5/06/2004
5/05/2004
Stonewall Jackson and George S. Patton: A Survey of Leadership was written by a couple of field grade Army officers. Men with War College schooling in the disciplines of history and analysis.
It's a remarkable document. I’ll interleave some comments among the authors' words.
“Stonewall's Rule Number One (Valley and Wilderness Campaigns) - Mystify, mislead and surprise. Jackson's most brilliant and well-known use of this precept occurred when he vanished from the Valley and appeared in the First Wilderness Campaign ready, willing and able to attack McClellan.”
Calling the Richmond Campaign “First Wilderness” is annoying enough – but the hallmarks of this march were Jackson’s lateness, sloth, and failure to communicate with peers and boss. On the Union side, the hallmarks were McClellan's detection of Jackson's plans and intentions before he could reach the battlefield.
“McClellan's hubris contributed to his total disregard of the possibility that "Old Jack" could have maneuvered his troops so far so quickly. What allowed Jackson to mislead "Young Napoleon" so thoroughly?”
You reach a point in pop history where evidence no longer matters on any level. You simply appeal to the stereotypes developed within the mass literature (e.g., hubris) and these legitimate (or delegitimate) your insights. The authors of this paper have passed the point where they need to anchor their story in events.
But let's look at the record to see how far off base these comments are. I'm going to use a secondary source for the Rebel material because it's good enough for our purposes.
June 23, 1862
Rebels: Jackson arrives in Richmond ahead of his eastward-bound army to confer with Lee on a battle plan. They set the date of June 26th for an operation in which Jackson will collaborate in a combination flanking maneuver/attack on McClellan’s right wing near Richmond. (The Civil War Day by Day).
June 24
Union: McClellan telegraphs Stanton that he has a deserter from Jackson’s command and that as of June 21st, Jackson had planned to flank McClellan’s right and fall upon his rear on or about June 28th. He asks Stanton for “the most exact” info available on Jackson’s location and asks the sources of information be described as well (to help his own analysis). (OR) He then sends “two trusty negroes” immediately into Jackson’s reported line of advance. They encounter Rebel pickets at Hanover CH. McClellan concludes he has found Jackson’ s advance guard (OR, McC’s Report). That night he telegraphs Stanton that he is going to his right flank to “arrange for the defense.” (OR)
June 25
Union: McClellan telegraphs Burnside in NC, asking him to make an attack to distract the Rebels from reinforcing Jackson’s forthcoming flanking maneuver. (OR, McClellan’s Report). He telegraphs Stanton that he has more corroboration that Jackson will attack his right and rear(OR).
June 26
Union: McClellan reports to Stanton that there is now Union shooting at what is probably Jackson’s advance guard. (OR, McClellan’s Report). In notes that appear to be a letter to his wife the same day, he mentions Jackson’s impending attack (Sears, “Selected Correspondence”). Also the same day, he continues coordinating Navy movement from the York River (his right) to the James River, referencing the urgency of the situation (OR).
Rebels: Jackson fails to participate in scheduled maneuver. Fails to report whereabouts. Loses touch with commander and colleagues. "Where is Jackson?" is the CSA's lament. (The Civil War Day by Day)
June 27
Rebels: Jackson delayed (The Civil War Day by Day).
June 29
Rebels: Jackson accused of tardiness (The Civil War Day by Day).
June 30
Rebels: Jackson fails to perform his assigned duties (The Civil War Day by Day).
Yes, it is an interesting question:“What allowed Jackson to mislead ‘Young Napoleon’ so thoroughly?” Especially since it was his own command he misled, never McClellan. Our authors answer their own query: “Remember that Jackson achieved a lower class rank at West Point than did McClellan, and thus, he was compelled to achieve success by good deed, for he was without predisposition to high command due to station or class standing.”
Is this from the old Soviet Encyclopedia entry under "American Civil War"?
Another insight: “McClellan's hubris contributed to his total disregard of the possibility that "Old Jack" could have maneuvered his troops so far so quickly.”
Gentlemen, watch out for that total hubris and total disregard – they will embarrass you every time.
And now, in closing, a few “deep thoughts” from our U.S. Army history instructors:
* “… one must infer as to his personal views without the assistance of autobiographical or other sources.” (We can do history without the safety net of sources.)
* “Jackson's mystical qualities made him a demigod among his troops; he was literally worshiped by his men.” (It may be time for pop historians to move beyond "Gods and generals" to "Gods and gods.")
* “...adapt your personality to items one and two and become a true warrior.“ (Follow the list: have you never heard of self-help successes?)
* “Who would have won a battle between George Patton and Stonewall Jackson?” (You know, I never before thought to ask that of my history teachers.)
Is this is the kind of history that will help win wars?
p.s. A note on the general history of the Seven Days. I have seen several analyses of Jackson's failures from the Rebel point of view but never with reference to McClellan's deserter and other Union intelligence sources. The possibility that Jackson planned (as of the 21st) to arrive on station the 28th is extremely interesting in light of his later movements. It makes you wonder whether or not Jackson continued to move on the earlier timetable, for whatever reason.
It's a remarkable document. I’ll interleave some comments among the authors' words.
“Stonewall's Rule Number One (Valley and Wilderness Campaigns) - Mystify, mislead and surprise. Jackson's most brilliant and well-known use of this precept occurred when he vanished from the Valley and appeared in the First Wilderness Campaign ready, willing and able to attack McClellan.”
Calling the Richmond Campaign “First Wilderness” is annoying enough – but the hallmarks of this march were Jackson’s lateness, sloth, and failure to communicate with peers and boss. On the Union side, the hallmarks were McClellan's detection of Jackson's plans and intentions before he could reach the battlefield.
“McClellan's hubris contributed to his total disregard of the possibility that "Old Jack" could have maneuvered his troops so far so quickly. What allowed Jackson to mislead "Young Napoleon" so thoroughly?”
You reach a point in pop history where evidence no longer matters on any level. You simply appeal to the stereotypes developed within the mass literature (e.g., hubris) and these legitimate (or delegitimate) your insights. The authors of this paper have passed the point where they need to anchor their story in events.
But let's look at the record to see how far off base these comments are. I'm going to use a secondary source for the Rebel material because it's good enough for our purposes.
June 23, 1862
Rebels: Jackson arrives in Richmond ahead of his eastward-bound army to confer with Lee on a battle plan. They set the date of June 26th for an operation in which Jackson will collaborate in a combination flanking maneuver/attack on McClellan’s right wing near Richmond. (The Civil War Day by Day).
June 24
Union: McClellan telegraphs Stanton that he has a deserter from Jackson’s command and that as of June 21st, Jackson had planned to flank McClellan’s right and fall upon his rear on or about June 28th. He asks Stanton for “the most exact” info available on Jackson’s location and asks the sources of information be described as well (to help his own analysis). (OR) He then sends “two trusty negroes” immediately into Jackson’s reported line of advance. They encounter Rebel pickets at Hanover CH. McClellan concludes he has found Jackson’ s advance guard (OR, McC’s Report). That night he telegraphs Stanton that he is going to his right flank to “arrange for the defense.” (OR)
June 25
Union: McClellan telegraphs Burnside in NC, asking him to make an attack to distract the Rebels from reinforcing Jackson’s forthcoming flanking maneuver. (OR, McClellan’s Report). He telegraphs Stanton that he has more corroboration that Jackson will attack his right and rear(OR).
June 26
Union: McClellan reports to Stanton that there is now Union shooting at what is probably Jackson’s advance guard. (OR, McClellan’s Report). In notes that appear to be a letter to his wife the same day, he mentions Jackson’s impending attack (Sears, “Selected Correspondence”). Also the same day, he continues coordinating Navy movement from the York River (his right) to the James River, referencing the urgency of the situation (OR).
Rebels: Jackson fails to participate in scheduled maneuver. Fails to report whereabouts. Loses touch with commander and colleagues. "Where is Jackson?" is the CSA's lament. (The Civil War Day by Day)
June 27
Rebels: Jackson delayed (The Civil War Day by Day).
June 29
Rebels: Jackson accused of tardiness (The Civil War Day by Day).
June 30
Rebels: Jackson fails to perform his assigned duties (The Civil War Day by Day).
Yes, it is an interesting question:“What allowed Jackson to mislead ‘Young Napoleon’ so thoroughly?” Especially since it was his own command he misled, never McClellan. Our authors answer their own query: “Remember that Jackson achieved a lower class rank at West Point than did McClellan, and thus, he was compelled to achieve success by good deed, for he was without predisposition to high command due to station or class standing.”
Is this from the old Soviet Encyclopedia entry under "American Civil War"?
Another insight: “McClellan's hubris contributed to his total disregard of the possibility that "Old Jack" could have maneuvered his troops so far so quickly.”
Gentlemen, watch out for that total hubris and total disregard – they will embarrass you every time.
And now, in closing, a few “deep thoughts” from our U.S. Army history instructors:
* “… one must infer as to his personal views without the assistance of autobiographical or other sources.” (We can do history without the safety net of sources.)
* “Jackson's mystical qualities made him a demigod among his troops; he was literally worshiped by his men.” (It may be time for pop historians to move beyond "Gods and generals" to "Gods and gods.")
* “...adapt your personality to items one and two and become a true warrior.“ (Follow the list: have you never heard of self-help successes?)
* “Who would have won a battle between George Patton and Stonewall Jackson?” (You know, I never before thought to ask that of my history teachers.)
Is this is the kind of history that will help win wars?
p.s. A note on the general history of the Seven Days. I have seen several analyses of Jackson's failures from the Rebel point of view but never with reference to McClellan's deserter and other Union intelligence sources. The possibility that Jackson planned (as of the 21st) to arrive on station the 28th is extremely interesting in light of his later movements. It makes you wonder whether or not Jackson continued to move on the earlier timetable, for whatever reason.
5/04/2004
I sometimes wonder what re-enactors are all about. This story tries to communicate that and strikes an archaic religious theme.
* Reenactors say people should come to these events to pay their respects to the people who fought and died for what they believed in.
* "To reflect on our heritage and legacy that was once given to us by our ancestors."
* "Parents need to pass it on to their kids, because it is their life."
The statement that resonates the most from this report is, "We are trying to rejuvenate memories of our ancestors."
That's something right out of Mircea Eliade: "In religious worship, the point of the liturgy and ritual is to reenact the myth in such a way that it becomes part of the worshippers' current experience." "Humanity apprehends 'hierophanies' -- physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred" through re-enactments.
When the re-enactor says "because the history books cannot put everything in the books" he is right ... and Eliade is smiling upon him.
* Reenactors say people should come to these events to pay their respects to the people who fought and died for what they believed in.
* "To reflect on our heritage and legacy that was once given to us by our ancestors."
* "Parents need to pass it on to their kids, because it is their life."
The statement that resonates the most from this report is, "We are trying to rejuvenate memories of our ancestors."
That's something right out of Mircea Eliade: "In religious worship, the point of the liturgy and ritual is to reenact the myth in such a way that it becomes part of the worshippers' current experience." "Humanity apprehends 'hierophanies' -- physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred" through re-enactments.
When the re-enactor says "because the history books cannot put everything in the books" he is right ... and Eliade is smiling upon him.
This is for the Civil War gardeners among us, especially those from the Northeast.
I have been baffled by Southern references to laurel in various battle books. In accounts of Rich Mountain, McClellan is told by a local guide that the laurel is so thick and tangled on the hillside that a man can walk on top of it. This is an impossible outcome for the plant I call laurel.
It turns out, according to one author, that the locals are referring to rhododendron.
How do we get from a nice word like "laurel" to a monstrosity like "rhododendron"? No one starting in the rhododendron-choked Jersey pine barrens going northwards calls the plant "laurel." It's a better word, but I have never heard it used this way in NJ, NY or MA.
The more websites I view on the subject, the more confused I become.
But is seems we are talking about different things after all. Here's a botanist talking about "mountain laurel and rhododendron." He refers to the Smoky Mountains: "Rosebay rhododendron is generally absent above 5,000 feet, while mountain laurel persists as a component up to 6,000 feet."
He refers also to something called a "laurel hell." Sounds familiar.
I have been baffled by Southern references to laurel in various battle books. In accounts of Rich Mountain, McClellan is told by a local guide that the laurel is so thick and tangled on the hillside that a man can walk on top of it. This is an impossible outcome for the plant I call laurel.
It turns out, according to one author, that the locals are referring to rhododendron.
How do we get from a nice word like "laurel" to a monstrosity like "rhododendron"? No one starting in the rhododendron-choked Jersey pine barrens going northwards calls the plant "laurel." It's a better word, but I have never heard it used this way in NJ, NY or MA.
The more websites I view on the subject, the more confused I become.
But is seems we are talking about different things after all. Here's a botanist talking about "mountain laurel and rhododendron." He refers to the Smoky Mountains: "Rosebay rhododendron is generally absent above 5,000 feet, while mountain laurel persists as a component up to 6,000 feet."
He refers also to something called a "laurel hell." Sounds familiar.
5/03/2004
I take an evil pleasure in news stories that round up opinion among pop historians. Here's one that includes David Donald, the mass-market Lincoln biographer:
Clinton memoir raises both hopes and doubts among historians
In this subgenre of news, the pop culture mavens we call "historians" come across as articulate and cultured as your average 21-year-old rock band drummer:
So I'm interested in how he brings a truly sophisticated sense of history to his book. I'd like to see him bring that to how he thinks his judgments affected the direction of both domestic and foreign policy.
Dude! I'm so impressed, man.
The questions a bona fide history lover would ask Clinton (the premise of this article) would probably be the same for Jeff Davis or Abe Lincoln.
(1) How did you make major decisions?
(2) What documents or records will give the most complete picture of events after you die?
(3) How is this memoir different from one that you might write 30 years from now?
(4) What broad areas of importance have you put "out of bounds" for security or personal reasons?
(5) What were your assessments of domestic and foreign political leaders?
Bonus question:
(*) As a history reader who became a history maker, are there cautions or warnings you would now give to fellow history readers?
This type of article will continue to amuse as long as there are reporters impressed by best-selling history writers and as long as they enjoy recording pop history baby talk.
Clinton memoir raises both hopes and doubts among historians
In this subgenre of news, the pop culture mavens we call "historians" come across as articulate and cultured as your average 21-year-old rock band drummer:
So I'm interested in how he brings a truly sophisticated sense of history to his book. I'd like to see him bring that to how he thinks his judgments affected the direction of both domestic and foreign policy.
Dude! I'm so impressed, man.
The questions a bona fide history lover would ask Clinton (the premise of this article) would probably be the same for Jeff Davis or Abe Lincoln.
(1) How did you make major decisions?
(2) What documents or records will give the most complete picture of events after you die?
(3) How is this memoir different from one that you might write 30 years from now?
(4) What broad areas of importance have you put "out of bounds" for security or personal reasons?
(5) What were your assessments of domestic and foreign political leaders?
Bonus question:
(*) As a history reader who became a history maker, are there cautions or warnings you would now give to fellow history readers?
This type of article will continue to amuse as long as there are reporters impressed by best-selling history writers and as long as they enjoy recording pop history baby talk.
Will we ever see an outcome like this again? I suppose we had better not.
In 10 of the 11 states that ultimately seceded, Lincoln received not one popular vote. These were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
In 10 of the 11 states that ultimately seceded, Lincoln received not one popular vote. These were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
5/02/2004
SUNDAY | Sister site Civil War Book News has been updated (at last) with trailing news of the last batch of Fall '03 release info. Agonies over web site redesign (after five years of the same thing) have slowed frequency of refreshed information: regrets, regrets. The Spring '04 list will go up shortly in the context of a slight redesign. Anyway, here are the newly added items:
* "The Fighting 10th" - The History of the 10th Missouri Cavalry US, by Eagleburger
* Rally Round the Flag Boys! South Carolina and the Confederate Flag by Prince
* Bright Starry Banner by Carter (Novel)
* Sissy! by Mach (Novel)
* Ironclad Promise by Bob Wall (Novel)
* Fire by Night by Austin (Novel)
* Five Forks: Waterloo of the Confederacy by Alexander
* Testament: A Soldier's Story of the Civil War by Bobrick
* If I should fall in battle... The Civil War Diary of James P. Stephens by Dickinson
* Beloved Bride: The Letters of Stonewall Jackson to his Wife by Potter
* Florida in the Civil War by Wynne and Taylor
To get past the "front door" and go directly to the list, click here.
Thanks to all for patience.
* "The Fighting 10th" - The History of the 10th Missouri Cavalry US, by Eagleburger
* Rally Round the Flag Boys! South Carolina and the Confederate Flag by Prince
* Bright Starry Banner by Carter (Novel)
* Sissy! by Mach (Novel)
* Ironclad Promise by Bob Wall (Novel)
* Fire by Night by Austin (Novel)
* Five Forks: Waterloo of the Confederacy by Alexander
* Testament: A Soldier's Story of the Civil War by Bobrick
* If I should fall in battle... The Civil War Diary of James P. Stephens by Dickinson
* Beloved Bride: The Letters of Stonewall Jackson to his Wife by Potter
* Florida in the Civil War by Wynne and Taylor
To get past the "front door" and go directly to the list, click here.
Thanks to all for patience.
5/01/2004
SATURDAY | We continue the Malvern Hill thread on this McClellan Poetry Day by looking at an odd piece by Bret Harte.
Harte was a novelty writer in the Mark Twain sense - publishers expected him to cover a geographic area (the far West) with humor and social insight. There are a number of Harte pieces accessible from the link, above, if you want a 19th Century reading experience.
The Seven Days, culminating at Malvern Hill, might look to a newspaper reader of the time as if Lee were forcing McClellan out of a series of positions that McClellan wanted to hold. They were actually attempts to engage, ensnare, and cut off the Union army moving from the York to the James River. Malvern Hill marked the last battle of this fighting withdrawal and handed Lee his most lopside loss of the campaign.
In light of this epic drama, Bret Harte, characteristically pulls a rabbit out of his hat.
BATTLE BUNNY
(MALVERN HILL)
"A fter the men were ordered to lie down, a white rabbit, which had
been hopping hither and thither over the field swept by grape and
musketry, took refuge among the skirmishers, in the breast of a
corporal."--Report of the Battle of Malvern Hill.
Bunny, lying in the grass,
Saw the shining column pass;
Saw the starry banner fly,
Saw the chargers fret and fume,
Saw the flapping hat and plume,--
Saw them with his moist and shy
Most unspeculative eye,
Thinking only, in the dew,
That it was a fine review.
Till a flash, not all of steel,
Where the rolling caissons wheel,
Brought a rumble and a roar
Rolling down that velvet floor,
And like blows of autumn flail
Sharply threshed the iron hail.
Bunny, thrilled by unknown fears,
Raised his soft and pointed ears,
Mumbled his prehensile lip,
Quivered his pulsating hip,
As the sharp vindictive yell
Rose above the screaming shell;
Thought the world and all its men,--
All the charging squadrons meant,--
All were rabbit-hunters then,
All to capture him intent.
Bunny was not much to blame:
Wiser folk have thought the same,--
Wiser folk who think they spy
Every ill begins with "I."
Wildly panting here and there,
Bunny sought the freer air,
Till he hopped below the hill,
And saw, lying close and still,
Men with muskets in their hands.
(Never Bunny understands
That hypocrisy of sleep,
In the vigils grim they keep,
As recumbent on that spot
They elude the level shot.)
One--a grave and quiet man,
Thinking of his wife and child
Far beyond the Rapidan,
Where the Androscoggin smiled--
Felt the little rabbit creep,
Nestling by his arm and side,
Wakened from strategic sleep,
To that soft appeal replied,
Drew him to his blackened breast,
And-- But you have guessed the rest.
Softly o`er that chosen pair
Omnipresent Love and Care
Drew a mightier Hand and Arm,
Shielding them from every harm;
Right and left the bullets waved,
Saved the saviour for the saved.
------
Who believes that equal grace
God extends in every place,
Little difference he scans
Twixt a rabbit`s God and man`s
Harte was a novelty writer in the Mark Twain sense - publishers expected him to cover a geographic area (the far West) with humor and social insight. There are a number of Harte pieces accessible from the link, above, if you want a 19th Century reading experience.
The Seven Days, culminating at Malvern Hill, might look to a newspaper reader of the time as if Lee were forcing McClellan out of a series of positions that McClellan wanted to hold. They were actually attempts to engage, ensnare, and cut off the Union army moving from the York to the James River. Malvern Hill marked the last battle of this fighting withdrawal and handed Lee his most lopside loss of the campaign.
In light of this epic drama, Bret Harte, characteristically pulls a rabbit out of his hat.
BATTLE BUNNY
(MALVERN HILL)
"A fter the men were ordered to lie down, a white rabbit, which had
been hopping hither and thither over the field swept by grape and
musketry, took refuge among the skirmishers, in the breast of a
corporal."--Report of the Battle of Malvern Hill.
Bunny, lying in the grass,
Saw the shining column pass;
Saw the starry banner fly,
Saw the chargers fret and fume,
Saw the flapping hat and plume,--
Saw them with his moist and shy
Most unspeculative eye,
Thinking only, in the dew,
That it was a fine review.
Till a flash, not all of steel,
Where the rolling caissons wheel,
Brought a rumble and a roar
Rolling down that velvet floor,
And like blows of autumn flail
Sharply threshed the iron hail.
Bunny, thrilled by unknown fears,
Raised his soft and pointed ears,
Mumbled his prehensile lip,
Quivered his pulsating hip,
As the sharp vindictive yell
Rose above the screaming shell;
Thought the world and all its men,--
All the charging squadrons meant,--
All were rabbit-hunters then,
All to capture him intent.
Bunny was not much to blame:
Wiser folk have thought the same,--
Wiser folk who think they spy
Every ill begins with "I."
Wildly panting here and there,
Bunny sought the freer air,
Till he hopped below the hill,
And saw, lying close and still,
Men with muskets in their hands.
(Never Bunny understands
That hypocrisy of sleep,
In the vigils grim they keep,
As recumbent on that spot
They elude the level shot.)
One--a grave and quiet man,
Thinking of his wife and child
Far beyond the Rapidan,
Where the Androscoggin smiled--
Felt the little rabbit creep,
Nestling by his arm and side,
Wakened from strategic sleep,
To that soft appeal replied,
Drew him to his blackened breast,
And-- But you have guessed the rest.
Softly o`er that chosen pair
Omnipresent Love and Care
Drew a mightier Hand and Arm,
Shielding them from every harm;
Right and left the bullets waved,
Saved the saviour for the saved.
------
Who believes that equal grace
God extends in every place,
Little difference he scans
Twixt a rabbit`s God and man`s
4/30/2004
Author Tim Reese has posted some interesting comments on a discussion board about the walking day-glow horror show called South Mountain Battlefield.
Although a bill passed in 2000 creates the possibility of having a battlefield, one funded by the state of Maryland, there has been no serious spending and the various interests have been free to pursue their own agendas, using contradictory methods of "saving battlefield land."
I'd like to comment on some of Tim's points. For instance, he mentions,
TR: ... naïve assumptions about cooperative, incongruent battlefield ownership, its purported preservation, and the likelihood of achieving any symbiosis toward accessible park status.
Wide swaths of battlefield land are covered with patchworks of conflicting usage arrangements. The state has not used its authority to buy land, or to condemn privately owned property, or even to create guidelines for property owners in the area. Instead self-serving entities have entered into a myriad of private deals involving restrictive use covenants to cover many privately owned parcels. The parties involved are more than incongrous - they have incompatible aims. A serious effort to create a battlefield out of the mess on South Mountain would require the diplomacy that produced the Peace of Westphalia.
TR: South Mountain is being developed as we speak! Most damage is occurring at Turner's Gap where most of the land along D.H. Hill's left flank has been parceled out for sale. Lots are already selling along Dahlgren and Frosttown roads. The latter was recently repaved to accommodate new home builders. Fox's Gap is in better shape, but hopelessly entangled in a complex mosaic of public/private ownership, unlikely to be unraveled.
Notice that lots are selling but the state is not buying. Notice that lots are selling and the preservationists are not buying. (To buy land at developer prices would be extortion! Preservationists want to pay only the fairest price keyed to farm- and woodland values. They are bargain hunters, bless 'em, so they'll pay for easements and save big. They think.)
TR: Fox's Gap is in better shape, but hopelessly entangled in a complex mosaic of public/private ownership, unlikely to be unraveled.
This is the problem with its members allowing organizations like Civil War Preservation Trust to purchase restrictive covenants on land in partnership with a bewildering array of conflicting, non-ACW organizations like the federal government, the state government, farmland conservators, nature conservators, etc. You create a pre-unification Germany, a land of hundreds of princelings, each with territory, a separate constitution, and a unique agenda.
TR: Whoever came up with the idea of S. Mtn. State Battlefield [the law authorizing it] was obviously hallucinating.
I would say that whoever drafted this law had in mind first and foremost providing political cover for those preservation organizations that have messed this situation up. As any piece of land becomes available for "easement" purchase, a new cartel is assembled to share the (trivial) expense of paying for a restrictive covenant. Each coventant is unique: a complex legal document with multiple parties involved and varying degrees of control, inspection, authorization, etc. Each is customized per negotiation. Now, if you like "what-if" you could draw a map showing all the covenants bought in and around a battlefield. No one can visit this place on the map, it is "unified" on paper only. Having the state declare this map drill a battlefield validates the failed and destructive policies of those Civil War battlefield preservationists who actually lost the battlefield and whose every new easement takes us farther away from ever being able to visit an historic site. So the law declares a battlefield exists through their efforts. It is like the legal fiction once called "the Holy Roman Empire" ... not holy, not Roman, not an empire, and in fact, a collection of crumbs. Nor is there a Bismarck in Maryland to create something out of this potential "South Mountain Battlefield Park."
TR: South Mountain "Fake" Battlefield is ... icing without a cake which children naturally prefer.
The children, I think, are the self-serving organizations perpetuating themselves and bamboozling their members by playing at preservation. The good news is that they have reached the outer limit of legitimacy. There is no more that the state can do for their disastrous policies. The members will slowly awaken to the fact that they are paying dues to battlefield land owners to keep land in private hands.
Will it take class action public interest lawsuits to put cake under the icing?
If you want to prevent battlefields from being delivered to public use, you know where to contribute your money.
Here's more background.
Although a bill passed in 2000 creates the possibility of having a battlefield, one funded by the state of Maryland, there has been no serious spending and the various interests have been free to pursue their own agendas, using contradictory methods of "saving battlefield land."
I'd like to comment on some of Tim's points. For instance, he mentions,
TR: ... naïve assumptions about cooperative, incongruent battlefield ownership, its purported preservation, and the likelihood of achieving any symbiosis toward accessible park status.
Wide swaths of battlefield land are covered with patchworks of conflicting usage arrangements. The state has not used its authority to buy land, or to condemn privately owned property, or even to create guidelines for property owners in the area. Instead self-serving entities have entered into a myriad of private deals involving restrictive use covenants to cover many privately owned parcels. The parties involved are more than incongrous - they have incompatible aims. A serious effort to create a battlefield out of the mess on South Mountain would require the diplomacy that produced the Peace of Westphalia.
TR: South Mountain is being developed as we speak! Most damage is occurring at Turner's Gap where most of the land along D.H. Hill's left flank has been parceled out for sale. Lots are already selling along Dahlgren and Frosttown roads. The latter was recently repaved to accommodate new home builders. Fox's Gap is in better shape, but hopelessly entangled in a complex mosaic of public/private ownership, unlikely to be unraveled.
Notice that lots are selling but the state is not buying. Notice that lots are selling and the preservationists are not buying. (To buy land at developer prices would be extortion! Preservationists want to pay only the fairest price keyed to farm- and woodland values. They are bargain hunters, bless 'em, so they'll pay for easements and save big. They think.)
TR: Fox's Gap is in better shape, but hopelessly entangled in a complex mosaic of public/private ownership, unlikely to be unraveled.
This is the problem with its members allowing organizations like Civil War Preservation Trust to purchase restrictive covenants on land in partnership with a bewildering array of conflicting, non-ACW organizations like the federal government, the state government, farmland conservators, nature conservators, etc. You create a pre-unification Germany, a land of hundreds of princelings, each with territory, a separate constitution, and a unique agenda.
TR: Whoever came up with the idea of S. Mtn. State Battlefield [the law authorizing it] was obviously hallucinating.
I would say that whoever drafted this law had in mind first and foremost providing political cover for those preservation organizations that have messed this situation up. As any piece of land becomes available for "easement" purchase, a new cartel is assembled to share the (trivial) expense of paying for a restrictive covenant. Each coventant is unique: a complex legal document with multiple parties involved and varying degrees of control, inspection, authorization, etc. Each is customized per negotiation. Now, if you like "what-if" you could draw a map showing all the covenants bought in and around a battlefield. No one can visit this place on the map, it is "unified" on paper only. Having the state declare this map drill a battlefield validates the failed and destructive policies of those Civil War battlefield preservationists who actually lost the battlefield and whose every new easement takes us farther away from ever being able to visit an historic site. So the law declares a battlefield exists through their efforts. It is like the legal fiction once called "the Holy Roman Empire" ... not holy, not Roman, not an empire, and in fact, a collection of crumbs. Nor is there a Bismarck in Maryland to create something out of this potential "South Mountain Battlefield Park."
TR: South Mountain "Fake" Battlefield is ... icing without a cake which children naturally prefer.
The children, I think, are the self-serving organizations perpetuating themselves and bamboozling their members by playing at preservation. The good news is that they have reached the outer limit of legitimacy. There is no more that the state can do for their disastrous policies. The members will slowly awaken to the fact that they are paying dues to battlefield land owners to keep land in private hands.
Will it take class action public interest lawsuits to put cake under the icing?
If you want to prevent battlefields from being delivered to public use, you know where to contribute your money.
Here's more background.
4/29/2004
With all the digressions here it may be worth saying that this blog is about the failure of Civil War history as history and of Civil War history publishing as history publishing. Its central issues are "why" are we supplied with histories so inferior and "how" can this happen decade after decade.
A couple of times in the past, I have relied on comments by Jeff Sharaa to explain our plight as specialized readers. Sharaa says:
* He and his late father have had to structure their novels for "most" of their readers who have little Civil War knowledge.
* "I don't write 'Civil War stories.' I write stories about characters in the Civil War. There's a distinction. These books are stories of people. The people tell the stories, through their experiences, through their point of view."
All this is background to the main point:
* "An enormous number of people have said to me that they had little interest in history in school and never read much about the Civil War. Now, through my father's book and the film "Gettysburg," and perhaps from Gods and Generals, they are caught up in the story, in the lives of these characters. These books, and the film, are not just history as we often think of it..."
As this readership, in its millions, washes into the field of Civil War history, the field suffers and the informed reader suffers. The masses who roll into the marketplace are story-driven, personality-driven readers with a taste for certain literary styles and forms and very little historic sensibility. One prime beneficiary of this kind of readership has been the consistently awful James McPherson. McPherson refers to the Sharaa dynamic publicly:
I recently gave a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield to a group of small-company CEOs and their spouses. As usual in such tour groups, more of them had read Michael Shaara’s novel, The Killer Angels, than any other book about Gettysburg.
This gets us a long way into the "why" of Civil War publishing. For the "how" bit we can rely on the comment by John Y. Simon, editor of Grant's papers, that the Civil War reading public is like a little child who wants to hear the same story every night told in exactly the same way. Let me buttress this seemingly harsh comment with remarks recently made by the British novelist/playwright Michael Frayn in a recent interview:
Let me say for a start that I don't think it is a very good idea to write different sorts of things. If I were to give serious practical advice to a young writer about how to succeed I would say: "Write the same book, or the same play, over and over again, just very slightly different, so that people get used to it. It takes some time, but if you do it often enough, finally people will get the hang of it, and get familiar with it, and they'll like it. Then you go on producing a consistent product and you'll have a market for it.
This is a formula for commercial success.
And so we have a paradigm for what is wrong in this ACW history field: Great rolling waves of newbies spending lots of money on novelistic presentations of essentially the same book recapitualted endlessly.
"... you go on producing a consistent product and you'll have a market for it." As history readers, we rarely escape this all-pervasive "market-friendly" history.
A couple of times in the past, I have relied on comments by Jeff Sharaa to explain our plight as specialized readers. Sharaa says:
* He and his late father have had to structure their novels for "most" of their readers who have little Civil War knowledge.
* "I don't write 'Civil War stories.' I write stories about characters in the Civil War. There's a distinction. These books are stories of people. The people tell the stories, through their experiences, through their point of view."
All this is background to the main point:
* "An enormous number of people have said to me that they had little interest in history in school and never read much about the Civil War. Now, through my father's book and the film "Gettysburg," and perhaps from Gods and Generals, they are caught up in the story, in the lives of these characters. These books, and the film, are not just history as we often think of it..."
As this readership, in its millions, washes into the field of Civil War history, the field suffers and the informed reader suffers. The masses who roll into the marketplace are story-driven, personality-driven readers with a taste for certain literary styles and forms and very little historic sensibility. One prime beneficiary of this kind of readership has been the consistently awful James McPherson. McPherson refers to the Sharaa dynamic publicly:
I recently gave a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield to a group of small-company CEOs and their spouses. As usual in such tour groups, more of them had read Michael Shaara’s novel, The Killer Angels, than any other book about Gettysburg.
This gets us a long way into the "why" of Civil War publishing. For the "how" bit we can rely on the comment by John Y. Simon, editor of Grant's papers, that the Civil War reading public is like a little child who wants to hear the same story every night told in exactly the same way. Let me buttress this seemingly harsh comment with remarks recently made by the British novelist/playwright Michael Frayn in a recent interview:
Let me say for a start that I don't think it is a very good idea to write different sorts of things. If I were to give serious practical advice to a young writer about how to succeed I would say: "Write the same book, or the same play, over and over again, just very slightly different, so that people get used to it. It takes some time, but if you do it often enough, finally people will get the hang of it, and get familiar with it, and they'll like it. Then you go on producing a consistent product and you'll have a market for it.
This is a formula for commercial success.
And so we have a paradigm for what is wrong in this ACW history field: Great rolling waves of newbies spending lots of money on novelistic presentations of essentially the same book recapitualted endlessly.
"... you go on producing a consistent product and you'll have a market for it." As history readers, we rarely escape this all-pervasive "market-friendly" history.
Poet and teacher David Biespel presents a lecture "Of Love and War: Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman" ...
Whitman's great elegy for Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,' forever links the two men. Defining a tragic moment in American history, the poem reminds us that a public death can touch an individual life and that poetry can simultaneously express praise and loss through the subject of love and war.
It also links composer Paul Hindemith to them, who set the poem to an extraordinary composition in honor of FDR's death. I cannot read the poem without hearing the music. It is my favorite choral symphony and the only such piece in anyone's repertoire associated with the Civil War. (It even has bugle calls, nicely understated.)
Whitman + Lincoln + Hindemith = Staggering. Maybe Amazon has a sample sound file somewhere.
Whitman's great elegy for Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,' forever links the two men. Defining a tragic moment in American history, the poem reminds us that a public death can touch an individual life and that poetry can simultaneously express praise and loss through the subject of love and war.
It also links composer Paul Hindemith to them, who set the poem to an extraordinary composition in honor of FDR's death. I cannot read the poem without hearing the music. It is my favorite choral symphony and the only such piece in anyone's repertoire associated with the Civil War. (It even has bugle calls, nicely understated.)
Whitman + Lincoln + Hindemith = Staggering. Maybe Amazon has a sample sound file somewhere.
4/28/2004
Victor Davis Hanson imagines an 1864 presidential press conference with modern American reporters in attendance.
The phenomenon of veteran impersonation was pretty well established after the Civil War. As I've linked here before,
William Marvel has written that every one of the last dozen recognized living Confederate veterans was bogus.
And in 1917, the rolls of the Medal of Honor had to be purged of actual Civil War veterans who in no way deserved to be there.
Interesting to see the problem continues.:
B.G. "Jug" Burkett, a Vietnam vet who is now a stockbroker in Dallas, feels the same way. Almost any time he reads a newspaper article about someone claiming to be a Vietnam veteran, he digs into their background and files a request for their military records. Over the past 15 years, Burkett said, he has investigated perhaps 2,000 claims of military service; at least 1,500 of them were bogus in one way or another.
If you want in on this action, follow these instructions, or these.
William Marvel has written that every one of the last dozen recognized living Confederate veterans was bogus.
And in 1917, the rolls of the Medal of Honor had to be purged of actual Civil War veterans who in no way deserved to be there.
Interesting to see the problem continues.:
B.G. "Jug" Burkett, a Vietnam vet who is now a stockbroker in Dallas, feels the same way. Almost any time he reads a newspaper article about someone claiming to be a Vietnam veteran, he digs into their background and files a request for their military records. Over the past 15 years, Burkett said, he has investigated perhaps 2,000 claims of military service; at least 1,500 of them were bogus in one way or another.
If you want in on this action, follow these instructions, or these.
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