Blog 4 History

Though historians have pretty much closed the door on the Civil War being a “total” war, there are some new books that have exposed some of the more brutal and “savage” aspects of the war. Daniel E. Sutherland’s A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (Civil War America) and George S. Burkhardt’s Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War, are both nice contributions to Civil War scholarship.

Total War has been replaced by “hard war” thanks to Mark Grimsley’s excellent book, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and though I have argued that the American Civil War was as “total” a war as it could have been, most historians would not accept my analogy. I argued that the “By and large there were no ethnic or racial elements that motivated either side to kill civilians on any kind of significant scale. There were no ideological battles of annihilation. The Civil War could never have escalated to that.” (citation).

Now comes George S. Burkhardt’s book that argues, essentially, that there was a total war within the war, and one that was savage and brutal and was fueled by race, ideology, and hatred.

Burkhardt, in his Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War, argues that, Lincoln’s “emancipation” proclamation and the “enlistment of black soldiers…created the conditions that prompted Confederate atrocities against black civilians and soldiers, the resulting hard war set the stage for Southerners to refuse quarter or mercy to white Federal troops.” (p.2).

Though he apparently doesn’t know it, Burkhardt is arguing that a total war took place within the Civil War, and one where combatants and civilians both suffered indiscriminately. Not only does he make this case, he makes it fairly convincingly. According to Burkhardt, both sides not only pillaged and burnt homes, killed civilians, but they also committed countless war crimes by executing surrendered troops and killing the wounded. Many of these crimes went undocumented and could only be found via the letters and correspondences from those involved as well as civilian eye witness reports.

The aftermath of such fights as Milliken’s Bend, Olustee, Brice’s Cross Roads, as well as other well known battles: Pillow, Petersburg, Mobile, ect., saw Confederate and Federal troops hunted down, murdered, and sometimes tortured captives and not all of them apparent combatants. The most vengeful fighting took place when black soldiers were involved, and white officers sometimes paid the price with them. The vivid details of surrendered black soldiers and their white officers marched off the battlefield and executed, sometimes hanged, are at times shocking. By employing black soldiers and offering emancipation, Burkhardt argues, Lincoln and the Union guaranteed a brutal and bloody affair those last 24 months of the war.

Though Burkhardt’s book is well researched and finely written, I’m not sure ultimately that his thesis is proven completely. Before the Emancipation Proclamation, there were already signs that the war would become more personal and bloodied. In 1862 Arkansas, reports of Bushwhackers and Texas Rangers capturing straggling Federal troops and executing them was not unheard of. This in turn led to Federal reprisals.

Overall, Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil is an excellent book and I highly recommend it!

This should send a chill down your spin while watching:

Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing of May 5, 2009

Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.

So I have been going through the A.P. textbook and other materials and I am becoming somewhat troubled by how the authors present several topics (which I will get into later.)  However, most troubling are a couple POTENTIAL incorrect statements, for example on one review question:

The statement, “taxation without representation is tyranny” was first proclaimed by

A. Benjamin Franklin
B. John Hancock
C. Samuel Adams
D. John Dickinson
E. Patrick Henry

The correct answer is provided as: C, with the following explanation: “This statement was first made by Adams in 1768 in an article he wrote opposing the Townshend Acts.”

Was he the first to use that phrase? I have yet to find that article. Recently at J.R. Bell’s Boston 1775 blog he tackled this issue here, here and here. In this series of excellent posts (besides the political banter in the comments section that got way off target) Bell never mentions Adams as an originator of the concept of “No taxation without representation.” (Or I missed it.)

Bell declared, “I’m pleased to report that yes, we can document the phrase being used in the Revolutionary years. In 1769 the Rev. John Joachim Zubly (1724-1781) of Georgia authored a pamphlet titled An Humble Enquiry into the Nature of the Dependency of the American Colonies upon the Parliament of Great-Britain, and the Right of Parliament to Lay Taxes on the Said Colonies.” Which is a year later than Adams, if he did indeed write that alleged article?

So who is correct?

Well I found some evidence (secondary) to support that it might have been Samuel Adams:

The thrilling speech he delivered on this occasion has been preserved for us in the notes taken by John Adams, who was present with Samuel Adams on that eventful day. For nearly five hours the learned, bold and eloquent orator was on his feet. In impassioned language he denounced taxation without representation,—the future watchwords of the American cause; for from that day, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” was the rallying cry of the masses of the people.[quoted from "Samuel Adams," By Samuel Fallows; 1898]

I found a similar question from a 1902 “American Education” By Boston University, School of Education.

Q) Why did the colonists resist taxation by the mother country? Name three colonial orators whose speeches did much to cause such resistance.

The answer: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams James Otis.

The question still stands, Who is the originator of that phrase!?

I love how they play off the propaganda films of the 1950s. However, in all seriousness, can’t say I am in favor of Obamacare. I just hope this bill is one they actually read before voting on!:

Slavery, Resistance, Freedom (Gettysburg Civil War Institute Books) edited by Gabor Boritt and Scott Hancock contains six excellent essays that cover slavery and American history, with an emphasis on memory, and how the idea of freedom as represented here impacts our understanding of American democracy. From the publisher:

This extraordinary collection of essays by some of America’s top historians focuses on how African Americans resisted slavery and how they responded when finally free. Ira Berlin sets the stage by stressing the relationship between how we understand slavery and how we discuss race today. The remaining essays offer a richly textured examination of all aspects of slavery in America. John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger recount actual cases of runaway slaves, their motivations for escape and the strains this widespread phenomenon put on white slave-owners. Scott Hancock explores how free black Northerners created a proud African American identity out of the oral history of slavery in the south. Edward L. Ayers, William G. Thomas III, and Anne Sarah Rubin draw upon their remarkable Valley of the Shadow website to describe the wartime experiences of African Americans living on both borders of the Mason-Dixon line. Noah Andre Trudeau turns our attention to the war itself, examining the military experience of the only all-black division in the Army of the Potomac. And Eric Foner gives us a new look at how black leaders performed during the Reconstruction, revealing that they were far more successful than is commonly acknowledged–indeed, they represented, for a time, the fulfillment of the American ideal that all people could aspire to political office.

I will be utilizing this excellent book in my A.P. United States history class this coming year. In particular, the essay “The Quest for Freedom: Runaway Slaves and the Plantation South,” by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger. This essay dealt with some interesting topics that could be nicely presented in a lecture or discussion. How the relationships between slave and master, and the measures to which slaves would go to resist slavery, but also the interesting and unspoken rules that some masters had. Neither slave nor master is a caricature in this excellent piece. Slave owners are not always cruel, and sometimes had moral standards. There was a dynamic and layered relationship among slave and master. To be sure, slavery was a brutal and arduous affair and when slaves resisted and escaped, they were usually dealt with severely. So within this essay there are a lot interesting facts, and some great talking points.

-C

Yesterday my step-daughter married a wonderful young man, Aaron, who is a member for the 82nd Airborne.

He has served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and will be leaving again in January for his fifth tour.

Aaron is a great person, a hero, and someone I respect immensely.

….

…

I have been on hiatus as I have been doing some local activities here in Colorado, one of them White Water River Rafting. I am on the right hand side of the boat, second row, baseball hat facing you. This was a fun experience! (PS-my son is in the first row, he’s the brave one.) We also did a lot of hiking, camping and fly fishing…

…Or 10 or so. I guess you can say, chalk one up for the Bulls. I have no sympathy, they took the risk. This is  a silly tradition. We love to bash our own silly traditions, but the running of the bulls is flat out stupid…. Go Bulls!…. Chicago I mean.

Ten people were injured, two of them seriously, in the Pamplona bull run on Sunday, two days after a man was gored to death by a bull, according to revised figures issued by organisers.

The two most badly hurt were Spanish men who suffered injuries to the neck, chest and buttocks after being gored, a spokesman said.

He added that doctors were confident their lives would be saved after surgery.

to read the details…

I know that I have been focusing on the Battle of Gettysburg the last few days, but my heart is with the Founding Fathers; and more so than ever it seems in light of recent political events. The founding of our wonderful nation and the promise of hope and liberty that it was founded on, should stir the hearts and minds of even the most acid of patriots. So with these thoughts in mind a letter from July 3rd, 1776 is in order:

John Adams, in a July 3, 1776 letter to Abigail, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 2 in Philadelphia:

The Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their Judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats, and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil, and Blood, and Treasure that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the Gloom, I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means, and that Posterity will triumph in that Day’s Transaction, even though We should not rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

I am proud to present my contribution to the Top Ten Books on the Battle of Gettysburg.

1) Those Damned Black Hats: The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign, By Lance J. Herdegen (2008) – This is currently my favorite book on the battle as I really love regimental studies and this is an exceptional one dealing with the Iron Brigade’s presence at Gettysburg. Superbly written and as always a Herdengen touch to it that makes it so readable.

2) The Killer Angels, By Michael Sharra (1974) – has to be on any list. It was my first introduction to the Civil War in High School.

3) The Gettysburg Nobody Knows, By Gabor S. Boritt, ed. (1999) – one of the more interesting books on the battle and one that I refer to often.

4) Gettysburg: The Second Day, By Harry Pfanz (1998) – This was, of course, a monumental work and as John Hoptak noted a “landmark” book that has to be on the shelf of every Civil War enthusiast. He also covers a little about my ancestor, Charles H. Weygant of the 124th NY.

5) Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory, By Carol Reardon (1997) – a fascinating book on the battle’s most controversial and important event.

6) The First Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership, By Gary W. Gallagher, ed., (1992) – One of my favorite books including numerous essays that are informative and important.

7) Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage, By Noah Andre Trudeau (2003) – a bit difficult to follow at times, but overall I really liked Trudeau’s writing style.

8 ) Gettysburg, By Stephen W. Sears (2004) – his reading style is very accessible. I thought he handled Meade and Lee fairly, but really this book is a favorite as I enjoy his writing style. Gettysburg books can be very convoluted as it was indeed a massive battle.

9) Lincoln at Gettysburg, By Garry Willis (1992) – it seems appropriate to have Lincoln’s Address in here somewhere as it plays an important part in the memory of the battle and it helped to establish some meaning for the place beyond the controversy of whether or not the battle was thee turning point.

10) Gettysburg: July 1, By David G. Martin (2003)