Inactive or not, here they come

Speaking of Lincoln not being a quick study, Drew Wagenhoffer pointed out to me the ever-popular "Lincoln's masterly inactivity." Enter this into Google and get 1,090 hits:

Lincoln "masterly inactivity"

Drew says:

"Masterly inactivity" seems to be a much overused phrase in the Lincoln literature. I thought it originated with Russel McClintock's recent book but a google books search finds it used in the same context in McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" and MANY earlier books, and within an emancipationist context in Quarles's "Lincoln and the Negro".

I'm sure there are some fairly sober, almost respectable writers who have lapsed into this kind of cliche-driven treatment of their subject (Lincoln) without realizing it. Lincoln, the subject, has this effect on people.

The ridicule and scorn Lincoln endured in life is now endlessly reprised - triggered if you will - by the provocative behavior of his admirers. One is struck how Lincoln attracts "masterly" triteness, vaudevillian re-enactment, and all variety of flamboyant, baroquely craptastic phenomena.

There's no comparable figure in kitsch historiography.

"Lincoln was not a quick study"

The New York Times hired none other than Jean Smith to review Tried by War. Is that not hilarious?

Meanwhile, I've been kind of wondering if Lincoln was a quick study.

New York Times (Smith): "As McPherson points out, Lincoln 'was not a quick study but a thorough one'."

History Wire (Steve Goddard): "'He was not a quick study,' McPherson argues, 'but a thorough one.'"

Newsweek (anticipating McPherson): "Like Darwin, Lincoln was not a quick study."

Darwin's Blog: "He [Lincoln] was not a quick study." (Wonder where he got that from.)

Uh oh. This one didn't get the memo...

Charlotte News-Observer: "Though a quick study, Lincoln faced a steep learning curve..."

You have to laugh.

McPherson's "concentration in time" (cont.)

Yesterday's post was about James McPherson's unattributed use of the ideas of Clausewitz, Jones, and Hattaway in his new book. This post is about a more conventional type of plagiarism.

Take another look at the phrasing below:

** To oppose the enemy's ability to concentrate in space, Lincoln early prescribed the concentration in time of simultaneous advances. - Archer Jones: Civil War Command and Strategy, 1992, p 100

** This concentration in space could be overcome only if the Union employed … concentration in time. - James M. McPherson: Tried by War, p 70

** Another hallmark of Lincoln's conception of military strategy and operations… concentration in time by simultaneous advances… - James M. McPherson: Tried by War, p 269

For decades, McPherson was compelled to enforce Princeton University's plagiarism rules. Here are three examples of plagairism his students would have had to be familiar with. Example one speaks for itself: direct quotation without citation, reference, or quote marks.

Example 2: “Inserting even short phrases from the source into a new sentence still requires placing quotations around the borrowed words and citing the author.”

Example 3: “Almost nothing of [the] original language remains in this rewritten paragraph. However the key idea, the choice and order of the examples, and even the basic structure of the original sentences are all taken from the source.”

McPherson appears to be in violation of Princeton's definition of plagiarism.

McPherson's record on plagiarism is interesting. He defended Stephen Oates against Michael Burlingame's demonstration of Princeton's Example 1 type in a letter to the press. The letter said, "We find no evidence of the appropriation of either the ideas or the language of other scholars without attribution -- the only legitimate test of plagiarism." This link shows Burlingame's extensive, shocking side-by-side evidence against Oates (to which McPherson was reacting).

In a more recent embarassment, McPherson bestowed the praise of uniqueness on the central idea of the book of one of his students, Tom Carhart. Eric Wittenberg posted on this (see the comments especially). So did Scott Hartwig and a New Jersey intellectual property lawyer (here and here).

Was McPherson - a high-end Gettysburg tour guide - unfamiliar with the literature of Gettysburg? That should not surprise.

In the case of Oates, McPherson's endorsement of plagiarism was perverse. In the case of Carhart, it was probably ignorant. In his own relationship with the material of Clausewitz, Jones, and Hattaway, his takings appear willful.

James McPherson's "Concentration in Time"

To oppose the enemy's ability to concentrate in space, Lincoln early prescribed the concentration in time of simultaneous advances. - Archer Jones: Civil War Command and Strategy, 1992, p 100

This concentration in space could be overcome only if the Union employed … concentration in time. - James M. McPherson: Tried by War, p 70

Another hallmark of Lincoln's conception of military strategy and operations… concentration in time by simultaneous advances… - James M. McPherson: Tried by War, p 269

These extracts (above) from James M. McPherson's new book Tried by War hover dangerously close to plagiarism. However, this post will not be an exploration of any plagiarism of phrases but rather the appropriation of ideas.

In writing of "concentration in time by simultaneous advances," McPherson bypasses entirely the secondary literature exploring that subject (see below). He does not cite it; there is no bibliography showing it; and none of the authors' names appear in the text or index.

Instead, he makes general reference (not cited in the end notes) to Lincoln's correspondence with Halleck and Buell, which the secondary literature of the 1980s and 1990s also used in developing the same insights. By making "concentration in time" a "hallmark" of Lincoln's strategic thought, McPherson makes emphatic claim both to its importance and to his own observation of its importance.

The relevant war communications were couched in the idiom of the day. They spoke of "simultaneous advances." There is no reference to "concentration in time" from Halleck or Buell because that phrase emerges after the war from translations of Clausewitz, who was not published in English stateside before or during the war.

Nor is McPherson quoting ACW sources when he uses quote marks around neologisms, as he does on page 70:

Lincoln grasped sooner than many of his generals the strategic concept of "concentration in time."

"Concentration in time" did not exist as a phrase or notion in the Civil War; it is part of a more elaborate postwar Clausewitzian construct that would become known later in the U.S. military. (Clausewitz's name does not appear in McPherson's new book either.)

Civil War strategists thought in terms of simultaneous advances and used that expression. To attribute to them "concentration" is an anachronism; and this phrase being such an oddity, it gives us a marker.

In 1983, Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones presented their How the North Won the War. There, they advocated the importance of Lincoln's championing simultaneous advances. I count seven discussions of this topic, none of which substitute "concentration in time" for "simultaneous advances" – it's all in the correct idiom. For example: "Halleck and the staff effectively implemented Lincoln's plan of simultaneous advances, especially in the well synchronized offensives of December, 1862." (p 689)

I have not found an earlier development of this idea, of Lincoln's special insight into simultaneity and making it a core component of his strategic thinking. I believe Hattaway and Jones own it.

In 1986, they repeated and strengthened their argument teaming with other authors:

In the spring of 1862 the Union armies of Halleck and McClellan had made simultaneous advances (concentrations of forces in time, Clausewitz had called them). […] Lincoln and Halleck again wisely applied the principle of concentration in time, that is simultaneous advances, in the fall of 1862. - Beringer, Hattaway, Jones, and Still: Why the South Lost the Civil War, 1986, p 287

This fragment is taken from a chapter titled "Union Concentration in Time and Space." For the first time (to my knowledge) Clausewitz is injected (with attribution) into analysis of this bit of Union strategy. After a few uses, "concentration"- the term - is retired as the authors return to the more natural "simultaneous advances" to explain Lincoln's true framework.

Hagerman's ACW appeared in 1988, justly crediting Hattaway and Jones and their idea of Lincoln as advocate for simultaneous advances. Hagerman does not use the word "concentration" and he offers his own view of the effect of this strategy:

In adopting a strategy of simultaneous advances east and west, Halleck and Lincoln redefined the role of the Army of the Potomac to hold Lee's army in place so that it could not send reinforcements to the West. - Edward Hagerman: The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare, 1988, p 68

It is not until 1992, when Archer Jones' Civil War Command and Strategy appears that the repeated, wholesale, anachronistic application of "concentration" (attributed to Clausewitz) displaces "simultaneous." Jones again stresses Lincoln's centrality to simultaneous operations and he is relentless in calling simultaneity "concentration in time." "Concentration" is Jones' signature and stamp on Lincoln's involvement in synchronous operations:

"… the Union planned and successfully executed its first concentration in time…" (p 101); "A comparison of the two forms of concentration" (p 101); "…concentration in time had the disadvantage…" (p 101).

We haven't even left page 101 and the concentration is overwhelming.

If the term "concentration in time" does not appear in the primary sources, if the application of this Clausewitzian expression to Lincoln's strategy is unusual and a hallmark of Jones (also Hattaway plus Jones), has not James M. McPherson transgressed? Has he not also transgressed in taking the theme of Lincoln's "hallmark" as his own?

This museum needs a consultant

How do you wind up in the museum business if you don't validate dubious holdings? What college do you go to in order to recruit generation after generation of curators who feel that inventory and validation are a waste of time and resources?

Stupidest Civil War story this year: Civil War surrender document is not a photocopy.

Calling Nancy Drew:

...museum officials examining the document recently noticed that the indentation of pens into the paper was visible. He said they also noticed that the ink on the document was darker and lighter in places, as would be expected with the pens used at the time.

Sinking down into the depths of "public history"

One could stage a contest asking people to send in links showing just how low public history is willing to go to "educate" and interest the uneducated and disinterested.

This would be an item:

If Abraham Lincoln's in-laws were alive today, "they would probably be throwing chairs at each other on the Jerry Springer show," according to a visiting professor at Chico State University.

Bravo, professor.

"Helping the amnesiac"

George Will is excited by the new Gettysburg Visitor's Center. He sees "something resoundingly right that will help a normally amnesiac nation to long remember. "

I see an abhorrent reversal of good order. The National Park Service, federally funded to keep up the grounds in its charge, attends instead to the content of the battle, interpreting the battle, explaining how to think about the battle and the war while private persons and groups attend to the physical upkeep.

The private and public marketplace of ideas have been replaced by a virtual government storehouse of memes and talking points. Meanwhile the physical storehouses and meeting places have been collapsing.

NPS and its private enablers at Gettysburg illustrate the prevalent chaos of our time: again and again, departments abandon their own mission to do some other work.

(Just last week an undersecretary of the Army said he was going on a buying spree that would launch the commercial electric car industry in America and that his department intends to earn money by erecting wind farms to sell electricity to local U.S. communities).

Government here is the amnesiac. If the NPS cannot care for Gettyburg, if the burden sharing arrangements as they stand cannot be overruled or reversed, the park needs to be sold to those who will care for it.

"George B. McClellan & Civil War History"

It was 10 years ago next month when the hardback came out, George B. McClellan & Civil War History. This month, the paperback edition has finally been released. From the preface:

The study of George B. McClellan that follows takes its form from my conviction that another standard biography or campaign study would serve no useful purpose. The literature is replete with such works. What was needed, in my opinion, was an analytical review of the literature itself. The format of this book, then, is many things but none of them exclusively. It contains biographical campaign narrative elements synthesized from the excellent studies already written. In undertaking a review of the existing literature it becomes a historiographic work, thus the obvious reliance on secondary source material. And it is revisionist to the extent that it both challenges well-established Civil War doctrine and suggests alternative mechanisms of reinterpretation.More precisely, I wanted here to examine the literature that emerged in the last half century, for it is here that the consensus opinion of McClellan has taken shape. And it is here that we find the evolution of McClellan as a seriously flawed general and individual. The writers of this period, whom I will refer to as Unionist historians, have thoroughly dominated the academic evaluation of McClellan's Civil War career and have directly influenced the popular perception in the process.

Attribution in talks - how much is enough?

In my grand total of two public speeches to Civil War audiences, I attributed each unique insight presented to the author who originated it, with recommendations that listeners seek out that author. The speeches were entirely about "new thinking" in ACW literature, so I was locked into an attributory mode whether I wanted to give credit or steal it.

Likewise, Scott Hartwig (top, right) faces a similar situation tonight when he does a compare/contrast talk matching Gettysburg history against the novel Killer Angels. Virtue is mandated, otherwise the talk is senseless.

The question that nags me lies outside of the framework where one has to attribute. It is about plagiarism in public speaking when the format of the talk is wide open.

The issue first arose for me when I noticed Doris K. Goodwin talking up "her" insights into Lincoln's leadership when, as Brian Dirck explains, these insights are all taken from Lincoln scholars. Even if Goodwin had attributed justly in Team of Rivals - she did not - on her speaking tour she is forever in position to convey her "authority" as source of her insights.

The issue has arisen again in a report on James McPherson's grand tour of speeches promoting a new Lincoln book. McPherson, as I have explained endlessly here, is a compiler and synthesizer but (unlike Goodwin) one who properly attributes in print. A good McPherson book would be one in which he seamlessly and elegantly lays out the current state of knowledge in some field, generalizing it for the reader. If the underlying material is good, McPherson will shine. If the source material is compromised, as it was when he wrote Battle Cry, the project is ruined.

Only a fool would trust a news report and I don't trust this one to represent exactly what McPherson said recently. I did cry out when reading it. Where the charmingly naive, star-struck reporter wrote the words (paraphrasing McPherson), "Key to this success was Lincoln's grasp of what is called 'concentration in time,'" I shouted "Archer Jones and Herman Hattaway!"

Hattaway and Jones took this concept and made something of a big deal of it vis a vis Lincoln in How the North Won the War. Jones (pictured right) also developed it in his solo books. They credited Lincoln for grasping (via Halleck and reading) this Jominian paradigm and for trying to leverage it in different phases of the war.

Can a speaker (hypothetically) explain Hattaway and Jones's point in a talk without mentioning them? Do plagiarism norms apply to orals? I ask this in general, not to embarass McPherson particularly - in this case he may even have mentioned them without the reference making it to print.

I would say that there is a general difficulty in reading news reports of McPherson's speeches because the reporters deliver one borrowed insight after another without attribution and indeed, in their slack-jawed awe of McPherson, they tend to imply attribution to him where he is intentionally recapping synthesized sources.

Jones was quite acerbic and I appreciate his evaluation of Stephen Sears as "more flash than substance." The same could be said of anyone on the speaker's circuit collecting laurels for others' ideas.

The Battle of the Nueces: revision emerges

Long article:

“Paul” Burrier ... based on his findings after 14 years of research, said he can dispel a number of myths about the battle and other details that have circulated for nearly 150 years. He put his evidence in a 300-plus page book, “A Perfect Reign of Terror, Insurgency in the Texas Hill Country 1861-1862”.

The next phase of heritage tourism

Not sure if this is a viable economic model, but if your heritage tourism site isn't getting enough traffic, you pay schools to ship in the kids.

Stealing the General goes into paperback

Congratulations to Russell Bonds on seeing his Stealing the General cross the hardback-paperback divide. An excellent an worthy book - now in a cheapskate edition!

Guelzo reviews Krannawitter

Caution: current politics are front and center.

Them big wheels keep on a rollin'

"Once you enter the 'Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America' exhibit, it’s easy to forget you’re standing inside the back end of a big rig."

How easy?

Rutherford B. Hayes saves the Union

And you never heard of the Battle of Opequon Creek?

"It was a huge victory for the union," McClary said. ... [Hayes and the 23rd Ohio] and their fellow Union troops pushed the Confederates back and ultimately saved Washington from rebel invasion.

New Lincoln letter

It supposedly reveals "anger." I don't see any.

Reporters seem to have unlimited license to characterize.

Wal-Mart vs. Wilderness Battlefield

"Nobody is saying when development would start."

The panic of '73

A professor of history says to forget 1929 and look to 1873 for modern analogies.

Specialization on parade

A geologist plies his trade:

The question, says Whisonant, is whether a correlation exists between the geology of the battlefield and casualties taken there. For some battles in the Civil War, the story told by the shape of the land is clear: soldiers were at greater risk in some areas because the underlying geology created a more dangerous terrain.

The infantryman is himself quite the geologist. I speak from personal experience.

Dismal September

The publishers, through whatever forecasting tools they may use, made a rare unanimous decision. In planning their fall catalogs, they reckoned that no one would be buying Civil War books in September.

In the 10 years I have been tracking ACW releases, I have never seen a month like this.

Apart from any self-published work I may have missed and setting aside any commercial titles scheduled but not released, my count stands at 13 books issued in the Civil War genre for 9/08. Consider, how broadly I define the ACW genre. Consider also this breakdown of the 13 titles:

- Eleven were nonfiction; one was a novel and one a picture book.
- Five were reprints, if we include the collected works of Mort Kunstler.
- One was a pomo gender study.
- Two were Lincoln books riding the Bicentennial wave.

Shocking. The same hand is not being dealt in October, fortunately.