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New Book On Wade Hampton

I can’t wait to read this new book on Wade Hampton. Over the past few years there has been a renaissance in writing about this Confederate general after a drought of several decades. Here are some excerpts from a review printed over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal:

“Rod Andrew Jr.’s “Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer” is, amazingly, the fourth full-scale biography of the man in five years, but no less welcome for that. Hampton is one of those larger-than-life figures whose actions repay close attention and whose careers match pivotal moments in America’s history.”

 “Before the Civil War, Hampton was a gentleman-planter who, with other members of his family, owned vast, slave-labor plantations in Mississippi and South Carolina and lived most of the time at Millwood, a resplendent property near Columbia, S.C. True to his exalted status, he was keen on his ancestors, his horses and his hunting. In 1857, after some English aristocrats visited him in Mississippi, Hampton wrote to his sister: “Today I took them bear-hunting & we killed four. They are not accustomed to the sport. Lord Althorp . . . was with me & he literally had his clothes torn off. I had to furnish him with my drawers, as to enable him to come home decently.””

“Mr. Andrew brings this antebellum South to life, but he describes Hampton’s wartime experience with special vividness. (Mr. Andrews is himself a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, as well as a history professor at Clemson University.) Hampton was a bold, competent commanding officer — whether supporting infantry with his daring charges or conducting long raids into enemy territory — though not a brilliant one. In 1864, he succeeded Jeb Stuart as cavalry commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Hampton notably took pains to see that his men were well cared for, receiving adequate rations, shelter and home leave.”

“This concern for the well- being of others fits Mr. Andrew’s thesis — that Southern concepts of paternalism, honor and chivalry formed Hampton’s character. So, it may be said, did grim experience. Hampton buried two wives and five children. Both a brother and a son were killed in the War Between the States. Of the son’s death, near Petersburg, Va., in 1864, one eyewitness wrote: Hampton “dismounted and kissed his [fallen] boy, wiped a tear from his eye, remounted and went on giving orders as though nothing happened.””

Full review.

 

Jefferson Davis’s Birthday as an Official Holiday

Today is the 200th birthday of Jefferson Davis, which is being celebrated in areas of the South; Alabama in particular. The state government in Mongomery has declared Davis’s birthday an official state holiday. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are planing to hold various ceremonies celebrating the event on June 14.  

Have Civil War Re-enactors Created a Cottage Industry?

This article was published in the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky on May 25.

“Rooted partly in a 1960s centennial commemoration, Civil War re-enacting… across the nation has grown to include hundreds of battles and roughly 40,000 hobbyists — some of whom will spend $30,000 on a working cannon, spend hours practicing how to look dead and crash-diet to resemble a starving rebel.”

“”People think we’re strange. I guess because you do things like sleep outside with a blanket when it’s 17 degrees,” said Tim Hubbell of Alabama, who came to the Kentucky battle dressed in a hand-sewn surgeon’s uniform and carrying 1860s syringes, bone saws and castration scissors. Re-enacting is big business for outfitters, including some in Kentucky, selling everything from 19th-century toothbrushes to 2,400-pound cannons. They even sell condoms packaged as period “French envelopes.””

“Its popularity has helped fund and preserve historic battlefields.”…

full article.

Commericals from the Confederate States of America

These commercials are from the film The Confederate States of America, which is a movie that tackles this question: what may have happened if the Confederacy won the civil war? It is an interesting film and would recommend it for anyone interested in the Civil War.

The Shackle:

Passing:

Runaway:

Confederate Family:

 

Once Enemies, Now Friends

I posted this on my other blog, Publius, and thought that it is relevent to this blog.

I came across this article written by Hal Moore, former Lt. General in the US Army and author of the memoir We Were Soldiers Once…And Young. Moore tells how the mutual experiences of war can make men who were once enemies embrace each other as friends after the guns have fallen silent. Moore wrote:

“When the blood of any war soaks your clothes and covers your hands, and soldiers die in your arms, every breath forever more becomes an appeal for a greater peace, unity and reconciliation. ”

“It was Vietnam. I was their commander and accountable for them. We charged the enemy with bayonets fixed to our rifles in face-to-face combat. I still hear the ugly sounds of war. I still see the boots of my dead sticking out from under their ponchos, laces tied one last time by their precious fingers. … I still carry the wounded to the helicopters as they bled, screamed and begged to live one more day … and I still hold those who die in my arms, with their questioning eyes dreading death, as they called for their mothers … their eyes go blank and my war-crusted fingers close their eyelids. The blood of my dead soldiers will not wash from my hands. The stains remain.”

Welcome to Student of the Civil War

I started this blog as a forum for me to write about the area of history that interests me the most; the Civil War. I have been a student of this war for years. The first history books I read were about this war and now, as a graduate history student, I am specializing in this time period.

I will use this blog to examine various new trends in schools of thought among Civil War historians. At times i will review new or classic works on the war. I will post news stories related to the war and will also try to present the lighter side of the war. Civil War memory is another topic that will garner much attention on this blog.

The posts that follow were originally posted on my other blog, entitled Publius. 

Enjoy,

Josh 

Dispelling the Dispellers of Lincoln Myths

Since historians, as well as other writers, started writing about Abraham Lincoln, there have been those who have worked hard to give us a well-rounded image of the 16th president. Lincoln is the most written about figure in American history and hundreds of books about him are published each year. Our historical knowledge of Lincoln is pretty great and there are numerous scholarly and popular works examining various aspects of his life, political career, presidency, and political and racial views.

Over the past few years various writers, most of them hold no professional historical credentials, have set out to take on the Lincoln myths, which they believe are being passed off as historical fact. These ‘myths’ have already been researched and written about in great detail by real historians and these writers are giving the American reading public pseudohistorical trash. The historical equivalent of a John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy or any other modern day dime novelists who are trying to pass as serious writers.

These dispellers of Lincoln myths seem to focus on a few key aspects of Lincoln’s life or political career. And they get everything horribly wrong.

Here are some of the key issues:

Lee’s Slave Hunters.

I have just come across a Ted Alexander’s 2001 North and South article entitled “A Regular Slave Hunt.” This article highlights a sad and little known aspect of Lee’s Gettysburg campaign. Alexander wrote that in June and July 1863 Confederate forces rounded up hundreds of free blacks and escaped slaves throughout southern Pennsylvania.

Alexander has provided evidence, eyewitness testimony, to show that Confederate forces participated and what amounted to slave hunting. Some of the most disturbing evidence came from Rachel Cormany, who left a detailed account of some of the abductions. Cormany wrote: “[Confederates] were hunting up the contrabands [escaped slaves] and driving them off by droves. O! how it grated on our hearts to have to sit quietly and look at such brutal deeds–I saw no men among the contrbands–all women and children. Some of the colored people who were raised here were taken along–I sat on the front step as they were driven by just like we would drive cattle…One woman was pleading wonderfully with her driver for her children–but all the sympathy she received from him was a rough “March along”–at which she quickened her pace again.” Alexander was not precise about how many blacks were captured by Confederates; an estimate for Chambersburg places its count at 250 and an estimate for York states that a little more than 100 were abducted in this town.

Alexander went on the state that most of the Confederates who participated in these kidnappings were guerrilla forces who “operated on the fringes of Lee’s army.” He did provide evidence that General James Longstreet knew about these abductions and that the famed General George Pickett’s division participated in the kidnappings. Alexander, however, left some rather important questions unanswered. Were the orders to abduct free blacks and escaped slaves general orders or were they issued independently of the high command? To what extent did Lee’s regular forces participate in the kidnappings? We know that Pickett’s division participated, but did others do the same? This is a disturbing aspect of the Gettysburg campaign that deserves to be fully examined, but, unfortunately, Alexander’s article leaves us with more questions than answers.

Bugs Bunny does the Civil War.

I found this video on the Civil Warriors blog and I thought it was a great example of how the Civil War is remembered. So, enjoy

Abraham Lincoln and Material Culture

In a recent essay, published in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Erika Nunamaker examined Abraham Lincoln’s “egalitarian refinement.” “Egalitarian refinement,” according to historian Joyce Appleby, can be described as “an oxymoron that nicely captured the split personality of American society, with its yearning for the manners of the better sort and appreciation of the vernacular culture of ordinary folk.” Nunamaker wrote that Lincoln, in 1837 when he was just starting his career as a lawyer, purchased a expensive horsehair couch. He defied all cultural customs of the antebellum gentry by reclining and spreading out on the couch while reading. Lincoln’s to purchase such a couch shows his desire to be thought of as a gentleman, but his improper use of the couch illustrates “his refusal, whether conscious or unconscious, to resort to affecting behaviors or aping manners that did not come naturally to him.”

Nunamaker’s propose in writing this essay was to call attention to a wealth of primary sources that have been largely ignored by historians and Lincoln scholars. Studies in historical material culture reveals what peopled desired to own and what objects they bought. Examining Lincoln’s furniture, as Nunamaker has done, shows how Lincoln was influenced by common cultural assumptions and how he defied them. There are tens of thousands of books on Lincoln, but the examination of the objects he bought demonstrates that there is still much we can learn about this man.

Civil War Battlefields

Earlier this week the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) released its annual report on the country’s most endangered Civil War sites. Here is the list of the 10 most endangered sites in America: Antietam, Md., Cedar Creek, Va., Cold Harbor, Va., Hunterstown, Pa., Monocacy, Md., Natural Bridge, Fla., Perryville, Ky., Prairie Grove, Ark., Savannah, Ga., and Spring Hill, Tenn.

The CWPT also named 15 sites that are at risk. Among the at risk sites are Brandy Station, Va., Kennesaw Mountain, Ga., and Petersburg, Va.

Lincoln and Douglas…the standard for political debates

A little over a week ago Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton participated in the twentieth presidential debate. The Republicans have also held countless debates over the past year. With John McCain as the Republican nominee and the Democrats thinned out to just two contenders the general election will soon begin bringing the promise of yet more debates. One would think that with the sheer number of debates that have taken place, then the American people must be the most informed electorate in all the world. This presumption is dead wrong. These debates that we have had to endure were not true debates and pale in comparison to a series of seven debates between the two candidates who were campaigning to be a senator from Illinois in 1858. These two men, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, participated in seven debates with each lasting for about three hours. At the heart of these debates was the issue of slavery and the fate of the Republic. These debates were racially charged and were not short on sexual innuendos. Here is an interesting article on the debates written by historian Allen Guelzo.

Allen Guelzo on the Daily Show

Allen Guelzo, one of my favorite historians, was on the Daily Show recently. Guelzo and host Jon Stewart discussed his new book Lincoln and Douglas.

That other 200th birthday…Jefferson Davis

All the hoopla surrounding the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln has led some to ask how should we, as a society, remember the 200th birthday of his Confederate counterpart, Jefferson Davis (1808-1889). A recent AP story reported on the struggles encountered by the Confederate president’s descendents in their attempt to comemorate his legacy. (read the story here) At the heart of this issue is the topic of memory. How do we, as a people, remember the past.? It’s not just about remembering, but how people construct the meanings and symbols they apply to history. What average peole say history means is usually much different than how historians explain and assign meanings to the past. Over the past decade or so, professional historians have started to examine historical memory. The most famous example of this scholarship is David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion, which examined the historical memory of the Civil War.