New and Noteworthy---Sherman's March: How Popular Cultures Fib About The Civil War

Through The Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March and American Memory, Anne Sarah Rubin, University of North Carolina Press, 2014, 300 pp., 20 b/w illustrations, 2 maps, end notes, bibliography, index, $35.00.

Below is a book review written by Krista Kinslow and published January 14 2015 on H-Net.

  In Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March and American Memory, Anne Sarah Rubin presents the many stories that have been told about Union General William T. Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea in late 1864. She is interested in showing how these stories emerged and evolved over time, rather than discerning which are more accurate. Rubin writes that “this project explores the myriad ways in which Americans have retold and reimagined Sherman’s March,” and she examines several groups’ stories about this event, starting with “the participants themselves, including white Southerners, African Americans, Union soldiers.” Drawing on “travel accounts, memoirs, music, literature, film, and newspapers,” she aims to unpack “the many myths and legends that have grown up around the March, using them as a lens into the ways that Americans’ thoughts about the Civil War have changed over time” (p. 4).

The book begins with an overview of the march, setting the stage for Rubin’s analysis. She captures the confusion of the campaign, showing foraging and destruction, but also acts of kindness. She discusses the complicated relationship between the march and African Americans who came into its path. Rubin stresses that the Union army was not wholly made up of abolitionist proponents and showcases events, like the abandonment of black camp followers at Ebenezer Creek, to demonstrate the callous and strategic choices the military made in the context of complicated racial views and the realities of war.

Not surprisingly, different groups told different stories about Sherman’s march. White Southerners saw the march as indicative of Northern excess and rapacity. Rubin focuses on stories told about Southern women hiding their valuables and livestock and Northern soldiers stealing, although she only briefly discusses rape and assault, which is surprising given later accusations of such crimes. In contrast to legends about Sherman’s scorched-earth policy, Rubin points out that a large percentage of buildings were not burned, and Southerners had to come up with creative explanations for unaffected structures. According to Rubin, one of the most common ways to explain a structure’s survival was to link it to the Freemasons, which conveyed a sort of Passover message, in that if the Masonic symbol was displayed, the building was spared. Alongside such conspiracy theories stood stories about Northern kindness, especially tales of soldiers helping women and children. Rubin’s work could have benefited from further analysis of when these stories circulated and whether there was any indication that some narratives were more popular in certain contexts.

African Americans also told stories about the march and were often part of tales spun about it. Stories ranged from the predictable “faithful slave” narratives white Southerners told, to tales of liberation. Throughout, Rubin explains how “Sherman’s March was the epitome of the double-edged sword,” bringing not only emancipation but also “hunger, destruction, and mistreatment” for African Americans (p. 69). Throughout her analysis, Rubin stresses the ambivalence soldiers felt about emancipation, showing that the cause for which Union soldiers fought was more complicated than the view that many Americans continue to espouse. Although such complexity strengthens the book’s argument, more discussion on how black audiences received these stories would have been helpful.

Rubin suggests that “the importance of the March for African Americans seemed to wane over the twentieth century,” but it returned to importance in the 1960s with the intersection of the centennial of the march and the civil rights movement. When John Lewis, newly elected chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), wanted to use rhetoric about the march in his speech for the 1963 March on Washington, other civil rights leaders considered it too incendiary and told him to change it. Reformers seeking peaceful change needed to avoid symbols of conquest and violence, no matter how important they were historically.

Northern soldiers, the “bummers” in the Union ranks, and Sherman himself told stories that focused on the justification of the march. Rubin stresses that nineteenth-century soldiers were different and should not be compared to their twentieth-century counterparts—for instance, Union soldiers reflected on the march in a “light or celebratory fashion” (pp. 97-98). Further, Union soldiers pushed back against the Lost Cause narrative—they wanted to “make sure that their version of the March dominated” (p. 98). This meant spinning tales that emphasized the Union and ending slavery as well as the restraint of soldiers and the triumph of the good over the evils of rebellion and oppression. Rubin notes that Sherman and his march became inseparable in memory and the general worked hard to present his own version of events. His own actions during the aftermath influenced historical memory. In the years just after the war, white Southerners were willing to forget Sherman’s destruction because he advocated for a gentler reconstruction. But in the 1880s, Southern views toward Sherman became much more negative, perhaps because Sherman’s march “was being conflated with the economic challenges of Reconstruction, and a sense of nostalgia for an imagined golden age.” Rubin notes that “Sherman became the symbolic repository for white Southerners frustrations” (p. 132).

Finally, Rubin examines the literature, songs, and movies inspired by the march. These chapters are perhaps the most illuminating and illustrate the divide in interpretations. Rubin joins other recent scholars like Caroline E. Janney (Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation [2013]) in pointing toward a more complicated view of reunion. Rather than seeing it as a process that proceeded linearly, she notes the twists and turns that the rapprochement between the North and South took. For example, in 1902, a Louisville, Kentucky, schoolgirl refused to sing or listen to the Unionist classic, “Marching through Georgia.” The girl was hailed as a Confederate hero because of the incident. “That this sense of sectional grievance persisted even during what historians have told us was the peak of reunionist sentiment, after the Spanish-American War, is telling,” Rubin suggests, before adding that “beneath the placid surface of joint reunions and Southern whites fighting under the American flag again, lay a deep well of animosity” (p. 182).

This study is an excellent addition to the flourishing literature on Civil War memory, and scholars and Civil War enthusiasts will find it interesting. In her commitment to examining the many different stories told about the march, Rubin shows how contested one event can be and how different people work to present their own narratives and construct their own memories of the past.

 Link To Full Text: H-Net

News---Cleburne's Proposal To Arm Slaves Remembered

General Cleburne’s Proposal to Arm Slaves, David Seibert, Historical Marker Database, July 14, 2011.

General Cleburne’s Proposal to Arm Slaves Marker

Inscription: Here on January 2, 1864, Gen. Patrick Cleburne proposed arming slaves in exchange for their freedom to alleviate the manpower shortage facing the Confederacy. Almost all the other generals present opposed the idea of black Confederate soldiers because it violated the principles upon which the Confederacy was founded. Gen. Patton Anderson said the proposal “would shake our governments, both state and Confederate, to their very foundations,” and Gen. A.P. Stewart said it was “at war with my social, moral and political principles.” Considering the proposal treasonous, Gen. W.H.T. Walker informed President Jefferson Davis, who ordered any mention of it to be suppressed. In March 1865, with defeat looming, the Confederate Congress approved enlisting slaves, but few did and none saw combat. Conversely, nearly 200,000 free African Americans served in the U.S. armed forces.

Erected 2011 by the Georgia Historical Society, the Georgia Battlefields Association and the Georgia Department of Economic Development for the Civil War 150 commemoration. The marker stands in front of the Cook-Huff House, used by General Joseph Johnston as his headquarters in January 1864 while he planned his defenses for the campaign for Atlanta. Johnston was appointed to command the Army of the Tennessee in late December 1863. Marker is at or near this postal address: 314 North Selvidge Street, Dalton GA 30720.

Image and Text Source: Historical Marker Database

New and Noteworthy----Explore Virginia's Confederate Memory By Armchair or Vehicle With The Illustrated Guide To Virginia's Confederate Monuments

An Illustrated Guide To Virginia's Confederate Monuments, Timothy S. Sedore, Southern Illinois University Press, 360 b/w photographs, six maps, 310 pp., appendix, index, $39.95.

Probably no state bore the brunt of the Civil War more than Virginia. Its communities and farmsteads, railroads and industries certainly were in the path of the war. The state bears a myriad of testaments to its losses. Timothy S. Sedore offers a guide to Virginia's Confederate monuments that helps readers and researchers to comprehend Virginia's sacrifices.

With An Illustrated Guide to Virginia's Confederate Monuments, Timothy S. Sedore presents volume that enumerates by region Virginia's Civil War memorials. Sedore's guide catalogs 360 of the state's famous and obscure commemorations. It provides both a compilation of their sites and a compelling vision of the public sense of Virginia's loss.

Sedore geographically sorts the memorials by region: The Shenandoah Valley/Northwest Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Richmond/Northern Virginia/The Piedmont,The Northern Neck/Middle Peninsula/Eastern Shore/Eastern Southside, Petersburg/Southside west of Petersburg/Central Virginia west of Richmond. He then sorts by county a then by city/borough/community. Each region has its own map with county borders shown. The entry number for each memorial is listed for each county that appears on the map. This arrangement easy access to the material any where in the book. Thus organized, the book is open to the casual reader, the county historian, or the community event organizer.

The familiar battles such as Manassas, Winchester, Fredericksburg are easily found as are the lesser-known locations such as Rude's Hill, Cedar Mountain, and Trevilians. Sedore offers 360 entries that include: the entry number, name of the group or individual honored,location,date of erection, medium [such as granite], the inscription, a paragraph of explanation and a black and white photograph. Tablets, statutes and monoliths located on courthouses lawns, cemeteries, town squares,and battlefields are cataloged.

Readers may view An Illustrated Guide to Virginia's Confederate Monuments as a photographic catalog, a tourist's guidebook, or researcher's compendium. It is all of those. Sedore's field research reveals these sites to be both monuments of remembrance and as public efforts to reconcile mourning with Southern ideologies during the postwar era in, what Drew Gilpin Faust has called, a republic of suffering. The memorials that are both intimate and aloof. Sedore analyzes in depth the nature of these attempts to publicly explain Virginia's sense of grief after the war. He notes that the use of the term 'Civil War' is uncommon. The phrase 'War Between the States' was the preferred expression.

An Illustrated Guide to Virginia's Confederate Monuments will appeal to the travelers, historians, and armchair enthusiasts. Sedore's fine Introduction covers three eras: 1861 to 1889[Bereavement and Funeral Era], 1890 to 1920 [Reconciliation and Celebration Era], and 1920-today [Commemorative Era]. He notes the commonalities of inscriptions, designs, and ceremonies for the eras. Sedore finds that there are no explicit mention of slavery on Virginia's monuments and that racial dominance is a principle theme. Sedore also leaves out tombstones though public shrines are included. Sedore's net is broad though. Southern born and Northern raised, Sedore is aware that the history behind these monuments is sometimes contentious and provocative. He has chosen not to address these issues in this book.

Sedore offers a list of what is not in the book: highways' historical markers, the Jefferson Davis Highway markers, the Civil War Preservation Trust's markers and Virginia Civil War Trails markers. Tributes to war horses are excluded. Plaques and iron markers describing the campaigns around Richmond are not in the book because they are essentially narrative guides. Sedore achieves his goal. His work is among the finest illustrated guides to Confederate monuments.

Sequicentennial News---Have The Winners Forgotten The Civil War?

In North, Civil War Sites, Events Long 'Forgotten', Russell Contreras, Associated Press , Associated Press, April 17, 2011.

The gravesite of a Union Army major general sits largely forgotten in a small cemetery along the Massachusetts Turnpike. A piece of the coat worn by President Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated rests quietly in a library attic in a Boston suburb. It's shown upon request, a rare occurrence. A monument honoring one of the first official Civil War black units stands in a busy intersection in front of the Massachusetts Statehouse, barely gaining notice from the hustle of tourists and workers who pass by each day.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, states in the old South —the side that lost — are hosting elaborate re-enactments, intricate memorials, even formal galas highlighting the war's persistent legacy in the region. But for many states in the North — the side that won — only scant, smaller events are planned in an area of the nation that helped sparked the conflict but now, historians say, struggles to acknowledge it. "It's almost like it never happened," said Annie Murphy, executive director of the Framingham History Center in Framingham, Mass. "But all you have to do is look around and see evidence that it did. It's just that people aren't looking here."

Massachusetts, a state that sent more than 150,000 men to battle and was home to some of the nation's most radical abolitionists, created a Civil War commemoration commission just earlier this month. Aging monuments stand unattended, sometimes even vandalized. Sites of major historical events related to the war remain largely unknown and often compete with the more regionally popular American Revolution attractions. Meanwhile, states like Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri not only established commissions months, if not years ago, but also have ambitious plans for remembrance around well-known tourist sites and events. In South Carolina, for example, 300 Civil War re-enactors participated last week in well-organized staged battles to mark the beginning of the war.

To be sure, some Northern states have Civil War events planned and have formed commemoration commissions. Connecticut's 150th Civil War Commemoration was set up in 2008 and has scheduled a number of events and exhibits until 2015. Vermont, the first state to outlaw slavery, started a similar commission last year to coordinate activities statewide and in towns. And some Massachusetts small non-profit and historic groups are trying to spark interest through research, planned tours and town events. But observers say those events pale in comparison to those in the South.

That difference highlights Northern states' long struggle with how to remember a war that was largely fought on Southern soil, said Steven Mintz, a Columbia University history professor and author of "Moralists and Modernizers: America's Pre-Civil War Reformers." For Northern states like Massachusetts, Mintz said revisiting the Civil War also means revisiting their own unsolved, uncomfortable issues like racial inequality after slavery. "We've spent a century and a half turning (the war) into a gigantic North-South football game in which everybody was a hero," Mintz said. "In other words, we depoliticized the whole meaning of the war. And insofar as it was captured, it was captured by the descendants of the Confederates."

Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group open to male descendants of veterans who served in the Confederate armed forces, boast 30,000 members across the Old South. The Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War has 6,000 members. Kevin Tucker, Massachusetts Department Commander for the Sons of the Union Veterans, said some Northern descendants don't even know they're related to Union veterans. "I found out after my father did some research and discovered that my great-great-grandfather had collected a Union pension," said Tucker, of Wakefield. "Until then, I had no idea."

Mark Simpson, 57, South Carolina commander of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said his family knew for generations about his great-great-grandfather's service in the Confederacy. "I visit his gravesite every year and put a flag down," Simpson said. "He is real to me." Mintz said the North has another factor affecting its Civil War memory: immigration from Italy and Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. He said those populations, and more recent immigrants, sometimes struggle to identify with that war compared to more contemporary ones.

Then, Mintz said, after the Civil War a number of Northerners moved West — and to the South. History buffs with the Framingham History Center in Framingham, Mass., a town where residents say "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was first sung, said they are using the sesquicentennial to bring attention to long-forgotten local Civil War sites and personalities. Included in a planned event is a celebration at Harmony Grove, site of many anti-slavery rallies where abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison famously burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution and called it a "pact with the Devil."

Today, only a small plaque in front of a house announces the historic site now surrounded by industrial lots, train tracks and a motorcycle shop. Volunteers also hope to raise around $1 million for Framingham's dilapidated Civil War memorial building to repair its cracked walls and leaky ceiling. The building houses a memorial honoring Framingham soldiers killed in the war and an American flag that flew over the Battles of Gettysburg and Antietam. (Murphy said the flag was discovered in the 1990s after being forgotten in a case for 90 years.)

Fred Wallace, the town's historian, said that more importantly, volunteers wanted to bring attention to General George H. Gordon, a long-forgotten Union hero from Framingham who was a prolific writer and organizer of the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. "I don't understand how this man was lost to history," said Wallace, who has researched Gordon's life and is now writing a biography on him. "He was in the middle of everything."

During a recent afternoon, Murphy took a reporter and photographer to Gordon's gravesite, which she said would be included in a planned walking tour. But Murphy couldn't locate the site and a cemetery official needed to comb through maps to find it. Murphy said putting the pieces together of Gordon's life is part of the fun, even when it surprises residents. "When I was told that I lived in what used to be a barn of Gen. Gordon's horse," 81-year-old Ellen Shaw said, "I was like ... General who?"

Since then Shaw has joined history buffs in searching for what they believe is a marker announcing the gravesite of Ashby, Gordon's horse in many battles. She hasn't located it on her property. "I hope I find it one day when I'm just walking around outside," Shaw said. "Then I can say, 'Glad to meet you. Sorry we forgot about you.'

Image Caption: In this March 25, 2011 photo, a workman does repairs at the Framingham History Center behind a statue.
Image and Text Source: Yahoo News/Associated Press