Most obscure ACW reference on TV

The family and I were watching Maverick tonight when in "The Savage Hills," Bart Maverick mentioned that he and Bret Maverick had been "Galvanized Yankees."

I gasped. Wouldn't you?

Wife asked why.

"Most esoteric Civil War reference I have ever heard of in mass media," I said.

Would you agree? Can you imagine a print media reference to Galvanized Yankees?

I'd like to thank the television industry of 1957 for a personally gratifying "wow" factor.

Double trouble

From HNN's "What they're famous for" department -

Kenneth Milton Stampp "is a celebrated historian of slavery, the American Civil War, and Reconstruction. He was arguably the most influential historian in his field working in the post-World War II era, and is the dean of historians of the Civil War era."

James M. McPherson is "America's leading historian of the Civil War..."

Somebody call an editor.

Whitman's "hunger for stardom"

"He was willing to stretch the truth to get the publicity."

"The major reason Whitman became a celebrity later in life was that he started to exaggerate how neglected he was by the American public ..."

He was a pioneer in "the Culture of American Celebrity."

Lincoln as Radical

Hanns Trefousse (The Radical Republicans: Lincoln's Vanguard for Racial Justice) long argued (admiringly) that Lincoln was neither conservative nor moderate - that he was a Radical dissimulator who used and misled men like Seward, McClellan, and others.

Here comes a new book:

Richard Striner takes deadly aim at some of the more vicious myths that have become almost axiomatically accepted in many circles concerning the outlook of President Abraham Lincoln: that Lincoln was a "moderate" and a "pragmatist" on the issue of slavery eradication; and that Lincoln was more concerned about saving the Union than abolishing slavery, and would have maintained the latter to keep the former.

The reviewer outlines a controversy:

Striner acknowledges his debt to authors Henry Jaffa, William Miller, LaWanda Cox, and James McPherson, who recently published works debunking some of the Lincoln myths; he also refutes recent detractors including David Herbert Donald, TV journalist Ken Burns, historian Barbara Fields, Gore Vidal, Lerone Bennett, Jr., and others.

Meanwhile, in the public arena, James McPherson seems to be intervening in the national policy arena. The current Administration argues a "Lincoln-based defense" of its war powers interpretation. McPherson credits Lincoln with "inventing" war powers.

Renowned Civil War historian James McPherson will deliver a lecture titled "Abraham Lincoln's Invention of Presidential War Powers" ...

Not that that's a bad thing. But more heartache for Lincoln venerators?

(Rick Beard, speak to us! Allay our concerns!)

Detecting blood from the Civil War

You need a blue light.

"Conditions" for commanding the AOP: part 4/4

We come to the question, after three posts, of what this business of "conditions" means. We have heard from Alfred Waud, Fitz John Porter, and Alfred Pleasanton.

McClellan has something relevant to say as well. In a memo drafted December 29 of 1881 located with the McClellan Papers at the Library of Congress he notes that before his spell of typhoid in late 1861,

... no party had been openly formed against me. [But] The Radicals had by this time become convinced that I was not to be used by themselves as a tool; they saw that my object was to restore the Union - while their's was the reverse...

"The reverse" alludes to the "conditions" heard by Waud and Pleasanton and heard of by Porter - conditions in which Senator Ben Wade (right) figured.

Congressional radical George Julian, writing after the war, remembered Wade as taking the position that McClellan was prolonging the war to the benefit of the Democratic Party - that Democrats might be recalled to power to make peace with the South. The thought appears in T. Harry Williams' Lincoln and the Radicals and I don't have Julian's exact wording.

At first glance, this might seem to repudiate the "conditions" we have been discussing. I don't think it does. "Prolonging the war" - if those were the exact terms - could mean major delays in "shattering the South." Certainly it means endangering emancipation and Lincoln's re-election. To quote Plesanton via Kelly:

The terms offered were these: The war must not be ended until the South was crushed. Slavery abolished. And the President reelected.

Slowness pertains to the speed at which the South is crushed and the conditions for emancipation are set up. McClellan and others could rightly feel - as a major portion of the electorate felt - that the Republicans were in no hurry to end a war that was a major asset to party building. Julian and Wade could wish for a different kind of slowness, a succession of battles embittering both sides, grinding down the South, and providing a steady stream of victories sufficient to win mid-terms and presidential elections for a reunion in due time.

Waud's recollection contradicts Julian's. In Waud's, Radicals think McClellan is moving too fast. And they don't want him positioned (via success) for the presidency. In Julian's, the Radicals again are represented as feeling he is moving too slow. But that slowness accusation hides a world of meaning.

What of Pleasanton's recollection?

Well, we know of Sen. Chandler's interactions with Heintzelman during McClellan's typhoid episode - they were of a sort such that Heintzelman could feel he had been offered command. Two years later (or more) we have Pleasonton feeling the same way after time spent with Wade.

What strikes the modern reader as odd is that someone could take seriously the offer of a senator in this. It would be a presidential matter. But we have to credit Heintzelman and Pleasanton. They knew how the government ran and they were not fools. This leaves us with a series of questions:

Was Wade freelancing when he interviewed Pleasanton for command of the AoP?

Or was he a cutout for Lincoln?

Were the "conditions" inferred by Pleasanton or stated by Wade?

Did Pleasanton talk up the "conditions" such that they became legend even to such unfriendly ears as Porter's?

More questions than answers, I am afraid. What I am sure of is this: honest men believed in the conditions; dishonest men (writers and historians) have suppressed this part - and many other parts - of the Democratic case against the Republican management of the Civil War.

Rick Beard: the mystery continues

The story so far:

* On October 4, the governor of Illinois names an international man of mystery, "Rick Beard," to head the Lincoln museum/library complex. The announcement contained no hint that this may have an effective future date. It appeared to be for October 4 onward.

* After October 4, this so-called "Rick Beard" made no announcements, granted no interviews, and his "name" was omitted from publicity coming from the library/museum.

* A new announcement makes reference to "interim executive director" Thomas Schwartz ... almost two months after "Beard's" appointment.

Bulletin from Google News: Your search - "rick beard" lincoln museum - did not match any documents.

Hmmm.

Good-bye, Fort Jefferson

They lived in a Civil War penal colony for the last 12 years.

"Conditions" for commanding the AOP: part 3/4

Note: I make no claims for the "conditions" described in this series of posts.

Sculptor James E. Kelly (1855-1933) first visited Alfred Pleasanton on July 25, 1895. It is during his second visit with the general, undated, that the offer of command of the Army of the Potomac comes up. Kelly records the conversation this way (from Generals in Bronze):

Pleasanton: I was offered command of the Army of the Potomac.

Kelly: Why didn't you take it?

Pleasanton: I wasn't like Grant. I refused to pay the price.

Kelly: Why, what was the price?

Pleasanton: The terms offered were these: The war must not be ended until the South was crushed. Slavery abolished. And the President reelected.

In the course or reminiscing with Kelly, Pleasanton tells a story involving a subordinate commander he seems to have favored named James Wade.

Pleasanton encourages Wade to apply for the command of a black regiment. Wade mentions something about his father and Pleasanton asks whom that might be. It is Ben Wade.

Kelly takes the trouble to interview James Wade on March 21, 1907. Wade says of Pleasanton, "we all seemed to feel a certain awe of him." Kelly asks Wade about Pleasanton being offered command of the Army of the Potomac. Wade responds:

That time, Gen. Pleasanton took me to Washington with him; I forget the time but it was after Gettysburg. My father, Ben Wade, wanted to meet him. He was stopping at his sister's home at the time. My father was very much interested in him and his manner of talking; and they sat up nearly all night. My father proposed that he should be given command of the Army of the Potomac. Gen. Pleasanton said he was sent for to go to Washington, and asked me to go with him; I told him it was not my turn by Yates'. He said, "both of you come." Yates was in the 4th Michigan Infantry and afterwards in the 7th Cavalry, and killed with Custer. So we went, but somehow or other it fell through; but it was understood at the time that Pleasanton had been offered command of the Army of the Potomac.

Kelly asks Wade the $50,000 question: "I think something was said by Pleasanton about 'paying the price.'"

Wade: "I never heard of it, but it looks as if it may be true. Now I could not prove, for lack of documentary evidence, that Gen. Pleasanton was offered that command, but I feel morally certain that it was offered to him, and it was so generally understood at the time."

In the order of his interviews, Kelly missed an opportunity to develop this subject further. Waud had told Prime, "Genl. McMahon says he had some evidence bearing on the same subject at your service." (Same subject = conditions for ending the war.) Kelly does interview General Martin McMahon (on 10/11/79) but it is long before he becomes interested in "conditions."

To recap the chronology:

+ Waud memorializes Ben Wade and company's conversation: June 16th, 1886
+ Pleasanton tells of an offer and conditions: Sometime after July 25, 1895
+ Porter tells Kelly of conditions but not an offer: early 1898?*
+ James Wade tells Kelly of offer but not conditions: March 21, 1907

The time has come for me to make a claim about the "conditions" and I will do so in the last post of this series.

* The Porter memo is not dated but we can bracket it. General David Stanley recommends Porter for a bronze on what appears to be Dec. 14 1897. In his first meeting with Porter, Kelly references this Stanley recommendation. The following Porter entry is marked by editor Styple as the summer of 1899.

"Conditions" for commanding the AOP: part 2/4

Note: I make no claims for the "conditions" described in this series of posts.

In Alfred Waud's letter to W.C. Prime, we saw the elements of what could conceivably become conditions for command of the Army of the Potomac. These elements were voiced by a group of Congressmen including Wade, Washburne, and Wilson; also present was the Radical General Cochrane. We might summarize them this way:

* The war must not end before slavery is abolished.
* The war must not end until the Southern leadership or upper class is shattered.
* The general who wins the war must share the principles of the Republican Party because he will be elected president.

Sculptor James E. Kelly (1855-1933) interviewed Fitz John Porter and part of one conversation is recorded this way in Generals in Bronze:

Kelly: I told Gen. Porter that Gen. Pleasanton told me he had been offered command of the Army of the Potomac, but had refused to pay the price, and that when I asked him what the price was ... he said that if he took command, that the war was to continue until the president was elected and some other terms which I forget, and that Grant accepted those terms.

Porter: I have heard that those terms were offered, but I do not believe that they were offered to Pleasanton.

Kelly: What were the terms? Do you recall them?

Porter: The terms were that the war should be continued till the South was crushed; slavery abolished, and the President reelected.

The significance of the "terms" originally mentioned by Pleasanton is that they appear to have come from a conversation with Ben Wade. But I'm getting ahead of myself - that is for the next post in this series.

The interesting thing here is that Porter is able to recite Pleasanton's catechism (he disparaged P, by the way) independently of Pleasanton long after Kelly spoke to the old cavalry general.

Correction: In the first post in this series I mentioned that Waud's letter has languished in obscurity. Actually, Russel Beatie discusses it in Vol. 1 of his Army of the Potomac - that post has been updated with the correction.

"Conditions" for commanding the AOP: part 1/4

Note: I make no claims for the "conditions" described in this series of posts other than that they have been excluded from Civil War history up until the present moment.

W. C. Prime organized a miscellany of the late George B. McClellan's writings for publication under the title McClellan's Own Story, a work that had him meeting and corresponding with the illustrator for that project, the famous Alfred Waud.

In a letter to Prime dated June 16th, 1886, Waud reported on the status of some drawings and then launched into an account of a subject "we spoke of." He adds, "Genl. McMahon says he had some evidence bearing on the same subject at your service."

Prime did not use the anecdote Waud provided; neither did Sears in his McClellan biography. Waud's letter appears in the McClellan Papers, Library of Congress, where it has languished in obscurity until Russel Beatie analyzed it in Volume 1 of Army of the Potomac. Here is the memo part of it, in his own spelling and punctuation.

One evening in the winter of 1861 being in the rooms of the New York Tribune at Washington in company with E. House, one of the correspondents, I found a number of members of Congress present. I did not know all of them, but I remember seeing Washburn, Wade, Wilson, Cochrane and others, in all twelve or fifteen.

In the course of the conversation it was plainly stated that it was not in the good of the interest of good statesmanship that the rebellion should be suppressed at an early date. It was agreed that the true policy of the country, and of the party, was to prolong the struggle, till the people of the North were educated, or exasperated into the point of demanding emancipation as one of the necessary results, and till the Southern power and influence should be so shattered, that the republican party would have no difficulty in retaining control of the government for many years.

It was therefore plainly necessary that no effort should be spared to get rid of McClellan, whose only idea was to make speedy end to the war, in which case he would be naturally, as a successful general, the choice of the people for president, but in no way an exponent of the dominant party. Being too popular with the citizens and the army to openly oppose, he must be assailed in other ways.

The meeting then broke up.

Savas on plagiarism (with comment)

Publisher Ted Savas, of Savas Beatie LLC, was kind enough to share a few thoughts with me on plagiarism after last week's Ruhlman/Marvel revelations. It's not a pretty picture, my friends.

As for plagiarism: I see it all the time in manuscripts, so what Carmichael is talking about I can’t say. I can often spot it in casual reading. Maybe I have a good radar for that. Goodwin got off; Ruhlman won’t.

He adds:

I have confronted several authors over the past couple of years regarding a wide variety of submissions. Some apologize (falling back on the Goodwin/Ruhlman non-defense defense), others never respond, and a few are so clueless they ask what plagiarism means!

Sounds like "some" are setting up a quibble. What is a "spotter" to do? Ted refers to an incident of two titles published by other presses.

In one, the thievery was largely corrected. In another, it was not and I alerted the press privately. I do not know the result of that notification, other than that a good seller did not go into the expected second edition.

The difference between Ted Savas and some salaryman editing for a trade or university press is that Ted is that educated reader around whom the editor function in publishing was originally organized. (This could apply to many of my readers, as well.)

Kevin Levin had asked why University of Tennesse Press did not send the Ruhlman MS to Andersonville author Marvel for comment. I have two problems with that. First, it makes new writing hostage to old reputations (more on which in a minute). Second, if you don't have the in-house expertise to evaluate a manuscript like this yourself, yours is a house of generalists susceptible not only to plagiarism but trash.

If you agree with the idea of shopping new manuscripts to the established experts, I urge you to listen to Gerald Prokopowicz interview Keith Poulter, former editor of "North & South" magazine. Poulter, like any editor, rejected a lot of work. However, there was a category of work the content of which he was not sure about. Was it revisionism? He describes a system by which he would send such submissions to subject matter experts. Gerald astutely asked how many of these got through this expert screening process. Poulter answered none. That would be zero among (IIRC) 40 such.

I know university presses routinely do this kind of review. I question the value of it. Some cases - not routine evaluations - will of course demand outside advice. Set boundaries for advisors or you will wind up a gatekeeper for your advisors' reputations.

Meanwhile I do take heart that privately contacting a thief's publisher may forestall that second edition.

New Civil War blogs

They are upon us.

J. David Petruzzi on the Ruhlman scandal: "When you explore this story through articles and links on other sites, you’ll see the comments about Ruhlman’s doctorate apparently coming from a diploma mill (the University of London) ..." This was a good laugh on me because my app to the University of London was recently rejected. I need a diploma mill with lower standards!

Jim Beeghley is "Teaching the Civil War with Technology" and has been at it since July. Sorry I missed him.

Maggie Maclean is running "Civil War Women." Her format features vignettes of lives rather than personal diary entries or reviews. Reminds me of my youth when Dorothea Dix was a particular interest of my father's. We still have a doorknob of hers rescued from the wrecker.

Ron Coddington has a blog called "Faces of War." It's not clear to me if he is reprising his "Faces of War" column from "Civil War News," or promoting a book by the same name. The postings are shorter than a magazine column, so maybe these are works in progress or works that did not get into print.

The Maryland Line CSA started publishing anonymously 10 days ago and is book-centric. "My collection consists of about 1500 books that mostly deal with Confederate units or biographies. I also own a lot of Americana titles that are of Maryland or Delaware interest." I have been researching the war in Delmarva myself in a haphazard way for a few years now.

I'm not sure John Banks' blog is a Civil War blog per se, but he's going through a spell where the postings make it look like one.

(Hat tip to Brett's blogroll for filling some gaps. Sorry if I have missed a few.)

More on Ruhlman

Kevin asks: "What I don't understand is why they didn't send the manuscript to Marvel for review. Marvel's book on Andersonville is considered by many to be the definitive study; it's not as if there are a significant number of historians who focus on Civil War prisons."

He is answered in part by Peter Carmichael of the University of Tennessee Press: "I can't imagine how one checks for plagiarism when reviewing a manuscript. Unless you happen to be familiar with a book (like Marvel was with his own study of Andersonville) it is not realistic to expect a press or a reviewer to catch plagiarism."

But he has been told how to check. And there is another way too. The University of Tennessee's academics have access to (and may use) software that checks for student plagiarism. It's simple software that searches using strings from the student's paper. Academics who don't have such software will use Google to do the same thing.

Eric Wittenberg says: "I also hope that the UT Press gets over its black eye, but that it tightens things up a bit to ensure that this sort of flagrant rip-off doesn’t happen again."

But Peter is telling us they can't and therefore won't.

Isn't he? I smell budgets!

Bulletin for heritage tourism

Drew Wagenhoffer interviews the proprietor of the Camp Pope bookshop:

I’ve pondered the question for years of how to attract more people to the study of the Trans-Miss theater, and I have found that unless you had an ancestor who fought here or you yourself live here, you don’t really care. Interest in the Trans-Miss cannot be manufactured.

This "unscientific poll" cited by Eric Wittenberg suggests the same.

Restoration and history

Do you feel cheated when visiting an historic building just to find out it has been "100% restored" (i.e. it is all new construction)? Harry Smeltzer has bad news about one object of Mr. Quantrill's attentions.

Expecting the worst, I asked the guide taking me through the Trent House (circa 1709) a few years ago exactly what restoration had been done. Her answer was delightful: "The city tore down a new wing that had been added in George Washington's time."

Would like to apply that ethos to some of the historical fakery in brick and mortar that prevails now. Would love to hear the docent say on some tours, "We are raising funds to tear down this ridiculous imitation so that visitors can see the original foundations of the structure."

Andersonville commission ms found

And the story quotes R. Fred Ruhlman!

Bloggers receiving books

Mark Grimsley and I are not the only bloggers receiving Simon & Schuster titles, it seems. Here's someone who waxes indignant:

But I do have a problem with bloggers who are not being honest with their readers. How many bloggers who have taken part in this whole Thirteenth Tale exercise have stated that they are doing so on their blog? How many have put up their hands and said, look, S&S emailed me about this contest, so I'm taking part? How many have made it clear that the book they are reviewing is a FREE copy?

(Unfortunately, the books mailed to Mark and myself had no lucrative contest attached.)

Miss Snark, a literary agent, laughs at all this.

Here's a MAJOR clue for everyone who gets "free books". Publicists pull up a list marked "fiction outlets" or "romance outlets" or "true crime outlets in Romance, Arkansas" from their ten thousand name data base and they send a form email. Or a book. Or an offer. Sometimes all three.They are ecstatic if 10% of the places they send books even mention them, let alone say something akin to "you should buy this". The idea that a reviewer or a blogger cares about keeping a publisher happy demonstrates a very skewed idea of how publishing works. Talk to any publicist in any publishing company. They're pretty sure their job is to keep reviewers happy.

Not to say I don't feel guilty about slamming books sent gratis. After the 1,000th or so incident of that, the conscience does numb a little, and it gets easier.

Snark adds, "If you look and sound like a shill for crap, we'll only assume you've been paid off rather than you're a bad writer or an idiot with no taste. You can make the same assumption about me."

Sounds like a plan.

Plagiarism stories continue

A new piece on Marvel being Goodwinned from Inside Higher Ed.

A sample of the offenses committed:

Marvel, p. 36: "Mrs. Wolf was a perfectly respectable Methodist lady whose husband had recently died, leaving her with two small girls."

Ruhlman, p. 77: "She was a respectable Methodist lady whose husband had recently died, leaving her with two daughters to raise."

Dark hearts and book reviews

Mark Grimsley is reassuring ACW blog readers that they need not fear our selling them down the river in exchange for review copies of books. I agree.

But here's the tricky part. When I was younger with time heavy on my hands, I would humor the lady book review editors of the local newspaper and take on books that were easy review fodder: lots of problems, lots of weakness make entertaining reviews.

Nowadays I tend to avoid much new work. The publicists are good enough to query first and I discourage their sending material I know I will denounce. (Exception: I reviewed McPherson's Antietam souvenir for newspapers when it came out because it was emblematic of bad public history, opportunism, and the failure of a certain type of aggregation.)

Thus, I am now more sparing in the reading of bad books and I suppose it hurts this blog. The tendency is to welcome books one might like.

Ethical dilemma: hard-working publicists are hoping for mention of work in a field where one is lucky to get a review or two 18 months after a book comes out.

Bloggy solution: put up multiple posts alternating good with the bad. Print reviewers can't do that and no book is all bad or all good.

Time/motion study: the savings a reviewer achieves on the price of buying a new hardback (say $35-$40?) can in no way compensate for the time invested in reading the book carefully and then writing about it. Even if we were writing for newspapers and taking the usual $100 honors per review in addition to the free copy, it would not work out in terms of incentive.

Suspicions are unwarranted. Praise tends to be real in this medium. Trust your bloggers.