On this day in 1864

Amazingly, Politico (a newspaper) gets 31 August 1864 exactly right.

How many historians suspect that "Throughout the campaign, McClellan supported a continuation of the war, then in its final months, and restoration of the Union"?

The Politico's comments section returns us "back to our regularly scheduled program" however.

Harvard's Civil War

Harvard's Civil War by Richard Miller is out today in paper and I have to agree with James McPherson; this is the best regimental history I have read. It is wonderfully accurate on the micro-level, on the tactical level, and its treatment of sources and material are commendable.

I read the Ball's Bluff chapters in tandem with Beatie's AOP Vol. III and Jim Morgan's A Little Short of Boats, that is I vetted the material three ways. The treatment of the battle in this higher level regimental history is nearly as granualr as Morgan's battle study, a bonus, I think, for readers of tactical history.

What marks the study as a specimen of its genre, however, is that the social coverage is so much richer. The regiment, especially the ACW's battalion-sized regiments, is a profoundly social (and political) organization. In the general run of regimental histories, the social and personal connections among personalities is sparse and not well documented. The result tends to be a fragmentary narrative in which clusters of personalities bob up and down as the record permits, the emphasis being on movement, action, events. In developing the rich record left by the 20th Mass USV and its officers, Miller offers us the picture of what a balanced regimental history would look like. If I have a quibble with it it has has to do with the underdeveloped political dimension - underdeveloped to my taste, anyway.

Buy one or scrounge one - this is an important work.

Stop the presses!

Headline: "Professor’s book offers 'narrative history' of Civil War."

The amazing details: "Downing likes to refer to his method of writing as 'narrative history,' a nonfiction approach that reads with the detail and ease of a work of fiction."

I think a patent is in order.

Weider's counterrevolution

The People's Cultural Revolution, launched this year at Military History magazine, appears to have been put down at last by publisher Eric Weider. The revolution crested in the July/August issue with the consciousness-raising cover story, "How Presidents Start Wars" (complete with a photo of Harry Truman).

Fearing a domino effect in Eric Weider's magazine group, Chris Lewis resigned from Civil War Times Illustrated, to be replaced by Dana Shoaf. (Shoaf must now be replaced at America's Civil War). Confronted last month by Eric Wittenberg, Eric Weider responded "...our August issue [of Military History] was one of the best selling issues of this magazine in a long time. And personally I think the Sept issue is better still."

Thus, without admitting anything about changed editorial direction, he said, Look at the September issue, then judge.

So we have.

The September issue of Military History appears to be wall-to-wall militaria with the single exception of a short item discussing Liz Taylor's art collection (I kid you not). Figure in the length of magazine publishing cycles and you know that Weider had already lowered the boom on his staff of frisky political evangelists before my own or Eric Wittenberg's open letters were put out.

Will this change for the better last? Are the ACW mags safe from the rot that gripped MH? The MH masthead has not changed. We hope there is not some Valley Forge camp within the Weider organization where political foot soldiers are gathering their strength for takeover.

p.s. I have rescinded an earlier post that said Weider History Group was owned by the company that publishes the National Enquirer. That company acquired Weider's old owners without taking on the history group.

Civil War movies - anyone can make them

We noted here recently that a Civil War movie you never heard of, "Strike the Tent," had reached the 3,590th sales position among all Amazon DVD orders.

With the recent release of the big-budget, major-studio "Seraphim Falls," we would do well to keep our eyes also on the premier of "Firetrail" in Aiken, SC., a follow-up to a film called "Battle of Aiken." Get this:

"I think the film turned out really good," said [director] Forbes. "I was very happy with our adaptation of Lydia's book. The book is a sprawling, epic, 500-page tome of the Civil War, and I think we did justice to it."

He did justice to it in three hours. Three-hour big-screen Civil War epics with no stars, small budgets, and limited theatrical release to sustain them. That is a working economic model folks, sustained by DVD sales to ACW buffs.

Makes me wonder if authors shouldn't just read their nonfiction facing a video recorder and then sell DVDs instead of books.

Civil War Florida - the blog

The blog fooled me. I must have landed on an archival page.

Blogger Dale Cox writes,

"Dimitri, I noticed the mention on your blog that my blog (Civil War Florida) was defunct. I'm not sure if you had trouble accessing it, but the blog is alive and well. I've posted to it dozens of times over the last two months. Here's the link if you want to give it a second try...

In fact, he posted about a very interesting practical joke just today.

Bullets and critics

Speaking of Craig Warren, he has quite an interesting link to some research on the death of the US Volunteer Ambrose Bierce. It seems Bierce may have collected all the bullets in Mexico that he missed at Perryville, Shiloh, Chickamauga, etc., in one fell swoop:

I talked with two eye-witnesses who had seen the whole thing. Apparently he suspected nothing until the three men turned on him and began shooting.

The first shot must have struck him in the leg or belly, because he dropped down, squatting on his heels. And the two Mexicans were impressed by the strange way in which he died. He squatted there in the dust of the road and began to laugh heartily. The three men kept shooting him, hitting him, but they could not kill him, and he did not stop laughing.

He sat there and laughed till finally they shot him in the heart. The Mexicans were amazed because he was laughing as though it were a tremendous joke that he was being killed.

Very Bierce-like. Suspiciously Bierce-like.

Which reminds me of a couple of Bierce stories from the funeral of author Percival Pollard.

The first: Bierce and H.L. Mencken were riding to Pollard's funeral together. Bierce was reputed to have broken with all his friends and yet, Bierce commented, he remained friends with Pollard "and that was for the reason of Pollard's untimely death. Had Bierce known Pollard was to die, no doubt he would have effected a quarrel with him."

In the second, Mencken, who arranged the service, asks Bierce what they should do with Pollard's remains. Bierce answers, cremate him, mold the ashes into bullets, and then fire them at Pollard's critics.

The Mexican shooters may have been channelling Bierce's own critics on that day.

Dickinson and Brady

Yes, Dickinson looked at Brady's photos. No, they could not be the sole source for her #639. Dickinson's family was steeped in the society that supplied young officers to the "Harvard Regiment." The inspiration for the poem is likely Ball's Bluff. There's even a clue in her line "More arduous than Balls."

And so I pick nits with Craig Warren.

A producer looks at re-enactors

Documentary producer "Jackleg Historian" likes ACW re-enactors. Here's the link he failed to post to Historical Entertainment LLC.

SC ACW letters go to auction

An appeals court has upheld the right of owners of over 400 Civil War letters to auction them off after South Carolina declared the letters to be state property. The collection includes letters written by Robert E. Lee during his the period of his blighted campaign against Union General Thomas (Tim) Sherman.

Civil War blogs, new and old

News from the blogosphere:

- Erin Carlson Mast, Matt Ringelstetter, and Jesse Nasta have started a group blog called President Lincoln's Cottage. Interesting to know that the Soldier's Home where Lincoln spent summers was a Jeff Davis legacy.

- Scott Mingus has started a Civil War blog to focus on York, PA, and environs: Cannonball.

- Dixie Dawn posts on the ACW and Southern heritage at Long Live Dixie.

- This spunky 18-year-old has started Battle Cry of Freedom. He's an Iron Brigade fan.

- Author Dale Cox's Civil War Florida covers the waterfront with some rich posts.

The following blogs expired before I discovered them:

- Minuend's Gettysburg Ride.
- Confessions of a New England Confederate.

Shown top: Leonidas Polk's flag, borrowed from Dixie Dawn's blog.

"Heritage experiences" trump site history

Well, well ...

According to Weiler and Hall (1992), heritage tourists are motivated “more by a search for heritage experiences than by a detailed interest in factual history.”

"My date with a black CSA re-enactor"

Funny stuff:

He immediately started telling me how super awesome he is. He's a Civil War re-enactor. On the Confederate Side. Fine, but when you're African-American, why is that your hobby? [...] He stops and asks me if I'm ok. I realize he's saying this because I'm rubbing my head like I have a migraine. This, my friends, is suddenly my exit strategy. But do I go with the whole "migraine" thing? No. Instead I say: "Oh....yeah, there's a ringing in my head. It happens ever since I got this implant."

A.P. Hill on the cricket pitch

Interesting that in 1847 "Capt. Brewster of the US Military Academy encouraged his cadets to organize cricket clubs."

If that was before the graduation of the '47 crowd, cricketers would have included A.P. Hill, Burnside, Gibbon, Heth, and Wilcox; lower classmen players might have included Buford and Gillmore.

Photo: Camden, NJ, cricket pitch in 1843.

Gen. McPherson impersonators

They're coming to an event near you.

How to sell trousers

You make up testimonials from fictional re-enactors.

The National Park Service celebrates ...

... itself! Perhaps budgets are not that tight.

When Halleck deposed Lincoln

It never happened, as much as Halleck disliked the man and considered his leadership "ruinous" to the country. Nor do I recall any newspaper editorials asking that generals suppress Lincoln & Co. Neither McClellan nor Hooker thought to march the AOP into DC to set up a dictatorship.

Here's a columnist, however, proposing today's chief of staff "relieve" the civilian commander-in-chief by invoking the UCMJ and then place him under military arrest.

We go to the Civil War for our reading. Sometimes you wonder if the Civil War is coming to us.

(Warning - clicking link exposes reader to contemporary political psychosis.)

Does virtual kill actual?

As the pathology of "heritage toursim" continues to sweep government tourism offices, chronic dizziness is taking its toll.

In Pennsylvania, Google Earth will now present panoramic views in and around 56 historical markers, an arrangement organized by state tourism folks. They thought it was a good idea. I suppose they have not heard the music industry say that free downloads are killing their business.

Will virtual tours kill actual ones?

The person looking to tour is seeking a special feeling that arises when the imagination is engaged standing on actual, historical ground. Seeing panoramic views of the same on your PC screen is no substitute - it's like looking at someone else's vacation snaps. If the tourism mavens understand that much, good. If they think, on the other hand, that these views are bait, they err.

History buffs are self-directed (inner-directed) - not impulse buyers packing up for a sudden trip to Pennsylvania Marker No. 56 (because the panorama there looks so good on Google!). They can drag indifferent family and friends along to "brand name" battlefields, but they cannot drag them to random markers in cow pastures. The corollary idea, that they'll enrich the state by buying $1.97 worth of soda at the nearest gas station after this Google-inspired vacation is touchingly sad.

How do you plan a vacation? There's a process of elimination in the planning during which stops are removed, itineraries are trimmed. This Google Earth project will help planners eliminate most Pennsylvania stops.

An afterthought. For most of this post, you have been reading under the assumption that we are talking about battlefield or campaign markers. No. We are talking about Civil War social history markers.

"This is a deeper immersion into the Civil War, beyond battlefields and generals and into the lives of the people living in Pennsylvania at the time," said Lenwood Sloan of the Pennsylvania Tourism Office.

You see the effect "heritage tourism" has on these people.

Robertson's radio show is retired

James I. Robertson's daily Civil War broadcasts have been retired after a 14-year run on a Virginia radio station.

His most popular shows, he says, have dealt with animals such as Stonewall Jackson’s horse or Little Sally, a Boston terrier with the Pennsylvania regiment whose story had listeners in tears.

Archives will be posted here after September 7.