academy without a single demerit.
However, Lee knew that Lincoln’s decision to invade the South in order to prevent its secession was both immoral and unconstitutional. As a man of honor and integrity, the only thing Lee could do was that which his father had done: fight for freedom and independence. And that is exactly what he did.
Instead of allowing a politically correct culture to sully the memory of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson, all Americans should hold them in a place of highest honor and respect. Anything less is a disservice to history and a disgrace to the principles of truth and integrity.
Accordingly, it was more than appropriate that the late President Gerald Ford, on August 5, 1975, signed Senate Joint Resolution 23, “restoring posthumously the long overdue, full rights of citizenship to General Robert E. Lee.” According to President Ford, “This legislation corrects a 110-year oversight of American history.” He further said, “General Lee’s character has been an example to succeeding generations . . .”
The significance of the lives of Generals Lee and Jackson cannot be overvalued. While the character and influence of most of us will barely be remembered two hundred days after our departure, the sterling character of these men has endured for two hundred years. What a shame that so many of America’s youth are being robbed of knowing and studying the virtue and integrity of the great General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
This month, all over the South, Southerners will raise a glass of buttermilk to toast the birthdays of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson. Lee was born on Jan. 19, and Jackson on Jan. 21.
No American general comes close to matching their battlefield exploits until we get to Gen. George S. Patton in World War II. Lee, despite being on the losing side, was universally admired the world over and was showered with offers of lucrative jobs and even an estate in England.
Lee – unlike today's lesser generals who leap at book contracts and fat speaking fees despite have no record of any great accomplishment – refused to profit from the fame earned at the expense of so many young men's lives. He turned down the gifts and the job offers and instead accepted the position of president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). His salary was $1,500 a year.
Americans in all regions would do well to recommend this man's life as a model for their sons. Lee came as close to being perfect as a human being can be. He was tall, handsome and bright, and finished second in his class at West Point without a single demerit. He married a descendant of George Washington and, again unlike some people these days, kept his wedding vows and loved and cherished his wife.
Lee was a hero long before the secession crisis. He was superintendent of West Point. He distinguished himself during the Mexican War and showed such sterling character, courage and leadership that he was the first choice to lead the Northern armies when the secession crisis arose. Now think for a moment what a decision this man faced.
He was by choice a professional soldier, and here he was being offered the highest position a professional could hope for. Furthermore, he thought slavery was a moral evil, and he was opposed to secession. As a professional soldier, he surely knew that if war came, the South would lose. It was outmanned, outgunned, out-railroaded and out-industrialized from Day One. A man who put ambition above all else would have accepted in a New York minute, and no doubt the War Between the States would have been over much sooner. It was Lee's tactical genius that kept the South going.
But Lee could not bear to make war on his native state of Virginia, where all of his family and friends lived. He declined the offer and resigned his commission. He showed such brilliance on the battlefield that he is ranked among all the greats in the history of the world. But it is Lee's character, not his war exploits, that marks him as a man worth emulating.
One of his generals said of Lee, "As a soldier the men respected him; as a man they loved him." Though old for his time (he died at age 63 in 1870), he shared the hardships of the men, often sleeping on the ground. Any presents sent to him were passed along to his men. He wore a plain uniform. He never spoke ill of anyone, even his enemies. He never took credit for victories, but he always accepted personal responsibility for defeats. He was a devout Christian.
His son tells a story that illustrates how revered he was. After the war, Lee's sons answered a knock on the door to find a big Irish sergeant wearing a Yankee uniform and carrying a large basket of food. He had heard that Lee was hungry, and having served with him on the frontier before the war, could not stand that thought. Lee's sons were assuring him that no one was hungry when Gen. Lee came to the door. He convinced the sergeant that he would accept the gift only if he could pass it along to the wounded in the hospital. The sergeant grabbed Lee in a bearhug and said, with tears streaming down his face, "Goodbye, Colonel. God bless ye. If I could have got over in time, I would have been with ye." I doubt any sergeant has hugged a general since then.
For Union underrated, I vote for the Grant/Sherman team. They set up a combat officer's training school to identify and train promising young officers in advanced military science. Their program eventually became the postgraduate Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth. And they built it right in the middle of a war, while working as general officers themselves. Not only did they have the foresight to see that the army lacked well-trained field-grade officers, but they solved the problem.
For Union overrated, I say McClellan. He was a superb organizer and created the efficiently organized Army of the Potomac out of a rabble of individual regiments, each with its own logistics, ordnance, commisarry, and medical coprs. But he was psychologically incapable of risk-takng. He should never have been given a general officer's job in wartime.
For Confederate underrated, I have to say Joseph E. Johnston. He understood that the goal was to gain CSA independence, not to win public "victories" on the battlefield. His Fabian defense against Sherman so frustrated the northern public that they were ready to vote out Lincoln and vote in McClellan to sign a peace treaty. Lincoln discussed plans to handle his remaining months as a defeated lame-duck president. Fortunately for the Union, Jefferson Davis had no clue and fired Johnston for not being agressive enough. He replaced Johnston with John Bell Hood, who followed Davis's orders to the letter and utterly destroyed his own army in two suicidal charges. Northerners took heart, re-elected Lincoln, Sherman marched unopposed, and the war ended.
For Confederate overrated, no question it was Lee. Every battle he fought was hailed as a great victory in the South (and most are hailed as great victories in history books today). And yet, without exception, every single battle that he ever fought killed more CSA soldiers than Union soldiers, as a fraction of their respective nations' military-aged men. Hence, every Lee battle without exception carried the CSA one step closer to defeat. 'Nuff said.
Wow that was great Frank!
Next Question: Again iyho,what are the most overrated/underrated battles of the war?
Women as Objects in Civil War Art
by Kevin Levin on June 21, 2009
in Civil War Culture, Civil War Historians, Lost Cause, Memory, Women's History
It’s difficult to deny that the image of women in the work of contemporary Civil War artists tells us much more about the individual artist than the reality of women’s lives or the way those lives were transformed during the Civil War. I pick on Mort Kunstler quite a bit, but his characters beg for analysis and often ridicule. Such is the case with his most recent offering, “Autograph Seekers of Bel Air.” One could even go so far as to suggest that in a great deal of the Civil War print culture women don’t even exist outside of the gaze of men or, in this case, fawning over men – usually Confederates. Historians of the Lost Cause have noted the role that women played in support of the Confederate cause and their admiration for Confederate chieftains such as Jackson, Stuart, and most importantly, Lee. Of course, while there is a great deal of evidence to support such claims, it also offers a very narrow view of women that obscures class distinctions and the hardships that they faced throughout the conflict.
I recently finished reading Stephanie McCurry’s lead essay in the newly-published collection, Wars Within a War: Controversy and Conflict Over the Civil War (UNC Press, 2009). McCurry focuses on poor soldiers’ wives who took steps to organize in response to an increasingly encroaching Confederate government which left them with serious food shortages and unprotected from the Federal army and slaves. In her analysis, McCurry uncovers interstate communication and organization that led to food riots in Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, Salisbury, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia and Mobile, Alabama. According to McCurry, the extent that the war politicized women involved a renegotiation of their relationship with the state.
McCurry’s essay (part of a larger and much anticipated book project) represents a small piece of a much larger story about women during the Civil War that historians have uncovered over the past few decades. Much of this literature has redefined what we know about women, their roles, and the consequences of the war on the place of women in the polity. It would be silly of me to inquire into the absence of these women in contemporary Civil War art. Most of these images tell us very little about the lives of Southern white women during the war, though they tell us a great deal about how white men today choose to depict them or what they hope their customers (white men) will want to purchase. And that is their purpose. They reaffirm an image of women as apolitical and submissive in the presence of men and a world where gender roles have been solidified. Northern women may have pushed for the suffrage, equal pay, and other anti-discrimination laws, but not white Southern women. They have always been content to worship and serve at the altar of men.
The Future of the Confederate Flag
by Kevin Levin on June 11, 2009
in Civil War Culture, Lost Cause, Memory and Public Spaces, Southern History
My recent post on the unveiling of another large Confederate flag in Tennessee generated a number of comments. It’s an emotional issue on all sides and it is unlikely that the interested parties will ever fully agree on whether it should be displayed in public as well as its meaning. But that’s the way it is when it comes to controversial symbols. By definition they are open to multiple points of view. There is a certain amount of legitimacy on all sides and on occasion we can also see these same individuals/groups engaged in actions that betray ignorance and callousness. Consider H.K. Edgerton’s ridiculous suggestion that if you don’t revere the Confederate flag than you ought to be considered a “traitor” or the Auburn official who plucked the Confederate flags from a soldier ceremony. I could go on and on with examples.
Such a state of affairs is one of the reasons why I’ve suggested that the flag ought to be removed to a museum setting where it can be properly interpreted. I don’t understand why more people in the SCV and other Confederate heritage groups don’t consider such a move. Done right the flag would be taken out of a public debate that rarely evolves in a way where any real understanding of history is conveyed; it simply works to fuel passions on both sides. As I see it the problem is that the flag is both connected to men who fought bravely in battle during the Civil War and it is a flag that was used as a symbol against civil rights in the 1950s. You can’t change the history and, by extension, the way people identify with it. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand history and the nature of symbols themselves. Go to the Museum of the Confederacy and you will see the flag in the context of the Civil War. Across Broad Street, at the American Civil War Center at Tredegar, you will see the flag associated with the Civil War as well as a symbol of white supremacy in the 1950s. The flag is there to be better understood.
Now, you might suggest that I am being a bit extreme in suggesting that the flag ought to be retired to a museum. After all, its supporters want to see it in public as a rallying point and as a symbol of pride. Fair enough and luckily we live in a society where that is permitted up to a point. The sticking point as we know all too well is that the visibility of the Confederate flag is determined to a certain extent by society through local assemblies and other levels of government. And let’s keep something very important in mind as we proceed: THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE!
The only difference in the last three decades following the civil rights movement is that a much broader segment of the population can now weigh in on issues having to do with how the past is remembered in public spaces because a broader segment of society is now represented in local government. Because of this the debates are more heated and the outcomes no longer follow what some have taken for granted for far too long. Does anyone really believe that if African Americans had been allowed to take part in local government during the era of Jim Crow we would not have seen a more vigorous and and even contentious debate about the public display of the Confederate flag along with monuments and other public sites? Of course we would. The defensiveness of some who believe that their “heritage” is under attack is a function of the fact that a certain segment of society has had a monopoly on public remembrance. That has changed since the 1960s, but again, it should not be seen as anything more than the same democratic process at work.
So, what is the future of the Confederate flag (along with other symbols) and their meaning? Its future will be determined in every community by those who choose to focus on whether this particular symbol best reflects their values and its collective past. For instance, in Allegany County, Maryland the local school board has prevented the distribution of a pamphlet that depicts the Confederate flag. In Jonesborough, Tennessee the mayor and aldermen voted to allow the placement of bricks with the names of Confederate soldiers from the county in a display to honor its veterans. In both cases, as in so many other examples that can be found in newspapers across the country, these decisions are being made by elected officials who do their best to reflect the sentiment of their constituents. Get it right in enough cases and they stand a good chance of being reelected. Get it wrong and they are out on their asses. There is no fixed meaning of symbols with the kind of contested history as the Confederate flag, but if enough people rally to allow or prevent its display in a park or parade, etc than in that sense the community has issued a statement. In each decision the meaning of the flag is fixed until the community chooses to change it.
On one of Robert Moore’s recent comment threads, fellow blogger Richard Williams suggested that the large Confederate flags are examples of “push back” against those who are perceived to be a threat to their preferred view of the past. I think that is a fair characterization, but it is one that I hope I’ve explained in this post lies at the foundation of our democratic process. Let me suggest that the supporters of the Confederate flag ought to be grateful that we now live in a society where “push back” is possible.
Was the Battle of the Crater the Last Slave Insurrection in the Western Hemisphere?
by Kevin Levin on June 16, 2009
I‘ve decided to begin my Crater manuscript with the forced post-battle march of roughly 1,500 black and white Union soldiers through the streets of Petersburg before being sent to prisons further south or, in the case of many USCTs, back into bondage. The scene perfectly captures the central theme of my study, which is the evolution of the memory of the battle and specifically the participation of a division of USCTs. However, even apart from the memory aspect of the battle, by beginning here we also place the event itself in a much different light. For most military historians the battle represents the culmination of bloody fighting that defined the “Overland Campaign” and the June offensives outside of Petersburg. It is also the last decisive Confederate victory in the East. But there is much more to this story than a massive explosion and fierce fighting in a closely defined space.
For the men in the Army of Northern Virginia this was their first experience fighting USCTs on a large scale and it occurred in a battle to defend an important rail center and civilian population in Petersburg. Apart from the successful defense of Richmond in the spring and summer of 1862 this was the only other time where Confederates could characterize their actions in such terms. The salient difference this time around, however, was that Confederates and white Southerners no longer looked on the “Yankee” army as simply an enemy that needed to be destroyed, but as the extension of a government that had inaugurated servile insurrection. If we stick closely to the letters and diaries written by Confederates than we must come to terms with their experience of having to put down a slave rebellion. I want to get beyond some of the more entrenched interpretive categories, which dominate the discussion that simply highlight the defense of slavery as a motivating factor or explanan for the men in the army as well as the remaining civilians of Petersburg. It’s their experiences that I am trying desperately to understand. How do we understand the rage that animated Confederate soldiers both during and after the battle that led to the slaughter of an unknown number of USCTs? I don’t mean to downplay the sense of horror surrounding the scale of the explosion that caught an entire brigade off-guard and which created a landscape unlike anything experienced before or the emotional demands placed on soldiers in battle. There would be something significant to explain regardless of an explosion along with the intensity of fighting and it has everything to do with how white Southerners experienced race as well as their place and responsibilities within a slave society based on white supremacy.
It seems to me that to interpret this battle along these lines forces us to look beyond the war entirely. If the Crater is to be understood as a slave insurrection than we need to better understand how white Southerners had already come to experience both the threat and fact of rebellion. Relevant events include John Brown’s failed raid, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, as well as both Gabriel’s and Denmark Vesey’s attempted insurrections. We should also not forget that news traveled far and wide throughout the western hemisphere during the antebellum period. Americans (especially slaveholders) paid careful attention to news coming out of the Caribbean and would have helped to reinforce assumptions about how best to prevent and understand slave rebellions.
While our tendency in certain circles is to address the role of slavery in Confederate ranks by noting that most soldiers did not directly own slaves it is important to remember that the maintenance of slavery in much of the South involved all white Southerners. Beyond the social structure itself, which placed all white men above black slaves and free blacks, whites played a number of important roles in the direct maintenance of slavery. The best example were the slave patrols, which were commonly made up of non-slaveowners. Such a role would have given white non-slaveowners a clear sense of their obligations not just in the maintenance of the institution, but in the protection of a broad segment of white southern society. [Can we see the ANV at the Crater functioning as a large slave patrol?] Again, it is important to remember that the ANV was protecting a civilian population in Petersburg throughout the campaign; these men would have interacted with civilians as they were rotated in and out of the earthworks.
For Confederates and white Southerners their understanding of the motivation of USCTs would have been framed by long-standing assumptions about black inferiority as well as the perceived role of abolitionists in stirring up what many believed to be loyal and docile servants. Once again, a broader “Atlantic World” perspective is helpful. One of the most influential accounts of slave rebellion was Bryan Edwards’s Historical Survey of the French Colony of St. Domingo. Edwards was a West Indian planter, Member of Parliament, and historian and was located in Jamaica when the rebellion in Saint-Domingue broke out. Edwards’s account placed the blame for the insurrection squarely on the French abolitionists and by doing so set the stage for understanding South Carolina’s attempt to ban abolitionist literature during the tariff crisis and how slaveowners explained Nat Turner’s Rebellion, which followed closely on the heels of the first issue of William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator (January 1831). White Virginians worked desperately to frame an explanation that placed blame on outside forces rather than their own slave population, which they believed to be content. The failed attempt at Harper’s Ferry arguably confirmed the worst fears of white southerners regarding the ultimate goals of northern agitators.
Confederate letters and diaries from the Crater confirm this long-standing tendency to blame abolitionists and other instigators rather than acknowledge any desire for freedom on the part of the slaves themselves. Many believed that black soldiers were drunk and cajoled by conniving northern politicians and ruthless abolitionist officers. Sources also indicate that Confederates viewed white Union soldiers as well as officers in USCT units as willing accomplices. Some Union officers ripped their rank and unit identifications from their uniforms for fear of being treated as leading a slave rebellion.
One of the most obvious ways in which the thinking about slave rebellions can prove helpful is in reference to the post-battle slaughter of captured black soldiers. According to historian Bryce Suderow, captured black soldiers were executed on three separate occasions, the largest number occurring after the battle. The exact number is difficult to nail down, but it is not a stretch to suggest that anywhere between 200 – 300+ USCTs were executed. I’ve tended to explain this mass execution as a function of Confederate rage at having to engage blacks in close fighting. No doubt this is true, but we should not ignore the catalyst for that rage that extends beyond the battlefield. An 1816 rebellion on the island of Barbados resulted in the execution of roughly 200 slaves and in Demerera (1823) another 200 slaves were executed following a failed rebellion. Interestingly, roughly 200 slaves were either publicly tortured or executed following Turner’s Rebellion in 1831. Such violent responses served a number of purposes, most notably it sent a strong message to the slave community of who was in control, that such behavior would not be tolerated, and that such actions had no hope of succeeding. A direct and brutal response would also work to drain any remaining enthusiasm for rebellion. If we apply this framework to the Crater we can move beyond the mere fact of rage and better discern the intended consequences of the scale of the violence meted out to black soldiers. It is important to note that these men were responsible for the defense of a civilian population and any remaining slaves in the area. A strong message would have been sent to the region’s (and beyond) black population that any attempt in following in the footsteps of these soldiers would be dealt with in the harshest of terms.
And this brings us finally to the interracial parade of Union prisoners through the streets of Petersburg the day after the battle. First and foremost, the parade – ordered by A.P. Hill – represented control and submissiveness to the residents who lined the streets and verandas “in holiday attire.” What I mean to suggest is that the army demonstrated its ability to continue to defend the residents of the city from the Union army as well as captured black soldier. Once through the city most of the prisoners were sent to prison camps further south while some of the black prisoners ended up being returned to slavery. While the interspersing of Union prisoners served to humiliate white soldiers it also worked as a gentle reminder of just what was at stake given the introduction of black soldiers into the Union army. The parade was a controlled example of miscegenation and it was acknowledged as such by local residents. One onlooker yelled, “See the white and nigger equality soldiers”, while another asserted, “Yanks and niggers sleep in the same bed.” This latter comment is quite telling. How much of a jump is it from seeing white men forced into close proximity with blacks to imagining some of the worst case scenarios following a successful slave rebellion? Of course, there is death, but there is also the long-standing fear of white women being raped by “savage” blacks.
I should point out that I am not suggesting that Confederates who took part in the battle or even most white Southerners who read about the battle second hand thought of it as a slave rebellion or had visions of Nat Turner and John Brown in mind. What I am suggesting, however, is that over time white Southerners had become attunded to seeing their slave society in a way that was reinforced by a a concern for its continued maintenance and a clear record of what happens when that hierarchical structure is threatened. Understanding the Crater as a slave rebellion offers a number of interpretive entry points into the experiences of Confederate soldiers that I hope to explore in more detail in the coming weeks. It also connects our understanding of the Civil War to the broader “Atlantic World” and reinforces my suspicion that at least one Civil War battlefield has something in common with the battlefields of Barbados, Haiti, Demerera, Southampton and Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
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