Carman's manuscript, Pierro edition

Now that editor Joseph Pierro is on the verge of sharing an edited, public edition of the famous Carman manuscript (due out in December), we can reasonably wonder whether and how this will affect Maryland Campaign studies to come.

Revisionism to come?
Researchers have resorted to the manuscript extensively in the past but they faced a mass of unattributed information which they then had to decide whether to use and how to weigh. With this full editing/attribution completed, the business of weighing and using Carman's unique sources is clarified. I'll certainly be doing a close reading of this when it comes out and expect some surprises. My gut feeling is that the Centennialists who mined Carman-in-the-raw had a much easier time suppressing evidence they didn't like because it was unatrributed or only partially attributed. Let's see what emerges.

The publisher's strategy
Back in August, blogger Paul Taylor contacted Pierro's publisher who divulged some (for me) curious project facts about this forthcoming book. First, no maps. The atlas Carman developed will be available online only. Second, a resort to print-on-demand technology to produce a short, pricey run aimed at libraries. Part of the pricing could be attributed to length - nearly 1,000 pages. But this library-centric plan underestimates Carman's commerical potential.

Carman's Goodwinisms:
Joseph Pierro himself has said some interesting things about this effort in private correspondence which he has permitted me to share. I asked him if he noticed a lot of Goodwinisms in the text.

Yes, that's VERY much the case. I'd say he [Carman] gave attributions in perhaps 25-30% of the cases, and those in turn run from full author/title/page cites to cryptic things like "The historian of the 10th Massachusetts writes. . . ." And sometimes what he was quoting from wasn't a published source, but his private correspondence with veterans (which required me to go through all his papers and try to find a match). Or sometimes he'd just give a name, but you didn't know if it was a book, or an article, or a speech.

Had I realized how much was going to be involved at the start, I probably would have been scared away from undertaking the project. Ignorance is bliss. . . .

Trying to reverse engineer the entire ms. was what turned a relatively straightforward project into a two-year effort. It was worth it, though. I'd say I managed to find the source for all but maybe 15-20 quotations.

"Reverse engineering" a manuscript - sounds horrible. He explained in a follow-up:

I'll be honest. Ten years ago I don't think I could have begun to complete this project. Recent breakthroughs in massive digital library projects made all the difference. Thanks to things like "Google Books" and the University of Michigan and Cornell University's "Making of America" project, thousands of imprints from the nineteenth cuntry have been completely digitized in word-searchable formats. Sites like these proved invaluable in trying to identify the source of hundreds of excerpts that Carman placed within quotation marks, but for which he neglected to provide complete citations.

The recent explosion in bibliographies--both online and printed--also helped immesurably. When Carman says simply, "The historian of the 10th Maine writes," Dornbusch's 4-vol. Military Bibliography of the Civil War would give citations for all known histories for that unit. From the copyright dates it was easy to determine the ones to which Carman would have had access, and then it was simply a matter of flipping through the relevant works to find the sentences in question.

FORTUNATELY, most of the nineteenth century unit histories were all microfilmed commercially in a gigantic set, available at most large reserach libraries. For the really rare items, I am fortunate to live in the greater Richmond area. Between the rare book room of the Lib of Congress, the Va Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia, there wasn't any imprint I wasn't able to access eventually.

Looks like we have some serious editing to give us a foundation for (perhaps) some serious reconsideration of our "oft-told tale" of September, 1862.

Very exciting.

In time for the Sesquicentennial

Announced Thursday: "Edwin S. Grosvenor has purchased American Heritage from Forbes Inc. and will resume publication with the December issue."

Log rolling into Virginia's 150th

The entire cost of a Virginia Sesquicentennial movie will be underwritten by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission.

The movie proposal was developed and presented by James Robertson, board member of the Virginia Sesquicentennial organization. The production money will go to his day-job organization, the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. The three-hour documentary...

will be filmed in high definition over the entirety of the Virginia commonwealth. It will also include aerial views provided by low flying helicopters. Different sections and events will be filmed in corresponding seasons in order to provide more accurate views of the past.

Publishing during the Sesquicentennial

Reader James McCorry asks what I think the Civil War book market will look like during the 150th celebrations, adding, "I feel there will not be a big spike commercialy."

I tend to agree. There's going to be some overlap with the Lincoln Bicentennial which could generate a bit of commercial symbiosis, but probably not. Lincoln's Bicentennial sets the table for the Sesquicentennial, nevertheless. Let's tackle the Lincoln effect on the Sesquicentennial first.

As you can tell from this blog, I feel that there will be a backlash against Lincoln scholarship nationwide on the theme "this is not scholarship." Certainly, college-based Lincoln scholars will need to hold tight onto their chairs once the general academic population gets a whiff of what has been passing for "contending schools of thought" and "rigorous discispline" in this little history niche. The backdrop for this specific negativity will be a more general, pop culture disgust with the endless and pointless "Lincoln facts" and other "bright spots" in "enlivening" the news day after day.

Remember 1976? The country got a little worn down by an empty, largely idiotic national Bicentennial celebration as translated into the minute-media culture, into newspaper columns, into worthless punditry, and into the mass marketing of gimcracks painted red, white, and blue. And that 1976 society was much more tolerant of banality than today's society. In today's world of niche marketing and acquired tastes, expect a disengagement and disgust to set in early.

Ergo, I'm expecting a content-free Lincoln Bicentennial to have a dampening effect on a potentially content-rich Sesquicentennial. One possible effect will be that a book market overloaded with worthless Lincoln titles drives down editors' appetites for worthwhile new Civil War titles. At least where they think Lincoln = Civil war.

So much for speculation. Now, analysis.

With the failure to start a national (federal) Sesquicentennial commission, we have a strong indicator that there will be no national events generating media coverage in the mass market. The trend is towards local only - strong state commissions with a lot of sites (hello, Virginia) will claim regional news coverage.

This anniversary is going to be about tourism to states with busy Sesquicentennial calendars. National news spots and magazine articles will feature tips and tricks for having the best tour experience. Book publishing will follow with the emphasis being on tour guides. I shudder to think how many.

Tour guides are different enough from the run of nonfiction that a glut of tour guides failing en mass on the sales front should not have a major impact on the number of Civil War histories being published. I hope.

There is also a risk that someone like Goodwin or McCullough will try to write a cash-cow general history of the war that becomes a big deal and generates some copycatting but I'm betting against their breaking through what are normal sales levels for them.

I feel there is some danger of a Ken Burns-like figure striking a deal with the author of a cash-cow junk history book to produce a movie or series to exploit that project across other media during the Sesquicentennial. Consider the deal Spielberg made with Goodwin to film a Lincoln movie based on a book Goodwin had not yet written. If the Goodwin/Spielberg Lincoln film dies at the box office next year, we will have dodged a bullet and be free of the threat of another such project appearing in the Sesquicentennial. If their movie succeeds, some bright guy will pitch Hollywood on a Civil War equivalent.

The success of a Sesquicentennial movie could pollute Civil War publishing with derivative work for some time, based on the degree of success of the movie.

Let's boil this down to a few propositions and calls.

Major publishing thrust of the Sesquicentennial?
Tour guides.

Effect on enrollment in relevant college courses:
Up.

Effect on ACW magazine circulation:
Slight bump.

Junk history gusher?
No, a sprinkle not a gusher.

Hit TV series or movie?
No, Spielberg/Goodwin will fizzle, demotivating producers.

Total number of craptastic general war histories from bestselling authors:
I'll guess five: Goodwin's threatened us with a Grant biography. That's one for sure.

Long-term market effect after the Sesquicentennial:
A drop in the future number of guidebook titles.

Got a prediction? Join the fun.

"History as Narrative" (cont.)

It looks like an author has brought the structure and dynamic of Percy Foote's novel Shiloh to nonfiction: "Robert E. Bonner has movingly reconstructed the experiences of sixteen Civil War soldiers, using their own accounts to knit together a ground-level view of the entire conflict."

Another departure from single-viewpoint, timelined narratives, theatrical ruses, and archtypes beloved of authors. Another departure from the stock ACW narrative. Good.

Drummer boy makes good/bad

Out today: the true story of a drummer boy who "was recognized for the capture of two guns, several hundred prisoners, and the saving of Fortress Rosecrans in Murfreesboro from the famed Nathan Bedford Forrest." Also for "fame, lies, alcohol, bigamy, and murder." Looks irresistible.

Nicodemus Farm version 3.0

The news reports hereabouts have been confusing me with controversies surrounding Nicodemus Farm in Walkersville, MD (vice Sharpsburg, MD) .

It seems the famous Mr. Nicodemus relocated to Walkersville, starting a second farm (version 2.0). It is now slated to become a 40,000-sq-ft mosque and convention center (version 3.0), hence the strife.

The local media portray this strictly as a matter of zoning.

(Figure top right is from plans.)

CWPT on the Sesquicentennial

When he's not staging fashion shows, Rick Beard is head of the national "Civil War 150: The Sesquicentennial Initiative." The group doesn't have a website yet, hasn't issued a press release, and is keeping well out of the way of any planning, organizing, or fund raising.

I asked Civil War Preservation Trust if they've had any dealings with this cryptic mysterioso, whether they sensed drift nationally, and whether they would be willing to play a leading role in coordinating the Sesquicentennial. Spokesman Jim Campi answered:

In regard to the federal Sesquicentennial legislation, CWPT is certainly concerned about the progress of federal legislation. We are hoping to be able to put some resources behind it in the next few months. Our reluctance to do so up to now is because the current legislation, despite its other merits, does not have a land preservation component. So our involvement would mean scarce money and resources being diverted from efforts that much more directly aid in the acquisition of historic properties. Of course, a federal commission could and likely would indirectly aid in preservation, by generating public awareness and interest in the Civil War.

I believe we did meet with Rick Beard back in 2006, but I was out of town and unable to participate in the meeting. Most of our focus has been on the state commissions. As you know, Virginia's Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission is one of the best organized and prepared -- if not the best. What we have been trying to do is connect other state officials with the Virginia Sesquicentennial Commission, to help them get up and running more quickly. Fortunately, the Virginia Sesquicentennial Commission has been very cooperative and willing to help other states. Further, the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission has repeatedly expressed an interest in battlefield preservation as one of the commission's most enduring legacies -- justifying our involvement.

There are likely other ways we can help promote the Civil War Sesquicentennial as well -- and are certainly open to suggestions.

I'm sensing ever more momentum for localized anniversary events; ever less interest in a national program. At what point can we declare the national effort beached and abandoned?

"Setting the bar"

Look what we missed: fashion night ("Fashion Knight" at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in June. Going to have to keep up with the Lincoln news in the Style section of the newspaper from now on. This is a portent:

"This event is unlike anything the museum has done before, and because of that we are extremely excited to offer it to the public," said Rick Beard, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. "By hosting 'Fashion Knight at the Museum,' we are once again setting the bar for other presidential library-museums..."

Making it real for today's reader

A double latte for General Grant, please:

"...at night, Union campsites were dotted with tiny fires, each boiling a pot of coffee like a million miniature Starbucks."

Ezra Carman - not so fast

Joseph Pierro wrote to say that his Ezra Carman book is suffering delays that will push the publication date into December. (The publication date on Amazon has been overtaken by events.)

"History as Narrative"

Harry put a piece up, "History as Narrative," about the time I got writer's block on a post exploring Shelby Foote's novel Shiloh. The point of Harry's piece is how to convey truth in narrative and this is the problem Foote tried to solve in Shiloh.

It's long past time for the Shiloh post.

We should start with a quote from Foote that appears in many interviews and letters: “The point I would make is this – and I would have you bear in mind that I am speaking of the honest novelist along with the honest historian. Both are seeking the same thing: the truth – not a different truth: the same truth–only they reach it, or try to reach it by different routes.”

The rub here, BTW, is "honest historian." More on that another time.

Foote tested his truth idea in his second novel, Follow Me Down. The historical event, fictionalized, was a murder. His way of deriving truth was through story fragments unfolding in multiple perspectives. The murderer's jailer has his story and tells it in his voice in his own chapter. Ditto a key witness. There is the reporter covering the story. The killer's wife has a say; so, too his lawyer. At the core of the book, the murderer speaks and his victim remembers events leading to her death. There is no narrator presenting these separate pieces to the reader on a platter of introductions and surmises.

One of the fine artistic touches in Follow Me Down is that these stories do not follow an event driven sequence or a timeline. A hack might have strung the stories on a temporal string like this: prisoner received at jail (jailer's story); lawyer interviews his client (attorney's story); murderer testifies in court (killer's story); etc. Instead the most significant narratives (the killer's and the victim's) lie in the center of the book, with peripheral characters surrounding them, graded by in intensity with the least intense going into the novel and coming out of it. In later interviews, Foote would explain that this is a compositional or structural bias he has in reading and writing.

An additional feature, very sophisticated, is that the many narrators could care less about the reader or the structure of a "crime story." They are telling a personal story from their own perspective and concerned with topics or elements that interest only themselves, told in a sequence natural to themselves, leading to a point that is personal to themselves, not leading to the "climax" of some external, objectified "story."

In Shiloh, Foote's fourth novel (and the one that did best commercially), Foote revives the truth experiment in the form first deployed in Follow Me Down. The battle is seen from multiple perspectives, on different sides, different times of day, on different days, on different points of the battlefield by observers of widely varying circumstance. You could call the effect "pointillist" in building up a composite image except that the points are rather few (seven short narratives in total). On a superficial level, you might think he is reprising Tolstoy's memes of war-as-chaos and generals-as-actors-pretending-to-control-chaos. Such a generalization would be less interesting to Foote than the real work of conveying novelistic + historic truth in one package, to convey the day as history experienced.

This speaks straight to Kenneth Noe's musings, in Harry's post:

(1) "Does the omniscient narrative voice actually obscure the reality of the battle experience?"

Foote says, Try this instead. He has eliminated that voice.

(2) "In short, can we ever grasp, much less communicate, the truth of what it was like to be there?"

Foote says, I am trying here.

Did he succeed? The critics thought so. Why didn't he try it again?

One of the disturbing things about Shiloh is that Foote did set the personal narratives on a timeline. This is a regression, a backsliding from Follow Me Down. Battle can be experienced as disorienting and discontinuous, veterans have difficulty establishing time sequences for the happenings they remember. By using the "Day One," "Day Two" canned history framework on which to hang his stories, Foote generates a counter-noise to that generated by his characters, who each experience an entirley different start and finish to the battle.

There is a larger point here as well. On the personal level, recollections will include incidents at odds with "approved and certified events"; also apparent event sequence errors; also rumors that make no sense; and finally any number of observations that are impossible, improbable, or inconvenient to the master narrative. We have explored some in this very blog, McClellan "commanding" at Gettysburg, for instance. This kind of reality through falsity is missing from Shiloh.

I think Foote went wrong trying to build a "true" mosaic of personal experience inside a "false" structure of artificial periodization painting a picture of the battle that would fit in nicely with any number of "approved" (streamlined and sanitized) histories.

Years later, by the time he was deep into his conventional nonfiction, Foote gave interviews in which he said narrative is the only way to convey history. Did he mean the big, ethically compromised narratives of Civil War history or did he mean the small narratives of personal experience?

Why did he never try a nonfiction experiment in truth? Why did his novel projects collapse after September, September once he emerged from his journey through historical nonfiction?

Who knows. Foote appeared to have bagged it. The point now is to take up new experiments.

From Civil War Preservation Trust

Donors have received this email; I did not find the text up on their website yet.

We at the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) are frequently asked, “What can I do to help?” The most obvious answer is by becoming a member and donating to our fundraising campaigns. Many of you have done just that – and your enthusiasm and generosity have helped us save nearly 25,000 acres nationwide.

But you can help in other ways as well – by donating a few moments of your time!

This past summer, a bipartisan group of preservation leaders in the U.S. House and Senate introduced the “Civil War Battlefield Preservation Act of 2007.” This landmark legislation reauthorizes the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program, the primary tool that CWPT and other battlefield preservation groups use to acquire historically significant battlefield land.

The program provides federal matching grants that have helped protect more than 14,000 acres of hallowed ground throughout the nation – historic shrines such as Antietam, Champion Hill, Chancellorsville, Franklin, Manassas, Perryville and Prairie Grove. Without this program, many lands associated with these famous battlefields would have fallen to the backhoe and bulldozer in the past decade.

As is the case with many federal programs, the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program needs to be reauthorized every few years. Passage of the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Act (H.R. 2933 in the House and S. 1921 in the Senate) will guarantee that this extremely valuable preservation tool will continue to be available to protect endangered battlefield land through 2013.

TAKE ACTION

Get involved in the effort to pass the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Act. Take a few moments to contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and ask them to cosponsor the bill. You can call, write or email them – whichever you prefer (although calls and letters are always the most effective). If you are a member of a Civil War roundtable or battlefield friends group, consider setting up a meeting with your local congressional office.

To make your involvement as quick and easy as possible, CWPT has set up a special website about the program at www.battlefieldactivist.com. This website has everything you need – sample phone scripts, sample letters, and information on contacting your elected officials in Washington. It also contains a list of 22 Senators and 61 Representatives who have already embraced this important legislation.

Find your Legislator:

==> http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

Sample Letters:

==> http://www.battlefieldactivist.com/TakeAction/SampleLetters.html

Sample Phone Script:

==> http://www.battlefieldactivist.com/TakeAction/TelephoneScripts.html

List of Supporters:

==> http://www.battlefieldactivist.com/Support.html

If it turns out your Senators or Representative have already agreed to cosponsor the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Act, please send them a quick thank you (we provide sample text for that as well). All too often, our elected officials only hear from the public when they do something wrong – please thank them for doing something so right.

If you have any questions, please reply to this email or call CWPT at 1-800-298-7878 ext. 220. In many cases, legislators won’t cosponsor bills unless they hear from their constituents – so make sure your voice is heard!

Thank you for your continued enthusiasm and support!

Best,

Jim Campi

p.s. Jim wrote later to add "The bill reauthorizes the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program for another 5 years (FY2008 - FY2013). This program is the most often used federal program for battlefield preservation available today. Because of the importance of the program, we created a special website to get people more involved, www.battlefieldactivist.com."

Route 15 preservation - some thoughts

"Journey Through Hallowed Ground," the nonprofit seeking planning control over historic interstate Route 15 corridor, has won House backing, and a bill is now going to the Senate for approval.

The [House] vote was 291-122. Stretching from the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg, Pa., to Monticello, the home built by Thomas Jefferson outside Charlottesville, Va., the corridor includes eight presidential homes, 13 National Park Service properties and battlefields from the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

Note the significant numbers in opposition to the bill. Lest you think "developers opposing preservationists," note that the most quotable opponent of the House bill, Roscoe Bartlett, is part of the Frederick (MD) Republican establishment, which in in those (these) parts is the main anti-development party (the Democrats there being aligned with developers).

The bill was sponsored by Northern Virginia's Rep. Frank Wolf; Virginia Republicans are split into pro- and anti-development factions by region (east and west, respectively). Wolf hails from the pro-development east.

Now, ponder. You have the anti-development fellow opposing heritage designation for Rt. 15 and the pro-development fellow backing it. Which side of the issue do you think the developers themselves might be on? This is a significant clue to what's happening.

Naysayer Bartlett has developed a property rights meme, not an anti-development meme:

"All of our nation's founders knew of the intimate connection between personal liberty and property rights," Bartlett said in a statement. "The National Heritage Areas bill, H.R. 1483, and in particular, the bill's exclusive version of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, tramples over rather than honors these hallowed principles."

I don't know why he talks up property rights - the issue fails upon first reading of the House bill. Section 5f:

Prohibition on the Acquisition of Real Property - The management entity may not use Federal funds received under this Act to acquire real property or any interest in real property. No State or local subdivision of a State shall use any Federal funds received pursuant to this Act to acquire any interest in real property by condemnation or otherwise.

Not that property buying is off the table:

Cate Magennis Wyatt [photo, right], a former Virginia secretary of commerce and trade who heads the partnership ... spoke of creating a trust to purchase land from willing sellers at fair market value. That money would have to come from funds raised privately by the partnership because the legislation prohibits the use of the federal money to buy property.

But that is not about property rights. Or is it? What Bartlett was getting at is that his neighbor might sell land to Wyatt's trust, the trust might deed the property to the NPS or a state park, and suddenly Bartlett's proximity causes restrictions to be imposed on the enjoyment of his own house and lawns. He may have lived through this actual scenario: his neighbor is Monocacy Battlefield.

Bartlett's enjoyment aside, however, this is mainly about regional tourism development, with some emphasis on development (amenities, construction, concessions). Note Wyatt's identity: former Virginia secretary of commerce and trade. What kind of background is that for an interstate-preservation board? It's 180 degrees off the mark.

With regional development planning and approval in the hands of a so-called heritage organization, it becomes possible, under political cover, to widen roads for heritage tourism; to build shopping areas for heritage tourists; it becomes possible to override the real, local heritage organizations with a development-friendly superauthority.

It also places Virginia commercial interests on the commanding heights of review and approval. Journey will not have statutory authority in and of itself, but rest assured a mechanism will be found where local plans need the requisite seal of approval. In other words, Journey will wield real power .

As non-profit machinations go - and I have endured many as a non-profit founder myself - the control of regional planning is a major coup. Will the NPS need permission to build on Gettysburg field? Perhaps not: but the planning for and placement of eyesores in and around the site may end up in Journey's hands.

Note: Cate Magennis Wyatt made her fortune as a Route 15 Leesburg developer. She and her husband own (or owned) an oil service business in the mafia-run ex-Soviet middle east. She justifies placing a developer in charge of heritage with, "You can stand outside with a picket sign, or you can be inside making decisions that respect history and balance growth with preservation." (Emphasis added.) Read more here.

New reporting from the Sun here.

Older, deeper story from WaPo here.

A Heritage Foundation report may be behind Bartlett's comments.

A rebuttal to Heritage is here. I personally am intrigued by the charge that Journey will "set up a politically connected real estate investment fund that could reap a 'financial windfall' based on quasi-monopoly profits for 'a select group of land-owners.'"

Another Civil War musical

You could gather them all together and have a week-long festival. Here's one more.

The joke is on Glass

The intriguing question of "What was Civil War music?" occurred to me yet again, this time while reading the Baltimore Sun's amusing review of Glass's opera Appomattox.

The reviewer, bless his heart, cashed out some bonus airmiles to go to San Francisco at his own expense. He considered himself paid back by Glass (right) with "a preachy civics lesson" and "a detail-laden libretto that would work fine on the History Channel." He also mentioned "several unexpected harmonic turns and bursts of folk or camp songs that richly conjure up the 1860s."

Holy cow - I forgot to notice. The deeply flawed, totally misleading doo-dah theory of Civil War music has reared its ugly head once again and Glass appears to be a doo-dah-ologist, plunking hokum into his score. It just hadn't registered with me in press reports.

This is a rich joke and the joke is on Glass. The Civil War public was mad for good music, especially opera, and it would seem to the casual reader that they loved Donizetti (lower right) especially well. A period musical interlude in Appomattox would therefore have evoked strains of Donizetti's most popular airs (in the midst of Glass's minimalism). That would have been a nice challenge for the composer and provided the audience with a little tension-relief.

Given the Donizetti revival, Glass could have done Appomattox entirely as Donizetti pastiche and scored a popular hit.

Per that revival, I expect to find our reviewer at Donizetti's Maria Stuarda when it opens in Baltimore in two weeks (no frequent flier miles needed there). But of the 12 Donizettis staged in New Orleans before the war, Mary Stuart was not one of them, which leads to the question which Donizetti operas should Glass have pillaged for his "evocative" interlude?

Hmmm. I was browsing this Civil War CD on Amazon when it struck me that in the dance music category, Civil War audiences sure loved their polkas. Looks like much of this list is polkas and waltzes with Verdi and Mozart thrown in for good measure.

So our answer is (I think) Glass should have dredged up some dancy Donizetti bits. Then he could try scoring them minimally. (Bel canto minimalism - that would be one for the music history books.)

So when will we see the next National Conferences on Music of the Civil War Era? I can hardly wait.

(Past opera on this blog: Lincoln at Magic Flute; Faust in Sykes'division; Escape from Goober Peas; Wagner meets Sheridan's horse; Gottschalk in and out of New Orleans; Rant against doo-dah)

Lincoln Bicentennial sneak preview

This is what it's going to be endlessly, endlessly: "Lincoln fans, scholars gather for shrine's 75th anniversary." Let's all gather 'round the shrine. See if you can tell the fans from the scholars.

Debatepedia

Debatepedia has been launched. Only seven historical entries have been published so far and one of them is about the Confederate flag.

Rebel rumors

If author Jason Phillips wants to make a particular case that the Rebels were rumor-prone and especially subject to morale-building misinformation, he needs to first describe the prevalence of rumors in both armies and also in other wars to establish a basis of comparison.

The Confederate Culture of Invincibility looks like a case made that the normal is abnormal.

Rebranding a galvanized Yankee

Heritage extremism:

Hill, apparently a sixth-generation descendant, "tore down and removed a [Union] tombstone on the grave" of Stephen S. Shook [...] "then replaced the stone with a Confederate stone."

Madison County descendants of Shook say their ancestor served both as a Confederate and a Union soldier, but they say the Union headstone that has marked Shook's grave since 1920 is the one that should remain, because Shook ended the war as a Union sergeant.