Links page update coming

First thank you to everyone that has sent me links to their Civil War website. I have been waiting to have several to add, which is why I have not updated the page yet. In addition, with my folks having been here since Wednesday, I have not had much time to focus on the site for this week. Rest assured, I will get your links up soon.

 

Does the music make the movie?

I was just listening to bits of one of my favorite movie soundtracks, The Last of the Mohicans and it got me thinking about some Civil War films and series with great soundtracks. We all are likely familiar with the music from Gettysburg, Glory, and North and South, but all this begs the question: does the music make the movie? I believe that it does in a sense. While all three examples of Civil War movie making are known for their cinematography, I also feel that the beauty of their scores sets them apart and helps build the scenes.

Who can forget the rising crescendo of the score in Gettysburg as the men involved in Pickett’s Charge are marching across the field, with the cameras panning across the long line of Confederate soldiers? Or the climactic ending of the music from Glory when the men of the Fifty-fourth have just lost Col. Shaw and charge into Fort Wagner only to meet Southern cannon? The theme from North and South was used to set many a scene in the series, including the parting of friends before the war. Music is a powerful force in movies and Civil War movies are no exception.

With that in mind, I pose the question to you, what other Civil War movies have good soundtracks?

 

General Lee, United States Army?

We’re just getting to the Civil War period in the class that I am serving as a TA. The professor I work for raised an interesting question diving into the realm of counter factual history. What if Robert E. Lee had accepted Lincoln’s offer and commanded Union forces? This automatically raises the question about the outcome of the war. I argue that had Lee taken the offer, the war would have been much shorter, and Grant would not have had his meteoric rise. The Union would have one very quickly, if not outright at Bull Run. Lee, as history has shown, was a skilled officer and countless times demonstrated his ability to the chagrin of Union commanders.

Let’s start in 1861. Lee has accepted command of Union forces. He commands an army of 75,000 volunteers all in or near Washington. I would say that Lee would have moved decisively against the enemy. For the sake of this hypothetical story, I will let Bull Run occur the way it actually happened. The Peninsula Campaign would have actually succeeded, as Lee would have used the Army of the Potomac, unlike McClellan. While the capture of Richmond would have had the same result on the Confederacy as the capture of Philadelphia did during the American Revolution, Lee would still have much of the Confederate army in the East on the run, as well as the government.

I will leave the Western Theater alone to occur as it happened, as its importance to the overall war would be diminished with Lee commanding in the East. The Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville would have been substantial Union victories and would have shattered the will of the Confederacy to fight on. Much of the success of the Confederate army lay in the character of Lee and his leadership abilities. Combine those attributes with the advantages the Union had in terms of manufacturing and sheer numbers and Lee’s Union army would have been a very difficult foe to defeat.

Now this is not to say that the Confederates would stand no chance in such a situation, as they did have some able generals besides Lee. If Lee were in command of Union forces, there are many likely possibilities for commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, like Jackson, Longstreet, Joe Johnston, and Beauregard. Any of these men would have been a worthy opponent for Lee, but I again return to Lee’s abilities, the manpower advantage of the Union, and the manufacturing capabilities of the Union, which would have overwhelmed any of the four.

I will claim that the war, with Lee commanding the Union Army, would have been over by late 1862 or early 1863. Grant would have ended up an irrelevant officer in the West, perhaps at Major General, but would not have had the opportunity to rise as far as he actually did. While Grant may one day rise to the presidency in this hypothetical scenario, I doubt it would have been as assured. I will say that given Lee’s views on secession, the 1864 election may have been quite interesting, as with the war won, Lincoln would stand a chance to win re-election, and Lee, as victor over the enemy would be a logical choice for Vice President on a reconciliation ticket. The ticket wins and Lincoln and Lee usher in the desired Reconstruction that Lincoln intended. After this, who knows?

One thing is certain, we will never know how things would have turned out with Lee commanding the Union army, but that does not mean we can not speculate as to what may have happened. Overall, I submit that the war would have been shorter and less costly than it actually was, that Grant would not have risen to national prominence, as he was overshadowed by the equally successful Lee in the East, and, that Reconstruction would have gone much differently, especially under a reconciliation ticket of Lincoln and Lee.

I have set up my scenario, now it is your turn. Let me know where I may be wrong, or submit your own scenario of Lee taking Lincoln’s offer in the comment section.

 

Send me your links

I am looking to update my Links page and hope to include more sites than those I already have, so please send me your Civil War website link and I will happily include it. I also hope that you will consider linking my site to yours as well. You can use the comment feature to leave the name, URL, and a brief description of your site. Thanks for your help.

 

A sad anniversary

April 14, 2008 marked the 143rd anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and today, April 15 marks the anniversary of his death. His death was one of the final tragedies of a nation that suffered through the Civil War. His death also provided counter factual history with a tantalizing case. Given the different views regarding Reconstruction between Lincoln and Johnson, one only wonders how our history would be different had Lincoln led the nation through Reconstruction, but I will let other folks debate that story. With next year marking the bicentennial of his birth and the sesquicentennial of the war beginning in 2011, the date of his assassination and death will become even more significant. Having visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois, I have passed by the reproduced scene of his coffin lying in state and it is quite a moving thing to see. So, as a fellow Illinois resident, I say Rest in Peace, Mr. Lincoln, you are not forgotten.

 

The state of Civil War visitor centers

With a new visitor center opening at Gettysburt, which is reported in a nice article in the Washington Post, an interesting question is raised about the state of visitor centers at our nation’s Civil War battlefields. Having visited several sites over the years, including Gettysburg, I have to say that I am quite happy when knew facilities open. I look forward to someday visiting the new center at Gettysburg, as the old center showed its age and while it was interesting, I feel that the new site will make visits to the park more pleasant. Several battlefields do not have interpretive centers, as they are close to other battlefields that have a central interpretive center. Others have centers that I feel are lacking.

I rate museums on three criteria: collection/displays, video, and bookstore. One of the better centers is at Vicksburg, as it is a fairly large site and has a separate center for the USS Cairo gunboat, which was salvaged from the Yazoo River and is housed at Vicksburg, which gives it a great collection and display. The site’s video is dated, but acceptable. Vicksburg is slightly lacking in its bookstore, as I prefer sites to have books relating to the battle and events surrounding it.

Bookstores and videos are the most common issues with many sites, as the videos are often dated productions of the NPS from the 1950s-1970s, with a few adapting more recent videos. Many site bookstores are lacking in books, choosing to offer many more trinkets than books. In addition, many site stores suffer from the recent federal government desires to place the battle in the larger context of the war, and the war in the larger context of society. The result is too many books devoted to subjects unrelated to the battle. While I think that there should be a few titles on the overall Civil War at all sites (Shelby Foote, etc.), more space in the stores needs to be for books related to the battle covered by the site, as well as biographies of the major players.

Sites that are somewhat lacking in terms of a visitor center are Shiloh and Chancellorsville. Both sites have videos that are quite dated and have too small collections and displays in their museums. While the real point of visiting the battlefields is to view the grounds, the center provides a first impression of the site, especially to those not familiar with the war. Both sites can be greatly improved by having larger centers with a larger museum, more up to date video, and a larger bookstore.

One issue raised by the new center at Gettysburg surrounds the private funding of the center. There are some who believe that such funding is problematic and that the government should fund the site given its importance to our history. I see that point, but also believe that funding from individuals and companies committed to historic preservation and education is essential to making sites truly great. Private funding allows for larger and better sites to interpret the battle for visitors. Such funding allows for larger museum collections and better battlefield preservation. I say that private funding should be encouraged for constructing centers on battlefield parks, and that the NPS funding should be used for research and staff pay, as it would allow such sites to provide the best education and to hire the best-trained staff to greet visitors.

I hope that the new center at Gettysburg will motivate the National Park Service to build new centers at other sites and enhance Civil War education. I encourage people to write their representatives and other government officials and to express your desire to see more funding for Civil War battlefields for center improvement. To all who work and volunteer at historic sites, thank you for your hard work. Having done such work, I can say that you are more important than the visitor center building.

 

Thesis coming to an end and more

I will soon be able to breathe a slight sigh of relief, as I will present the revised draft of my thesis to my committee and seek their approval so that I can graduate. This semester has been busy and rewarding, but I will be happy to take a break from writing such a large paper again for a couple more years. I am waiting to hear about admission to the Ph.D. program here at North Dakota, but am confident. With that said, I would like to turn my attention to this blog and you, my faithful readers. I want to thank you for all your support, as I feel that this blog is successful. However, I feel that this blog can be and do more, especially in increasing readership. This is where you, the reader, come in. I would like to ask you to encourage friends and colleagues to visit this site to increase the audience of my site. I would also like to know what things I can do differently to improve this site and increase readership. I know the one area is that I can post more often, but with being so busy with graduate school, this will be difficult. I do have several book reviews to get to soon and will post them as soon as I can, but want to know what more you would like to see.

Here’s how you can help:

1. Use the contact page at the top and let me know how I can improve the site.

2. I am always looking for writers, so if you want a shot at writing, please create a free WordPress account and let me know.

3. For teachers, I am willing to create a way for you to use my site for your students to learn about the war and ask me questions on the war, as well as opportunities to write for this site. If this is something that would interest you, please let me know.

Again, thank you to everyone for your support of my blog. I look forward to continuing writing for you.

 

Ambrose Bierce: The Civil War’s Stephen King?

If any of you are into the horror genre, then you may want to consider reading the stories written by Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. I own a published collection of his stories and have read several of them. They are quite disturbing in their graphic details and edgy plots. According to the book, many of the stories were influenced by Bierce’s service in the war with the Ninth Indiana Infantry. Bierce’s short stories were some of the best literature of the nineteenth century and were but one part of a larger career in writing and journalism. Bierce reportedly served briefly with Pancho Villa’s army in 1913 and then mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. The power and horror of many of his stories make him comparable to Stephen King, as while they are not as long as King’s works, they were as popular at the time as King’s works have been lately.

Three stories have stuck in my mind for years. One story, titled “Chickamauga”, involves a little boy about six years old that runs off to play. The boy runs too far and cries himself to sleep in the woods. He then wakes up and witnesses several wounded soldiers walking and crawling along, and he proceeds to ride one man who had his lower jaw shot off like a horse. The boy begins to think of this all like a game and pretends to be a soldier leading the men on. The boy then comes up to his house, finding it burned to the ground and his parents both killed, including his mother having part of her head blown off by a shell. The boy begins to cry and make an unintelligible sound. It is only at the second to last line that the reader realizes how a boy could have slept through the Battle of Chickamauga, as Bierce provides the important detail about the boy, that he was a deaf mute.

The second story is one titled  “A Horseman in the Sky” and it is equally as chilling. The protagonist, Carter Druse of Virginia, joins the Union army and is somewhat rebuffed by his father. Druse is part of a unit in a hidden encampment and is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to shoot a Confederate cavalryman. He remembered his father’s words to do his duty and fired. The ending is as cryptic as “Chickamauga”, as a sergeant orders Druse to report who he killed, to which Carter replies that he killed his own father.

The final story that has stuck with me was “Two Military Executions”, which deals with revenge from beyond the grave. Private Bennett Greene, of Gen. Buell’s army, was executed for striking an officer, which he knew from back home. The execution was carried out with the officer in question feeling guilty. Eventually, the company is traveling along to assist Grant’s army, when it is stopped by the weather. The company commander decides to take roll and has the first sergeant do so, as the sergeant remembers the soldiers’ names. When he arrives at G, he calls out Greene’s name, which receives a response of “here” by Greene’s voice, even though Greene is dead. The captain can not believe it either and has Greene’s name called out twice more with the same results, Greene responding “here”. Suddenly, a shot rings out and appears to hit something and the captain asks what it is about, at which time, the officer that Greene struck, resulting in his execution comes forward, opens his coat, and reveals a bullet wound to the chest. The officer promptly dies and Greene’s name is never responded to again.

Overall, Bierce’s writings are very depressing stuff. As mentioned last week, two of the historical schools of thought on Civil War soldiers revolve around soldiers becoming disillusioned with the war and the ideals that initially motivated them to enlist. Bierce certainly conveys a disillusionment with the war through his writings, but how much of the horror and emotion is related to a head wound that he suffered is not certain. What is certain is that his writings are dark, cynical and would fit nicely into the Gerald Linderman school of thought on Civil War soldiers. If you can stomach gory details and a bit of the paranormal, I would recommend reading a little bit of Ambrose Bierce, as it is some truly amazing writing.

 

A great tribute to Gen. Grant and The Civil War according to Playmobil

Civil Warriors posted a great video link to the classic Looney Tunes cartoon “Southern Fried Rabbit” featuring Bugs Bunny facing a Confederate Yosemite Sam, which is located here. I decided to see what great stuff has been added to Youtube lately and found the following videos. The first one is an awesome tribute to Gen. Grant that will make any Union man proud and is set to “Battle Cry of Freedom” (being from Illinois, I found it riveting and almost sang along). The other is a creative video featuring Playmobil toys set to the war, posed, and with effects that make the images look period. I recommend watching the Playmobil video first to get a good laugh, then the Grant tribute to rouse your spirits.

Here is the Grant tribute:

Here is the Playmobil Civil War video (more of the videos can be found here):

 

The Historiography of Civil War soldiers

I thought I would take a brief break from my thesis work this evening to talk about what I have observed as I stumble through the historiography of Civil War soldiers that is part of my thesis. There are many great works on soldiers written in the last sixty years that form an overall historiography of soldiers. Some of these works include:

The Life of Johnny Reb (1943) by Bell Irvin Wiley
The Life of Billy Yank (1952) by Bell Irvin Wiley
Embattled Courage (1987) by Gerald Linderman
Civil War Soldiers (198 by Reid Mitchell
To Appomattox and Beyond (1996) by Larry Logue
For Cause and Comrades (1997) by James McPherson

According to Steven Woodworth’s The Loyal, True, and Brave: America’s Civil War Soldiers (2002), there are three distinct schools of thought in the literature on Civil War soldiers. The first was established by Bell Wiley’s generation and looked at “the humanness” of the soldier, focusing on the ordinary aspects of the soldier and did not stress the heroics (Woodworth, xi). After this period, the scholarship split into two camps. One camp is characterized by Linderman’s Embattled Courage (1987) and sees soldiers as victims the social forces that acted upon them. This school revolved around the growth of disillusionment among soldiers by mid-war (Woodworth, xi-xii). The other school is represented by James McPherson and Earl Hess stresses the ability of soldiers to persevere and overcome the bleak attributes of war that Linderman argued disillusioned the soldiers. In addition, this school of thought stresses the importance of the soldier’s story (Woodworth, xii).

Now you are probably asking, Dan, where do you fit in in all this? My thesis focuses on camps of instruction in Illinois and the camps’ effects on the soldiers and communities in Illinois. I am stressing the importance of the camps as part of the transition process from civilian to soldier. Most scholars that I have looked at in trying to discover the historiography tend to focus on the soldier while in the field, in battle and between. The period of initial training that occurred in the camps is largely overlooked, except for mere description. Scholars on soldiers, I argue are not looking at the transition from civilian to soldier, but the transition from soldier to veteran. There may be many reasons for this, from lack of interest since it is before the battles and lacks the attention-grabbing qualities of battle, to lack of understanding, as most people that I mention the concept of camps of instruction to do not know what they were, which is sad. To understand an army, one must understand the training process that creates a soldier, as without that training, the army is nothing more than an armed mob.

As for which school I find myself in, I do not like to be pigeon-holed into one area (this includes research areas, as I am curious about many things), but I come down on a mixture of the Wiley school and McPherson/Hess. The ordinary descriptive nature of Wiley appeals to me, as does the perseverance angle put forward by McPherson/Hess. I believe that the soldiers’ heroics should be stressed and that their story must be told. I hope that more scholars will focus on the training period of soldier in the Civil War, but not before I have finished my work, as I do have to finish my thesis and ultimately write my dissertation. If any scholars studying soldiers know of any other schools that I have missed, I would love to know, so that I can include them here.