As those of you who have been visiting here for the last, what, 4 years note that the emphasis has changed from the “American Civil War” to United States history in general. As you also may know for several years now I have been placing my Civil War focus over at SoldierStudies.org which is a database of Civil War letters and now a news blog. I encourage you to check it out and bookmark it!

Civil War Voices Blog

Latest posts:

Battle of Fredericksburg Letter
Henry Frank Babcock, Company I, of the 122nd New York Infantry, to his parents, written during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Letter reads, On the Field of Battle, Sunday, Dec 14/62 Dear Parents, I take this chance to answer your kind favors of which I received yesterday. Our mail was brought to us on the field as we lay flat [...]

Confederate 3rd Virginia Cavalry Soldier’s Letter!
Cockletown July 13th, 1861 My Little Darling, I have just finished reading your dear sweet letter the second time. I received it last night about dusk. You cannot imagine how happy it made me. It came just at the right time. I had just returned to our camp after being absent on another scout ever since the evening before [...]

New 20th Maine Letters Found
From Ebay: A small and interesting group of 20th Maine Civil War letters from Private Henry C Simonds of 20th ME Regt Company C to his wife Lizzie Simonds of North Turner & Wilton, Maine Today it’s highly unusual to uncover anything of substance related to the 20th Maine Volunteers . The 20th Maine is of course [...]

Surgeon General of the State of Massachusetts
With the idea of improving our collection of Civil War Surgeons comes John G. Perry of Boston, Mass. John G. Perry of Boston, Mass., entered Harvard College in 1858, bearing with him a very youthful attachment; and in the undoubting judgment of youth, he and I, but boy and girl, in light-hearted gayety strolled one evening [...]

New Soldier: Chauncey Holcomb
Sergeant Chauncey Holcomb wrote letters while in Company F, 27th Massachusetts. November 23rd, 1861 at camp he wrote: We went to the African Church too. Meeting was very much entertainment to hear the old negro talk and sing. When we got home the boys had supper all ready. They had invited in Uncle Frank and some [...]

New Soldier: Henry H. Hitchcock
Of the New York 12th Infantry. June 1, 1861, he writes: Things look very warlike here. Down town you see nothing but soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. I see that the Volunteer force now amounts to 300,000. This is beside the regular army and the impression seems to be that the president will call for [...]

In the book Teaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (New Press, Spring 1998), which I bought and read, Ayers and other teachers and professors outline Best Practice methods for teaching social justice. (There are also numerous books, groups, associations, and conferences today that deal with Social Justice and take their lead from Ayers and Howard Zinn.)

Here are some of the highlights:

Ayers in his “Introduction” proclaims, “The teachers [of social justice] … reject the old objectivist approach” to teaching and replace it with the values of social justice where all around us are nothing but injustices such as racism, sexism, classism, ect. Lots of “isms” which the teaching of Social Justice seem to use. All around us, according to this view and this instruction method, is inequality and oppression. As I have already pointed out here and here, their goal is not objectivity or neutrality in the classroom. They are the disciplines of Howard Zinn and believe that objectivity is irresponsible when faced with the supposed racist and oppressive society we live in. Remember, it is so bad here in the United States, in terms of injustice, that people from other countries are flocking here?

Everything, every topic, seemingly falls under the umbrella of “Teaching for Social Justice.” For example, Environmental Justice is a large part of it as well as Economic Justice, and this ultimately leads to the teaching of socialism and the redistribution of wealth, energy, and resources. William Ayers clearly states it is their goal to educate through “collective action” and for the good of the collective. All under the guise of teaching for “social justice and democracy.”

The book also talks openly about the “Progressive” origins of the movement going back to the Progressive Education Association of the 1930s. The book is filled with nuances of “collective undertaking” and social reform for the greater good. The themes of socialism and progressivism are right there, openly encouraged and acknowledged. No conspiracies, as conspiracies are “secret” designs and not out in the open. This is a movement for “change,” and one we can believe in.

Anyway, this led me to a book I received recently The Long Shadow of the Civil War Southern Dissent and Its Legacies, By Victoria E. Bynum.

In the Introduction of the book Bynum quickly points out the focus of her book and the “three central questions” that are addressed:

1) How prevalent was support for the Union among ordinary Southerners, and how was it expressed?
2) How did Southern Unionists and freedpeople experience the Union’s victory and the emancipation of the slaves during the era of Reconstruction and beyond?
3) What were the legacies of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the South’s White Supremacists counterrevolution in regard to race, class, and gender relations and New South politics?

Which are very important questions and still very relevant. The shock waves of the Civil War are still felt today. The economic and social conditions of Black Americans was impacted by the failure of Reconstruction, the legacy of Jim Crow, and the dependency created by the White guilt welfare state of the Johnson Administration’s “Great Society” (and beyond) a tragedy that increased the number of single mother households that devastated blacks for generations and sentenced so many single mother black families to poverty.

Anyway, a great read and a solid study, and more importantly a timely one that relates to the continued reflection on the meaning of the American Civil War.

From the Publisher:

The story of Marcus Garvey, the charismatic and tireless black leader who had a meteoric rise and fall in the late 1910s and early ’20s, makes for enthralling reading, and Garvey has found an engaging and objective biographer in Colin Grant… Grant’s book is not all politics, ideology, money and lawsuits. It is also an engrossing social history… Negro With a Hat is an achievement on a scale Garvey might have appreciated. Dazzling, definitive biography of the controversial activist who led the 1920s ‘Back to Africa’ movement… Grant’s learned passion for his subject shimmers on every page. A riveting and well-wrought volume that places Garvey solidly in the pantheon of important 20th-century black leaders. This splendid book is certain to become the definitive biography. Garvey was a dreamer and a doer; Grant captures the fascination of both.” Grant’s strength lies in his ability to re-create political moods and offer compelling sketches of colorful individuals and their organizations… An engaging and readable introduction to a complicated and contentious historical actor who, in his time, possessed a unique capacity to inspire devotion and hatred, adulation and fear. A monumental, nuanced and broadly sympathetic portrait. A searching, vivid, and (as the title suggests) complex account of Garvey’s short but consequential life.

Twenty years after the Civil War ended, the 179,000 African-American veterans of the Union Army saw racial inequality widen as the Pension Bureau left most of them out of a rapid expansion.

According to a new Brigham Young University study, the program shifted away from its relatively color-blind roots when it began granting disability claims based on chronic illness to soldiers who had not been wounded in the war.

During the 1880s, the Pension Bureau approved applications from uninjured white veterans at more than twice the rate of approval for uninjured black veterans.

“Black veterans were far less successful than whites for conditions that were hard to verify and required a degree of trust,” said Sven Wilson, an associate professor of political science at BYU.

To read more…

[PHOTO CREDITS: Union Army veteran John Pinkey served in Company B of the 104th Infantry Regiment of the USCT (U.S. Colored Troops). Pinkey submitted this photo as part of his pension application. ]

“…two historians are helping him [Stone] with [the doc]… to offer a fuller understanding of the 20th century…”

Stone’s message, “Hitler [was] enabled by Western bankers.” This should be interesting to see what connections Stone attempts to make and what sources he uses, but most importantly who are the two historians? I searched, and searched, and could not find them.

What I do know about post-WWI American businesses is that they wanted Great Britain and France to ease the reparations and the United States to forgive war payments in an attempt to protect their investments in Europe and Germany.

Now what Stone will attempt to establish is that it was not monetary interests alone, but more importantly racist, Jew hating capitalists somehow facilitated Hitler’s rise…

So who are Stone’s historians that apparently will provide him with the proper historical data?

Stay tuned.

[the photo is of our guy Stone and one of his heroes, Hugo Chavez. Need we say more?]

So back to the point of this post, The Great Depression and more specifically FDR’s “New Deal.” Numerous books have come out lately challenging the so-called Liberal or Progressive point of view (that goes something like this): Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies were responsible for ending the Great Depression and that the causes of the depression were over-production, under-consumption, and unequal distribution of wealth.

The Books that I have been reading are: New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America by Burton W. Folsom Jr., FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell, and The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes. Each book has basically the same take and none are perfect. They are at the least “skeptics” of FDR’s New Deal policies, and probably they are best described as fiscal Conservatives who downright loathed the big government shift of the 1930s.

My students will first read their textbook Out of Many: A History of the American People, which ignores most of the major issues the above authors point out with FDR’s policies.

The belief that unhindered capitalists brought the country down (thus leading to the Great Depression) due to greed (sound familiar?) is incorrect, according to the noted sources above. The major causes of the Great Depression, for example, as outlined by Mr. Folsom: 1) Negative consequences of WWI spending left the country with a national debt of $24 billion ( today its trillions) when it was before the war $1.3 billion. But most importantly, $10 billion was lent to European nations and most balked at repayments during the 1920s; 2) the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act that crippled American businesses and production; and 3) poor performance by the Federal Reserve, which was designed to stop precisely what happened, a banking collapse. The Fed raised interest rates sharply in 1928 and 1929 that made it harder for money to be borrowed and slowed the flow of money. Mr. Folsom contends that inflation in the 1920s was low, not high, and that the 1920s was a decade of overconsumption than underconsumption. FDR latched onto the “underconsumption” analysis and allowed it to drive a majority of his economic policies.

OK, lots of issues, but the bottom line is, like most major historical events, the Great Depression is complex. Mr. Folsom is for my practical purposes here and in the classroom no more correct or incorrect than those others who would disagree.

Questions to be addressed: Was the Great Depression prolonged by FDR’s policies? Did FDR “save” jobs and save the economy enough to keep it afloat? Many of Roosevelt’s policies failed or at least produced such meager long-term results that it is hard to point to them as successes. A couple of programs that Mr. Folsom viciously attacks are the New Deal’s National Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Both of which (and more) I will address in part II of this series on the Great Depression.

To be continued….

First, I had to remind my good friend about the nature of my insistence of American Exceptionalism. It is not what some think it is, I want to preserve some American Myths. Gasp!, MYTHS???

Yes, myths. Second, I needed to refer him to Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession. More specifically pages 3-5 of the Introduction. As Novick observes, “My use of the term [myth], in accordance with current practice, implies nothing about the truth or falsity of what is being discussed. Rather it is a device to illuminate the important functions which “historical objectivity” has served in sustaining the professional historical venture; and since myths are by definition sacred…”

Myths in this modern context have nothing to do with being false or true, but instead they are events that were unchallenged or sacred for a period of time. This is what Dr. Wood was speaking of. His statement is not a declaration for those who wish to pile on to the Anti-American pile; you know, the cultural relativistic folks. So myths indeed can be events that are not considered untrue.

I believe that every culture is POTENTIALLY “exceptional,” of course, but I simply do not believe many equal our own accomplishments, especially when considered within our limited existence.

I think it good that we question these “myths” so long as we do not dismiss them.

In a small region of North Carolina, a group of Indians and former slaves become bandits dedicated at first to steal from wealthy white plantation owners. The group was lead by Henry Berry Lowry, who became a legend and to this day is idealized as a kind of Robin Hood. According to the History Channel, Lowry was a freedom fighter who was inspired to wage war because of the brutal execution of his father and brother by KKK and Home Guard members out to intimidate innocent law abiding people. And though they were executed, it did not happen as dramatized by HC and nor were the actual circumstances even mentioned. In the scene depicted in the documentary, a group of Home Guard Southerns show up with rifles loaded, take aim at the helpless pair standing along a lonesome road, and fire away in a brutal scene of white racism and terror – which indeed happened time and again in the South during Reconstruction. However, this is not how this particular incident happened. Here is what really happened:

“On March 3, 1865, Allen Lowry and his son William were tried in a hastily organized sham court, declared guilty of theft, and executed in Robeson County. While William was almost certainly a member — and perhaps even the leader—of a gang that committed robberies, it is unlikely that the elderly Allen was involved in any raids. What is certain is that the two men’s deaths sparked North Carolina’s famous Lowry War, a seven-year period of raids, robberies, and murders.” [Jenny McElroy, "March 1865 — Executions Spark the Lowry War," This Month in North Carolina History, March 2008.]

The gang was indeed a kind of Robin Hood band, only they were not interested in helping the poor, freedom, or helping their neighbors. They were motivated by jealousy, and “the riches of their more affluent neighbors became too tempting for four of Allen Lowry’s sons…”

They were not freedom fighters, but as I understand it, gangsters who wanted to “Get Rich, or Die Try’n.” Kind of the 50 Cent of their time. They were, at their core, outlaws bent on revenge and plunder. However, the HC has decided to use their interesting and sensational story as a narrative device.

Tell us about history, show us dramatic recreations, just do it honestly. Just because the idea of the Lowry Gang being freedom fighters who steal from the evil racists Whites and give to the minority poor makes us feel better, does not mean it is a license to make fiction. There is plenty of examples of terror and terrorism by Whites, as properly shown in the HC’s handling of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee and Arkansas. Stick to the facts HC, and stop sensationalizing history, stop Hollywoodizing your productions. You might lose some viewers who want HISTORY!