Sherman by Uhl

Went to the Army and Navy Club last week to buy the redesigned club tie, eat a good lunch, and take some decent digital pictures of Civil War generals' portraits. Collected a bunch of trash instead, by virtue of having used a camera phone and shaky hand. Will return with a proper digital camera for a redo. The image above is one of the "better" ones (but I must retake it).

My sense is that these celebs were members who sat for portraits, which is why they are hanging on the Club's walls. That would explain their ages as the Club was founded in 1885.

The portrait you're viewing, in all its awful reporduction is listed by the National Gallery as an Uhl sitting. I have never seen this image in any other context than the painting itself, which I hope makes it special for you too.

Break's over

Odd to get 509 hits in one day after no new post in weeks. Well, here we are again.

Another plagiarism scandal ...

Another research assistant is blamed. Suggestion: write your own stuff or hire a better quality of research assistant.

(A reader tip: thanks!)

Alternative paradigm

Speaking of 1862 in the East, Eric T. Dean writes:

...there was not yet an alternative paradigm such as Grant's method of fighting a series of inconclusive battles... - "We live under a government of men and morning newspapers," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 103.1 (Jan 1995)

Neither is there any sense among historians of the cost paid to get a largely Republican newspaper readership to accept the "alternative paradigm" as sufficient and acceptable.

Unconscious paradigm substitution (as an enabler of harsh moral judgements) is another signal failing of Civil War history. We might think of it as a late war/early war double standard, but double standards are simpler things than paradigm substitutions.