Forthcoming and Noteworthy: Free Your Mind and Your Slaves Will Follow?

Confederate Minds: The Struggle for Intellectual Independence in the Civil War, South, Michael T. Bernath, University of North Carolina Press, 464 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, $39.95. (May 15, 2010)

During the Civil War, Confederates fought for much more than their political independence. They also fought to prove the distinctiveness of the Southern people and to legitimate their desire for a separate national existence through the creation of a uniquely Southern literature and culture. In this important new book, Michael Bernath follows the activities of a group of Southern writers, thinkers, editors, publishers, educators, and ministers--whom he labels Confederate cultural nationalists--in order to trace the rise and fall of a cultural movement dedicated to liberating the South from its longtime dependence on Northern books, periodicals, and teachers.

During the Civil War, Confederates fought for much more than their political independence. They also fought to prove the distinctiveness of the Southern people and to legitimate their desire for a separate national existence through the creation of a uniquely Southern literature and culture. In this important new book, Michael Bernath follows the activities of a group of Southern writers, thinkers, editors, publishers, educators, and ministers--whom he labels Confederate cultural nationalists--in order to trace the rise and fall of a cultural movement dedicated to liberating the South from its longtime dependence on Northern books, periodicals, and teachers.

This struggle for Confederate “intellectual independence” was seen as a vital part of the larger war effort. For the Southern nationalists, independence won on the battlefield would be meaningless as long as Southerners remained in a state of cultural “vassalage” to their enemy. As new Confederate publications appeared at a surprising rate and Southerners took steps toward establishing their own system of education, cultural nationalists believed they saw the Confederacy coalescing into a true nation. Ultimately, however, Confederates proved no more able to win their intellectual independence than their political freedom.

By analyzing the motives driving the struggle for Confederate intellectual independence, by charting its wartime accomplishments, and by assessing its failures, Bernath makes provocative arguments about the nature of Confederate nationalism, life within the Confederacy, and the perception of Southern cultural distinctiveness.

During the Civil War, some Confederates sought to prove the distinctiveness of the Southern people and to legitimate their desire for a separate national existence through the creation of a uniquely Southern literature and culture. Michael Bernath follows the activities of a group of Southern writers, thinkers, editors, publishers, educators, and ministers--whom he labels Confederate cultural nationalists--in order to trace the rise and fall of a cultural movement dedicated to liberating the South from its longtime dependence on Northern books, periodicals, and teachers. Bernath makes provocative arguments about the nature of Confederate nationalism, life within the Confederacy, and the perception of Southern cultural distinctiveness.

First Impressions: "A very clear and forcefully argued treatment of the drive for cultural independence in the Confederacy. It is based on exhaustive study of periodicals, pamphlets, and all kinds of printed matter produced during the Civil War. A most original and significant contribution to southern intellectual history and to the history of the Confederacy."
--George C. Rable, author of Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!

"This carefully and exhaustively researched book brings into sharp focus the sheer number--and the sheer persistence--of editors and educators who sought to create an intellectual culture in the South. Bernath's admirable study corrects anyone who thinks that wartime turmoil shut down the full-throated cry of antebellum Southern partisanship."
--Steven Stowe, author of Doctoring the South: Southern Physicians and Everyday Medicine in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Text Source: University of North Carolina Press
Author Image: University of Miami

News---Buy a Home on the July 1 Rebel Assault Path to McPherson's Ridge?

Zoning Allows Hundreds Of Homes: A Builder Plans To Buy Former Gettysburg Country Club, Which Is Zoned Residential, Tim Purdentee, Evening Sun, March 14, 2010

The sale of the Gettysburg Country Club is scheduled to close by the end of the month. While the property is zoned residential, word is still out what the land could be shaped into, but the builder has said it s unlikely to remain a country club. There's still no word on what will become of the once-manicured lawns of the Gettysburg Country Club. But, under current Cumberland Township zoning, the former golf course could become a development of tightly clustered houses.

The site's 120 acres, which saw significant action during the Battle of Gettysburg, are zoned as residential, which would allow up to 3.5 housing units per developable acre. That doesn't mean 420 houses could be built there, zoning officials say, because some of the acreage will be allotted for infrastructure and open-space requirements. Still, rules would allow more than 3.5 units on some acres because of the township's "cluster" zoning provision. The provision allows for a greater density of dwellings in proportion to "open space," which can take the shape of ponds and waterways.

"It's basically condensed housing," said Bill Neagle, a zoning officer with the township. "I know there's a big pond on the back of the property and when you have open space like that it's hard to say how many houses could go up." The sale of the location is expected to be completed on March 30 to Woodhaven Building and Development Inc., and the company's president Martin K.P. Hill has said that it's "very unlikely" the site remain a country club.

Cumberland Township officials are awaiting the release of a development plan by Woodhaven, which would shed light on the number of developable acres and, in turn, potential units. "From our standpoint we don't know a thing until they release a plan," Neagle said. "A whole lot of things go into a plan, like water management and roads. It's all very intense." Even as the deal nears, preservationists say they'd like to see the site - which lies within the boundaries of the national battlefield - avoid development.

As a golf course, the grounds have remained free of development, if not exactly like they were in 1863. But the identity has been enough to satisfy historical societies who were unable to match the asking-price of $2.79 million when the site went to a sheriff's auction in 2008. Earlier that year, Susquehanna Bank foreclosed on the property and, after the auction failed to attract a single bid, the bank claimed ownership.

Katie Lawhon, a spokeswoman for the park, declined comment on the sale, stating that land-acquisition efforts are confidential. Although, she added, "It's a high priority for us to acquire some kind of protection. It's significant to the battle of Gettysburg which literally makes it a national treasure ... our goal is to protect the property." The Civil War Preservation Trust has also expressed interest in the site and spokeswoman Mary Koik commented, "Right now, we're still very interested in the club ... we certainly hate to see residential development of that intensity on any historic land."

The club was added to the Gettysburg National Military Park in 1990 after congressional legislation expanded the park's boundaries. The location was where Confederate commander Gen. James Archer was captured by the famed Iron Brigade on July 1, 1863, a day when more than 1,000 soldiers died on, and nearby, the country-club grounds.

Although the preservation of the land may appear in jeopardy, the foundering economy has raised questions regarding development of the site. "With the economy we're having right now, who's to say they wouldn't leave it a golf course for a while," said Neagle, noting the high cost of construction. "I'm open to leave it a golf course ... I'm a golfer," he added.

Text and Image Source : Evening Sun

Off-Topic Fiction---Pynchon Cashes In, Out

Inherent Vice, A Novel, Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Books, 369 pp., 2009,$27.95.

Not sure what to do with this. Is it noir detective fiction? No. Is it comedy detective? No. Inherent Vice is set in Gordita Beach, a California surf city and during the early seventies. Doc Sportello, licensed private detective who has cut his chops in the skip tracing business is the protagonist. Brews, broads, and weed are never out of reach for Doc. Friends, clients and enemies have curious names: Shasta Fay, Reet, Denis (rhymes with penis), Petunia, Shauncho, Dr. Blatnoyd, and a host of others.

At issue is the disappearance of Micky Wolfmann, multi-millionaire real estate developer, whose main squeeze, other than his wife, is Shasta Fay for whom Doc is caring a torch. There are a few subplots and investigations that drop clues for the main plot. Maritime law, the ARPANet (early Internet), film, rock lyrics, and the mythical Pacific lost continent of Lemuria are summoned by the author to decorate the thin plot.

Will Inherent Vice be a film? Big Liebowski, PI? Doc and Bigfoot Bjornsen, LAPD detective, have some comic dialog. Sportello is a likable guy but his dope chatter takes him only so far. There is little momentum in the novel, possibly because nearly all the characters are smoking weed. At times though, Sportello and Bjornson are reflective in a serious way about the impact of currents events. What did the Manson Murders do to California's psyche? But also, there are sterotpyic toss off statements regarding surf culture, weed culture, political culture, and casino culture.

Lots of old movies, lots of music lyrics, lots of dope jokes pad the narrative. Pynchon, well known among the literati for his densely intricate novels, such as Gravity's Rainbow, has over compensated with Inherent Vice. It is
simplistic and nostalgic, much like the latest Springsteen album. One wonders if Pynchon's financial portfolio in the autumn of 2008 lost half its value and Inherent Vice was offered to the public as part of his own stimulus package. It is not a successful parody if it was intended to be one. Inherent Vice's future might rest in a graphic novel/film collaboration. Maybe of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez are interested in the film rights. Sin City Two: The Comedy.

New and Noteworthy Fiction---A Friendly Little War

A Friendly Little War, John Sherman, Wild Wind Books, 484 pages, paperback, $20.00.

Whoever knew that Britain was a hair's breadth away from declaring war on America in 1862? When Charles Bartlett joined the Union army, he could have been forgiven for expecting the American Civil War to remain exactly that - American and civil. But that would have been to underestimate the complexities of nineteenth-century international politics, in which every country is a pawn in a game of diplomatic chess. From the moment he is sent on a spying mission to London, Bartlett is caught up in an adventure that finds him negotiating the corridors of power in France, entwined in the fledgling Irish independence movement, negotiating with Spanish forces in Mexico, stealing top secret weapon designs, and much more. Despite this, he also finds time for romance and intrigue with his bewitching, aristocratic landlady in London. For lovers of historical dramas, action adventures, and old-fashioned romance novels alike, "A Friendly Little War" is an action-filled journey through the captivating world of nineteenth century diplomacy. Meticulously researched, the book immerses the readers in fascinating real world events and larger-than-life historical characters across two continents. When readers discover that the outcome of the American Civil War was largely determined in London and at sea, they will see history in a different light.

John Sherman spent five years researching and writing this book but sadly is not alive to see its publication. His widow and youngest son are publishing it in memory of the author and his second son - Ian - who passed away this year. Profits will go to The Stroke Association and Cancer Research. The author was born and brought up in Venezuela of American parents. He was the great-grand-nephew of the Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman (who has cameo in the book.) John Sherman was educated at Yale and Harvard Business School, spent most of his life in Latin America and London, and always had a keen interest in the Civil War.

CWL: A press release and sample chapter was sent my way. I liked the concept from the press release and I read chapter 16. The pacing is good, the characters well drawn, and their dialogue rings of the mid-19th century.

Text and Image Source: A Friendly Little War, Amazon.com

Civil War Archaeology---Secret Weapons Testing, West Point, and the Russians

Civil War Espionage, Andrew Slayman, Archaeology Magazine, May 1995 (48:3), page 18.

Archaeologists investigating a Civil War era iron foundry near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York found evidence of a possibly secret weapon program. The discovery, excavation and conservation of a a 12-foot, square, oak and cast iron platform within the foundry site has intrigued industrial archaeologists. Records reveal that a 13 ton, rifled cannon that could project shells five miles was mounted and tested at the foundry during the war. It fired shells containing a 19th century mix of chemicals that would, later in the 20th century, come close to the recipe for napalm. There is a possibility that the shells were used during the July-August 1863 assault on Charleston, South Carolina.

Foundry director R. P. Parrott accepted credit for developing the cannon but hearings on the project by the Joint Committee on Ordnance and the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War revealed that Russians working in England obtained plans for a similar British cannon that was being secretly developed for the Royal Navy. The Czar, who had recently defended Russia from France and Great Britain in the Crimean War considered the U.S. as an ally.

Among 150,000 artifacts were found that related to the testing platform and workers' barracks that point to a community of highly skilled munitions experts. The range of artifacts within the barracks are not those of unskilled workers but of highly skilled researchers using at that time state-of-the-art scientific equipment. Many of these artifacts were imports from Europe. From the 1950s through the 1970 was used by the Marathon Battery Company that supplied cadmium batteries for Nike missiles. In 1983 the Environment Protect Agency ordered the site cleaned and hired the industrial archaeologists to excavate the site.

Image Source: Parrott Cannon

The First Lincoln Assasination Conspiracy, 1860-1861.

The Baltimore Plot: The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln, Michael J. Klein, Westholme Press, 2008, 520 pages, illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, $29.95.

Are you familiar with 24 a TV show that's been on for about seven seasons? Keifer Sutherland plays Jack Baurer, an action hero with a big Internet and satellite team behind him. The show runs on 'real time' which means there are sometimes three windows, a ticking clock and bursts of music like Law and Order's chun-chung. Well, The Baltimore Plot: The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln, is the thinking person's 24. But there is a big, big difference. The Baltimore Plot: The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln, is rational like a courtroom is rational.

On February 11, 1861, special train cars began their journey from Springfield, Illinois, to the City of Washington, and carried Lincoln to his inauguration as the sixteenth president of the United States. Over the next twelve days, Lincoln would speak at numerous stops, including Indianapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Albany, New York, and Philadelphia. As Lincoln made his way to Washington D.C., three investigations separately concluded that in Baltimore Lincoln would be assaulted with the intention of killing him.

Allan Pinkerton, noted private detective of the era and working for a railroad president, a separate undercover operation by two New York City detectives, and Winfield Scott, chief of the army, individually uncovered startling evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln during his next-to-last stop in Baltimore. Klein reviews Baltimore's consistently history of mob violence. Robert E. Lee's father, Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, was nearly beaten to death in its streets by a mob of politically active Democrats.

Maryland had secessionist sympathies in its eastern seaboard region. Baltimore was the hothouse for paramilitary conspiracies. Leaders included an Italian anti-monarchist who was a barber, the chief of police, the mayor, future colonels and generals in the Army of Northern Virginia, and future Confederates agents who lived in Montreal during the war. If Lincoln died before the inauguration who would become President in March. His vice-president? The runner-up in the November 1860 election? Better consult the Constitution and make sure that Chief Justice Roger Taney doesn't offer his own side-bar interpretation of it.

If Lincoln had been killed in Baltimore, would then the first-shot of the Civil War would have been there and not Charleston, S.C.? Possibly, except for the fact that Breckinridge, future Confederate general and Secretary of War, was Buchanan's vice-president and future Confederate general Floyd was the Secretary of War. One of the great secret conspiracies in American history, the Baltimore Plot has never been fully investigated. Was evidence of a plot to murder Abraham Lincoln as he traveled through Baltimore en route to his 1861 inauguration genuine? Or was it a product of detective Allan Pinkerton’s imaginative program of self-promotion? Historians have been divided on the issue. Michael Kline, a lawyer by occupation, has made a very convincing argument for a conspiracy to murder charge based on circumstantial evidence. Kline makes it in exacting and fascinating detail. The characters are fully developed and propel the narrative forward.

Kline turns his legal expertise to evaluating primary sources in order to discover the extent of the conspiracy and culpability of the many suspects surrounding the case. Memorable characters like Timothy Webster (later to be hung in Richmond, Virginia) and Kate Warne (probably the first female professional undercover detective) and intriguing plot twists unfold the criminal conspiracy to murder. Much like a courtroom presentation in the best films and novels, the author allows the jury of readers to determine whether there was a true plot to kill Lincoln and if the perpetrators could have been brought to trial.

Relying upon his legal arguments, Kline brings the story to a narrative climax at Harrisburg. Does Lincoln have enough evidence to believe Pinkerton’s report? of Should he to alter his travel schedule through Baltimore? It was a second, independent source of intelligence from Winfield Scott and William Seward that convinced Lincoln to accept Pinkerton's plan. Gathering information, arguing its value, and re-creating the tension of the secession crisis, Kline's narrative absorbs readers.

From the whorehouses of Baltimore to the congressional committee in D.C. investigating the possibility of violence, from the paramilitary drills performed in Democratic meeting halls to the telegraph offices along the trains' route, from the railway stations where 20 assassins await Lincoln's arrival, to the Washington Peace Conference where the secretary from Vermont is witness to an amazing conversation between two Virginia delegates, Kline's narrative is as compelling as any episode of 24.

Klein clearly states which parts of his arguement are conjecture and which are founded upon a close reading of primary sources. He does not hide behind generalizations or best guesses. By the end of the book, CWL accepts Klein's arguements. Louis T. Wigfall, senator from Texas, was a conspirator. John Wilkes Booth, Baltimore native, was a conspirator. Maryland's governor, Baltimore's mayor and it's chief of police were conspirators. They and many more expected Lincoln to be dead by 2:00pm on February 23, 1861 on Calvert Street between the Calvert and Camden Street railroad stations. Killed by a bullet or blade, Lincoln would have died surrounded by 20 assasins and a compliant Baltimore police force, both having motive, means and opportunity.

Related Website: April 19 Baltimore Riot Trail

Image Source: Camden Station, Baltimore

Baltimore's Civil War Museum

Off Topic Classic---Henry James: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw has a history. Over twenty films, operas, theatre productions, ballets, and televsion dramas have bee produced since the short story/novella made its first appearance in 1898. It has been a subtext for HBO's Deadwood and ABC's Lost. There are probably ten schools of thought about Henry James' intentions the meanings of the work. Literary critics, philosophers, psychologists and fiction writers have put forth a myriad of implications for an understanding the mind, evil and the supernatural.

A narrator listens to friend read a manuscript written by a former governess whom the friend has known but who is now dead. The young governess cares for two orphans at the request of a friend of their dead parents. He is an abstentee gaurdian living in London. Miles, the male orphan, is attends a boarding school. Flora, the female orphan, lives at country house that is kept and managed by Mrs. Grose. The gaurdian gives the governess charge of the children and states that she is not to bother him under any circumstances with details of her work or of the children's lives.

A letter from Miles' headmaster stating that he has been expelled and immediately Miles returns from school for the summer. The governess is hesitant to raise the issue and worries that there is some secret behind the expulsion. Yet Miles is compliant and charming toward the governess. Then the ghosts, a man and a woman, appear to the governess but not, it seems, to Miles, Flora, Mrs. Grose or a groundsman.

The governess discovers from Mrs. Grose that the previous governess, Miss Jessel and her lover, Peter Quint, suffered unexplainable deaths. Prior to their deaths they spent countless hours with Flora and Miles. The governess becomes convinced that the two orhans are secretly aware of the ghosts.

Flora becomes lost from the governess who, with Mrs. Grose, find her in the property's woods. Has she has been talking to Miss Jessel? Flora admits this and demands to have the governess sent away. Mrs. Grose takes Flora to her uncle. The governess and Miles are left on the estate. In the evening, the governess and Miles' converse about his expulsion. The ghost of Peter Quint appears outside the window. The governess grasps Miles in a protective embrace. Miles screams and struggles to see the ghost. The governess tells him that he is no longer under the control of the ghost, and finds that Miles has died in her arms.

The Turn of the Screw's ghosts are not demented, not returning from hell, and are not predators. Are the ghosts sinister or is the mind of the governess unhinged from preceptible reality? Is the rational mind able to grasp supernatural (above nature) or supranatural (within nature) spirit events? That is the crux of the story.

Many writers have examined James's narrative technique of framing the introduction as an reader-audience event with a first-person narrative written by one, who at the time of the reading, is deceased. The Turn of the Screw appears to be a gothic tale set on a rural estate with immense old buildings, distrubing bodies of water, and dense woods with spiritual glades. James' descriptions of the varieties of light and the governess' preceptions of it enhance the readers' preception of spirit forces.

Real ghosts? Insane governess? She accurately describes Quint the ghost but was there a picture of Quint among Jessel's things in the house? James, in his various notes on The Turn of the Screw gives no indication that the governess hallucinates the ghost. James returned to the story frequently to edit it, even after it was published on several occassions.

What CWL favorite films and novels offer the same degree and type of suspense as The Turn of the Screw? The Others [2001] starring Nicole Kidman and Peter Straub's novel [1981] Ghost Story.

New And Noteworthy---Prussian Trained Yankee War Horse

Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter J. Osterhaus, Mary Bobbitt Townsend, 288 pages, University of Missouri; 8 illustrations, 7 maps, bibliography, index, $39.95

A German-born Union officer in the American Civil War, Major General Peter Osterhaus served from the first clash in the western theater until the final surrender of the war. Osterhaus made a name for himself within the army as an energetic and resourceful commander who led his men from the front. He was the last surviving Union major general and military governor of Mississippi in the early days of Reconstruction. This first full-length study of the officer documents how, despite his meteoric military career, his accomplishments were underreported even in his own day and often misrepresented in the historical record. Mary Bobbitt Townsend corrects previous errors about his life and offers new insights into his contributions to major turning points in the war at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, as well as other battles.

Townsend draws on battle reports not found in the Official Records, on personal papers, and on other nonpublished material to examine Osterhaus' part in the major battles in the West as well as in minor engagements. She tells how he came into his own in the Vicksburg campaign and proved himself through skill with artillery, expertise in intelligence gathering, and taking the lead in hostile territory - blazing the trail down the west side of the river for the entire Union army and then covering Grant's back for a month during the siege. At Chattanooga, Osterhaus helped Joe Hooker strategize the rout at Lookout Mountain; at Atlanta, he led the Fifteenth Corps, the largest of the four corps making Sherman's March to the Sea.

Townsend also documents his contributions in the battles of Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Arkansas Post, Port Gibson, Ringgold Gap, and Resaca and shows that he played a crucial role in Canby's Mobile Bay operations at the end of the war. In addition to reporting Osterhaus' wartime experiences, Townsend describes his experiences as a leader in the 1848-1849 Rebellion in his native Germany, his frustration during his term as Mississippi's governor, and his stint as U.S. consul to France during the Franco-Prussian War. Osterhaus stood out from other volunteer officers in his understanding of tactics and logistics, even though his careful field preparation led to criticism by historians that he was unduly cautious in battle. Yankee Warhorse sets the record straight on this important Civil War general as it opens a new window on the war in the West.

In addition to reporting Osterhaus’s wartime experiences, Townsend describes his experiences as a leader in the 1848–1849 Rebellion in his native Germany, his frustration during his term as Mississippi’s governor, and his stint as U.S. consul to France during the Franco-Prussian War. Osterhaus stood out from other volunteer officers in his understanding of tactics and logistics, even though his careful field preparation led to criticism by historians that he was unduly cautious in battle. Yankee Warhorse sets the record straight on this important Civil War general as it opens a new window on the war in the West.

Mary Bobbitt Townsend, great-great-granddaughter of Peter Joseph Osterhaus, is an independent scholar living in Southern California

Text and Image Source: University of Missouri Press

News---Noted Civil War Historian Addresses Online Research Issues During Webcast

Discovering the Civil War Online - Live Webcast: Best Practices And Tips From The Experts For Researching Original Civil War Documents Online, Steven Woodworth and Tom Daccord, American Public University, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. ET

Have you ever handled a document over 150 years old? The American Civil War left behind a vast paper trail of soldiers’ letters and diaries, as well as newspapers and periodicals; all of these documents provide accounts of crucial events of the era, enabling historians to piece together the events that shaped America’s past during this defining time.

Today, these documents are widely and easily accessible online, thanks to historic preservation, the advent of online research portals such as Best of History Web Sites, and educational institutions such as American Public University. APU educates people on the importance of preserving these documents by providing quality higher education including History and Military History degrees. In many cases, these online documents are the next best thing to handling the originals.

Dr. Steven E. Woodworth, Professor of History at American Public University, and Tom Daccord, Educational Technology Specialist at Best of History Web Sites, will discuss researching and handling original Civil War documents through the Internet and how they apply it to their own projects.

Woodworth and Daccord will discuss the utilization of soldiers' diaries and letters available online, as well as the Lincoln papers, to research Civil War topics. Also they will advise consulting period newspapers and periodicals via online databases to research the decade that led up to the outbreak of the Civil War. The effective navigation of the Best of History Web Sites portal to maximize history research. Woodworth and Daccord answer live question during the webcast.

Steven E. Woodworth, Professor, American Public University, School of Arts and Humanities. Dr. Woodworth (Ph.D., Rice University, 1987) is professor of history at American Public University and author, co-author, or editor of twenty-seven books. Some of the courses he teaches include: Historical Research Methods, The Civil War: Seminal Event in American History, and Civil War Command & Leadership.

Steven is a two-time winner of the Fletcher Pratt Award of the New York Civil War Round Table (for Jefferson Davis and His Generals and Davis and Lee at War). He is also two-time finalist for the Peter Seaborg Award of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War for While God Is Marching On and Nothing but Victory, and a winner of the Grady McWhiney Award of the Dallas Civil War Round Table for lifetime contribution to the study of Civil War history.

Tom Daccord, Educational Technology Specialist for Best of History Web Sites was created in 2001 by Tom Daccord, 15-year history teacher and co-director of EdTechTeacher, Inc. Tom is an educational technology specialist and author of Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers by Teachers and The Best of History Web Sites. A veteran “laptop teacher” who instructed in a wireless laptop environment for seven years, Tom has been featured in the Boston Globe (Making Tech Connect, December 29, 2003) for his contributions to teaching and technology.

Best of History Web Sites is an award-winning portal that contains annotated links to over 1,000 history Web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, history teacher guides, history activities, history games, history quizzes, and more. It has been recommended by The Chronicle of Higher Education, The National Council for the Social Studies, The British Library Net, The New York Public Library, the BBC, Princeton University, and many others.

American Public University is part of American Public University System (APUS) which also includes American Military University, together educating more than 50,000 adult learners worldwide. APUS’s relevant curriculum, affordability and flexibility helps working adults pursue degrees in subjects ranging from homeland security to management and liberal arts, including history and military history degrees. A university book grant supplies textbooks at no cost for eligible undergraduate students.


Register for the event at American Public University.


Contact information for the the American Military University/American Public University: American Public University, 111 W. Congress Street, Charles Town, WV 25414, Telephone: 877-777-9081

News---Fort Wayne Indiana's Lincoln Museum Returns to the Public in Indianapolis

Lincoln Brought to Life, Ryan Cole, Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2010.

Often, an object is worth more than a thousand words.

In 1905, Arthur Hall, president of the fledgling Lincoln National Life Insurance Co., wrote Robert Todd Lincoln, the lone surviving son of Abraham Lincoln, requesting permission to use the late president's image on advertising and stationery. Lincoln complied and graciously sent Hall an original photo of his father.

As decades passed, this gift, supplemented by the company's acquisition of thousands of additional pictures, prints and personal effects, grew into one of the world's great Lincoln collections: the Lincoln Museum, located in Fort Wayne, Indinana.

But in 1999 the business, reconstituted as Lincoln Financial Group, changed ownership and left Fort Wayne for Philadelphia. In 2008 LFG officially ended its financial support of the Lincoln Museum, which closed its doors shortly thereafter. LFG then decided to donate the museum's $20 million in artifacts to another institution and launched a search for a suitable recipient. The company did not have far to look. Despite competition from the Smithsonian Institution and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, ultimately a Hoosier alliance of Fort Wayne's Allen County Public Library and the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis crafted a winning pitch and was awarded the collection in December, 2008.

"With Charity for All," now showing at the Indiana State Museum, unveils highlights of the newly acquired prize and closes out the Lincoln Bicentennial celebration. The exhibition, open until July 25, shares space with "With Malice Toward None," a traveling exhibit from the Library of Congress. The items from the traveling exhibit—original drafts of the First Inaugural and Gettysburg Addresses, the contents of Lincoln's pocket on the night of his assassination—are more famous. But the lesser-known treasures of Indiana's collection are equally impressive. And unlike so much pontification about the 16th president, "With Charity for All" actually connects viewers to Lincoln the living, breathing man.

These are objects he actually wore, signed or handled. Here, our link to him is not through words, but through an immediate and intimate tactile connection. Contrast this to a gigantic television screen in a hallway between the two shows playing an endless loop of politicians and public personalities gushing about the man, no doubt seeing some glimmer of Lincoln in their own reflections.

These voices fade into white noise as viewers move into the exhibition space where they come face to face with objects—relics, really—that better narrate Lincoln's story. Ancient ledgers and land records bearing the name of Lincoln's father, Thomas, document the family's arrival in Kentucky in the first years of the 1800s. A beautifully crafted corner cupboard, carved by Thomas with the help of his son, evokes the Lincolns' life in the wilderness of southern Indiana.

Elsewhere, prints, lithographs and newspaper clippings recount his rise from circuit-riding prairie lawyer to national statesman. And campaign paraphernalia—original ribbons, songbooks, pins and banners—chart his successful dark-horse bid for the presidency in 1860. Lesser-known items provide unique insights into Lincoln's life and work in the White House. Here is a note imploring Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to "Let master Tad have a Navy sword"—a diversion for his young son, left alone and restless after the death of his brother and playmate Willie in 1862. Also displayed is a faded brown-and-white houndstooth shawl that once covered the president's shoulders in the cold and drafty Executive Mansion.

Glimpses of Lincoln the master political tactician are seen in his letter to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman requesting a furlough for Indiana troops in September 1864. With the electoral fate of Republicans uncertain in the coming fall balloting, the president made sure that every single vote at his disposal was cast. A few steps away is a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, one of 48 reproductions created to raise funds for wartime medical supplies. This document itself is just inches from Lincoln's ink well. And of course his assassination is documented here as well. Fragments of blood-soaked garments and towels are macabre reminders of the tragic April evening at Ford's Theater. Upon Lincoln's death, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is reputed to have said, "Now he belongs to the ages." Today, it often seems that "Now he is lost to the ages" would be more appropriate.

True, our leaders constantly invoke him and he hovers over our history, his image emblazoned on our money and carved into countless monuments. But the real man, shrouded in a fog of top hats, impersonators, and log cabins or buried under an avalanche of scholarship, is often frustratingly elusive. Yet, thanks to a Lincoln collection that began over a century ago and a wonderful new exhibit, this most interesting and, arguably, most important of American lives is still within our reach.

Mr. Cole served in the administration of George W. Bush and on the staff of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Text and Top Image Source: Wall Street Journal
Second Image: Lincoln Bicentennial
Third Image: Indiana State Museum

Scars to Prove It: The Civil War Soldier and American Fiction

Scars to Prove It: The Civil War Soldier and American Fiction, Craig A. Warren, Kent State University Press, 2009. x + 223 pp. paper, $34.95.

Reviewed by Will Kaufman, University of Central Lancashire. Review entitled I Wuz There, Where Wuz You? on H-CivWar, (February, 2010)

The following is several paragraphs of a longer review.

Craig A. Warren's study is an ambitious attempt to establish the relationship between Civil War fiction and historical sources--in particular, veterans' narratives--on which this fiction is based. The aim is to explore the ways in which "authors of fiction have embraced, celebrated, resisted, and rejected those published reflections, while in pursuit of their own artistic and cultural objectives" (p. 5). The designation "ambitious" refers to Warren's gamble, which is to reduce the possible range of thousands of fictional sources to only seven novels: Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1936), Caroline Gordon's None Shall Look Back (1937), William Faulknr's Absalom, Absalom! (1936)_ _and _The Unvanquished _(1938), Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels (1974), and Howard Bahr's The Judas Field (2006).

Warren approaches Crane's novel as an exercise in inclusion: it is a project to wrest the Civil War narrative away from those veterans whose memoirs "represented a formidable obstacle to any nonveteran wishing to write about the war" in the last two decades of the nineteenth century (p. 10). In this regard, Crane was staking his claim against the narrative ownership of Wilber F. Hinman, Alonzo F. Hill, John D. Billings, Frank Wilkeson, and Warren Lee Goss, among others; but Crane was also up against "a climate of nostalgia and martial exaltation," although "his powers as a writer far exceeded those of most former soldiers" (pp. 18, 23). Warren points to Crane's use of irony--which early readers either missed completely or which infuriated those who had perceived it--arguing that Crane was actually being faithful to veterans, such as Sam Watkins and Andrew B. Wells, who had themselves employed irony to demythologize or deflate the windier reflections of the literary generals. Ultimately, Warren argues, it was Crane who "shaped expectations for writing about the war" (p. 36).

In his exploration of "the triumph of the individual" in Shaara's The Killer Angels, Warren points to the "circle of myth, fiction, and history" growing out of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's The Passing of the Armies and perpetuated in Shaara's novel (p. 119). According to Warren, other narratives by Edward Porter Alexander, Jubal Early, John Bell Hood, James Longstreet, and Arthur James Lyon Fremantle all filter into The Killer Angels, which Warren argues contains "the entire Civil War between its covers" despite its exclusive focus on the battle of Gettysburg (p. 129). Shaara's "compressions of history," Warren argues, enable a fictional account of "democratic America's triumph over Old World aristocracy" (p. 135). Warren also presents The Killer Angels as a reflection of the postwar Reconciliation movement of which Chamberlain was an example, "a Northern hero who understood the war beyond the emancipationist vision" (p. 147).

Warren's concluding chapter on the "haunted veterans" in Bahr's The Judas Field examines what the author calls "an excellent example of how recent Civil War fiction has responded to the human legacy of America's twentieth-century military conflicts" (p. 162). Warren demonstrates how Bahr, himself a Vietnam veteran, "at times borrowed from the memories of twentieth-century veterans in order to add texture and authenticity to his picture of Confederate soldiers" (p. 162). What yokes the Civil War and America's twentieth-century wars together is the shared sense of "outwardly 'ordinary' lives" concealing "'a dark current of memory and violence'" (p. 166). The Judas Field thus provides a hearkening back to the novel that begins Warren's study, The Red Badge of Courage, enabling a circular critique that, for the most part, works well.

Text Source: H-Net, University of Michigan

CWL: Our Poor Power To Add or Detract and the Loss of the Historic Farms of the Gettysburg Battlefield

Far Above Our Poor Power To Add Or Detract: National Park Service Administration of the Gettysburg Battlefield, 1933-1938, Jennifer M. Murray, Civil War History, 45:1, 2009, pp.56-81.

170,000 soldiers marched to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and 51,000 were killed, wounded, captured or became missing. About 10,000 dead, 30,000 wounded, 10,000 prisoners. The crossroads village and farms were devasted. then Lincoln visited and further immortalized the battle. These hallowed grounds have been administered by three different groups: Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association (1864-1895), the U.S. War Department (1895-1933) and the National Park Service (1933-present).

Within the first five years the NPS implemented an unprecedented number of indeliable changes to the battlefield. Preservation and interpretation goals directed efforts toward public education and park roads. The agricultural and Soldiers' National Cemetery landscapes were adversely affected in regards to their historical integrity.

Though the campaign is thoroughly studied but the preservation and memorialization processes have received scant attention. In 1991 the NPS' Harlan Unrau completed an in-house examination entitled Administrative History. Barbara Platt published in 2001 This Is Holy Ground. In 1995. GNMP ranger Karlsont Smith examined the 1895-1995 era for the fourth Gettysburg spring seminar. Murray views all three publications providing a less than thorough presentation of the years first five years of the NPS' governance.

Murray notes that within the past twenty interpretations have moved from soley tactics and strategies to include commemoration and memorialization. As examples, Murray cites, Amy J. Kinsel's 1992 Cornell University dissertaion and its publication in The Gettysburg Nobody Knows in 1997, Christian Spielvogel's Interpeting Sacred Gound 2003 Penn State University dissertation and Ben Dixon' Living Battlefield 2000 University of Oklahoma dissertation. Murray finds Dixon's work to be engaging because he is a cultural geographer who divided the battlefield's history into five segments and focuses upon the landscape as well as pays attention to the battlefield's administration. Dixon work may soon appear in print from Johns Hopkins University Press. For an overview of memorialized North American battlefields, Murray uses Edward Kinenthal's 1991 University of Illinois dissertation Sacred Ground that examines Lexington, Corcord, the Alamo, Gettysburg. Little Bighhorn and Pearl Harbor.

During the War Department administration, the acquistion of Civil War battlefields was for the purpose of preservation and memorialization of the landscape that would also serve as a learning laboratory for military historians and West Point cadets. Boundaries were surveyed, roads were constructed and the lines of battle and troop positions located and marked. Preservation included restoring the battlefield to its 1863 appearance.

The historic farmsteads of McPherson, George Weikert, Henry Culp, Abarham Trostele and Nicholas Cordori were acquired by the War Department and veteran's recollections and visits to the sites were used to place markers. The Army, the National Gaurd used the park for instruction and camping. Portions of the battlefield were used for infantry and tanks instruction by Captain Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War I.
Also during the war the National Park Service Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson which established a federal agency to oversee and administrer national parks, monuments and reservations for the purpose of conservation of nature, wildlife and historic objects for the enjoyment of future generations.

At this time though the NPS did not have the national military parks under its purview. Between 1920 and 1933 the NPS continually sought control of the military parks through the argument that the War Department failed to effectively adminster and interpret the sites for the public. After pledging not to alter the military character of the parks, NPS received the sites from the War Department in 1933. President Franklin Roosevelt by executive order trasfered forty-three parks, monuments and memorials from the War Department to the NPS.

Gettysburg's 2,530 acres, 24 miles of roads and 1,728 monuments were received by the NPS which appointed James McConaghie the first superintendent of GNMP. He changed Gettysburg in significant ways though the NPS lacked a comprehensive nationwide stategy or program for acquisition and perservation of the sites. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 and the Historic Preservation Act of 1966 provided a degree of guidance.

McConaghie believed he had inherited an insufficient framework of interpretation from the War Department. What was sufficient for soldiers' training was insufficient for the education of the public. The War Department's 1904 inspection report noted that the GNMP resources included 462 tablets, 324 artillery pieces, a massive and detailed topographic map and a guide service that was tested and licensed. Guide books, such as Bachelder's 1873 Gettysburg: What To See and How To See It and Minnigh's 1924 Gettysburg: What They Did Here were privately published.

For McConaghie the provision of educational services was the most important work of the NGMP. In 1937 the director of the NPS intructed the services historians to devote their off-season hours to research and interpretative writing. Frederick Tilberg was hired in 1937 as GNMP's assistant historian to plan, direct, and supervise research at the battlefield park. Two seasonal historians were hired to present educational programs, assist visitors and advance research.

The post-stock market crash New Deal placed public works funds into the hands of the NPS. Between 1933 and 1940 $220 million was allocated for the NPS's projects in the parks. Nine historians were hired to write publications for the public. The GNMP brochure was rewritten and a map included. Guide fees were set at $3 per car and ranger stations were built at the entrances to the park. The Peace Light Memorial was built and the Soldiers' National Cemetery interpretation began to focus on Lincoln's Address as a plan to preserve and protect the resting place of 3,512 Union soldiers. Replacing and resetting headstones was the purview of the Civilian Conservation Corps; the corps removed the pipe fence and replace it with stonewalls and planted evergreens.

The Civilian Conservation Corps continued to work in the park; roads were removed or widened, culverts and curbs were added to accommodate automobiles. Twelve historic buildings were chosen to be conserved and repaired. The farm buildings of Basil Bigg, Abraham Bryan, Michael Bushman, Nicholas Cordori, henry Culp, Jacob Hummelbaugh, Daneil Klingle, Edwar McPherson, John Slyder, Abraham Trostle, John Wentz, George Weikert, Lydia Leister were saved. But, the John Forney farm buildings were removed because they were an eyesore in the view from the Peace Light Memorial.

The Pennsylvania Commission which built the Peace Light Memorial purchased the ground on which the Forney farm buildings stood and offered the structures to the GNMP which refused them. The Pennsylvania Commisssion had the structures removed before the 1938 dedication of the memorial. McConaghie stated that the buildings were of questionable historic value and only offered an expensive problem of restoration. The director of the NPS noted the farm buildings' destruction and distributed a memo stating that the loss of the farm buildings was not a general rule of the service.

This endorsed a War Department trend and reversed an National Park Service trend in regards to farms. In 1935 historian Louis King implemented a policy that viewed farms as having lesser value and the notion of cultivation of farms within the park was impractical. King viewed stone walls and wooden fences as being incompatible with modern mechanized farm equipment. King's notions led to a decrease of the number of working farms in the park. in 1933 there were 16 working farms within the park's boundaries. Soon there were only eight. The William Patterson farm was folded into the George Weikert farm to reduce maintenace, bookkeeping and records handling. Murray states that in merging these properties, the GNMP implementd a policy of utilitarianism, not preservation.

For Louis King and the administrators of the GNMP, pofit from leased farms carried more weight than the preservation of the historic farms. Six farms were to be abandoned, two farms were to be given over to forests, and six farms were to be preserved. Obstructions to mechanized farm equipment was removed. The Culp Farm was heavily impacted; rocks, trees and 8,850 feet of fencing was removed. The NPS farm policy undermined the integrity of the historic landscape notes Murray and continued to do so until the 1990s.

Top Image Source: 12th New Jersey Monument, Bliss Farm (Civil War Librarian
Second Image Source: Daniel Klingle Farm, Emmitsburg Road, (Civil War Librarian)
Third Image: Bushman Farm,
Fourth Image: Bushman Farm from Warfield Ridge Big Round Top in distance (Civil War Librarian)
Fifth Image: Weikert Farm, Taneytown Road, (Civil War Librarian)
Sixth Image: Patterson Farm, Taneytown Road, (Civil War Librarian)

CWL On The Road: Harrison's Landing, Berekely Plantation and Creation of Taps

The 1862 Peninsula Campaign was concluding. After the successful defensive battle of Malvern Hill, the Union army rested, as well as it could on the low, humid eastern shore of the James River. Harrison's Landing was a nearly flat flood plain that rose only a few feet above the river at Berekely Plantation. As the site of the very first thanksgiving service (1619)and the location of the first distillation of what would later become Bourbon whiskey(1621), Berekeley Plantation already in Virginia's history books.

Oliver W. Norton, bugler of Daniel Butterfield who commanded the 3rd brigade of the 1st division of the Federal Fifth Corps, witnessed and collaborated in the composition of Taps. At his headquarters on the Berkeley Plantation at Harrison's Landing on the east shore of the James River, Butterfield wrote the call. Butterfield whistled the tune to Norton who played it on his bugle. After some edits Butterfield transcribed the tune in the key of C onto an envelope. Both the Union and the Rebel armies embraced the tune.

Images' Source: Civil War Librarian

CWL On The Road---Malvern Hill: Battle and Prophecy

The sixth and last of the Seven Days Battles of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign was prophetic. Robert E. Lee did on July 1, 1862 in Henrico County, Virginia what he would do on July 3, 1863 in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

Lee launched a series of disjointed assaults against a plateau of Federal artillery and infantry. Confederates suffered more than 5,300 casualties without gaining an inch of ground and suffered the about the same number of casualties as they would during the Grand Assualt of July 3.

June 30,the previous day, Fitz John Porter and his Fifth Corps, prepared Malvern Hill as a bastion to cover the retreat of McClellan's Army of the Potomac to Harrison's Landing. On the east side of the flat-topped hill, the gradually climbing slopes were cleared of timber. Th open pastures and grain fields to the west were already suitable for field of fire for by 250 artillery placed by Henry J. Hunt, McClellan's chief of artillery. Yes, on July 2 and 3 11863Hunt would also arrange the artillery at Gettysburg.

The terrain from which the Rebels attacked was swampy and thickly wooded. The double chimneys mark the site of the Willis Methodist Church parsonage on the Confederate center and right. The pastor's house was on a slight rise above the low, muddy depression that the Confederate would have to cross. From the crest of Malvern Hill the house was easily seen and served as a range marker for Federal artillery.

As he would do a year later at Cemetery Hill, Lee attacked Malvern Hill directly, rather than flanking the position. As he did at Gettysburg, Lee used his artillery clear the plateau for successful infantry occupation of the crest. As he would in 367 days later, Lee believed that his soldiers were better fighters than Federal soldiers.

Lee planned the battle of Malvern Hill. The divisions of Jackson, Ewell and D.H. Hill would first assaulte the Federal left then the divisions of James Longstreet and A.P. Hill, which had been the most heavily engaged on June 30 were to follow with coordinated assualts on the Federal right as the first assault crested the hill. Federal causualties were 3,200 and the Confederates' butcher's bill was 5,300.

Follow up reading: Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles by Brian K. Burton;
The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula and the Seven Days, Gary W. Gallagher, editor;
The Peninsula Campaign Of 1862: Yorktown To The Seven Days, Vol. 1 & II, William J. Miller, editor;To The Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign by Stephen W. Sears, and Sword Over Richmond: An Eyewitness History Of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign by Richard Wheeler.

Top and Middle Image Source: Civil War Librarian,

Bottom Image Source: Civil War Preservation Trust

New---Was Guerrilla Warfare Effective For the Confederacy?

A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War, Daniel E. Sutherland, University of North Carolina Press, 2009, 440pp, $35.00.

The following is a portion of Sam C. Hyde's review, entitled Rethinking the Relevance of Irregular Operations in the American Civil War, of Daniel Sutherland's Savage Conflict. The entire review with notes is found on H-Net Reviews. The link is at the bottom of this entry.

One of the liveliest debates concerning the value of guerrilla operations centers on their effectiveness in the American Civil War. Few dispute the value of irregular forces during the American Revolution. Indeed, the daring exploits of Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox of the Revolution," and others like him have become the stuff of legend. In sharp contrast, far from being celebrated, the vast majority of guerrillas who operated in the Civil War are regarded as little more than thieves and murderers.

Indeed, despite the approving portrayal offered by some Confederate sympathizers, few modern scholars find much positive to say about them. The obvious answer to the contrast in treatment is that most Civil War era irregulars fought in support of the Confederacy. And, as with most such conflicts, the losers do not enjoy the same sympathetic postwar evaluations afforded the victors. Not surprisingly, though fewer in number, irregular forces that supported the Union are generally regarded as heroic. The double standard applied in modern popular culture is easily revealed when one compares, say, the current treatment of reputed Mississippi unionist Newt Knight to that afforded Missouri Confederate guerrilla chief William C. Quantrill.

Unfortunately, the political inclinations evident in popular culture distract attention from what many regard as the more relevant questions. Specifically, were Civil War era guerrillas effective and would the war have been different if the Confederacy had been more aggressive in promoting irregular forces? This new volume from the University of North Carolina Press forthrightly confronts such questions.

Author Daniel E. Sutherland provides what may be the closest thing we have yet to a definitive assessment of guerrilla operations during the Civil War. Sutherland has clearly done his homework. His meticulous research, as evidenced in his notes, reveals a thorough command of the literature on the subject. Moreover, unlike most previous studies that focus on one individual or region, this volume offers a comprehensive view of the war. The author provides comparative analysis of the forces that motivated guerrilla operations, along with analysis of their effectiveness, in a chronological timeframe that is inclusive of virtually all regions of the nation.

Sutherland expands the popular understanding of the areas affected by irregular operations to include regions north of the Mason-Dixon Line, just as he uncovers little-known guerrilla fighters in regions previously thought to be at best on the periphery of such contests. This book is simply a banquet for Civil War buffs eager to learn more about events that remained separate from the large field force contest. Readers are treated to exciting details of guerrilla actions from the uplands of Florida to the cornfields of Illinois. Poignant portraits of guerrilla leaders provide rationale for understanding their behavior as well as insight into the motives of the men who followed them. By focusing on the effectiveness of irregular operations, rather than their morality, Sutherland offers an answer to the question of the guerrilla's ultimate relevance.

Existing literature reveals that most studies of irregular operations have been limited to the implications they carried for the immediate region where they were practiced. Through the broader interpretive approach he applies, Sutherland concludes that in the end guerrilla warfare weakened the Confederacy by compromising the trust citizens put in their government officials to protect them. In some regions of the South, Confederate officials relied on guerrillas and partisan fighters as the only viable option available to them. Sutherland's study suggests that in the early years of the conflict irregular forces in some areas did prove valuable to the Confederate war effort. Yet as the war continued, irregular forces came to include men more eager to settle personal scores, or simply engage in criminal activity. These men and their gangs operated beyond the confines of military necessity and accordingly became as much, or more, of a burden to government officials than they were an asset. As such the guerrillas ultimately contributed to the defeat of the Confederacy.

Written in engaging prose abundantly sprinkled with exciting anecdotes, this book will be useful to the scholar just as it will entertain the general reader. Skillfully constructed to educate, rather than pontificate, Sutherland's study raises the bar of Civil War scholarship. Though everyone will not agree with all of his conclusions, few will dispute the value of this study for interpreting the cause, and effectiveness, of guerrilla operations during the American Civil War.

Text Source: H-Net Reviews, Michigan State University

Middle Image Source: Confederate Guerillas Hunting Unionists (Harpers Weekly) from North Carolina's Civil War 150 site

News---Obama: Caning of Sunmer, Lincoln, and Seeing God In The Eyes of Confederate Soldiers

Remarks By The President At The National Prayer Breakfast, Washington Hilton, Washington, D.C., 9:08 A.M. EST, February 4, 2010. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, For Immediate Release, February 4, 2010

Obama: And we've seen actually some improvement in some circumstances. We haven't seen any canings on the floor of the Senate any time recently. (Laughter.)

CWL: In 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis when "border ruffians" approached Lawrence, Kansas, Sumner denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the "Crime against Kansas" speech on May 19 and May 20, two days before the sack of Lawrence, Kansas.

Two days later, on the afternoon of May 22, Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina and Butler's relative, confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber. Brooks was accompanied by Laurence M. Keitt also of South Carolina and Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia (the latter taking no part in the assault). Brooks said, "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine."

As Sumner began to stand up, Brooks began beating Sumner severely on the head with a thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head before he could reach his feet. Sumner was knocked down and trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to bash Sumner until he ripped the desk from the floor. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and he staggered up the aisle and collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat the motionless Sumner until he broke his cane, then quietly left the chamber.

Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt who was brandishing a pistol and shouting, "Let them be!" (Brooks died in 1857; Keitt was censured for his actions and was later killed in 1864 during the Civil War while fighting as a Confederate officer).

Obama: Remember Abraham Lincoln. On the eve of the Civil War, with states seceding and forces gathering, with a nation divided half slave and half free, he rose to deliver his first Inaugural and said, "We are not enemies, but friends… Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."
Even in the eyes of confederate soldiers, he saw the face of God.

CWL: Lincoln may have. Some of the combat soldiers too.

Text Source: White House briefing Room, Washington, D.C.

Text Source: edit of Wikipedia, Charles Sumner

Image Source: President Barack Obama speaks at the Energy Department in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak), Huffington Post

New---Jolly Fellows: Brawling, Heavy Drinking, Gambling, Playing Pranks and Soon To Be Soldiers

Jolly Fellows: Male Milieus in Nineteenth-Century America, Richard Stott, John Hopkins University Press, 384 pages, 2009. $55.00

"Jolly fellows," a term that gained currency in the nineteenth century, referred to those men whose more colorful antics included brawling, heavy drinking, gambling, and playing pranks. Reforms, especially the temperance movement, stigmatized such behavior, but pockets of jolly fellowship continued to flourish throughout the country. Richard Stott scrutinizes and analyzes this behavior to appreciate its origins and meaning.

Stott finds that male behavior could be strikingly similar in diverse locales, from taverns and boardinghouses to college campuses and sporting events. He explores the permissive attitudes that thrived in such male domains as the streets of New York City, California during the gold rush, and the Pennsylvania oil fields, arguing that such places had an important influence on American society and culture. Stott recounts how the cattle and mining towns of the American West emerged as centers of resistance to Victorian propriety. It was here that unrestrained male behavior lasted the longest, before being replaced with a new convention that equated manliness with sobriety and self-control.

Even as the number of jolly fellows dwindled, jolly themes flowed into American popular culture through minstrelsy, dime novels, and comic strips. Jolly Fellows proposes a new interpretation of nineteenth-century American culture and society and will inform future work on masculinity during this period.

CWL: Baring the Iron Hand: Discipline in the Union Army has led CWL to examine antebellum male society in Jolly Fellows.

Text and Image Source: Amazon.com

New---Move Over Buffy! This Axe Isn't Just For Rails!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Seth Grahame-Smith, Grand Central Publishing, 352 pages, $21.99.

Following the success of his bestselling Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with another mélange of history and horror, Grahame-Smith inserts a grandiose and gratuitous struggle with vampires into Abraham Lincoln's life. Lincoln learns at an early age that his mother was killed by a supernatural predator. This provokes his bloody but curiously undocumented lifelong vendetta against vampires and their slave-owning allies. The author's decision to reduce slavery to a mere contrivance of the vampires is unfortunate bordering on repellent, but at least it does distract the reader from the central question of why the president never saw fit to inform the public of the supernatural menace. Grahame-Smith stitches hand-to-hand vampire combat into Lincoln's documented life with competent prose that never quite manages to convince.

CWL: Deliver my order in a brown paper bag to the back porch door, please.

Harry Smeltzer asks: "Were Jack Armstrong and the Clary’s Grove Boys actually a coven of blood suckers? Was the pathological sluggishness of George McClellan attributable to the fact that he only came out at night? Did Jefferson Davis sleep in a casket (OK, that one’s obvious – just look at the guy!)? I guess I’ll find out soon enough."

Text Source: Amazon.com
Image Source: Bull Runnings

New---Brawls, Riots, Midnight Orgies, Fields of Satan and Threats to Shoot Officers: The Union Army Gone Wild

Baring the Iron Hand: Discipline In The Union Army, Steven Ramold, Northern Illinois University Press, 494 pp., notes, bibliography, index, 15 illustrations, $40.00

This title provides an in-depth examination of internal conflict and discipline in the Union Army. During antebellum wars the Regular army preserved the peace, suppressed the Indians, and bore the brunt of the fighting. The Civil War, however, brought an influx of volunteers that overwhelmed the number of army Regulars, forcing a clash between traditional military discipline and the expectations of citizens.

Baring the Iron Hand provides an extraordinarily in-depth examination of this internal conflict and the issue of discipline in the Union Army. Ramold tells the story of the volunteers, who, unaccustomed to such military necessities as obeying officers, accepting punishment, and suppressing individuality, rebelled at the traditional disicpline expected by the standing army. Unwilling to fully surrender their perceived rights as American citizens, soldiers both openly and covertly defied the rules.

They challenged the right of their officers to lead them and established their own policies on military offenses, proper conduct, and battlefield behavior. Citizen soldiers also denied the army the right to punish them for offenses like desertion, insubordination, and mutiny that had no counterpart in civilian life. Ramold demonstrates that the clash between Regulars and volunteers caused a reinterpretation of the traditional expectations of discipline. The officers of the Regular army had to contend with independent-minded soldiers who resisted the spit-and-polish discipline that made the army so efficient but also alienated the volunteers' sense of individuality and manhood.

Unable to prosecute the vast number of soldiers who committed offenses, professional officers reached a form of populist accommodation with their volunteer soldiers. Unable to eradicate or prevent certain offenses, the army tried simply to manage them or to just ignore them. Instead of applying traditionally harsh punishments for specific crimes as they had done in the antebellum period, the army instead mollified its men by extending amnesty, modifying sentences, and granting liberal leniency to many soldiers who otherwise deserved the harshest of penalities. Ramold's fascinating look into the lives of these misbehaving soldiers will interest both Civil War historians and enthusiasts.

Steven J. Ramold is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Army.

Expert Opinions: “An ambitious, thorough, remarkably well-researched, and well-written examination of discipline, military justice, and punishment in the Union Army.... It makes an important contribution to the field.”William Skelton, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

“As far as I know, there is nothing like this work out there, and if there is, it is certainly not as deeply researched and as thoroughly argued as this. [It] provides more valuable insights into the world—at home and in camp and field—of the Northern volunteer in the Civil War.” William B. Feis, Buena Vista University

Text and Image Source: Northern Illinois University Press