The Free State of Southwest Virginia

Hattaway and Beringer mention The Free State of Southwest Virginia in their Jefferson Davis book but I can find no trace of it on the WWW or elsewhere.

This site would have provided a natural home for it ... but no mention.

Civil War memes in Zamoyski's Napoleon, A Life

I was startled by the number of Civil War history memes found in Adam Zamoyski's Napoleon, A Life.

Marches
Recall a topic as trivial as the length and duration of a military march. Short marches infuriate Civil War authors, yet,

The Austrian Army operated like a machine, observing tested routines such as only marching for six hours in twenty-four.

Six hours in 24? In their marching, the armies of North and South outdid Bonaparte's professional nemesis time and again.

Cultivating the troops
Historians' accounts of soldiers' love for their Civil War generals feature McClellan and Joe Johnston. More ink is spilled on McClellan's techniques than Johnston's but both resonate here:

His treatment of the troops under his command had been designed from the start not only to make them more effective as fighting men, but also to turn them into *his* men.

He had developed a gift for talking to the men as equals.

While he tightened discipline, he took care to flatter the soldiers' self-esteem, making throwaway statements such as "With 20,000 men like that one could conquer Europe!" He described their feats of arms in superlative terms in his proclamations.

A mixture of growing self-confidence and the urge to earn praise fed their eagerness to live up to their expectations of them.

Political relations
One Zamoyski's threads concerns Napoleon's flattery of the Directorate. In our sphere, McClellan is best known for his private disdain for his political masters. But note that

He [Napoleon] had experienced a great deal over the past year, and had learned much about himself and others, about war, politics and human affairs in general. Most of it ... had lowered his opinion of human nature.

Historians give McClellan pride of place for antagonism towards an entire government and Joe Johnston gets a runner up spot for his antagonism towards a president. Yet historians tend to overlook McClellan's efforts to cultivate his political masters just as they cast a veil over Robert E. Lee's relations with Jefferson, whitewashing these as "close" or "ideal" instead of sycophantic. (Seek out all the flattery in Lee's communications to take your own measure.)

Meanwhile, if Grant seems apolitical, read Simpson's Let Us Have Peace. See also Meade's letter to his wife gloating that neither he nor Grant voted in the 1864 presidential election. That looks apolitical but shows disdain for both Lincoln and the Democratic ticket.

Complaints about supplies and support
The ACW historian often credits Southern supply shortages while disputing Northern claims of such from McClellan, Buell, Rosecrans, etc.

Bonaparte's despatches to the directory were no less hyperbolic. [...] At the same time he stressed his lack of equipment ... To Carnot he expressed his "despair, I could almost say my rage" at not having the tools with which to do the job...

Throne or scaffold
Zamoyski gives us a thought that sums up the fate of outsize military figures.

... one of the army victuallers ... wrote to a friend that he could see "no end for him [Napoleon] other than the throne of the scaffold."

In Civil War history, only three men made it to this crossroads: McClellan (scaffold), Grant (throne) and Lee (scaffold).

The new revolutionary war

With the fall of Richmond, Jefferson Davis proposed to carry on the war in the style of the American revolution.

This is as much as we get from those historians who write past Appomattox and it leaves much to the imagination. The clarifying explanations are in the record, however.

As early as the fall of Vicksburg, Davis wrote to BG Reuben Davis (emphasis added):

I hoped that the popular confidence in Genl. Johnston would have given him large reinforcements by the uprising of the people. Why was it not so? [...] Let every man who can bear arms rush to the rescue. Regard the army as a nucleus, not as the force on which the country depends solely for defense.

Very helpful text and no great burden on the reader's comprehension, considering the light it sheds on this topic.

It seems a peculiar ask of Johnston, though, to have him organize a mass uprising. IIRC, he and Beauregard, with "large reinforcments" of  Virginia militia at their disposal, had them dig trenches at Centreville. This particular "armed uprising of the people" finished Bull Run as laboring bystanders.

It also seems odd that Davis, whose government by 1863 relentlessly drafted state-enrolled militiamen, could envision any armed uprising of the populace. What people, with what arms? The design of the CSA war machine made this impossible.

That tiny residue of militia husbanded by Gov. Joe Brown against the depredations of Davis' government gave good service against Sherman's march and a glimpse into a potential revolutionary war that might have survived April 1865 had the Confederate military been organized on a completely different basis.

[Quote from Jefferson Davis, Confederate President by Hattaway and Beringer]

When history repeats itself

Mr. Lincoln's Army, Catton, 1951

Mr. Lincoln's Navy, West 1957

Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy, Ringle, 1998

Mr. Lincoln's Brown Water Navy, Joiner 2007

"Mr. Lincoln's Navy," National Museum of the American Sailor 2019

Francis Preston Blair (Sr.) remains history-proof

At that time at which Fremont is relieved, and later when McClellan must be restored, there appears in Civil War military histories a shadowy advisor to the president named Francis Preston Blair, sometimes styled "senior."

He is introduced, if at all, as a former confidant of  Andrew Jackson. To military historians, politics is so marginal, so irrelevant to their narratives of personal achievement and earned rewards, that only to them can this equation make sense: Anti-Whig Jackson + Super Whig Lincoln = Special Advisor F.P. Blair, Sr.

Deep readers are baffled by such nonsense. We have wondered, since the Centennial, what a Jackson stalwart was doing in Lincoln's confidence (and vice versa). The answers are easy to access but seem to be unknown even to political and general writers.

Look at this.

Doris K. Goodwin, in Team of Rivals, makes many references to Blair.

* He "prophesies" Edward Bates winning the 1860 election
* He gives a speech for Bates
* He recommends his son for postmaster general
* Lincoln "liked" him
* He advised Lincoln on the Sumter crisis
* His family supports McClellan as commander
* He dissuades McClellan from sending a letter of protest after relief
* His family defends a Maryland man in a controversy
* Lincoln keeps his door open to "the Blairs."
* Lincoln accepts a message from him
* He comments on Chase resigning from the Cabinet
* He conveys son Montgomery's offer of resignation from the cabinet
* He has "never been turned away" from "private audience" with Lincoln
* He seeks a new post for his son
* He meets Chase after Lincoln's death

At no point do we learn who he is or why he has access to Lincoln. Goodwin does not seem to know that Edward Bates was Blair's checkmate to the Seward nomination, making Lincoln's presidency possible. She seems not to know that Blair had two cabinet members, both Montgomery and Edward Bates. She neglects much more.

James McPherson, in Battle Cry of Freedom, makes only a few references to Blair.

* He is a Republican leader (undefined)
* Bates versus Seward in 1860 is a Francis P. Blair plot
* "The Blairs" were "border state tycoons"
* The Early raid on DC damaged Blair homes
* Late war peace negotiations were an intrigue by this "old Jacksonian"

And that's it. We don't even have him conferring with Lincoln, although we now know he is some kind of Republican, that Seward is his foe and that Bates is his puppet. This is good but wasted by underdevelopment. The reference to tycoon is important, more on which below.

Reading between McPherson's lines, one could surmise that the "team of rivals" represented a split into two Republican factions, "the Blairs" and Weed-Sewards.

David Donald in Lincoln provides the least information.

* Blair was an "associate" of Lincoln
* He "forced his way into Lincoln's office" during Sumter
* Lincoln relied on "the Blairs" for "guidance" on Missouri politics
* He favored deportation of blacks
* He favored McClellan
* He favored son Montgomery's plan to remake the cabinet
* He was involved in the dismissal of Montgomery from the cabinet
* He was a "loyal conservative advisor"

Anyone reading this has the right to wonder if Donald knew anything at all about the senior Blair. However the reference to being an "associate of Lincoln" is important.

Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, A Life:

* Blair commented on the formation of the 1860 cabinet
* Lincoln used him to offer R.E. Lee command of the Union Army
* "The Blairs" backed Fremont's Missouri command
* "The Blairs" promoted colonization schemes
* Quotes correspondence of F.P. Blair
* Refers to Blair support of Lincoln in 1864
* Involved in Montgomery's resignation
* Urges Montgomery's appointment to office

If we took all these snippets together, we would have the beginning of a rationale for why Blair might have had continuous access to Lincoln. For my part, I assumed him for many years to merely be the "family spokesman" for brothers who were key politicos in Missouri and Maryland, this despite the demerit of himself having been a Jacksonian.

Francis P. Blair, along with his "associates" Lincoln, and Weed-Seward, founded the Republican Party at the national level. He (and Weed-Seward) competed to fund races nationwide and build the party from early days, Blair using his "tycoon" funds. Blair chaired the first Republican convention. He engineered Fremont's presidential nomination in 1856. In the second national convention, he engineered Seward's defeat which created Lincoln's opportunity.

Until 1864, who could tell whether Blair or Weed-Seward would come out on top in the national Republican Party? Lincoln kept both factions close.

Blair's end is marked by Montgomery's failed cabinet reorganization plan. His father would have become a special advisor to the president, such as to be a virtual "dictator." He aspired to be the head of government, a role that Seward attempted to secure in 1861 and likewise failed.

And in the nominating process of 1864, the key role of Francis P. Blair is superseded.

Expect Civil War history to continue to spare you such useless and painful minutiae.

(This post reworks elements found here.)

A new year revelation

The New York Times list of top Civil War books may be the saddest thing you ever read but this can make you sad as well.

Pop history is an impersonator, roaming the room soused, boasting its history credentials, breathing its cheap sensibilities into your face, offering nothing but the drunk's stock-in-trade of nostalgia, stories, emotions, drama and "life lessons." You finish whatever show/book/podcast recalling the smell of puke.

Good news: I'm growing wiser. I used to hold Civil war history in unique contempt but have learned that pop history is all bad, everywhere, and at all times.

I won't be as hard on our wretched ACW books any more. Perspective at last.

Happy New Year

Much to share in 2019. Humble request, however. If you are not subscribed to this blog, please stop accessing it.

Thanks!