"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.

Bravo

Jim Miller issues a "Bravo" to Russel Beatie for McClellan Takes Command.

Sesquicentennial: let the mockery begin!

A comment on preparations and the officials supposed to make them: "Civil War Sesquicentennial? Thanks, but I Think I Have to Wash My Hair that Year."

Meanwhile, you can use preservation grants to reclaim battlefield land or to conduct "hospitality training." The choice should be obvious.

Mom, can I go out and dig for human limbs?

(Halloween must be coming .)

"Death by Re-enactment"

An exciting new who-done-it coming to a newspaper rack near you.

Chapter 1, "A Victim Survives."

Goodwin's new honesty

The semi-retired Brian Dirck has been playing peek-a-boo with his readers. Nonetheless, Harry Smeltzer noticed an interesting post on Goodwin in what is supposed to be an inactive blog.

Of more urgency to me is not that Goodwin borrowed her various interpretations of issues from various AL historians (Brian's point), but how she (or her predecessors) could square the cabinet diaries against her core message of cabinet teamwork.

In history it's all about evidence handling, always. You have sins of omission (missed evidence that you didn't know about), sins of commission (suppressed evidence that would injure your meme), and outright atrocities (reversing the evidence - making it say the opposite of what it says).

Team of Rivals is an atrocity. Goodwin knows of the cabinet diaries and portrays a teamwork construct at odds with the diaries (which show isolation, bitterness, frustration towards Lincoln, and sustained contempt towards other cabinet members). The diaries stand in the vital center of the body of primary sources and must be dealt with on their own terms.

Here we meet Brian's observation again and his concern about the lack of acknowledgement of her tutors. Let me add this. Her book not only shows a rich borrowing of others' themes and ideas, look at the end notes - find a secondary source therein. They're damn scarce. The providers of themes and interpretations not only lack mention in the body: you'd be hard pressed to find their books cited at all.

Fingerprints have been removed from the scene. Claims of originality have been staked. Yet, Lincoln authors applaud.

It is possible that in her ten years of writing Goodwin used nothing but primary sources but is it possible that she would arrive at so many well-established opinions without recourse to the works of major scholars? The problem is now exacerbated in her lecturing, where she delivers other people's insights about Lincoln as her if they were her own.

In circumstances like these, one does not look for an "on the other hand" comment - one does not rustle up a few good things to say about Team of Rivals.

Pandering to the ignorant and indifferent

Barnes & Noble has asked me to direct your attention at their page called "Review" and in particular at the "fivebooks" section which in this edition features links to catalog entries for five (essential?) Civil War titles.

Like the late Jean Shepherd, I hate lists and I long to punish listmakers the way he did, so let us not go down the road of making the list "better" by choosing alternate titles.

Let us instead ask, why would a publisher/bookseller with deep inventory use his "fivebooks" space this way? Why would "fivebooks" be themed ACW and then pitched at the non-ACW reader as a starter kit?

Why would you pander to the ignoramus when you could pander to the proven book-buyer, the devotee? You know, there might even be a business model in that...

Most publishers approach this field backwards; witness the success of publisher Savas Beatie (publishing for appreciators) versus competitors who are forever blowing budgets chasing a readership uninterested in the ACW.

We see the same attitude in Gettysburg's park administration: to hell with the buff, our budget is devoted to the utterly disinterested random stopover.

What on earth can be driving the sale of an unending series of starter kits to a public that does not care?

Schlock effects

What is it about Lincoln that generates so much bad vaudeville?

Sesquicentennial fits and starts

Missouri has joined the very short roster of Sesquicentannial states with a $200k funding order. Meanwhile, in Virginia statements about the meaning of the commemoration have already started on contradictory paths:

Consider:

"This is not about getting into that debate of whether the war was about slavery or about states’ rights," said state Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, who sits on the commission.

But:

John Quarstein, historian for the city of Hampton and a consultant to Newport News, said: “It’s going to be marketed differently. It’s the story of a war about freedom."

Freedom for whom from whom?

This Quarstein is not one to commemorate a war when he can celebrate it:

"Every year, I celebrate the Battle of the Ironclads and the Battle of Big Bethel, but now the glare of the spotlight will be on us. It gives us a chance to do more."

Celebration - a natural byproduct of heritage tourism.

Bulletin from the Naval War College

From the WSJ:

... not since Gen. McClellan attempted to sabotage Lincoln's war policy in 1862... - Mackubin Owens, professor at the Naval War College and editor of Orbis, the journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute

What ever would we do without our popular concept of McClellan?

Straighten me out, navy buffs

Are we entitled to become irked when reporters and "experts" refer to Civil War "battleships"? I find it profoundly ignorant - but perhaps it's me that's ignorant.

In fact, I would call all the news coverage I've seen surrounding the Monticello vs. Rachel controversy ill-informed.

If you've been following the "Monticello" stories, here we have an archeologist commenting on the wreck uncovered by Gustav: "Shea McLean also agreed that it was most likely the Monticello, a Confederate battle ship en route from Havana that ran aground while trying to outrun the U.S. Navy into Mobile Bay."

On the other hand, "the Army Corps of Engineers argued that the wreck was actually the schooner Rachel, which sank in 1933."

The reporter owes the reader an explanation of how the remains of a CSS "battleship" could be confused with the remains of a schooner.

The reporter also owes us an explanation of how it is that the Union had a combat vessel named Monticello (pictured right) but there is no record of a CSA ship of that name (see here and here).
This already inadequate print reporting is then muddied up by ABC News which informs us that this is "a ragged shipwreck that archeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later." The (armed?) schooner is this "battleship" they refer to? Hmm.

More from ABC: "... a battleship that partially burned when it crashed trying to get past the U.S. Navy and into Mobile Bay during the Civil War."

Crashed and burned. Sounds more like "Smokey and the Bear," less like a naval action.

WaPo does the Cyclorama

One more link for the roundup of Cyclorama stories:

Even more famous than the Battle of Gettysburg was the "Battle of Sedan," a wildly popular bit of Prussian agitprop that helped channel the jingoistic fervor inspired by the Franco-Prussian War into feelings of broader German nationalism.

If you want the truth, ask a novelist

A good novelist has a better grasp of the truth than the general run of historians.

Here, a novelist takes apart a new work of Civil War history.

Shiloh gets a million

Projects at the Shiloh battlefield will get a $1 million infusion: "The grant is made possible through a federally funded program administered by the Tennessee Department of Transportation."

(I love battlefield preservation but these federal and state DOTs are looking much like giant cookie jars.)

Cyclorama spins news extravaganza

Loads of Gettysburg Cyclorama stories this weekend:

- Philly Inquirer, yesterday
- Los Angeles Times with photo gallery
- Baltimore Sun, heavy on the reminiscing
- York Daily Record - interesting pix and bits
- The Patriot News does its duty and no more
- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review does a wee bit better

A new ACW site

Hat tip to Sue for directing me to the American Civil War Forum.

They're looking for bloggers, BTW.

And they're repurposing content. The taste in content is a little odd. Five year old posts from Usenet such as this one are reposted under the names of current forum members (scroll down to the middle of this page and look for member MatiCambsb); then they are aggregated topically under labels like "Brooks" (for Usenet repostings originally involving Brooks Simpson) or "Epperson" (for old Usenet threads involving Jim Epperson).

Not sure what to make of it but have a look.

WWI revisionism

The revisionism in WWI studies is quite impressive. Will save up some notes for an OT post on the subject on Armistice Day.

Civil War memes in the daily press

At the risk of inflicting on the reader painful political spasms, I want to draw your attention to three pieces that appeared in the Washington Post last week. They're interesting in being heavily laden with Civil War memes and terminology.

These linked pieces below are all of the type "inside analysis" in which a researcher with limited access to a small set of decisionmakers attempts to tell "what it all means" and "how it all came about." In other words, the writer plays the part of the drunk who looks for his keys under the lamp post because the light is best there.

The Anaconda strategy
The first piece is by a lady who bases her insights on a 10-month stay in Iraq. Her editorial is disjointed and slightly incoherent - it is clear she lacks a military framework to help her process the information she has collected - and consequently, she deals out some tantalizing meat in a context-free soup.

The juiciest morsel contains this reference:

Petraeus convened a study group that shrewdly analyzed the raging sectarian conflict, then came up with what he called "the Anaconda strategy" to address the underlying dynamic.

Wow.

It is not clear that the writer understands this is an ACW reference, nor does she develop it to give us insight into what Petraeus thinks it might mean. After introducing the term, she abandons it to stress Petraeus's immersion in Iraqi domestic politics.

What might it mean? To the lay ACW reader, Anaconda probably means a less violent war strategy, one that puts the squeeze on an enemy economy to bring that enemy to the negotiating table. Although TV pundit Bill O'Reilly has repeatedly called Petraeus the U.S. Grant of this war does he see himself as Winfield Scott instead?

Lincoln's backchannels
As the excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book began appearing last week, I was pretty excited to find aspects of Lincoln's management of the war cropping up in the installments.

In this September 8 piece, we find the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a state of distress at being routinely bypassed on military decision making - shades of McClellan and Halleck!

In this September 9 installment, we find the brass in an uproar over the president using a retired general as his personal liaison to the general commanding (Hello, Ethan A. Hitchcock! And for that matter, Charles Dana!).

It seems that in the Civil War Lincoln could not stop taking advice, or soliciting advice. After he stopped listening to Halleck, he stopped listening to Stanton, who learned of some military decisions second hand (or so Stanton's biographers tell me). He constantly changed his sources and inputs. His taste for backchannels was so voracious, he encouraged Abner Doubleday's missives from Ft. Sumter during the crisis (see Detzer's Allegiance for the harm done Major Anderson, commanding).

One of the provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Act (that reorganized the military) stipulated that the chiefs of staff would always have access to the president. I thought this proviso redundant until Secretary Rumsfeld - an interesting, Stanton-like figure if ever there was one - approached the chiefs and asked them to write memos renouncing this right.

The consolidation of war powers in the War Department that Stanton sought would come to fruition in our own time.

Hattaway and Jones have spent some ink on the history and operation of the Union War Deaprtment's War Board, headed by Hitchcock (picture, top). It reached a point where it withered away from disuse. The chiefs are not going to wither away. Neither are the eternal questions of organization and accountability that Lincoln failed to resolve.

(Links require registration.)

UPDATE 9/16
The writer behind the Anaconda reference is Linda Robinson, author of Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. In her 2008 book, the Anaconda reference is rendered thus:

The United States also sought to attack Al-Qaeda's appeal with the "anaconda strategy," which aimed to go after the terrorists from every angle. "You can't do in Al-Qaeda with just counterterrorist forces," Petraeus said. "You've got to reduce any threat that gives a reason for Sunni Arab communities to want to support Al-Qaeda as a bulwark against them. You've got to get services, education, jobs. The religious side is important ... You've got to get out there in cyberspace ... and you have to get with all the source countries."

This appears to have no connection to the "Anaconda Plan" attributed to Scott. BTW, an aide gave him a copy of Catton's Grant Takes Command upon his departure to take command in Iraq and the book tells of him being inspired by that.

Taking it to the Supreme Court

The Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association has taken its case to the Supreme Court; meanwhile, a bill to put Porter's endangered battlefield under the Harpers Ferry federal park has cleared U.S. Senate committee.

Also in west Virginia, it's interesting to note that the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation has since 1991 secured 435 acres - almost the entire battlefield.

Both stories are here.

The power of partnership

It's a marketer's dream team, a publicity combination that comes around just once per lifetime: the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Illinois Soybean Association.

The ALPLM's underappreciated chief has gotten accolades in the Southeast Farm Press, AgriMarketing, Prarie Farmer, and Indiana Ag Connection.

Pure. Marketing. Genius.

We will remember this as the soybean Bicentennial.

Renovating with Imboden

"Live Civil War Shell Found in Wall."

The Simon affair

Some highly reliable notes have been received on the Simon affair, paraphrased with as much accuracy as I can muster:

Simon, I am told, had a harsh style, an unpleasant way that was accommodated (institutionally) for a long time; a new administration at SIU was less accommodating, however.

Where Simon perceived rivalry, he tried to quash reputations. He made enemies. Some of his workers felt abused. He had a rough way and lapses in self-control.

In this firing case, the aggrieved combined with the new university leadership (open to making changes).

(To get a sense of the political background preceding the new regime at SIU is, see here.)

His friends made his recent situation worse than it needed to be.

If his friends continue to bear down too hard on his enemies it could trigger an outpouring that hurts Simon’s reputation further. Examples include this and this.

Chief Justice Williams of the RISC, as head of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, has been hitting the university hard but is himself under attack for the conduct of his judicial duties (see here and here).

John Marszalek will finish the Grant Papers - essentially publishing the last volume of already collected material.

In sum: This is fairly “typical academic politics, spiced with a vengeful overreaction and punishment” of obnoxious behavior.

The absentee blogger: John Y. Simon

Having been offline since April, I compounded the error of missing stories on the firing of John Y. Simon in January by letting his death last month pass by unremarked.

Brooks Simpson was on patrol however, and even caught a couple of howlers spoken by Harold Holzer and duly printed as gospel in the New York Times (which followed with a correction).

(The eminently correctable New York Times goes to a pop culture Lincoln writer for a quote on a Grant scholar instead or checking with the community of Grant scholars!)

The divorce of Southern Illinois University from the Ulysses S. Grant Association in winter leaves the status of some Grant papers the subject of legal wrangling. Here are the latest links from less recent to more recent:

Backgrounder: History of the U.S. Grant Association

Backgrounder: About John Y. Simon

Widow: Simon never saw full report of sexual harassment allegations
(Includes account of how, on the day of his firing, Simon was escorted off campus and warned security would prevent his return.)

Association sues university, makes accusation of forgery
("...someone at SIUC forged payment documents.")

Historical group files restraining order on SIUC
("The Grant Association 'has established a prima facie case to a superior right to possession of the disputed property...'")

Looks like a vendetta from up here in the peanut gallery.

The absentee blogger: Continuous Fight

I have been almost completely offline since April and have therefore missed a number of events worth comment. One of these is the release of One Continuous Fight by Wittenberg, Petruzzi and Nugent. Supplies ran out almost immediately and it is currently in its second printing, according to publisher Ted Savas. Will post more on this soon.

Incidentally, Eric recently linked to this post by Manny, and I must say it is a super-extravagnza, sui generis, and represents a new use of the medium.

Rafuse on Lee's end

A new book from Ethan Rafuse filled with new insights and analysis: what a good thing.

1066 and All That

One of the great jokes of my youth was a book written for history readers mocking what we would today call "public historians." It was called 1066 and All That and adopted the mission of conveying only memorable history to the broad public. I am looking at an Internet extract on the subject of barons and picturing a tour guide ladeling this out to a group of tourists. Spelling corrected:

Simon de Montfort, although only a Frenchman, was a Good Thing, and is very notable as being the only good baron in history. The other barons were, of course, all wicked barons. They had, however, many important duties under the baronial system. These were:

1. To be armed to the teeth.

2. To extract from the villein saccage and soccage, tollage and tallage, pillage and ullage, and, in extreme cases, all other baronial amenities such as umbrage and porridge.

3. To hasten the King's death, deposition, insanity, etc., and make quite sure that there were always at least three false claimants to the throne.

4. To resent the Attitude of the Church. (The barons were secretly jealous of the Church, which they accused of encroaching on their rights.)

5. To keep up the Middle Ages.

The points of similarity with pop ACW history might be called out in a list of its own:

1. Organizing historical phenomena into lists (or serials).

2. Carefully pointing out the Good Thing and the Bad Thing to the reader.

3. Synthesizing already wobbly generalities into even higher level generalities.

4. Striking a tone of false neutrality ("They had, however, many important duties...").

5. Edifying the public.

Another angry ACW historian

Interviewer: Does this history anger you?
Historian: I don’t think it would be unfair to say that.

See here.

What does it take to change a marker?

Predictable?

For Lois Helmers it was the last straw when she was notified last Saturday that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has apparently no intention of correcting Private Philip Findling’s name on his marker at the National Cemetery in Marietta.

Games: Ironclad demo released

A demo for "Ironclads: American Civil War" has been posted here. It appears to be a tactical game; historiographic content may be low.

Russell Bonds on Civil War Talk Radio

Russell Bonds will appear on Civil War Talk Radio on Friday at 12 noon PST/3:00 pm EST.

Gerry P and Russell B are funny, outgoing, smart ACW authors. This could be a lot of fun.

Bloggers and museums

The Museum of the Confederacy is asked to respond to comments by blogger Kevin Levin.

"Centennialism" as duplication and repitition

In this space I often use a neologism of my own coining, "Centennial," as a token for certain tendencies in Civil War history that culminated in the 1960s and which were revived by the work of James McPherson in our own times.

Betsy Rosen has sent me the following wonderful recent quote from Southern littérateur Louis D. Rubin, Jr. (pictured, right). You'll recognize what he's talking about, I think:

I just received a book by and from my Hollins professor and longtime mentor, Louis D. Rubin, Jr.-- THE SUMMER THE ARCHDUKE DIED: On Wars and Warriors, U. of Missouri Press, 2008.

It's mostly all about the Great War (with a brief memoir of the author's childhood in Charleston and early fascination with the ACW), but the following paragraphs on p. 13 made me think of you:

"Another and less ideological factor was impacting upon the reading and writing of Civil War military history in the 1950's and 1960's. As new book after book about the war was published, not only repetition but also outright duplication of topic and approach multiplied. More and more was being published about less and less. Some useful and informative books continued to be written, and certain facile assumptions and partisan interpretations received needed revision; but the ratio of heat to light grew ever more inefficient with each book-publishing season.

"Not a few good Civil War historians began to examine the doings of generals and politicians of other wars and crises for possible study. Others took to repeating themselves. By the time the centennial years drew to an end, books on the Civil War were becoming a glut on the history market...."

I like this phrase very much - "not only repetition but also outright duplication of topic and approach." The later success of Ken Burns and James McPherson in recycling the "greatest hits" of the '50s and '60s "inspired" regurgitation of the exhausted material for a new generation of readers.

We are just now coming into a new wave of original research, thought, and analysis. I try to be celebratory about it despite this blog starting out of deep anger with the commercial success of repitition and duplication. The question I force on myself nowadays, however, is whether I am celebrating new work on its own merits or for the relief it gives me from the intellectual poverty of a dying consensus.

(Blogger Betsy's ACW novel Hallam's War, meanwhile, is going paperback with a major trade house. I think ACW novels, on the whole, do better than ACW nonfiction titles.)

History beyond words

"Widow of Confederate soldier dies at 93." As I post this, her death was reported five hours ago.

Abe, the musical, moves forward

The producers are getting ink in Playbill.

Re-enactment turns ugly

Sioux activists "were taken into custody by law enforcement officers after they used a microphone and speaker to voice their objections to the re-enactment."

The Sun's book blog

For those of you who love top ten (or top top five) lists (me, I hate them) The Baltimore Sun's book blog has a few posts on which you can add some personal choices: Defining Southern Literature, Southern Writings, and Check It Out - CW Books. On the latter a few ACW bloggers have weighed in already. All are found at this link. Scroll down as needed.

Bullseye?

James McPherson, as on all issues and topics, perfectly represents the Centennialist doctrine on rifle muskets:

Time and again generals on both sides ordered close-order assaults in the traditional formation. With an effective range of three or four hundred yards, defenders firing rifles decimated these attacks. - James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom

Brent Nosworthy has worked hard to upgrade our understanding from the level of these 1950s-era nostroms. Thus,

[CSA] Major E. P. Alexander, an expert shot, decided to take a crack at the Pennsylvania Bucktails, who were running toward his position [on Sept. 17, 1862]. Positioning eight men behind a rock to load for him, he started to unleash about eight shots a minute, starting when the Union infantry was still about 600 yards distant. Alexander would later recall "I don't think I hit many, for distances varied rapidly & all had to be guessed, but I did distinctly see one fellow drop at my shot." - Brent Nosworthy, Bloody Crucible of Courage

And again:

A soldier, firing [a rifle musket] at a target 540 yards away who overjudged the distance by 33 yards would completely miss a 10-foot high target. - Brent Nosworthy, Bloody Crucible of Courage

And once more with feeling:

Lieutenant Colonel Dixon of the Royal Artillery ... pointed out that given the relatively low initial muzzle velocity of the new style rifle muskets, it was critical to estimate the range of each shot accurately, something that required concentration and sangfroid. This was rare among troops in massed formations under fire. Surrounded by smoke and the whistle of shells and bullets flying nearby, most soldiers would become distracted. Some would even shake and wobble on their legs. Their ability to compute ranges, adjust the back sight, and aim accurately would be greatly diminished. - Brent Nosworthy, Roll Call to Destiny

Now comes Earl Hess with a new book, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth. The promotional literature tells us

Hess presents a completely new assessment of the rifle musket, contending that its impact was much more limited than previously supposed and was confined primarily to marginal operations such as skirmishing and sniping. He argues further that its potential to alter battle line operations was virtually nullified by inadequate training, soldiers' preference for short-range firing, and the difficulty of seeing the enemy at a distance.

This is an exciting time in Civil War publishing. We are moving from single works that upend this or that Centennial certainty to a collective building on complex corrections.

(Hess's book is blurbed by fellow blogger Mark Grimsley.)

Conspiracy theory 5: analyzing the letter

Previously: LTC Edward Wright, friend and aide to McClellan, had traveled to D.C. to receive a message from Allan Pinkerton: Wright and McClellan's small circle of friends were under observation for plotting the assasination of Abraham Lincoln, Pinkerton said. Their arrests would would be triggered by any move to execute their plot. It would also follow any protest or commotion made by McClellan in reference to the upcoming election, the results which were already rigged. If GBM kept quiet, he and his friends would be spared arrest (and presumably execution). The threat came in the midst of military trials of the Sons of Liberty and foreshadowed those executions.

"Mr. Lincoln knew of this interview" has a certain resonance. McClellan contracted for Pinkerton's and Lincoln's services at the Illinois Central, GBM personally directing their activities. Pinkerton's involvement with Lincoln's security appears to flow from this comity.

The Civil War reader has no idea of how "thick" Pinkerton, Lincoln, and McClellan were; a small digression may help with this. On April 15, 1861, Baldy Smith wrote GBM to tell him the rumor that Lincoln was going to make the civilian Mac a brigadier in the Regular Army. He advised his friend to get the highest volunteer commission first to leverage himself up in any federal negotiations. By April 18 (see his letter to Robert Patterson) McClellan had accepted a state level engineering staff position under Patterson. The same day he told Fitz John Porter of a feeler put out inviting his command of the Pennsylvania Reserves. On April 19, Baltimore rioted. Pinkerton's trusted agent, Timothy Webster, was by Lincoln's side. In his biography of Webster Pinkerton wrote that immediately after the riots Lincoln told Webster, "take these telegrams, and when you have reached a point where communication is possible, send them to General [sic] McClellan at Columbus, Ohio; they are important and must be sent without delay. Also telegraph to Mr. Pinkerton at once; his services are, I think, greatly needed by the government at this time." As Washington is cut off, Lincoln has Pinkerton and GBM in his thoughts at the same time. Moreover, by April 23, we see offers of major generalcies gushing in all at once from Republican governors: from Morgan (NY), from Curtin (PA), From Dennison (OH).

There is another phrase that resonates in Wright's recounting of the Pinkerton interview: "it was with a desire to befriend McClellan and save him from possible trouble that he [Lincoln] had employed him [Pinkerton] in the matter."

Here "befriend" refers to an estrangement. I don't know if Lincoln considered McClellan, his employer, a friend after sharing rooms (and beds) with him in country inns throughout Illinois as they plied railroad cases in county seats but by 1861, Lincoln habitually and publicly referred to McClellan as "George" and even "our George." I don't know of any cabinet officer or politician outside Lincoln's small circle of pre-election friends referred to by their first names; certainly no general ever after received this treatment. In the same vein, I once tried to tally the number of visits (drop-ins) Lincoln made on McClellan at home and gave up in discouragement. There were so many.

And so this "befriending" has meaning. It also has context.

There were several presidential-tinged overtures to bring McClellan back into active duty that occured on May 1, 1864 (Montgomery Blair to SLM Barlow); July 21 (Francis Blair Sr. to GBM); July 31 (Lincoln and Grant, confirmed by Cameron). IIRC Cameron also approached McClellan about his restoration before the spring 1864 campaign even started.

If we interleave these McClellan-related dates with the government's progress in its Sons of Liberty investigation, we get some interesting results. Perhaps I'll table these incidents at the end of this series. There are two more remarkable dates we should consider.

The first is well known: it is the confrontation after Lincoln levels treason accusations against McClellan on the morning of March 8, 1862. (McClellan: "It is difficult to understand that a man of Mr. Lincoln's intelligence could give ear to such abominable nonsense.") The second date occurs on September 23, 1864. McClellan's political manager wrote to him:

"Lincoln pretends to have a letter of yours to himself, written in 1861, I believe, in which you advised him to assume dictatorial powers, arrest members of Congress &c &c. This story is likely to hurt us very much in certain quarters. Have you a copy of any such letter and if, not can you give me the substance."

McClellan answered,

"I have carefully thought over the matter & cannot think of anything I ever wrote or said that could be tortured into giving Lincoln the advice in question. You may be sure that it is a lie out of the whole cloth."

And so, we see Lincoln on this emotional see-saw. He recruits McClellan, he confronts McClellan; he credits treason, he cultivates friendship. On the verge of arresting him, if we credit Pinkerton, he sends an olive branch.

Two days after the election, Simon Cameron feels compelled to send Lincoln the strongest letter possible to prevent the restoration of McClellan to command.

So questions arise.

(1) Did the McClellan Minute Men or Sons of Liberty, in arrest, confinement and under interrogation, fabricate implications? Even if they did, it seems impossible that they would come up with precise circle of men surrounding candidate McClellan (Wright, Curtis, Belmont, etc.).

(2) Was this intimidation a Stanton scheme? Sears in his GBM biography says McClellan thought so but gives no evidence. Actually, McClellan is on the record before the election as saying that Stanton had lost all discretion and was being directed by Lincoln from day to day; furthermore, Pinkerton did not have a Stanton connection and if he worked for Stanton at all during the war it was temporarily.

The Wright letter describing the Pinkerton meeting has an internal coherence that invites credibilty among those familiar with the Lincoln-McClellan-Pinkerton relationship.

It seems to me - I'm speculating - that the Sons of Liberty cases opened the door to a general crackdown on the political opposition and this Wright incident was part of that. We'll see more of this next with the arrest of a lieutenant governor.

Previously:
"Mr. Lincoln knew of this interview"
"The McClellan interest"
Rosecrans discovers a plot
Conspiracy theory
General Wool writes a letter

p.s. My reference to LTC Wright as the son of the General appears to be erroneous. Bill Bergen writes:

In yesterday's post, Conspiracy theory 4, you state that Edward H. Wright was Horatio Wright's son. As the reigning expert on Horatio Wright, I can tell you that Horatio had only two daughters and no sons (though one might have died in infancy). If you have info to the contrary, I'd love to see it.

It appears true, though I have never been able to confirm it, that the two Wrights were related. There is a single reference in one article I found that mentioned Horatio and a William Wright, a Senator from NJ, were cousins. Here is his info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wright_(politician)

I gathered from some context or another that the senator was Edward's father or uncle. That this letter is written from NJ, and not CT or DC, the two places Horatio called home, lends some credence to that theory.

One of the few of Horatio Wright's non-military letters that is in the public domain is to Edward Wright. Here is a synopsis of that:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/ricewrc/00093/rice-00093.html

Having read the whole letter, the reference to McClellan is to Arthur McClellan, G.B.'s younger brother, who was a long-time VI corps staff officer and a source of some controversy. In Sears' book of McClellan letters, there is a early fall 1864 missive from GB to Arthur saying that if he were to be restored to command of the army he would take the VI Corps' staff as his own. He tells Arthur to give his regards to Wright and Getty.

I have a few other pieces of evidence that hint at a Horatio-GB close relationship, but nothing definitive.

Top: McClellan and Pinkerton from The Spy of the Rebellion.

Conspiracy theory 4: "Mr. Lincoln knew of this interview"

The story so far: With the election looming, the government begins a roundup of civilian conspirators operating as "The Sons of Liberty" putting them before military commissions answering to Stanton's friend and appointee Judge Joseph Holt.

Felix Stidger, an infiltrator of the conspiracy, recalls in his memoirs that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute all the conspirators, in other words, there were (in modern parlance) unindicted co-conspirators at large.

Judge Holt, in a report to Stanton on the results of Rosecrans's and Carrington's investigations into the conspiracy, notes the same; he also conflates the Sons of Liberty with a New York organization calling itself "the McClellan Minute Guard." He further connects the mish-mashed Sons/Guard with what he calls "the McClellan interest" and indirectly with McClellan himself. He promises "military surveillance" over the unindicted.

Given the intensity of feeling, Holt's prediliction for blurring distinctions, and the opportunity to destroy a perceived opponent of Lincoln, did Holt and Stanton broaden the category of unindicted co-conspirators beyond what what the investigation produced or the law allowed? Did they use the existence of unprosecuted conspirators to persecute political enemies not connected to the Sons?

The following letter is unknown to Civil War historians, although it has been in plain view among the McClellan Papers forever. Only Stephen Sears has ever mentioned it and that in passing, in paraphrase, in brief, in his Young Napoleon biography. He seemed puzzled by it and eager to move on.

We, on the other hand, have enough context to consider it in the fullness it deserves. It was supplied to McClellan's literary executor for possible inclusion in the posthumous McClellan's Own Story but was not used.

From Reel 60, The McClellan Papers, microfilm edition: a letter from Edward H. Wright to George Ticknor Curtis. Col. Edward Wright was the son of Gen. Horatio Wright and a former aide to General McClellan:

Dec. 28 1886
Newark

Dear Sir:

In reply to your letter of the 23rd in reference to an interview with Gen. McClellan at his home on Orange Mountain about the time of the Presidential election in 1864 at which interview you were present, I hasten to make the following statement.

The interview was not on the day after the Presidential election but about nine o'clock on the morning of the 29th of October.

On the evening of the 26th of October at a late hour Gen. McClellan, with some friends, called on me at my father's house, bringing with them a message from Pinkerton, the chief detective of the War Department, asking for an interview with me at either Philadelphia or Baltimore and stating that he had information in reference to the approaching Presidential election which he was unwilling to give to any of McClellan's friends but myself.

I was to go to Philadelphia and await a visitor at the Continental Hotel. In case of no one appearing during the day, I was to leave by the night train for Baltimore go to Barnum's Hotel and remain there till recognized.

In pursuance of these instructions I left on the morning of the 27th for Philadelphia and while there called on Dr. John McClellan meeting Gen. Andrew Porter to whom I stated my business.

No one calling for me at Philadelphia I took the night train for Baltimore, and soon after reaching there on the following morning I was accosted by a stranger and conducted to a house some blocks in the rear of the hotel, where I was left alone in the front room of the second story.

In a few moments Pinkerton entered the room.

The first statement he made was that a conspiracy to assassinate Mr. Lincoln existed among the friends of McClellan, that every one of the conspirators was known and watched and on the slightest movement on their part all would be arrested and hung.

I asked him for the names of these men.

He mentioned the names of yourself, Colonel Key, Mr. Belmont [campaign manager for Buchanan and Douglas, leading backer of McClellan] and my own name with those of others I do not recall.

I treated his statement as an absurdity, and asked him if he had anything else to say.

He then said he was a friend of McClellan and wished to serve him in every way he could. That McClellan and his friends might as well give up the fight; that the elections would be carried for Mr. Lincoln by such majorities as they wished; that Pennsylvanians would give any majority they called for, that with the exception of New Jersey, about which they cared nothing, every state would give Mr. Lincoln its vote, and it would be seen to that the majorities would be so overwhelming as to prevent any further opposition. That the attempt to get the soldiers' vote for McClellan would not be allowed to get beyond control. That the election was already settled, and that McClellan and his friends would get into serious trouble if they did not abstain from further action. That Mr. Lincoln knew of this interview, and that it was with a desire to befriend McClellan and save him from possible trouble that he had employed him (Pinkerton) in the matter.

After further conversation on these subjects, I took train for my home, reaching there on the morning of the 29th and reporting as soon as possible to Gen. McClellan at Orange when you were present.

Gen. McClellan treated the conspiracy nonsense as I had, and said he would not insult any of his friends by repeating such a charge to them. The information did not have the slightest effect on him or his friends. I was agreed that my interview with Pinkerton should not be spoken of to anyone.

I knew Pinkerton as the chief of the Detective bureau at the Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac while I was serving as an aid of McClellan. I believe he was honest in his assertion of friendship for McClellan, that he knew the desperate men in control of Washington and had their secrets, that he feared the zeal of some of McClellan's friends might be used by his enemies as an excuse for his arrest and trial by the pliant courts, and suborned witnesses of Stanton.

I believe Mr. Lincoln always felt kindly towards McClellan, and desired to befriend him as far as political necessities permitted.

Very respectfully yours,

Edw. H. Wright

Next:
Analyzing the letter and building a timeline

Previously:
"The McClellan interest"
Rosecrans discovers a plot
Conspiracy theory
General Wool writes a letter

Images: top, Wright, bottom, Pinkerton

Conspiracy theory 3: "the McClellan interest"

As Rosecrans's agent runner, Major Hays, wrapped up his 1,000-page report on the Missouri conspiracy, General Henry B. Carrington, spymaster for Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee was hitting paydirt for the first time with a mole named Felix Stidger.

On May 4, 1864 when he joined the secret services, Stidger had never even heard of the Sons of Liberty (or their predecessors, the Knights of the Golden Circle). By June, he was esablished a principal officer of their Indiana chapter, fully conversant with their aims, members, and network, reporting regularly to Carrington. In his 1903 memoirs, Treason History of the Order of Sons of Liberty (available on Google Books), Stidger says that prior to his rise within the order, Carrington had been having no luck: "no man in the employ of the Government had ever been able to get farther into the Orders than one or two of the lower degrees, the members of which never came in communication with the leaders ... [and] were never informed of any of the details..." (Emphasis in the original.)

Stidger gave the federal authorities a close view of the conspiracies hatched by the Sons; one book credits him for the advance warning Seward gave New York authorities of the 1864 plot to burn Manahattan. (Stidger had actually couriered the relevant information between Jacob Thompson, the CSA spymaster in Canada, and his controllers in Richmond.)

In his book, Stidger not only names names, he prints pictures of the conspirators, leading men in Indiana public life (his work was Indiana-focused). And although he places Clement Vallandigham at the head of the Sons nationwide, he painstakingly separates him from the violent plots, the planned burnings, the uprisings, the liberation of Rebel POWs, and so on. He pins these on a man named H.H. Dodd, the COO of the Sons.

McClellan makes but one appearance in Stidger's book. Recounting a meeting between Vallandigham and the Sons' leadership, in which they are drawing up planks for the platform of the Democratic convention, Stidger quotes Vallandigham as so pleased with the planks he says, he "would be willing to accept McClellan, or any other man as the Presidential Candidate on it [the platform]." This puts McClellan in the role of troublesome outsider neutralized by the platform ... but we have no sense of whether this was reported at the time or understood by the men who may have received such information.

Stanton's Judge Advocate General (Joseph Holt) was so pleased with Rosecrans/Hays and Carrington/Stidger, he named them in his official report, "On the 'Order of the American Knights,' alias, Order of the Sons of Liberty," issued on October 8. Blending the information he received and heralding the commission trial of Dodd, Holt stressed the military nature of the Sons and gave some figures:

The numbers of its members in the several States has been differently estimated in the reports and statements of its officers. Thus, the force of the order in Indiana is stated to be from 75,000 to 125,000; in Illinois from 100,000 to 140,000; in Ohio from 80,000 to 108,000; in Kentucky from 40,000 to 70,000; in Missouri from 20,000 to 40,000; and in Michigan and New York about 20,000 each.

Holt brings up McClellan's name, echoing an appelation found in Rosecrans's letter to Lincoln cited in the previous post:

The "McClellan Minute Guard," as appears from a circular issued by the Chief Secretary [of the Guard] in New York in March last, is organized upon a military basis similar to that of the order proper. It is composed of companies, one for each election district, ten of which constitute a "brigade," with a "Brigadier General" at its head. The whole is placed under the authority of a "Commander-in-Chief."

Holt notes that this "Guard" "would seem to be a branch" of the Sons, adding

as the Chief Secretary of this association... stated in June last to a reliable witness ... "those who represent the McClellan interest are compelled to preach a vigorous prosecution of the war, in order to secure the popular sentiment and allure voters."

And so Holt, in an official communication to Stanton, links "the McClellan interest" inferentially to a violent, revolutionary conspiracy while using the paraphrased words of an informer to characterize McClellan's own pro-war stance as a dissimulation "to allure voters." All this on the eve of an election.

Holt concludes ominously that

The greater part of the chief and subordinate officers of the order, and its branches, as well as the principal members thereof, are known to the Government, and where not already arrested, may regard themselves as under constant military surveillance.

Remember this phrasing; we will see it again.

In his memoirs, Stidger makes note that the commissions needed witnesses and that he was the key to many of the cases brought against the Sons; where they lacked a Stidger, the prosecutors would not bring charges, he says. This suggests two sets of books - prosecutable conspirators and non-prosecutable associates: indictable and unindictable co-conspirators, as it were. This may be the meaning of Holt's words. Or, Holt may be taking an even broader view of "guilt by association."

Stidger's success, his meteoric career as an informant, culminated on October 21, 1864, with the start of serial trials by military commission of the many civilians he had been reporting on. He was the key witness against the defendants in case after case. This sensational political circus - foreshadowed by Holt's dark report - set the stage for the secret meeting between Allan Pinkerton and Col. Edward Wright six days later.

Previously:
Conspiracy theory 2: Rosecrans discovers a plot
Conspiracy theory
General Wool writes a letter

Images, top to bottom: Holt, Carrington, Stidger.

Conspiracy theory 2: Rosecrans discovers a plot

Having explored the difference between speculative history and conspiracy theory, we are ready to unwind the events - in a safe and sane manner - surrounding the death threat conveyed to George B. McClellan by Allan Pinkerton (through Col. Edward Wright) on October 28, 1864. First, the background parts.

When last we left John Wool, he had written an angry letter to the Army and Navy Journal in September of 1864 denouncing McClellan and a "wide-spread conspiracy" saying "The conspirator[s] have secret associations, whose members are scattered over the land," and "The perils of the Union were never greater than at the present moment." He implicated McClellan in the conspiracy with the comment, "At a future day I may present facts which will substantiate all I have said in regard to this dangerous conspiracy and their convention and their candidates for the Presidency." (Emphasis added.)

Before Wool reached this fever pitch of suspicion, beginning in June of 1864 a series of alarming letters had been sent to Lincoln directly by William Rosecrans from Missouri. Only one of these is readily available online and I post it in full with my emphasis added in bold. This is the synopsis conveying a more detailed report delivered separately by hand running over 1,000 pages.

From William S. Rosecrans to Abraham Lincoln, June 22, 1864: Head Quarters Dept of Missouri June 22. 64

Since Major Hays departure bearing my letter about the secret conspiracy we have been tracing out, we have added much information of its southern connexions operations uses and intentions.

We have have also found a new element in its workings under the name of McClellan minute men.

The evident extent, and anti national purposes of this great conspiracy, compel me to urge the consideration of what ought to be done to anticipate its workings and prevent the mischief it is capable of producing again upon your attention.

Therefore I have sent the report of Col Sanderson with the details of evidence covering a thousand pages of foolscap [roughly legal-size paper] by himself to be carried or forwarded to you by safe hands.

That Report and its acompanying papers, show

1. That there exists an oath-bound secret society, under various names but forming one brotherhood both in the rebel and loyal states, the objects of which are the overthrow of the existing national government, and the dismemberment of this nation.

2. That the secret oaths bind these conspirators to revolution and all its consequences of murder arson pillage and an untold train of crimes, including assassination and perjury under the penalty of death to the disobedient or recusant.

3. That they intend to operate in conjunction with rebel movements this summer to revolutionize the loyal states, if they can.

4. That Vallandingham is the Supreme Commander of the Northern wing of this society and Genl Price of the rebel army the Supreme Commander of the Southern wing of the organization. And that Vallandinghams return was a part of the programme well understood both North and South, by which the revolution they propose was to be inaugurated.

5. That this association is now and has been the principal agency by which spying and supplying rebels with means of war are carried on between the loyal and rebel states, and that even some of our officers are engaged in it.

6 That they claim to have 25000 members in Missouri, 140000 in Illinois, 100000 in Indiana, 80000 in Ohio, 70000 in Kentucky and that they are extending through New York New Jersey Penna Delaware & Maryland.

Besides which prominent & general facts, the names of members mode of operating and other details appear fully showing what a formidable power and what agencies for mischief we have to deal with.

With this synopsis of the Report it is respectfully submitted with the single remark that whatever orders you may deem best to give it must be obvious to your Excellency that leading conspirators like Chas S. Hunt & Dr Reed Shore of of St Louis arrested for being implicated in the association cannot be released without serious hazzard to the public welfare & safety--

W. S Rosecrans
Maj Genl

As history readers, we can beat ourselves up for dabbling in "conspiracy theory" but the principals actually lived it from day to day.

Reflections on Grant's tomb

Political blogger Mencius Moldbug shares some of his contemporary verse with readers:

Grant's Tomb

Horny-handed scions of the soil,

Loggers, and adult children of oil,

May visit here, and leave their souls.

Confirm them, soldier, in their roles.

Review our million generals of peace,

Braided and squabbling for office.

Award them stars for being bright,

Hard-working, careful, and polite.

Gifts from the gods are gifts to own;

Generals are men. Our gifts are loans.

Blue, bearded Ulysses, our drinker,

Our only patron saint of failure,

I may yet stop by with open hands.

Try and be closed for maintenance.

New books from Holzer and McPherson

The Bicentennial is upon us. Publishers Weekly has reviewed Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson. Get ready for Lincoln's shrewd and perceptive operational advice.

In the same omnibus, we have Lincoln President Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860–1861 by Harold Holzer. "Holzer shows Lincoln shrewdly and methodically manipulating friend and foe alike."

Hey, blurb that Mr. Publisher!

Goodwin's speaking fee

We noted here some time ago the amount of Doris Kearns Goodwin's speaking fee. Good to see the mighty New York Times catching up. They have the fee wrong, however, due to a lack of basic research.

Goodwin does not command "up to" $40,000 as reported in the Gray Lady. Her speaker's fee is $40,001 "and up" given the code 6 rating her bureau displays on her page.

The Times rationalizes the size of her fee based on its content: motivational speakers get more.

Ten days ago, Goodwin spoke to a gathering of legislators in Anchorage. She could have spoken out of her rich personal background as an aide to Lyndon Johnson. Topics? Successful transitions from legislator to executive or games executives play with legislators. Instead, she delved into a topic that she admits was new to her when she started writing Team of Rivals. And this is the content served up for a fee that starts at $40,001:

The qualities that made Lincoln outstanding, Goodwin said, should still be the benchmark today: the ability to set aside anger, jealousy and other destructive emotions, in order to make the right policy calls for the country.

By the way, could we not say that the hallmark of the Lincoln Administration was its refusal to set policy? It had no occupation policy, no reconstruction policy, no freedmen policy, no military srategy, no foreign policy; it was a policy free zone driving the generals and cabinet officers and legislators mad.

The larger tragedy is that Goodwin, as a celebrity, has personally met more legislators than anyone in her Alaska conference audience plus she had a ringside seat at the Lyndon Johnson circus. She has original content to share with her paymasters. And yet, she will resort to canned speeches on half-baked historical insights based on her incomplete reading and understanding of material that seems fundamentally beyond her.

Her pay seems an inverse ratio of value.

None too CUIL

Drudge is headlining the debut of a new search engine ("Cuil") staffed with ex-Google programmers. The underlying story speaks of more pages indexed, better search results, etc.

Have a laugh after looking at the results for searching for Civil War blogs.

Integrated Union regiments (cont.)

Mitch Hagmaier comments:

"If a soldier's envelope did not immediately indicate race, Moss would open his file and carefully examine the documents to search for physical descriptions such as eyes, hair and complexion. If the three criteria were marked as black, she added the soldier's name to her list."

Um, that's a little... loose. How many Greeks and Sicilians with anglicized names are getting counted as black in her list?

My own inference is that those people used "black complexion" the way we do - perhaps a risky assumption.

Integrated Union regiments

A genealogist hands Civil War historians yet another humiliation. Basic information is again supplied to "experts" in the face of their preferred inferences and conjectures.

"I looked at each of their faces, and I knew that this was brand-new information," said Moss, 76, who in October will release a revised edition of her book The Forgotten Black Soldiers in White Regiments During the Civil War.

Don't expect it to prevail, just because it's data.

Spellbound

A Meade impersonator? A Meade impersonator who fields two hours of questions from a general audience?

Conspiracy theory

As interested as I am in the connections between military and political figures in the Civil War, I have long held at the top of my "to-do" list a project to "define conspiracy theory so as not to fall into it myself.

It so happens, I am reading a lot of what can only be called conspiracy theory just now and so am in pretty good shape to tackle the question.

First, let's take off the table the narrow Wikipedia-type definition, that conspiracy theory attempts to explain a chain of events originating in concealed causes. On its face, that would be speculative history, not conspiracy theory.

It seems to me that a conspiracy theory is an explanation relying on more than one hypothesis in a construct where the hypotheses inferentially support one another.

So, to use a familiar example, our examination of widespread reports that McClellan was on the field commanding at Gettysburg – that is not a conspiracy theory but a collection of reports tracking rumor dissemination. When we found one or more sources for these false reports, human nature invited us to ascribe motive to the officer spreading the story. Did he get it from somewhere? Misinterpret that someone wanted McClellan to command state militia? Put out a rumor to embarrass Meade and/or Hooker? It's a single choice and the reader should be able to spot it as iffy whether or not we label it "our hypothesis."

The conspiracy theory definition might come in if multiple disseminators were found to have some commonality: they were all enemies of Hooker or Meade … And yet, if we ascribe the McClellan rumors to "enemies of Hooker or Meade" we have still not crossed from speculative history into conspiracy theory until we strip our working hypothesis of uncertainty and begin to regard it, and present it, as definitive. We are making multiple inferences, making them co-dependent, and then proceeding with certainty. The conspiracy theory wishes to substitute for evidence in your evaluations.

So in addition to my definition, there is an operation that has to be performed to make it "conspiracy theory."

The libertarian economist Murray Rothbard used to distinguish between good and bad conspiracy theory. "Good" is a misnomer and of no interest here. He gave an economic example of the problem of "bad" conspiracy theory:

First, he [the theorist] stops with the cui bono; if measure A benefits X and Y, he simply concludes that therefore X and Y were responsible. He fails to realize that this is just a hypothesis, and must be verified by finding out whether or not X and Y really did so.

Lenin, a conspirator himself, summed this up as the who/whom analysis. A variant of this is based on the "present at the same meeting" observation and that sometimes gets expanded to "present in the same city at the same time," and so forth.

Rothbard also noted "the bad conspiracy analyst seems to have a compulsion to wrap up all the conspiracies." Put more generally, one sees conspiracy theory, not recognizing itself as theory, trying to do way too much in the way explanation. Often, the authors, intrigued with their own insight, broaden the analysis and attach all sorts of things that don't belong even in a speculation.

Again, in addition to a working definition of conspiracy theory, we need a statement about conditions of use. I can present a multi-part speculation, all of it circumstantial and co-dependent, and still not have it be a conspiracy theory as long as I maintain the distinction in my mind and yours that we are speculating and I am offering my speculation for review and approval.

Often, instead, the speculator has become confused, considering a multipart, interdependent explanation as "decided" when it is not decided. We see this in politics, in life, and in Civil War history. At this point the real craziness begins as multiple speculative constructs are stacked one upon another. The fruit of this kind of pyramiding can be spotted by its outlandishness, say a La Rouche Democrat, for instance, asserting that the Queen of England runs drugs. There is no straight path to such conclusions.

What this has to do with Civil War history is (to me) interesting. You could generalize what I am about to say into pop history at large. In Civil War history, conspiracy theory can take serial form.

(1) I am currently reading an ACW battle book in which the writer attacks other writers for using force counts different from his own. He has no explanation for how he derived his comparative strengths. His strength numbers are a fixed idea.

(2) He places enormous pressure on his numbers. He uses them to derive opinions about the relative merits of contending commanders, about their efficiency, about their capabilities, and even about their moral character. He uses them to decide how quickly armies can be moved and he assumes all his numbers arrive on the battlefield and in good order. His unexamined number assumptions become hydra heads of forcefully stated misinterpretation.

(3) He takes the conclusions drawn from his number assumptions, about the character and capability of commanders, about opportunity won or lost, about skill, near misses, etc. and spins these up to a next level, into insupportable hard and fast conclusions about how the war should have been run, decisions the president should have made or enforced, generals who should have been hired or fired, etc.

The author stripped away the tentative character of his conclusions about certain numbers to build vertically (or serially) a construct that reaches conclusions as outlandish as "The Queen of England is a drug dealer."

There is another approach to achieving conspiracy theory status is Civil War history. By committing to a narrative and to firm explanations of ambiguous events, the writer digs himself ever deeper into a storytelling pit at the bottom of which lies absurdity. The narrative becomes a machine for generating confusion.

The demands of narrative history have generated surmises that are often not recognized as surmises downstream; when you get to meta analysis of the war, these surmises are then piled up to reach extremely speculative conclusions.

Single speculations serve as waypoints to advance a story line in a certain direction; after a few speculative choices, the narrator becomes committed to a set direction and that now affects his treatment of the next necessary speculation; he becomes ever more committed to a certain line or channel as the writing progresses. Chances are, he also wants to deliver confidence in his decisions, so choices are dressed up as unavoidable conclusions – the equivalent of facts. The reader may not even know he is reading speculation.

At the next level, the meta historian or compiler or aggregator takes these unstable narratives and begins spinning his metahistory. The result can be a highly respectable even prizewinning "conspiracy theory" that helps us misunderstand whatever factual data was offered.

I never tire of telling how Stephen Sears wrote confidently that R.E. Lee got his intelligence from newspapers. When Sears himself found timely newspaper accounts that McClellan found the Lost Order, Sears rationalized away Lee not reading those reports. When an amateur historian discovered additional timely newspaper accounts of McClellan's discovery of the Lost Order, he spent half an article presenting the new finds and half abjectly apologizing to Sears while warning readers not to discount Sears just because of an abundance of contrary evidence.

That would be one true fruit of conspiracy theory. There are many hereabouts.

Rules for blurbing

Let us "instill intellectual rigor into the rule-free blurbing business..."

A slow publishing season

This will be my 11th summer publishing new book notices in ACW history and I have never seen a slower publishing season: May ended with 29 releases, rather normal; June descended to 10; July will total 12 when the month ends.