McClellan's "typhoid fever"

This is more of a matter for Jim Schmidt's blog. nevertheless the news regarding Florida's dengue fever reminds me of my discomfort with the legend of McClellan's typhoid relapse in late '61.

I call it a legend because it is one of those endlessly repeated items that needs scrutiny. McClellan himself refers to the illness of December '61 as typhoid fever and as a relapse, which suggests he heard his own diagnosis from contemporary medicine. But contemporary medicine knew nothing of bacteria, which is how typhoid is transmitted.

Dengue is spread by mosquitos and the symptoms better match what we know about his "relapse." Dengue also reaches a dead end with the victim, unlike the "Typhoid Mary" effect which would fell some of the victim's cohort.

Let me suggest McClellan had dengue fever as we now define it. I cite recurrence; the nature of the symptoms; the duration of the December outbreak; the lack of contagion.

Here is a quick read on dengue fever and another on typhoid fever.

Farragut and his easy answers, updated

One-star Admiral David Farragut, USN: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" (1864, entering mined Mobile Bay under fire)

Four-star Admiral Mike Mullen, USN: "There’s no easy solution, and there will be no quick fix." (2008, on Afghanistan)

"If there was an easy answer, we would’ve picked it off the shelf." (2010, on Iran)

"... there are no easy answers there and it takes a considerable amount of study, participation and engagement to get your arms around what the challenges are." (2010, on Pakistan)

"... tough questions with no easy answers." (2009, on formulating national military strategy)

"Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Saturday that there are no easy answers." (2009, on rising military suicide rates)

McClellan visuals (cont.)

This is a photo I have not seen before used to illustrate a not very interesting website. The late Brian Pohanka shared with me his great collection of McClellan CDVs and this pose - almost a three quarter view - does not match anything therein. In its dimensions (unless it has been cropped) it is likely not a CDV at all.

I notice a moire pattern in the background that suggests the fine screen used in book publishing - or is this an illusion?

And the big, fat thumprint on his cheek - very distinctive.

Clues welcome - send them along.

CSA vs. USA intelligence - a problem shunned (1/4)

It is a staple of early war history that McClellan thought the Rebels knew his plans or could easily learn them if he shared too much.

This is generally presented as "McClellan thought" never as "McClellan knew." The most-prized historians offer it as yet another tile in their colorful mosaic of paranoid schizophrenia.

The publishing wave of Civil War letters and diaries that began in the 1990s validate McClellan. The oddity of prizewinners not understanding the impact of these letters and diaries upon their own doctrines is a deep subject covered here in postings past. Suffice it to say, the big men at the top are not reading contemporary stuff carefully enough, nor do they seem able to process what they are reading.

The overwhelming pattern in AoV early war memoirs and letters is an awareness of Union plans deep in Rebel ranks - down to company level in places. This is not consistent across all documents but it is persistent even if intermittent.

I read for this - used to actually log examples in a database that is no more. I invite you to do the same. What does the diarist or memoirist know? How does he know it?

The studies of Civil War intel I know of number only two, they are Union-centric, and they are feeble at best, to put it kindly. It may be a measure of Confederate excellence in this field that no studies have been written about their intelligence gathering (I set aside biographies of individual spies here).

It seems to me that historians generally fail to note that Southerners know Northern plans without Northerners knowing Southern plans. (Exception: McClellan's foreknowledge of Jackson's move from the Valley to turn his flank on the Peninsula; but this exception seems also unknown to historians.) Those who note the disparity don't care enough about it to investigate or filter their analysis accordingly.

A new biography of Stephen Dodson Ramseur, CSA, contains comments elaborating in detail on McClellan's Peninsula strategy made while Ramseur was a regimental grade officer. These will bear a closer look in later posts.

Your Antiques Roadshow moment has arrived

The oil painting described here is a color rendering of Alonzo Chappel's work (seen here). Looked familiar, eh? I had seen the engraving before.

Here's the neat part. Chappel ran something like Andy Warhol's art factory. His assistants created engravings from oil painting originals. They were all based on Long Island. This painting was found on Long Island.

Is this Chappel's original painting from which the engravings followed? It is not known to the web compilers of his art. It is a find but is it Chappel's work or a rendering of one of his engravings by a student or third party? Answer that question and your Antiques Roadshow moment has arrived.

Chappel did many nice pieces. This Scott graced an Eisenhower book cover. Gather clues by comparing and contrasting the level of technique in Scott's face and horse with GBM's face and horse.

And have yourself a nice Civil War browse.

Ezra Carman in spades

Tom Clemen's presentation of Ezra Carman's unpublished opus is nearly upon us and I want to take some space comparing it to Joseph Pierro's later this week.

McClellan visuals (cont.)

More McClellan visuals from recent research: this by the eminent and collected artist Robert Ball Hughes believed to have been done in 1862. The savagery of the attacks on GBM's reputation seem to have stimulated an outpouring of artistic expression.

This is "pyrography" and you can find another Hughes portrait burned into wood here (scroll down).

Idiosyncratic!

McClellan visuals

Hunting up the sources for the recent painting post has produced a bumper crop of imagery seeking exposure. This piece is irresistible: "George Brinton McClellan, c. 1862, Painted wood relief by Unidentified Artist; this wood carving was reputedly removed from the stern of a ship built in Thomaston, Maine." More to come.

A discovered McClellan painting

Meandering through Ellicott City (MD) this afternoon, I popped into Joe Parr's Historic Framing and Collectibles shop, where in the back he had a magnificent McClellan painting encased in a wide gilded frame. Most but not all of the picture is in this detail. Click to enlarge.

You see here the result of a $100 flatbed reading a photo printed from a slide, so the colors are washed out - especially the tents in the background.

Joe spent $2,500 restoring the piece with an expert who dated it 1860-1880. My quick and dirty reading of the piece puts it early on that scale. It has many naive touches where the artist ran out of technique. Perspective in particular is charming, with the tents looming like mountains.

For instance, look at this circa 1841 mother and child (right). There's a genius at work here (click to enlarge), but it's not technical. Compare it to this sophisticated 1888 McClellan by Julian Scott, now in the National Portrait Gallery.

Not all the earlier portraiture is naive - Christian Schussele's famous 1862 equestrian portrait is brimming with European mastery. But a great deal of the idiosyncratic art dates earlier.

Here's a famous image - also 1862 - from our late friend Brian Pohanka's collection of mcClellan images. Again, the depth is delightfully two-dimensional.

And here's one more from '62 (right). What it adds on the technique side of the ledger, it subtracts on the idiosyncratic . What gang signal is GBM making with his hand? Who is the rotund planter? Why is there a prominent heavy chap in the background?

But back to Joe's painting. It's large, at least 5' x 4' and some inches. It engages us at 3/4 scale.

The horse, Joe says, is Arabian. It does not resemble Dan Webster, so I wonder if this is Kentuck or some fantasy beast.

The painter took some care with GBM's hair color. Note, however, he's been given a third star. Now, the third star can mystically represent Mac's standing in for Scott. However, that would be asynchronous if this is a Maryland Campaign setting at which time Halleck is standing in for Scott.

Joe thinks the picture depicts September 13, 1862. GBM may be holding the Lost Order in his left hand, scribbling orders with his right, his eyes envisioning Lee's dispositions . I agree with this analysis.

The painting was rescued from an above-the-fireplace location in what appears to have been a private New York veteran's club. This location argues for a postwar commissioning.

If you have any insights on this piece you can write Joe an email - Histfram at aol.com. If you are in the neighborhood, he is at 8344 Main Street conveniently located between two bars and a wine shop.

And if you buy the thing, drop me a line so I can buy it from you when you tire of it.

A legacy of "professionalism"

Updated from 1861-65:

Lieutenant Sam Nuxoll, a platoon leader posted in Iraq, told military website Company Command how he spent most of his time making PowerPoint presentations. 'I have to make a storyboard complete with digital pictures, diagrams and text summaries on just about anything that happens,' he added.

I worked on a project last year with a retired USMC colonel who had served closely with the current Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Casey, when Casey commanded in Iraq. His comment on Casey was

He would spend hours personally fiddling with a single PowerPoint slide.

My impression of American civilians is that they have a fantasy picture of contemporary military forces "informed" by the history they read, including ACW history. The only correction comes if they or a family member joins the services.

They're not entirely at fault in this. At the dawn of VOLAR when the last tranches of WWII and Korea vets were retiring, I got sick of them telling me, "Don't worry, all this BS goes away the moment the balloon goes up." They were probably envisioning a draft, a massive influx of civilian sanity to put checks on the out-of-control "professionals." Doesn't look like that's ever going to happen.

General Lee, I hope you enjoy this PowerPoint presentation General Longstreet and I have prepared for you.

This is the fruit of the "professionalism" Grant, Sherman, Schofield and others struggled for postwar and it anticipates the criticism of "professionalism" made by the radical Republicans, by Butler, Sickles, Logan, and many others.

"Rethink the role that slavery plays in historical tourism"

Two professors agree, "While slavery has been a vital topic for scholars for decades, it remains the third rail of the historical tourism industry. "

They then urge, " As the commemorations get underway, slavery must not be pushed to the 'margins of our public explorations of the Civil War. In short, it should not be just 'okay' to talk about slavery—it should be essential."

Do they think that if enough venues touch the third rail, the electricity goes away?

Book trailers

One of the odd things about talk and news radio in the NYC market is (was?) the frequency of ads pushing new book releases, usually blockbuster novels. The announcer acts out a passage or reads the dust jacket copy in a dramatic voice. Can a radio buy pay for itself in book sales? I found this media mix baffling.

When I moved to DC, by contrast, the talk and news radio ads were easily understood. There seemed to be just three at the time, in endless rotation: Viagra, Mervis Diamonds, and Hummers. Sounds like a blue joke on the governing class, but it persisted from 2002-2004 and never a book ad have I heard on these airwaves. I don't miss being puzzled.

Savas Beatie is doing book trailers. The idea confuses me as much as radio ads for books. Do they work for you? How? Let me know.

Update, 4/29: Ted Savas explained them as high quality, low cost persistent advertising that provides much more value than a comparable print media ad buy in periodicals.

A Sesquicentennial prediction

The believers continue to believe:

"What I'm seeing is there's an effort to organize and get ready for what's predicted to be a tsunami of tourism."

Heritage tourism is a cult.

It's a Sesquicentennial perk

You head the commission, you get the speaking engagements.

The soldier's level of culture

Modern reality can be found here. This is an echo of what was, 1861-1865.

The sick fantasy we adore is here. When will we stop this desecration?

What's on the shelves

Encountered Bobrick's George Thomas tome in a Virginia supermarket last week and from the shape of the stack, it had been selling.

Encountered Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter in a major display in Borders and from the shape of the stack, none had sold.

Napoleon's marshals, a point of comparison

Is it me, or does the Napoleonic literature treat Napoleon's marshals as bundles of individual attributes, excellent at this or that, not suited for that or this; while the Civil War literature is "judgmental," demanding of every general the same all-around excellence under all circumstances?

In other words, is the Napoleonic literature mature in comparison to Civil War nonfiction? Certainly, it has had longer to mature, but I see this in even its earliest histories.

Ft. Monroe's heritage tourism fantasy

Ft. Monroe is already open to tourists, but someone is cooking up one of those grandiose Civil War heritage tourism plans for the place:

[it could become a] "learning laboratory" with a teacher institute that would draw on the post's Civil War heritage and its role in the demise of slavery to draw in visitors.

Emphasis added. Could slavery have been ended without the good fortress? And I, for one, never book a vacation before checking my extensive nationwide list of learning laboratories.

Now picture busloads flocking to learn the etymology of "contraband of war," to lay wreaths at the bust of Butler, to ponder the contributions of Dix and Wool, to trace the steps of the Big Bethel campaign.

Is this a heritage tourism goldmine?

Mosquitos as decisive

Every blind man seems to want his piece of the elephant to be the determinant component. One gets worn down reading that the [fill in the blank] was the decision point for the war. Now, make way for the lowly mosquito:

Bell argues, convincingly, that the spread of malaria and yellow fever throughout the South affected the choices military leaders made and the outcome of battles.

A good thing can be ruined by hype.

Good morning, Boston

This week the bankrupt Boston Globe used some of the money infused by its owners, the New York Times (borrowed from Carlos Slim), to hire a freelancer to review John Keegan's The American Civil War. Timely bunch.

Don't think they got value for money.

Ironclad rescues drowners

The case for naval re-enactors in one headline.

Maine's Sesquicentennial

If nothing else, Maine will come out of the Sesquicentennial with an ACW website. Don't expect much more than that - they've appointed the state historian to head the Sesquicentennial commission.

From the department of yawns

Hey, how about that Confederate History Month Proclamation controversy. Got your much-rehearsed, cliche-ridden arguments ready? Well then, have at it!

OT: April Fool's Day

Best literary prank of the day.

Meanwhile, an April 1 meditation from Harper's in 1861.

Heritage tourism - still making them crazy

Pennsy officials have come up with the idea of your touring their Civil War trails via Google Earth. Seems self-defeating to me, but let them speak for the plan:

"... with the global reach and interactive capabilities of Google Earth we will inspire the masses to say, 'I would love to go there' as they experience our Civil War trails," added Mickey Rowley, deputy secretary for tourism. "The panoramas featured are so detailed and vast that viewers will feel like they are one with the image and mere footsteps away from these historic sites."

The masses are easily led, it seems. York, here I come.

The president uses a fake Lincoln quote

Interesting analysis of a suspect Lincoln quote. If you like long footnotes, as I do, you'll like Schwartz's comments.

A new Lincoln movie

As Spielberg's Lincoln movie remains stalled, Tim Burton has taken up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a fan of the book.

Maryland secedes from Dixie

Thanks to the AP, this story is everywhere.

One of my pals, a native Oregonian, returned to the O-club at Ft. Benning from Aberdeen Proving Grounds with a shiner. He got it in a Maryland bar. This must have been the summer of '76.

Him: "Those people are rednecks."

Me: "Who, Marylanders?"

Him: "I couldn't believe it! I thought I was in the Northeast!"

Me: "Whadja do?"

Him: "I had a few and there was this guy with a Confederate flag patch and I said something."

Me: "Not even a girl involved?"

Him: "Just rednecks and me."

Here's the modern blogging equivalent of that idiotic conversation.

Here's a sourge of the past.

And you might not know that "Dirt Farming is currently the state's primary employment opportunity."

Just kidding! Amends to follow.

Note: My part, BTW, was spoken in the common accent of Baltimore-Phillly-Frederick-Lancaster-AC-Trenton- the very accent of the "rednecks" in question. I am a Marylander in speech at least.

Graduate school for history: not a good idea

Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go. Previously linked in this blog. "It's hard to tell young people that universities recognize that their idealism and energy — and lack of information — are an exploitable resource."

Letters about the article above. "...it was without a doubt the most destructive four years of my life. The introduction to academic politics and political correctness was shattering."

Just Don't Go, Part 2. "What good is professional training for a job that you are not likely to get, after a decade of discipline, debt, and deferred opportunity?"

Neither a Trap nor a Lie. "The kind of middle-class success that was assumed to come with graduate school in the humanities quite often cannot be achieved with a tenure-track salary, let alone adjunct wages."

The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind.' "Graduate school in the humanities is a trap. It is designed that way. It is structurally based on limiting the options of students and socializing them into believing that it is shameful to abandon "the life of the mind."

A series of articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education. For the law school side of the same coin, see Temporary Attorney. Interestingly, Sotheby's trains its own experts. There are some interesting possibilities beyond art history in that model.

Sesquicentennial boards

Well, the Sesquicentennial has found its Grant. Otherwise, the news is not so good.

Re-enactments that had been subsidized are being cut. In Virginia, good bye to Manassas summer camp; in Tennessee, farewell Blue Springs.

The inevitable irreconcilable differences are being presented as an "opportunity for dialogue" in South Carolina. This is not a band-aid that will stick for long. Perhaps the acrimony will become old news in a year.

Meanwhile, Sesquicentennial boards formed at the state level - I say this in all humility - are a disgrace.

As a onetime/longtime arts organizer it seems to me there are four levels of desirability in a board. You want a board stocked with money - people with money willing to spend on the cause or people with access to funding. On the second level of desirability, you want doers and achievers committed to the mission. Think of Romney or Ueberroth fixing the Olympics or Trump breaking the Rockefeller Center construction logjam. On the third level, you might want celebrities or politicians with access to publicity. On the lowest rung, you have "filler," people picked to fill out a board, either because no decent choice was available or to do a favor.

The states' Sesquicenteenial boards appear to be no meat and all filler. Here's the news from Kentucky. It's almost as if they have no idea what a board is for. (Hint: even a board with an "advisory" mission can and should move mountains.)

Here's another appointment from Kentucky - the state librarian!

In Iowa, they are cycling ineffective Lincoln bicentennial board members onto the sesquicentennial board, in this case a state senator. Here's how he wants to help: "He will assist in developing learning programs for Iowa’s youth about the Civil War." That has zero to do with board work; clearly the board will serve him (not vice versa) as a means to play teacher.

Kentucky has done the same thing: cycle a state senator off the Bicentennial board and onto the Sesquicentennial board.

"As a history buff, I am eager to begin planning the sesquicentennial celebration of Kentucky’s major role in our nation’s bloodiest war,” said Yonts.

Wrong answer! Any buff can plan. the board is not there so your innermost dreams as a buff can be realized. Here's the correct answer: "As a legislator I am committed to finding funds for every worthy project this board approves."

Well, if you're going to stock Sesquicentennial boards with hobbyists eager to spend other people's money on their own pet notions, you might want to do what Mississippi has done. Protect yourself from the board that you appointed by funding nothing. You deprive the Sesquicentennial of a state budget. Whew! Bullet dodged.

This inspiring display of near sanity (hey, board members - you need funds, get out and raise them) does not quite offset the fact that someone seated a bunch of plush toys at the board table.

More disturbing is the rum still served out of the heritage toursim punchbowl. Vicksburg is seeing year-on-year declines in tourism and its solution is to spend more to build additional attractions. Actual headline, folks:

Vicksburg Tourism: If you build it, they will come

And here's a great quote from Columbia, Tennessee:

I think we should start promoting the Civil War Sesquicentennial and building hotels to hold the tourists.

Whoa! Maybe you want to stock your boards with the right sort of people before you build those hotels.

Photo by Tiare Scott.

The case against comments (cont.)

Thank you for not expressing yourself!

It isn't their music

That era when everyone played an instrument, when every little town had an opera house and hosted nightly travelling shows, when the appetite for sheet music made music publishers rich and live music provided so many livings -- yes that era continues to be dumbed down to the pathetic level of our present generation by musically impoverished "educators" who promise to initiate one and all into the glories and mysteries of their special brand of Camptown Races Doo Da music.

It's a fake genre designed to make even school kids feel musically superior. But the Civil War music lover functioned at a level we can barely understand. We're the ones eating goober peas, not them, and goodness, how delicious to our modern tastes.

This could be harmless fun if we would just leave the Civil War generation out of it.

Ken Burns

He's the gift that keeps giving. This is my exact idea of the people he brought into Civil War readership - the people publishers chased after all those years in preference to us. His influence is in decline but it lingers, clearly.

Old Baldy's restingplace

You can't just move a stuffed horse's head from one museum to another: "Last week, a plan for Old Baldy's move was submitted to an expert at the Academy of Natural Sciences for approval."

Someone wrote a plan for the moving of a stuffed head. Someone else is reading the plan. A momentous decision is pending. A decisive memorandum will be composed and distributed. Headline, please.

OLD BALDY'S LAST BATTLE

SCIENTISTS PONDER IMMENSE TAXIDERMICAL RISK

YOUR ENTRANCE FEES AT WORK

Last train from pop historyville

The scandal surrounding the pop history tome Last Train from Hiroshima continues to spread.*

The author claims his book has a problem with just a single source; HuffPo digs deeper and finds problems with the man (who among other things claims to be a defrocked PhD).

Not only has the publisher ceased sale of the book, but in its issued statement, pointed towards an authorial coverup: "Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction."

The readers of this blog routinely subject their fare to "very detailed scrutiny." I don't see experienced Civil War readers being bamboozled by authors relying on single or made-up sources. On the other hand, that general reading public that gobbles up so much of the effluvia issued by talespinners, that reading public seems to need some kind of publishing FDA to protect them from reading impurities. And so, from HuffPo: "Holt publicist Nicole Dewey declined to comment on whether Last Train had been fact-checked."

That last sentence is worth a hundred posts. Maybe, I'll write one, for as the wise man says, "The journey of 100 posts begins with ..." Meanwhile take a look at the relevant Amazon comments. Eighteen five star ratings and eighteen one-star ratings. The one-star ratings seem news driven, while the five stars seem enjoyment related.

A five star rater: "... nothing is more real than this book." Or less real. Doesn't matter, really.

Another: "A big warning; the power of Pellegrino's pen will leave indelible impressions in your mind." Wrong warning!

A four star rater: "As a reader this novel is very intriguing." Fiction, nonfiction, at the end of the day, they're all books.

Sorry to get quippy; the spirit of infotainment seized me.

*HNN has yet to take note of it; as deeply committed to political punditry as they are, these doings must appear trivial compared to health care, stimulus spending, and other such "historical" topics.

Mmmmm

May I offer you an "Assassination Sandwich"?

Pop historians

It's a shame that the 98% wind up giving the decent, hardworking 2% such a bad name.

Virginia's Sesquicentennial

The Virginia Sesquicentennial mounts its second event, another seminar. Look at the description: it seems lame to me.

This non-Sesquicentennial event offers better value.

Another bad sign for heritage tourism

Hmmm:

The history center had hoped a Civil War re-enactment last November at Myers Park in McKinney would raise $50,000. Instead, the event lost $7,000, worsening the museum's outlook, Day said.

What's on at the ALPLM

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

Thanks to the gent who alerted me. He forwarded an ALPLM email notice with this additional detail:

Including...his secret life as a vampire hunter and the larger implication that vampires shaped the events leading to the Civil War!

They're gearing up for a slow year out there in Springfield.

Clausewitzian insight

General Abrams said to me one time, "There’s no way for you and me to tell whether what we are doing is right, because the decision of the rightness of it is not a military decision and so here we are; we sort of have to do the best we can." - Gen. Donn A. Starry, Press On! Vol 2.

Discussing the ACW with Carl von Clausewitz

None of the Clausewitz extracts below are from On War. All are from From Carl von Clausewitz: Two Letters on Strategy translated by Peter Paret and Daniel Moran. Imagery via ChicagoBoyz.

Q: The modern Civil War reader has been taught to analyze the war through a series of military decision points. These points are reviewed and debated almost as if they were command and staff exercises. At the higher level they address large operational questions, what you called strategy in your day. Is this a productive way to use one's reading?

A: People still like to separate the purely military elements of a major strategic plan from its political aspects, and treat the latter as if they were somehow extraneous. War is nothing but the continuation of political efforts by other means. In my view all of strategy rests on this idea, and I believe that whoever refuses to recognize that this must be so does not yet fully understand what really matters. It is this principle that makes the entire history of war comprehensible, which in its absence remains full of the greatest absurdities.

Q: But surely, you can isolate and analyze some or most strategic and operational decisions in military terms?

A: War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means. Consequently, the main lines of every major strategic plan are largely political in nature, and their political character increases the more the plan encompasses the entire war and the entire state.

The plan for the war results directly from the political conditions of the two belligerent states, as well as from their relations to other powers.

The plan of campaign results from the war plan, and frequently-if there is only one theater of operations-may even be identical with it.

But the political element even extends to the separate components of a campaign; rarely will it be without influence on such major episodes of warfare as a battle, etc.

According to this point of view, there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a great strategic issue, nor of a purely military scheme to solve it. That it is essential to see the matter in this way, that the point of view is almost self-evident if we only keep the history of war in mind, scarcely needs proof.

Q: What then are the limits on the political in war?

War in its relation to policy has above all the obligation and the right to prevent policy from making demands that are contrary to the nature of war, to save it from misusing the military instrument from a failure to understand what it can and cannot do.

Q: Civil War historians try to turn their readers against any Civil War general who concerns himself with political questions. It doesn't matter if the general commits a political act, say Fremont or Hunter, or if the general merely raises policy questions, as with Pope and McClellan. The historians want generals completely out of political questions.

A: The political purpose and the means available to achieve it give rise to the military objective. This ultimate goal of the entire belligerent act, or of the particular campaign if the two are identical, is therefore the first and most important issue that the strategist must address, for the main lines of the strategic plan run toward this, goal, or at least are guided by it.

Q: There is a tendency to portray the war as won purely on military terms by military means. Grant is held up as a "pure" military man specializing in relentless destruction of the enemy.

A: We must not allow ourselves to be misled into regarding war as a pure act of force and of destruction, and from this simplistic concept logically deduce a string of conclusions that no longer have anything to do with the real world. Instead we must recognize that war is a political act that is not wholly autonomous; a true political instrument that does not function on its own but is controlled by something else, by the hand of policy.

Q: How then do we explain the exclusion of the political from Civil War history?

A: The greater the extent to which policy is motivated by comprehensive interests, affecting the very existence of the state, and the greater the extent to which the issue is cast in terms of survival or extinction, the more policy and hostile feelings coincide. As policy dissolves into hostility, war becomes simpler; it proceeds according to the pure concept of force and destruction, and satisfies whatever demands can be logically developed from this concept, until all its component parts come to possess the coherence of a simple necessity. Such a war may seem entirely apolitical, and on that account has been considered the norm. But obviously the political element exists here no less than it does in other kinds of war. It merely coincides so completely with the concept of force and destruction that it vanishes from sight.

Q: There is a lot of contention around operational choices such as the best approach to Richmond, invasion of Pennsylvania, Red River campaigning. The ACW historian is relentless in draining political content from these evaluations. Even a move on Richmond is portrayed for its effect on the enemy army not for its political potential. Can these historians be correct?

A: I must insist that the military goals of both sides are stated whenever a strategic plan is drawn up. For the most part these goals arise out of the political relations of the two antagonists to each other, and to other states that may be involved. Unless these relations are outlined, a plan can be nothing more than a combination of temporal and spatial relationships, directed toward some arbitrary goal-a battle, siege, etc.

Q: Speaking of arbitrary, we see Lincoln besieged endlessly by military entrepreneurs pushing plans and Lincoln puzzling over them, seeking advice, then presiding over competing projects.

A: To the extent that a goal cannot be shown as necessary or superior to others, it can be challenged and contradicted by other projects, without these coming any nearer the absolute truth than did the first plan. That is, indeed, the history of all strategic discussions until today. Everyone rotates within some arbitrary circle. No one tries to push his argument back to the origins of the war that is to be fought, to its true motive, to the one and only point where the logical development and conclusion of the military operations can alone originate.

Q: That would require generals following the trickle of political hints and indications back to their source. If they don't do that - and American historians value generals who don't do that - how can a campaign be successful or a war won?

A: Whatever correct and effective strategic decisions are made result from the instinctive tact of talented commanders, who with a glance, penetrate and assess a mass of circumstances. This instinct suffices for action, but obviously not for analysis.

Q: There must be some use in applying military science to questions of military history?

A: I hate the sort of technical language that leads us to believe we can reduce the individual case to a universal, to the inevitable. Strategists manipulate these terminologies as if they were algebraic formulae, whose accuracy has long been established, brief formulae that may be used as substitutes for the original reality. But these phrases do not even represent clear and definite principles. Rather they are nebulous, ambiguous expressions, whose true meaning remains open to question. This is no accident. Their vagueness is intended, because they did not derive from what is essential and could be presented as universal truth.

Q: Can't consideration of hypotheticals serve a purpose? Civil War readers love hypotheticals.

Since it is impossible to generate all essential facts in a hypothetical exercise, it is evident that the more detailed our account, the more illusory it becomes. We make any number of tacit assumptions, and develop an analysis that in the end might not be relevant to one case in a hundred. Reasoning of this kind may still be useful to train our judgment, of course. But it is clear that such an analysis can never be satisfactorily refuted by equally arbitrary arguments.

Agoraphobia

Brooks Simpson has offered to host an exchange between Earl L. Ijames, a curator at the North Carolina Museum of History, and Kevin Levin on issues surrounding Ijames' research on black Confederates. The invite appears not to have been accepted.

p.s. If we cannot have an exchange of ideas, we can have a language exchange. Upon moving to Maryland after the turn of the century I learned that this name is pronounced "Imes." Frederick (which you all know) is near "Ijamsville" (they dropped the e) which I had even more trouble decoding phonetically than Virginia's "Enroughty" (Enroughty is pronounced "Darby" as the well-read ACW buff knows). Likewise, my tongue twisted on Maryland's Monocacy until I heard it from the mouths of locals as "Monoxy."

Lincoln Prize accidentally awarded to Lincoln scholar

A correspondent pointed out the oddity of a 2008 book receiving the 2010 Lincoln Prize.

That time lag interests me less than Michael Burlingame winning this prize for the first time after 19 years of awards, many of them multiple (or split) awards.

Consider Burlingame's output, then take a look at their prizewinner list and tell me this game is on the level.

Commemorate on!

It was the non-event of the past two centuries: the Lincoln Bicentennial.

If you missed it, the official website remains up with not a peep that the Bicentennial has ended. Say hello to Lincoln's ever-present dog, while you're there. The Illinois Bicentennial website remains up as well. Also the Kentucky site.

Someone believes that persistence pays.

The market sees a need

Need a book review? Buy a book review!

Sesquicentennial: a story in markers

From Georgia:

Perdue also eliminated funds for the Civil War Commission, the Civil War Trails and the Veterans' Wall of Honor, and set a $140,000 cut from the Georgia Humanities Council, $60,000 from the Georgia Historical Society and $30,000 from the society's historical-marker revitalization program.

Arkansas:

The Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission says there were more than 770 military actions in the state during the war — but it only has money for 33 markers.

Mississippi: The Sesquicentennial Committee has met only once since its founding, has no funding, and can't get a quorum at meetings.

Virginia: SCV and NAACP tangle over proposed marker in park.

In Macon, Georgia, fundraisers seeking to make and place 14 historical markers around the town told potential donors

That hub could turn up an $11.7 million economic impact from tourists and create an estimated 130 new jobs in the tourism industry based on the success of trails in Virginia.

They're still selling that stuff but who's buying?

Petersburg land bill introduced

A federal bill to authorize the National Park Service to purchase of 7,200 acres around Petersburg is in the mill. Did you know "Petersburg is the site of the longest battle [sic] in U.S. history"? We were always taught Yorktown was that "battle."

A tale of two museums

Hattiesburg has an African American Military History Museum and that place is showing Louisiana Native Guard photos from private collections. Best use of a museum I can think of. (A catalog would be nice, too.)

Meanwhile, the African American Civil War Memorial in DC, seems to be the smallest museum in the world, at 700 sq ft. Some $5 million in tax funding has been found but will yield another measley 1400 additional sq ft under current plans.

The interesting thing about this museum (and its curator) is that while we in the general reading public suffer the terrible backwash from Ken Burns, Killer Angels, and the Centennial, the African American Civil War historian fights a daily struggle against the nonsense that was Glory. Have a look.

Swaying

Bill Moyers: "I never thought of Lincoln as a 24-year-old man in the prime of his youth until I watched this. There he was, a very young man, swaying like a willow in the wind."

"This" is a modern dance piece about Lincoln.

If we wanted your opinion...

A family shares its trove of Civil War letters with the press.

The soldier was a member of the 53rd Pennsylvania and (as in almost all such collections) there comes that point where we read, "If people had of left McClellan alone last spring, we would have been in Richmond."

Historians: continue file under yada-yada.

New from Howard Jones

Howard Jones has a new work out, again on diplomacy, the specific appeal of which is described by the author:

Although there have been studies on the topic before, Jones said he is the first to cover it in one book, which was published this month by the University of North Carolina Press.

UNC Press's ACW titles are acquired by Gary "Stop the Madness" Gallagher. I understand "first to cover it in one book" as a marketing proposition, but not as a mark of value to the experienced history reader.

Looks like publishing "madness" to me.

Re-enactors are choosing events

Re-enactors are voting on which battles to stage during the Sesquicentennial.

"Sex Lives of Civil War Soldiers"

Sometimes an author needs to wait 16 years for his book to get a review that runs more than a paragraph or two.

Heritage tourism takes a hit

The Virginia state tourism office has made decisions that may be trend-setting. The CEO of state-owned Virginia Tourism Corp., Alisa Bailey, says

"We have always focused on women baby boomers" ... because they primarily made vacation decisions. But Bailey is shifting Virginia Tourism's sights to a new target: Generation X families.

What Virginia Tourism found is that Gen Xers, people ages 25 to 45, spend 13 percent more on travel than the baby-boom generation, they want to do things with their family and their confidence in the economy is rising faster than the rest of the population's.

"We're changing strategy in 2010," Bailey said. "We want to give a new meaning to 'Virginia is for Lovers.'

This is a clear departure from the emphasis on heritage tourism - at best heritage (history) stays in the mix. At worst, it becomes associated with the failed boomer strategy.

And this on the approach of the Sesquicentennial...

Bookstore sitcoms: Black Books

The only sitcom about a bookstore that you don't have to enact live with the staff while shopping is one called Black Books. The series was set in a small bookstore owned by a frustrated author. A couple of synopses a propos of recent posts here:

On clerking:
"Bernard [Black, the owner] wakes up from a night on the booze to discover he's accidentally given Manny a job at the bookshop, and spends the day trying to get rid of him. Manny assists in this by proving to be a charming, sociable and extremely competent employee, apparently unaware that it's 'not that kind of operation'."

On big boxes
"Manny is working next door at the extremely glossy Goliath Books, where he is decidedly out of place amongst creepy manager Evan and his army of hyper-efficient pastel-shirted followers..."

On authorship
"Bernard and Manny, inspired by their latest children's books event, decide to write and illustrate a book for children. Bernard's first effort comes to over 1,000 pages, covers Stalin, a lens grinder, a broken marriage and a journalist in search of the truth and is possibly a little complex for kids. The subsequent [collaborative] masterpiece The Elephant and the Balloon could however lead them to international fame — and all the problems that come with it."

On literary celebrities and small business woes
"Manny organises a book launch party at the shop with charismatic-but-smug travel writer Jason, and everyone starts falling for him and his stories of far-away adventure. Bernard, however, has other problems — following the death of his landlord, his building is now owned by a small cat to whom he must pay rent ... he attempts to persuade an animal-loving pest exterminator to turn kitty hitman. His attempts fail and cause the exterminator to commit suicide."

The series has inspired a lot of people, like this blogger:

I just finished up the entire Black Books series and would like to dedicate this post to Bernard Ludwig Black. He is my everything. I would love nothing more than to spend the rest of my life guzzling bottles of cheap red wine, smoking multiple packs of cigarettes per day and being misanthropic with this beautiful man. I refuse to settle for anything less.

Misanthropy and bookselling: perfect together!

As the title suggests, the humor is as black as farce will permit. Worth watching if only for the amount of smoking, drinking and books packed into each episode.

Synopses courtesy of Wiki.

p.s. I often forget there is such a thing as YouTube. Here's a scene where Bernard Black, as author, plays out a scenario so often described by Ted Savas.

The sound of one clerk clerking

The zen of book shopping. Clerk quotes from the mailbag:

It used to be in this shelf right here until the bookstore reorganized last month.

I believe I've heard of that author.

You know, I've been asked for that before.

Is that a good book?

It's in the X section. There is no such section. Oh there is, but it's just an unlabled shelf in the Y area.

It helps to think of the bookstore staff as improvising a Samuel Beckett play, waiting to deliver existential zingers every chance you give them. If you're a Beckett fan, or a Zen Buddhist, book shopping can be fun.

Piling on: Now, Gallagher on Keegan

Kind of surprising to find the Centennial's stubborn rearguard fighter, Gary Gallagher, demean John Keegan's Centennialism. However this review is at least consistent with Gallagher's "stop the madness" publishing philosophy.

These statements could apply as much to James McPherson as John Keegan: the book "fails to provide anything particularly new." "The main interpretive themes will be familiar to readers even marginally aware of older works." "Assessments of the leading generals also fit into well-worn interpretive grooves."

The list could go on without encountering a single interpretive surprise or scrap of fresh testimony. Part of the problem lies in Keegan's heavy reliance on older literature. With a handful of exceptions, the most recent books cited in his notes are from the 1980s.

Is Gallgher gearing up for a break with McPherson?

And how about you? Are you one who relies on older secondary literature for your views?

(p.s. Here's someone who clearly does.)

It's hard to get good help these days

Recalling my last few interactions with big box book sales clerks:

Sharing a sense of urgency: I earn a concerned glance over the shoulder for not maintaining her own high speed pace as she leads me to where my book might be.

Multitasking to minimize my interruption: He barks questions and instructions to every employee that we pass en route to the bookshelf he wants to show me.

Bearing the cross of service: I interrupt his stacking with a question, so he carries the stack he was holding across the store while leading me to where I need to be.

Idle pleasantries: She asks "Did you find what you were looking for" at the register and I say, "No and it's too late to ask that now."

Someone please tell the clerks it's better to keep quiet than to say:

"I can't tell from this computer if it's in the store or in the warehouse."

"I could swear I saw it in the store last week."

"I know that this is a book we would normally stock."

"It's probably on order."

"Would you like us to order it for you? You can pick it up in a couple of weeks."

Will Rogers said:

Someday, they'll make a milk carton that's as easy to open as a liquor bottle.

I say:

Someday, bookstore clerks will be as helpful and knowledgeable as liquor store clerks.

The big box sales clerk

Ted Savas has a post about falling book sales at B&N. He says, "If I ran the store, sales would explode. I guarantee it."

This moved me to check out the sales clerk's job description. Lest you think Ted's boast is idle, look at this B&N recruitment page. Are you motivated yet? Can you imagine if they recruited motivated book lovers instead of these types?

Notice the clerk we're interested in talking to when we visit the store comes in two flavors. First, there is the "bookseller" who does not even merit his own job description but shares three sentences with two other workers. "They create a friendly, casual, helpful experience for customers. They know what’s in their departments, and keep them inviting, organized and well stocked." Focus on ambience, focus on your little warehouse duties. Customers will take care of themselves, it seems.

The second kind of sales clerk is "the lead." "Leads are the experts in their assigned sections, and are a key resource to booksellers and customers alike. Leads monitor in-store inventories and manage work assignments." That's the whole description.

What would you want in a book clerk? Book evangelists? Or ambience generators? Expertise in books or in inventory management?

The big box stores are book automats. Remember Horn & Hardart? They figured out how to remove the human touch from restaurant operations. They're everywhere now, aren't they?

CWPT gives year in review

"Rescued 2,777 Acres..." Good. But land in Wood Lake, MN? That's casting a wide net.

It's like a Victoria's Secret modeling show

But with 50 pounds of clothing per model.

Keegan roundup (cont.)

This latest installment of rounded up Keegan reviews (of The American Civil War) is as much about Keegan as the reviewers, who have themselves become entertainment.

Bloomberg: If The American Civil War has a defect, it is the book’s less-than-chronological, sometimes jumbled narrative style.

Slate: Some of Keegan's puzzling judgments may reflect his very limited range of sources. [...] Some chapters cite no sources at all, and many rely heavily on James McPherson's modern narrative history, Battle Cry of Freedom.

London Times Online: Readers already expert in the subject will find much to debate in Keegan’s pages; those in search of an overview may well emerge more bewildered than enlightened.

Plain Dealer: ... it is obvious from the text and notes that Keegan has not really consulted the voluminous relevant secondary sources, much less done any original research... The book has a slapped-together feel...

Spectator [London]: Footnotes are so spasmodic that the criteria for citing sources are impossible to discern. Keegan has to be taken, for the most part, on trust. But his command of the war’s geography, his thorough understanding of military organisation and his deep humanity, all nourished by a lifetime’s immersion in military history, imbue his account with the authority that we have come to expect from him.

HNN: ...replete with a shocking number of seemingly inexplicable errors...major errors of fact which would embarrass an undergraduate.

Whoops - that last link is for a book Keegan published in 2003, containing one of his first forays into the ACW and containing howlers such as

The only check to the Union's steamroller advance into what had formed so much of the Old Northwest had been imposed in early April at a tiny place called Shiloh, far down the Tennessee River....

Seek out the general reader of military books my friends - clearly, you can bluff him for the rest of your writing life.

The Atlantic reaches a verdict

"Even if the preservationists prevail [against WalMart], the future of the Wilderness will still be in doubt. The land is zoned for commercial development." I call that matter settled, not "in doubt.".

"A Tale of Two Revolts"

Mahatma Ghandi's grandson writes about the connections between India's 1857 revolt and the American Civil War: A Tale of Two Revolts.

State preservation of ACW flags

There is a strange little article being circulated by the Associate Press. Here's one iteration: "Civil War battle flags at risk as preservation efforts are hindered by states' budget woes."

The piece takes a budget measure proposed by New York's governor and generalizes it into a national movement to cut flag maintenance outlays ... without giving a single example beyond New York.

Channel 7 News in South Carolina responds to the generalized accusation: "S.C. Flags Still Being Preserved Despite Budget Cuts."

Don't get an advanced history degree

... if you think you'll get a job with it, says the Chronicle of Higher Education.

How oblivious is today's youth?

Most undergraduates don't realize that there is a shrinking percentage of positions in the humanities that offer job security, benefits, and a livable salary (though it is generally much lower than salaries in other fields requiring as many years of training). They don't know that you probably will have to accept living almost anywhere, and that you must also go through a six-year probationary period at the end of which you may be fired for any number of reasons and find yourself exiled from the profession. They seem to think becoming a humanities professor is a reliable prospect — a more responsible and secure choice than, say, attempting to make it as a freelance writer, or an actor, or a professional athlete — and, as a result, they don't make any fallback plans until it is too late.

He's got to be exaggerating about undergrad naivete but he keeps pouring it on: "I have found that most prospective graduate students have given little thought to what will happen to them after they complete their doctorates."

You may not beleieve your eyes, but go see.

'Tis the season

On the Internet, and in pop culture generally, 'tis the season for listing. Kevin and Drew have their lists up and agree on Marc Egnal. Now is the time,I suppose, for their readers to chime in with, "Hey, you forgot..."

Me, I dislike lists, except maybe watchlists. This is not a rap on Drew and Kevin but on listing.

The late Jean Shepherd hated list-lovers and launched the greatest literary hoax in history to humiliate them. He succeeded spectacularly but they did not notice, they did not care, and the lists keep coming. "Top 10 humiliations inflicted on list-readers" - let somebody make that list. Shepherd's would stand at number one.

Amazon is now a vertically integrated publisher

What if Amazon became a vertically integrated publisher and no one even noticed? It happened in 2009. If you're an Amazon investor, maybe a shareholder report laid out some vision for you last year - if a business newsletter subscriber, maybe you paid for a special report. I have seen nothing and assembled the pieces from press releases (linked below).

First, background. A year or two ago, Amazon got kudos from bloggers who understood "long tail" publishing. The problem of the long tail (of the bell curve) is this: if anyone can make money selling 50,000 copies of one title (the bell top), how does one make money selling 50,000 copies each of 50,000 titles (the tail of the curve)? Amazon bought a print-on-demand business (POD) and allowed writers to supply content to Kindle. Long tail celebration stopped short of a deeper analysis.

When Amazon bought this POD, called BookSurge, the technology behind on-demand printing seemed poised to enable profit-per-single-unit under the right model. Although BookSurge and its competitiors seemed to be using POD in a long tail way, their actual revenue was based (in my opinion) primarily on fees charged the author. POD was used to generate a break-even product after the profitable author fee cycle ended.

In other words, the POD publishers were still playing at the top of the curve, looking for big numbers of authors in what was a cheaper (for authors) vanity press business model. Lower the production cost threshhold and attract more authors (customers) than brick-and-mortar old style vanities. After the fees were collected, the book part of the business could be supported logistically without losing money, thanks to POD. Sales would be through (usually) a single feeble website run by the POD and through the author ordering copies.

Recently, Amazon collapsed the Booksurge model. The acquisition had made crude sense originally. Here was CreateSpace, which was POD for films and music and owned by Amazon and here was BookSurge, an acquisition that added books to the mix. Problem: Createspace was a true (self) publishing model based on profit through sales. BookSurge was not. When Amazon decided that a long tail publishing model could work for POD books, as they worked for dilm and music, they added book publishing functionality to CreateSpace, a platform that better suited their needs.

Now they have collapsed BookSurge, a maneuver long overdue. BookSurge reminds us of Marshall McLuhan's observation that new technologies are initially put at the service of old content (and models).

The CreateSpace author - who paid no fees except optional ones - had instant access to parent company Amazon as a retail outlet after publishing his book. This should have concentrated the interest of any would-be self publisher. His only cost was proof copies and proof shipping and his shop window was a highly trafficked international site. He could now sell profitably on the old idiot's lottery basis. If you win the idiot's lottery, you collect a dollar a year for a million years. The CreateSpace author could conceivable sell a book a year and have a profitable year every time.

In several bold new moves late this year, Amazon went into the wholesale business. That is the business that puts physical books on physical shelves in brick and mortar stores. Its CreateSpace authors are permitted (without fee) to opt into three wholesale channels.

The first is a CreateSpace trade wholesaler. This is likeley to be either an alliance of independent wholesalers acting under the CreateSpace banner or CreateSpace launching an independent wholesaler on its own model, terms, and conditions.

The second channel offered authors is wholesale to libraries. This would be executed in one of two scenarios as above, I think.

The third channel is conventional trade wholesale through Ingram. I say conventional - Ingram is one of only two major book wholesalers in the USA - but the details reside in something called the Ingram Content Group which has POD capability.

My view is that Ingram is taking orders for CreateSpace titles and PODing them on its own presses for additional $ margins. In fact, CreateSpace authors who opt into the Ingram distribution are warned that the finished product will look different than the proofs they originally approved. I wonder if stores can return unsold POD books?

In addition to self-published content, CreateSpace is filling its wholesale channels with long-tail commercial product: MGM films and scientific publications from Springer Verlag. Long tail: everyone benefits.

So, Amazon, a retailer, owns two new wholesale channels (its own trade and library distributors), plus manufacturing plant (CreateSpace). The one thing it does not yet deal in is rights. However, it occupies a position in which it can calculate the sales and margin for any CreateSpace title. This means that when the time comes, it can make safe, sane, sensible and attractive offers to authors to buy the rights to titles it is interested in.

Topside: an irrelevant cover from an irrelevant publication.

Stephen Sears responds

Stephen Sears writes:

Dear Dimitri,
I would like, if I may, to clarify certain matters in your posting of today.
First, the McPherson matter. You have missed the essential point that McPherson published quotes from the McClellan letterbook (to be further defined below) in the LoC one year before the publication of my McClellan correspondence book. His Battle Cry of Freedom was published in 1988; my correspondence book in 1989. No such plagiarism of me that you claim was possible.

Dear Stephen, you do not understand my claim. In Battle Cry, McPherson identified notes taken from the LoC book by the date (if any) shown in the LoC book; and if there was no date, he used the letter without specific citation. I am not saying McPherson used your book for Battle Cry - he used it for his 2009 article. In his 2009 essay, he may have gone back to his Battle Cry notes but where a note had no date, he referred to your book to supply one, which he then used without attribution. The question of whether McP actually used the LoC for GBM "letters" in Battle Cry is a fascinating one, which I will return to in another post. For now, let's agree to credit Battle Cry with original LoC research.

No doubt he did his own research in the McClellan Papers LoC (just as I did). He applied his own informed judgment as to supplying dates, etc. (just as I did).

He supplied (in Battle Cry) the year but no more. I am not seeing dates in Battle Cry reconstructed by McPherson, just years added on to incomplete dates. More on this below. If your point, however, is that later, in 2008-9, McPherson arrived independently at the two dates you happened to supply through your own efforts in a book he mentioned (yours) but does not cite, I cannot give him the pass you seek. Remember: he is citing a source without dates in a way that sends researchers to the source looking for a date to verify. This is false citation. And the dates are yours.

No doubt he found the McClellan letterbook, with the guidance of the LoC's finding aid and/or microfilm content listing, as easily as I did. The letterbook has been well known to Civil War students since at least 1934, when Meyers quoted from it.

Of course Stephen. I have quoted from it often over the years. It was referred to much earlier than 1934 in McClellan's Own Story. Prime discovered it and characterized it. But here's the problem every reader of this post must understand. Your position is and has been that the extracts must be supplemented with May McClellan's notes to complete them. You combined LoC sources, then you added dates and contextual information per your research and judgement. This resulted in a book of "letters" that writers can cite by date. McPherson in 2008-9, citing a book of extracts, many of the entries without headings and in a different order than your final product, does not lead readers to the source of his citation.

And if the book of extracts What I term, for convenience, the McClellan letterbook is a bound standard letterbook of 224 pages, entirely in McClellan's handwriting.

I object to this term of convenience. A letterbook is a book used to capture copies of outgoing correspondence. A notebook is what would be used to take notes (extracts) from letters. Further, IIRC, this book is smaller than letter paper size.

On page one, in the general's hand: "Extracts from letters written to my wife during the War of the Rebellion, [signed] Geo B. McClellan." Thus General McClellan makes personal affidavit that 1) what follows are his copies in his handwriting of extracts of letters; 2)the letters are to his wife; 3) they were written during his wartime service.

This cannot be an affadavit unless we know that it was signed after the book was full and unless there are witnesses or corroboration of some sort. It is quite inadequate - a start without a finish.

GBM's inscription may just as likely have been made when the book was empty - at the time of inscription, it may have signalled his intention to include in it only letters to his wife. Since there is no addressee shown in the notes, he may have included extracts to persons not his wife, not caring about the title page inscription, himself knowing which entries were which. By the same token, he may have added material to the letters, and/or interposed memories as notes to enrich existing letters, interposed extracts of letters to whomever in his dated entries, or composed entire notes from memory based on recollections being jogged by whatever he was consulting. McClellan witheld this book from Prime and the project of his memoirs. The book was discovered and then enriched through the peculiar tactic of veiled note passing between May and Prime. Prime and May devised an obscure methodology that involved Prime prompting May for this or that and May delivering whatever without Prime ever seeing a letter, without Mrs. McClellan, the owner of the alleged letters, ever involving herself.

These are not notes; we have McClellan's word on that.

Extracts are notes. Unheaded, undated extracts are especially good candidates for the label "notes." Uncorroborated text in a discovered notebook are what I confidently call "notes."

Reading the letters demonstrates that they are extracts, not notes.

Extracts are notes. Besides which, again, McClellan was free to make whatever entries he liked from whatever source he was using with whatever fidelity suited his obscure purposes. And I am struck by certain un-letterlike entries which I will bring to the attention of this group, particularly crossouts, in future posts.

McClellan was working from the original letters, with the intent (I believe) to aid him in his memoir-writing.

I salute this conjecture without subscribing to it. We don't know what he was doing or why.

They form a virtual wartime diary, containing what is clearly the meat of each letter; reading them makes that clear.

Reading cannot make clear what has been omitted, or changed, or enhanced. Furthermore, the virtual wartime diary aspect depends on your (Stephen Sears') own datings and your own rearranging of the actual order of entries as they appear in the book. In other words, applying your judgements, you have changed the sequence of material based on dates you have assigned. This is not a problem but it is another major distinction between the LoC holdings and your book that writers (like McPherson) need to keep in mind if they are going to cut you out of their citations in favor of the LoC.

He deleted personal matter; the ellipses in my transcriptions are McClellan's.

You are characterizing deletions as "personal" that you cannot see or check on. Since May supplied military (non-personal) material not in the original notes, it is absurd to say "he deleted personal matter" as if that were all that was deleted.

Furthermore the sheer number of ellipses encountered by the reader are disturbing. I will put up a separate post with a notebook entry showing its elipses and we will insert placeholder of made-up personal information to see exactly how absurdly the "personal matter" explanation holds up.

May McClellan's copies, made c. 1886, are also from the original letters;

Again we have a provenance issue. From the original letters? Says Prime, sight unseen. Did she also sign an "affadavit"? No, we have hearsay from Prime and an approximate date.

her overlaps with her father's extracts indicate she was not consulting the letterbook.

Disagree. May was responding to Prime. Prime was interacting with May on the basis of the notebook. We don't know how Prime prompted May, nor do we have insight into their interactions. This statement is conjecture based on "indicates." Better to say what we know: the overlaps indicate a methodology we do not understand concerning letters Prime was not allowed to see.

There are no cross-outs or other emendations in the letterbook or in May's copies (where did that notion come from?).

It came from viewing the notes on microfilm. I will fetch some examples.

Examining the overlaps demonstrates that both were careful transcribers.

Not true: the overlaps are unknowns. My feeling, no better than yours, is that they could represent the written "prompts" Prime delivered to May that May included in the returned document to anchor her add-on material. Remember, Prime is asking May for material keyed to this or that notebook entry and the notebook is filled with entries lacking dates, times, places. The way Prime might talk about an entry with someone is to cite it like poetry, giving the first line of the note or those lines introducing material wanting further development.

Again, you have characterized GBM's lacunae in the notebook as pointing to personal information being omitted, and yet here is Prime extracting from May military additions to the "letters." As military memoirs, if we want to treat them that way, the contents of the LoC notebook are proven incomplete by the actions of Prime and May. Supplemental military material from May might still be incomplete. Or fabricated. Or sourced to a non-letters source. We have no way of knowing.

After May's copying, the original letters disappear from the record.

They were never in the record. The existence of original letters is hearsay. Mac's cryptic, secret notes are supplemented by material of unknown provenance from May under the direction of Prime using unknown methods.

You find five layers of distance between the now-lost originals and my correspondence book. I view the case differently. First, McClellan's extracts and May's are a single layer; both copied from the original letters; both were equally careful; neither had any motive to be less than honest in what they were doing.

They cannot be a single layer until put together by an editor; the sources are unknown; the degree of care is unknown; motives are unknown.

Most important, the candor of McClellan's extracts makes it obvious he had no intention of these letters being published, and no reason to pull his punches. History, at least, is very fortunate General McClellan did what he did.

The candor of his extracts, as you call them, present all sorts of problems that can be magically resolved by labelling them "candor" and assigning that "candor" to the original, unknown, unseen source. McClellan's intentions are baffling and any history worth an H would tread lightly among these notes.

Delete Prime from any credit in this.

That is impossible. Prime explains his role in McClellan's Own Story. It is the role of scholarship today to take the notebook, plus Prime's version of what he calls the letters, plus May's notes, and add in your own (Searsian) final version of each in order to compare them in a transparent manner that shows the judgement producing each item. You have combined the material in Wartime Correspondence and you have told us by footnote which elements were combined but the method not clear enough. A new reference is needed that gives us something like this:

To Mary Ellen McClellan [salutation added by Sears]

October 31, 1862 [only "October" in the original]

The troops went out trick or treating tonight and oh what costumes. [Source: LoC notebook]. How I wish I had a costume and could join them! [Source: May McC notes, LoC]. I would dress up as Stanton and scare someone to death. [Source: LoC notebook, deleted by Prime, restored by Sears] How I despise that man. [Source: LoC notebook, crossed out, omitted by Sears and Prime, replaced in GBM's hand by the following] How much travail that rogue has inflicted ... [Lacuna in LoC notebook, completed in May Mc's LoC notes with the following] Ah, but we must shoulder the burdens God has laid on us. And so on.

He [Prime] was a hack, and the crimes he committed on McClellan's Own Story are reprehensible. He played no role in my work.

It is impossible that he played no role in your work. That is like saying McClellan's Own Story played no role, that May McClellan's notes, elicited by Prime and used by you played no role. The "letterbook" was not discovered by researchers in the LoC, it was discovered and used by Prime. Your work represents - as a minimum - what you perceive as a correction to Prime.

Finally, my bracketed work on dates or place of writing are no more than any responsible editor of any correspondence book would and should do.

Absolutely! And the editor who adds them must be identified as the owner and cited by users.

I maintain, then, that my transcriptions of General McClellan's letters to his wife are but one step from the lost originals, and since the letter writer himself (and his daughter) did the selecting and copying of the extracts, and neither had any motive whatever to be less than honest in what they were doing, that is a very, very small step indeed.

You ask so much of us. I am sorry to refuse agreement.

With regards,
Stephen

Until next time,
Dimitri