Melancholy, Scot and Robin, The Who, President's Wall, Brave Ulysses

MELANCHOLY
This is the painting that hangs over my computer (my poor digital photograph does not do it justice). I enjoy staring at in it from time to time as I withdraw from the keyboard, sit back, and take a breath. There's something mesmerizing about Grant's countenance. Images of him are weighty, with a wisp of melancholy that is always felt, if not intended.

SCOT & ROBIN
This is a rare, one-of-a kind portrait. It was painted by a street artist in South Korea—commissioned by my good friend Scot Halpin and his wife Robin. Scot handed the man a small photograph of Grant, and returned a couple days later to pick up this stunning painting. Scot, who passed away about a year and a half ago, was an important person in my life, and his untimely death makes the Grant painting all the more cherished. Scot was not a Civil War buff, but he knew about my interest and surprised me with this gift. I have other reminders of Scot—including a few of his own paintings—but the Grant portrait speaks to me every day. Usually, it's very polite, but sometimes it's sarcastic.

I will dedicate another bit of writing to Scot, as this may not be the best venue, but suffice it to say he—more than anyone in my life other than Jerry, my eternal Berkeley Writers Club compatriot—and Robin—inspired me to never give up the dream that artist's dream from a young age, and which the world and life conspire to squelch every day in every way. He, more than anyone I have known before or since, lived the life, and walked the walk—making his way in this world as an artist, a musician, a free thinker. He, more than anyone, served to remind that creating art will always matter more than the reasons we all come up with to put it off, or let it go. What I've been putting off, among other things, is writing. But I've not let go, and am excited more about it now than ever.

Robin has begun an ambitious and fantastically beautiful project to post one of Scot's paintings, and a piece of his musical legacy, more or less every day for a year. See her tribute site here.

THE WHO
Robin's blog was highlighted at The Who's official web site, where the band expressed their condolences, and recounted the night in 1973 when then 19-year-old Scot Halpin was recruited from the crowd at the Cow Palace in San Francisco to finish the set for a passed-out Keith Moon. Scot was Rolling Stone's "Pick-Up Player of the Year." You can see video of Scot's great Who adventure on YouTube. TimesOnline published this obit. Scot's 15 minutes of fame.

PRESIDENTS' WALL
I'm not a collector of presidential portraits—or at least, I didn't set out to be—the Kennedy photo (left of Grant) was something I glommed onto when my parents died, and is inscribed to my father. The Lincoln photo (right of Grant) is a print of that beautiful glass negative fragment. The Production Director gave that to me after it was used on the cover of a Stanford University Press catalog. We had these images scattered around the house, and it was my wife's idea to collect them together on one wall. Now I love to scrutinize them in quiet moments (with my kids, that means the middle of the night)—they are inspirational figures all.

GRANT
I'm no Grant groupie, and it would never occur to me to take an ad out in the Civil War News to attack Grant detractors, but I'll say unabashedly that he is the Civil War-era figure that I have always gravitated toward in my reading, and that I never tire of studying. Some of my long-time Civil War correspondents will see this as validation of a certain bias, and it's true I believe he was the preeminent general in a war well-stocked with intriguing and successful officers.

He was a small, unassuming man (hmmm, just like me). A failed farmer, an officer who had given up on a military career. By 1854, having risen to the rank of captain, he resigned from the army—a dead end road—and went to work as a clerk in his father's leather shop. In other words, he was pretty ordinary.

When the war started, he struggled to get a commission, finally getting command of a regiment as colonel of the 21st Illinois in 1861. In relatively short order, he was commanding armies. By the end of 1863 he was promoted to Lieutenant General, the first to hold that rank since George Washington, and placed in charge of all United States forces. By 1868 he had completed the transition from anonymous small town store clerk to President of the United States (but he was not the shortest president—in your face, Madison!)

I'm inspired by Grant's calm demeanor, which sometimes showed cracks, to the point of weeping (hmm, just like me!), and his seemingly unambitious rise to the top. He was an enigma to many, a man who gave few hints of potential greatness, then achieved spectacular things. I love that he wore "the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general," rather than the full regalia to which he was entitled. To me, that captures a quintessential American spirit, one that disdains ostentatiousness, even in a regimented military culture. He was a brilliant warrior, and a kind and gracious victor. And he left us the best memoirs of any officer on either side of the Civil War.

I've looked at a lot of Grant photographs, and am confident that this is the one from which the South Korean artist created such a beautiful painting. It's nearly the only Grant image I can find where he seems to be looking directly at the camera. The buttons, the ear, the tufts of hair sticking out, the precise pattern of the white underneath the chin and on the collar, the just visible star on the top of the shoulder strap—all seem to be spot on.




Thanks anonymous South Korean painter.
Thanks Ulysses. And thank you, Scot.

A final comment about LSU Press's bacon being pulled out of the fire, at least momentarily. . .

I should have mentioned, given my own experience, that the "good news" about university press's surviving rounds of severe cost cutting is pretty bad news to the people who lost their jobs. LSU reportedly cut about ten positions from their staff. News stories of staff cuts at companies across the board are so commonplace now it hardly warrants mention (University of Missiouri Press? Half its staff. University of New Mexico Press? Employee revolt!).

On the bright side, visit Drew Wagenhoffer's Civil War Books and Authors blog to see mention of some of the intriguing new (Civil War-related) university press releases, and previews of other interesting titles coming down the pike. Our cherished scholarly press's are still doing what they do best, with the staff remaining.

The book I'm most excited about seeing is another in the University of Tennessee Press's incomparable "Voices of the Civil War Series," entitled In the Shadow of the Enemy: the Civil War Diary of Ida Powell Dulany, co-edited by my good friend Steve Meserve. I felt gratified to be able to contribute two maps to the project. All of the books in that series (series editor Pete Carmichael) are works of art in every way: editing, design, composition, manufacturing.

good news update to yesterday's post. . .LSU Press lives to publish

Apparently I got in on this story right at the tail end of the two-month period of uncertainty over the Press's fate. Prompted by bibliophile Drew Wagenhoffer, I collected some timely updates to the LSU Press saga. News items from last week, and this week report that the Press has survived, less $100,000 from the mother ship.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports the story here. Press Director Mary Katherine Callaway says they need to retool, but is optimistic. The Press will now be able to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year. Just to be safe, BYOB.

"I dust a bit," Ignatius told the policeman."

"In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip." — John Kennedy Toole
(A Confederacy of Dunces)

It's no secret that the world of publishing is undergoing a transformation in the digital age, and no market sector is unaffected. Times are especially tough for university presses, who often rely on subsidies from cash-strapped universities to continue their noble work. I learned about these pressures firsthand, five years ago, when my position was eliminated at Stanford University Press after a nine-year run. Years earlier, the press itself barely survived the chopping block. In the late 90s, when then-Provost Condoleeza Rice backed a plan to let SUP be absorbed by Oxford Press, only the staunch resistance of certain faculty saved the day.

Some presses faded away during that period, and quite a few more are unlikely to weather the current storm. I'm saddened to see that LSU Press, one of the most prolific publishers of Civil War titles, has reached a budgetary crisis that could conceivably spell the end of the company. In its storied history, LSU Press has won more Pulitzers than any other academic publisher (four), and remains the only university press to win Pulitzer Prizes in the categories of fiction and poetry. The publication of A Confederacy of Dunces, a brilliant and deeply American novel, is one of the great success stories in all of publishing (here's a shout out to brother Woody, who gave me a copy of this book right after I got out of college and landed in San Francisco).

To the staff at a typical university press, it seems irreconcilable that an institution spending large fortunes on athletics can't find the relatively minuscule funding needed to keep a small press operating. But things are never quite so simple. Big-time athletic programs ordinarily generate revenue for the school, but academic presses rarely do.

Ted Genoways, editor of the the Virginia Quarterly Review, wondered whether LSU wants "to be known as someplace that supports the history and culture of your region or some place that has fantastic outside linebackers?" But LSU's chancellor, Michael Martin, offers the compelling rejoinder that "in some respects, the press has been saved by the outside linebackers -- up to this point."

I am a big fan of university presses. I love the notion of disseminating knowledge just for the sake of it. I love the fact that history manuscripts are, usually, carefully vetted. I appreciated that some university presses continued to produce books meant to last, as if they were sacred objects, resisting some of the production short-cuts (e.g., cardboard for cloth) that would enhance the bottom line. I love the idealistic perspective that, sometimes, the importance of a particular book might carry more weight than it's projected profitability, when deciding whether to publish.

Of course, that's no way to run a business -- even university presses need customers. When once, one good-selling title could float the boat for a handful of obscure monographs, the pressures of a weak market have made that an unaffordable luxury. As for the production values that created "sacred objects" -- they have necessarily been going out the window, or are being compromised through belt-tightening. Print-on-demand technology is an irresistible solution to small presses looking to keep a long list of slow selling books in print. The only thing certain is that the old models of production and distribution no longer work, and the very mission of the university press needs to be re-thought.

I would hope the prestige alone of a press like that at LSU would spare it from oblivion, but in an era when everything from General Motors to California is bankrupt, any money-losing concern is a candidate for closure. Here's hoping LSU emerges from the crisis, and maybe leads the way for others following close behind. Read more about the bleak future of university presses in this Philadelphia Inquirer article (speaking of industries with bleak futures).

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
-- Jonathan Swift

Kenneth M. Stampp, R.I.P.

another giant in the field passes

Celebrated Historian Altered Understanding of Slavery

By Adam Bernstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Kenneth M. Stampp, 96, a historian who helped transform the

study of slavery in the United States by exposing plantation owners as practical businessmen, not romantics defending a noble heritage, died of heart ailments July 10 at a hospital in Oakland, Calif. He had vascular dementia.

His death was confirmed by the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught from 1946 until retiring in 1983.

The full WaPo obit can be read here.

introducing Woodbury Historical Tours

Lee's Retreat, and the Surrender at Appomattox
August 7 and 8,
with Ron Wilson and Patrick Schroeder
2 days of tours, includes lunch, and Saturday dinner with speaker $250 : 20 seat limit : HQ: Farmville, VA
See more info and itinerary HERE:

Unseen Appomattox
August 22, with Patrick Schroeder
includes lunch $125 : 20 seat limit :
HQ Appomattox, VA
See more info and itinerary HERE:

[photo above: former and current Appomattox National Historic Park chief historians Ron Wilson, left, and Patrick Schroeder]

Hoodistas go off the deep end

I noticed in the last issue of Civil War News that a group of John Bell Hood worshipers, the John Bell Hood Historical Society, actually took an ad out to denounce historian and author Wiley Sword. Why? The reason given in the attack ad is because Sword called Hood's memoirs inaccurate and unreliable.

Hmmm. As the kids say, "duh!" Where have these people been? One of the first things any earnest student of the war discovers is that Hood's autobiography is a self-serving, wildly distorted rewriting of history meant to exonerate himself at the expense of others, mainly at the expense of General Joe Johnston. It is one of those primary sources so compromised by inaccuracy, misrepresentation, and tortured rationalizations, that competent historians would never consider citing it to substantiate any assertion that wasn't already thoroughly corroborated elsewhere.

To the members of the John Bell Hood Historical Society, those aren't just fighting words, they are part of an "unholy Jihad." To wit, quoting from the web site devoted to attacking Mr. Sword, "As Sword did in his acclaimed 1991 book, Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy’s Last Hurrah, in his latest effort he engages in an unholy Jihad against Gen. Hood, filtering from historical records any and all documented evidence that does not support his biased, agenda-based premise."

I'm no expert on radical Islam, but wouldn't an "unholy jihad" translate to an "unholy holy war"? Is it fair for me to refer to the members of a "historical society" as "worshippers"? Yes, when they respond to perceived criticism of their hero with words like "desecration" and "unholy."

But there are any number of things the Hoodites object to in at the two Sword titles mentioned above. They don't like Sword's comment that Hood was ambitious. Aren't all officers ambitious, they ask disingenuously, seemingly oblivious to Hood's shameless power grab before Atlanta, seeking to discredit Johnston and to get Hardee passed over for promotion.

Likewise, they take Sword to task for such egregious assertions as, “. . .young Hood struggled with the academic curriculum [at West Point], winding up forty-fourth in his class of fifty-two upon graduation in 1853.” Now what, you may ask, is the objection? The Hoodites think it unfair of Sword not to have mentioned that Hood's class originally had 93 cadets, and that 41 of them dropped out. Some representative of the historical society writes, "It would be more fair and accurate to view Hood as ranked 44th out of 93 original cadets in his class." Nevermind that the 41 drop-outs are not part of Hood's graduating class. They don't rank non-graduating cadets. What would be the point of that? How ridiculous that the Hoodites feel they must add 41 to the rolls in order to mitigate Hood's pedestrian academic record.

The "Sword Exposed" website is a long exercise in nit-picking, rationalization, and selective highlighting of comments from contemporaries that compliment Hood. For example, the site challenges Sword's assertion that Hood's "decision to sacrifice the lives of so many in an unlikely military gambit was condemned as ‘murder’ by some of his men.” To counter that, the site admits that some men did feel that way, and then quotes Sam Watkins from Co Aytch: ". . .We all loved Hood, he was such a clever fellow, and a good man. . . Poor fellow, I loved him, not as a general, but as a good man. . ." So where's the contradiction? If anything, Watkins is validating the notion that the men did not consider Hood a great general.

It's one thing to take issue with a historian's work. By all means, put up a web page and point out your problems with it. There's nothing wrong with hard-hitting book reviews, as long as they are honest, substantiated critiques, but acting as apologist destroys credibility. For a self-described historical society to take out an ad in response to "desecration"—disagreements with an author—is just embarrassing. Sort of in the same way that Hood's book, Advance and Retreat, is an embarrassing entry in the realm of Civil War memoirs. At least Hood's book generated proceeds which helped care for his 11 orphans, and that is a positive good. Conversely, what's the value of a historical society that engages in character assassination against Civil War historians?

A brief follow-up to the query posted here last Saturday

-- whether our 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant, visited California suffragette Sarah Wallis's (Mayfield, now Palo Alto) farm in 1877: Mary Lyon, author of this article on Sarah Wallis for "California Historian," pointed me to several of her sources, including Unsettling the West: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby in Frontier California (Santa Clara University, 2004), page 314.

Next, we'll see what Dorothy Regnery's article in The Californian offers by way of substantiation. Separately, I'll query Grant authority Brooks Simpson on the chance that he can resolve the question in one fell swoop.

"worry-ye-not, fans of ponchos, big hats and spitting, 2009 just might be your year"

At last, a FPS game featuring Confederate deserters who head off to defend their home in Georgia and end up being chased through the greatest cliches of the Wild West. With Gatlin guns to boot.

How to summarize? This review captures the essential script: "Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood tells the story of how Ray McCall -- the bible-wielding, gun-toting psychopathic Reverend from the first game- goes from Confederate soldier to man of the cloth by way of outlaw. Beginning in the fire and brimstone of the American Civil War trenches, Ray and his younger brother Thomas desert the Southern army in order to return home and protect their family. This leaves their psychotic commander, Barnsby, desperate for blood, pursuing Thomas and Ray -- along with youngest brother, Priest William -- across the country."

It's not your father's video game. That would probably be Pong. Read all about it here.

Did President Grant really visit Palo Alto in 1877?

or is it similar to claims that "Washington slept here"?

I went for a walk in the neighborhood the other night, specifically to get a picture of a historical marker about 1/4 mile from my apartment. In 12 years here, oddly enough, I never got around to visiting this marker until this week—odd, because I am a little bit obsessive about seeing every marker I pass by, or am in proximity to. In fact, I thought it was on another block of La Selva, probably hidden from easy view, and never took the time to investigate further.

California Registered Historical Landmark marker number 969 reads:

Sarah Armstrong Wallis (1825–1905) was a pioneer in the campaign for women’s voting rights. In 1870 she was elected president of California’s first statewide suffrage organization which in 1873 incorporated as the California State Woman Suffrage Education Association. The home she built on this site, Mayfield Farm, was a center of suffrage activities attracting state and national leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ulysses S. Grant

Some articles, like this one in "California Historian," state that Wallis "entertained President U.S. Grant there in 1877." Grant would have left office in March of 1877 (inauguration in those days did not occur until around March 20), so I assumed a visit would have occurred in the early months of the year. It did not dawn on me right away that, of course, even after he left office people would still refer to him as "President" Grant. There is also the fact that Grant left for a European tour soon after leaving office, which narrows the window for a West Coast visit still more.

I spent a good deal of time last night searching digital archives of early California papers, in particular the Daily Alta California, and the Daily Call, which, it seems, almost certainly would have recorded a visit by Grant to the Bay Area in 1877 (given the amount of reporting on Grant in general). I also searched my limited personal library of Grant-related material for any mention of a Mayfield visit. My cursory searches yielded nothing.


By chance, yesterday I commented on Kevin Levin's blog entry about his reading of a new work on Grant, Joan Waugh's, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth. Specifically, I asked Kevin if Waugh's work spends "any time on women’s support for Grant in 1872 (Susan B. Anthony was arrested after voting for him him that year)? I’m looking for references to President Grant’s visit to the West Coast at the tail end of his 2nd term, when he apparently met with California suffragette Sarah Wallis."

Intriguingly, this prompted a response from one Bob Pollock, a ranger at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site: "David, Your question has sparked interest among the park rangers here at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. We are not aware of a trip by Grant to California in 1877 and it seems unlikely. He left office in March, and boarded a steamship at Philadelphia in May to go on his around the world trip. It seems more likely that if he met Sarah Wallis it would have been in 1879 when he and Julia conclude their travels by arriving in San Francisco. We are going to look into this some more."

I'll address that here in the hopes that Bob will weigh in and help shed more light on the matter. My neighborhood historical marker just got a lot more interesting on this steamy June Saturday.

Bob, my source for it is simply the marker itself (and one article), though I will now email the long-time historian for the neighborhood association in the hopes of uncovering something substantive. One encounters passing reference to Grant's visit in any number of articles, but I suspect they're all relying on the same source—probably the marker, or a database of marker text. One contributor from the Palo Alto Historical Association avoided reference to Grant in his essay on Sarah Wallis. The aforementioned "California Historian" article specified the 1877 visit. Maybe that was just a typo.

I hope we can establish Grant's visit to Sarah Wallis, a spectacular historic figure in her own right (more on her in a subsequent blog entry). The mansion Wallis built burned to the ground in 1936, and the area is now the quiet residential area of Barron Park. Few old growth redwoods remain, but a few of those magnificent trees in the neighborhood appear to be old enough to have witnessed a visit by the old general.

(image at top is entitled "Res of Mrs. Sarah Wallis, Mayfield, Santa Clara, Co., Cal., from the David Rumsey Map Collection. Mayfield is part of what makes up Palo Alto).

Just for fun, visit this 2006 blog entry on a California tree named for General Grant (along with the Lincoln and Sherman trees).

Dead on June 25th

NEWSPAPERS RACE TO REPORT THE SHOCKING STORY

Before Wolf Blitzer was interviewing holograms, before news apps for the iPhone, before Twitter, there were just newspapers.

George Custer, "the boy general" of the Civil War, was 36-years-old when he overreached on June 25, 1876, on the eve of the nation's centennial celebrations. Two newspapers broke the story, the Bismark (Dakota Territory) Tribune, and the Helena (Montana Territory) Herald.

Marcus Kellogg, a correspondent with the Tribune, was "embedded" with the Seventh Cavalry, and killed along with Custer's men. The last dispatch he sent, dated June 21, included this update, "We leave the Rosebud tomorrow. . .and by the time this reaches you we will have met and fought the red devils, with what result remains to be seen."

The famous headline in the special edition of the Tribune on July 6 reported: "Massacred: Gen. Custer and 261 Men the Victims." According to the paper, "The body of Kellogg alone remained unstripped of its clothing, and was not mutilated" (other sources describe his corpse as scalped, and missing an ear). This 2,500-word account, incorporating Kellogg's notes, was the first fully-detailed reportage.

Consider that. Ten days passed before the premier newspapers in the East were reporting the story. By contrast, events during the Civil War, from far-flung battlefields, could be telegraphed nearly instantly. The first trans-continental telegram was sent from Sacramento to Washington in 1861, 15 years before Custer's last stand. But reporting from Montana was another "story" altogether. It was a journalistic black hole.

[at left: intrepid reporter and casualty of war, Marcus Kellogg]

Five days after the battle, the steamboat Far West, loaded up with wounded, Kellogg's notes, and Myles Keogh's horse "Commanche" -- sole survivor from Custer's contingent -- began the 700-mile river journey to Fort Lincoln at Bismark, North Dakota. The Far West arrived with news of the battle on July 5th, and Tribune editor Clement Lounsberry went to work on the story. According to the State Historical Society of North Dakota, "there was only a single telegraph line between Bismark and St. Paul at that time, and the only way to keep the line open was to keep transmitting. So, whenever Lounsberry fell behind, he had the telegraph operator transmit lines of scripture from his pocket Bible. It reportedly took Lounsberry and the operators 24 hours to finish, and the total bill for the transmission came to more than $3,000. The following day, the New York Herald ran a 14-column story about Custer's demise."

"Seven Civil War Stories You Didn't Learn in High School"

Seeing the headline of this Wall Street Journal article piqued my interest. I was hoping to find some new tidbit, some edgy new interpretation, or at least some really intriguing twists on commonly-known stories. Instead, the Seven Civil War Stories presented in the Journal are rather pedestrian. Go to the article itself to see a couple paragraphs of detail on each of these entries, but here's the actual list:

1. Lincoln's First Solution to Slavery Was a Fiasco
2. Hungry Ladies Effectively Mugged Jefferson Davis
3. The Union Used Hot Air Balloons and Submarines
4. "Dixie" Was Only a Northern Song
5. Paul Revere Was at Gettysburg
6. Mark Twain Fired One Shot And Left
7. The Armies Weren't All-Male

I went to high school in Iowa, and I have to confess, I can't recall studying the Civil War at all. I'm sure we must have somewhere along the line, but most of what I learned about that era came from my own reading of books lying around the house. Specifically, some American Heritage volume or another, various Bruce Catton books, and probably something by Henry Steele Commager. I’m virtually certain, however, that we read Mark Twain’s, “A Private History of a Campaign that Failed” in the classroom [a few years ago I posted a blog entry on that brilliant piece here, with a link to one online version of the story].

High school history covers a lot of ground in short order, but trivia has it's place. If my teachers had employed a few more attention-grabbers, I might actually have some memory of those classes. These days, anyone who reads a good single-volume history like McPherson’s, Battle Cry of Freedom, will come across pretty much everything on the list above: ill-fated colonization efforts, the bread riots, Lowe’s balloons and early submarines, the roots of Dixie, or that some females passed themselves off as males and melded into the ranks. These aren’t secrets, just things that require more reading.

I’d wager that most of the people reading this blog could come up with a more interesting list of Seven Stories about the Civil War off the top of their heads. WSJ, how about these stories:

1. The fledgling Confederacy engaged in a number of overtly hostile acts of war against the United States (seizing shipyards, arsenals, and installations, along with some U.S. soldiers) long before Lincoln sent ships to re-supply the garrison at Fort Sumter, leading to the "first shot" of the Civil War.

2. The extent of the damage and depredations wrought by Sherman’s bummers on the March to the Sea was greatly exaggerated in post-war tradition. During the same period, Confederate authorities in Richmond received angry complaints from citizens of Georgia over depredations by Confederate cavalry operating in the same areas.

3. On the day after Christmas, 1862, U.S. authorities engaged in the largest mass-execution in the nation’s history when 38 Sioux Indians were hanged (this after President Lincoln commuted the sentences of over 250 others). Texans may hold the record, however. In October of that year, 40 suspected Unionists were hanged, and two were shot. See blog entry on an ugly 10-week stretch of 1862 here.

4. The Confederate Constitution was nearly a verbatim copy of the U.S. Constitution, though it restricted the president to a single, six-year term, and gave him a line item veto. The C.S. Constitution also prohibited states from interfering with slavery even within their own sovereign borders. Curiously, abolition was an exception to state rights.

5. When in 1866, momentum was gathering in Washington to indict former Confederate General George Pickett for war crimes (the mass execution of deserters in North Carolina who had joined Union ranks), Pickett appealed to Ulysses S. Grant. Grant personally interceded with President Johnson on Pickett’s behalf, forestalling any charges or an arrest.

6. For the Five Civilized Tribes in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) – the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole – divided loyalties led to a war-within-a-war pitting mainly mixed-blood, slave-owning factions against mainly full-blooded tribal members, devastating the nations for generations.

7. The deadliest maritime disaster in American history remains largely unknown and obscure. Something over 1,700 recently-released Union prisoners of war, en route to their homes on the steamship Sultana, died in the fiery explosion of that ship’s stressed boilers, or drowned in the Mississippi near Memphis, Tennessee in the middle of the night.

What Seven Stories come to mind for you?

Putting one's money where one's mouth is. . .

Ed Bearss, left, and Brian Pohanka (photo by Rudy Perini)

On this day, four years ago, we lost one of the best and most devoted historians of the American Civil War, Brian Pohanka (seen at right, above, with legendary Civil War historian and guide, Edwin C. Bearss). Brian was merely 50-years-old, and at the height of his powers, with myriad projects in the works and untold numbers of them yet to begin. His storied career is recounted in this Washington Post obituary. For all of Brian's work on Civil War subjects, I was most fascinated and excited by his research, and his comprehensive grasp of events along the Greasy Grass in 1876. I love the book, Where Custer Fell, and selfishly regret that I never got to visit the Little Bighorn in company with Brian. Several people and I—good friends of Brian's like Paula Gidjunis and Keith Young—had spoken of hiring Brian for a private trip to Montana.

I was fortunate to get to know Brian first through his writing for Civil War Regiments quarterly, when we published one of his pieces on the 5th New York, and later through his participation in the Civil War Forum, when he attended some of our annual get-togethers. The photo at top was the 4th CWF gathering, 2000, with Ed and Brian on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg (photo by Rudy Perini). Brian was also a mover and a shaker in the area of battlefield preservation. A 2006 press release from the Civil War Preservation Trust—the preeminent preservation organization for Civil War sites (see the previous blog entry discussing CWPT's new website)—details Pohanka's all-but-anonymous, and stunning generosity:

From the very beginnings of the Civil War battlefield preservation movement, Brian Pohanka led the charge. He not only gave of his time and talents, but frequently and generously reached into his wallet as well. We at Civil War Preservation Trust are proud to carry on the work he began nearly two decades ago.’
Pohanka’s generosity to battlefield preservation was unequalled. In addition to the $1 million bequest, he and his wife Cricket quietly donated an equal amount to CWPT in 2004. Over the years, Pohanka gave generously to both CWPT and countless other local battlefield preservation groups—in his will, he also set aside money for the Central Virginia Battlegrounds Trust ($500,000), the Richmond Battlefields Association ($500,000), and the Save Historic Antietam Foundation ($200,000).

Map Lovers Rejoice

The newly revamped website for The Civil War Preservation Trust has a beautiful, all-in-one map page, featuring their outstanding topo maps, numerous historic maps, and some really spectacular animated maps that allow you to toggle between modern aerial and topo maps (the animated Chantilly map offers a 1937 aerial view as well). Additionally, there are links to some of the best sites to find Civil War maps online, like the Virginia Historical Society.

Be sure to have a look at the animated Cedar Creek and Belle Grove map. If you thought the damage done by the Middletown Quarry had been mitigated by earlier agreements, think again. The proposed expansion of operations there (given the green light by local government) will increase the loss of prime battlefield land exponentially.

Way down in Mississippi / where the pine trees grow / deep in Jones County / where the leaf river flows

In May of 2008 I posted the transcript of a Q&A I conducted with Victoria Bynum, regarding her fascinating book, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2001). The exchange took place on-line, in the Civil War Forum, October 25, 2001.

It's an amazing story, and well told. Recently, I was pleased to learn from Kevin Levin at Civil War Memory that Professor Bynum has a blog dedicated to the subject— or more accurately, to "southern dissenters of the nineteenth century," to include the Knights of Jones County, and other renegades. What a perfect venue for bringing out more information and tantalizing tidbits. Kevin also made mention of a new book on the subject, by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer, which had escaped my notice until now.

Check out Bynum's blog, but be sure to also visit the affiliated website, www.renegadesouth.com, if only to hear Doctor G sing "Jones County Jubilee." That will put you in the mood for some reading on Newt (pictured above) & Rachel Knight.

Dr. Bynum is also the author of Unruly Women: the Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (UNC Press, 1992), and Southern Communities at War.

The Making of the Revised Edition of Gettysburg: A Battlefield Guide

Civil War blogging doesn't get any better than the recent serial entries by Mark Grimsley (at Civil Warriors) on the intriguing process of updating his (and Brooks Simpson's) Gettysburg battlefield guide. See part 1 of "Letting the Ground Argue" here. Part two here. It's a real treat to read a working historian's musings from the field. The exercise imbues an inherently casual medium with a unique and powerful value. Bison Books should consider publishing links to these the making of entries.

David Herbert Donald, 1920–2009

"Professor Donald taught that truth comes before showmanship. Without theorizing or bloviating, and simply by example, he taught that a meticulous commitment to accuracy is the historian's primary obligation."
— Gil Troy (full essay)
— NYT obituary

On this day, 144 years ago. . .

I swam about four miles and came to an island covered with timber. I climbed a tree, and the water surrounding it was about ten feet deep. Now, when I hear persons talking about being hard up, I think of my condition at that time—up in a tree in the middle of the Mississippi River, a thousand miles from home, not one cent to my name, nor a pocket to put it in...

—A. C. Brown, 2nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, describing how he survived the Sultana disaster

The Walk to the Sea

In honor of John Muir's birthday today, I am reaching back three years into the archives to pull out one of my favorite, early posts in this blog. In 1867, Muir took a 1,000-mile walk to the Gulf, through the heart of the former Confederacy, and here are some passages from his notes of that trip, which were eventually published.



I was slow to come to appreciate the magnitude of John Muir's contribution to conservation, his role in the early establishment of the national park system, his stature as naturalist par excellence. Until I moved to San Francisco in my early 20s, Muir had not even been on my radar. Later, as I came to be captivated by the history and geography of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Muir became such a towering figure, he was unavoidable. Reading of his adventures as a mountain man — tales of solitary sojourns in the high country expressing unabashed, poetic reverence for sacred wilderness — always makes me itch to break out the tent, gather the Coleman products, and head for the woods.

I was also slow to get around to Muir's early writings. Imagine my delight, then, when I finally came across the unpolished notes of his 1867 walk across the South, from Louisville, Kentucky to Savannah, Georgia, and on into Florida — A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916). Muir embarked on his journey to look at the plants — "grass, weeds, flowers, trees, mosses, ferns," and he comments on them passionately, and at length. But he also gives a sense of the ravaged, post-war South. Muir speaks to many freedmen along the way, enjoys the hospitality of residents in the heart of the old Confederacy, and encounters highwaymen in a largely lawless landscape where every person met on the road is a potential threat.

Happily, the entire book can be read at the Sierra Club site, here (follow links to "Books by John Muir"). I've excerpted a number of interesting passages that present observations of the Civil War South, two and a half years after the end of hostilities.

September 6. Started at the earliest bird song in hopes of seeing the great Mammoth Cave before evening. Overtook an old negro driving an ox team. Rode with him a few miles and had some interesting chat concerning war, wild fruits of the woods, et cetera. "Right heah," said he, "is where the Rebs was a-tearin' up the track, and they all a sudden thought they seed the Yankees a-comin', obah dem big hills dar, and Lo'd, how dey run." I asked him if he would like a renewal of these sad war times, when his flexible face suddenly calmed, and he said with intense earnestness, "Oh, Lo'd, want no mo wa, Lo'd no." Many of these Kentucky negroes are shrewd and intelligent, and when warmed upon a subject that interests them, are eloquent in no mean degree.

September 7. Left the hospitable Kentuckians with their sincere good wishes and bore away southward again through the deep green woods. In noble forests all day. Saw mistletoe for the first time. Part of the day I traveled with a Kentuckian from near Burkesville. He spoke to all the negroes he met with familiar kindly greetings, addressing them always as "Uncles" and "Aunts." All travelers one meets on these roads, white and black, male and female, travel on horseback. Glasgow is one of the few Southern towns that shows ordinary American life. At night with a well-to-do farmer.

As I turned to leave, after bidding her good-bye, she, evidently pitying me for my tired looks, called me back and asked me if I would like a drink of milk. This I gladly accepted, thinking that perhaps I might not be successful in getting any other nourishment for a day or two. Then I inquired whether there were any more houses on the road, nearer than North Carolina, forty or fifty miles away. "Yes," she said, "it's only two miles to the next house, but beyond that there are no houses that I know of except empty ones whose owners have been killed or driven away during the war."

Met a young African with whom I had a long talk. was amused with his eloquent narrative of coon hunting, alligators, and many superstitions. He showed me a place where a railroad train had run off the track, and assured me that the ghosts of the killed may be seen every dark night.

Had a long walk after sundown. At last was received at the house of Dr. Perkins. Saw Cape Jasmine [ Gardenia florida ] in the garden. Heard long recitals of war happenings, discussion of the slave question, and Northern politics; a thoroughly characteristic Southern family, refined in manners and kind, but immovably prejudiced on everything connected with slavery.

The family table was unlike any I ever saw before. It was circular, and the central part of it revolved. When any one wished to be helped, he placed his plate on the revolving part, which was whirled around to the host, and then whirled back with its new load. Thus every plate was revolved into place, without the assistance of any of the family.

Toward evening I arrived at the home of Mr. Cameron, a wealthy planter, who had large bands of slaves at work in his cotton fields. They still call him "Massa." He tells me that labor costs him less now than it did before the emancipation of the negroes. When I arrived I found him busily engaged in scouring the rust off some cotton-gin saws which had been lying for months at the bottom of his mill-pond to prevent Sherman's "bummers" from destroying them. The most valuable parts of the grist-mill and cotton-press were hidden in the same way. "If Bill Sherman," he said, "should come down now without his army, he would never go back."

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Instead of the sympathy, the friendly union, of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the arch-enemy of life, etc. Town children, especially, are steeped in this death orthodoxy, for the natural beauties of death are seldom seen or taught in towns.

Of the people of the States that I have now passed, I best like the Georgians. They have charming manners, and their dwellings are mostly larger and better than those of adjacent States. However costly or ornamental their homes or their manners, they do not, like those of the New Englander, appear as the fruits of intense and painful sacrifice and training, but are entirely divested of artificial weights and measures, and seem to pervade and twine about their characters as spontaneous growths with the durability and charm of living nature. In particular, Georgians, even the commonest, have a most charmingly cordial way of saying to strangers, as they proceed on their journey, "I wish you well, sir." The negroes of Georgia, too, are extremely mannerly and polite, and appear always to be delighted to find opportunity for obliging anybody.

The traces of war are not only apparent on the broken fields, burnt fences, mills, and woods ruthlessly slaughtered, but also on the countenances of the people. A few years after a forest has been burned another generation of bright and happy trees arises, in purest, freshest vigor; only the old trees, wholly or half dead, bear marks of the calamity. So with the people of this war-field. Happy, unscarred, and unclouded youth is growing up around the aged, half-consumed, and fallen parents, who bear in sad measure the ineffaceable marks of the farthest-reaching and most infernal of all civilized calamities.

Groom adds voice on famous siege

[from an article today at Salon.com]

By WALTER PUTNAM Associated Press Writer

Apr 10th, 2009 "Vicksburg 1863" (Alfred A. Knopf, 496 pages, $30), by Winston Groom: Many books have examined the Union siege of Vicksburg, Miss., over the years, but that's no reason Winston Groom should not lend his unique voice to the subject -- one of the most critical campaigns of the Civil War.

The Alabama author best known for his novel "Forrest Gump," brought to life by Tom Hanks in the 1994 movie, has considerable experience and expertise in both fiction and nonfiction.

With "Vicksburg 1863," Groom brings the novelist's touch to history, personalizing characters such as Union Gens. Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, as well as Jefferson Davis and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston of the Confederacy, in an easily relatable way for the average reader.

=======================

You can read the full article here. Historical fiction set in the American Civil War has long been an interest of mine -- if only more of it were readable or interesting. For every Cold Mountain or Killer Angels, there are twenty Gods and Generals'.

I was struck by Mr. Bloom's McMurry-esque comments on the relative importance of Gettysburg versus Vicksburg in the fortunes of the war. He goes so far as to say the war was over when Vicksburg fell.

The author noted that Vicksburg fell into Grant's hands the same day that the North prevailed in the battle of Gettysburg, ending Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's lone invasion of Union territory. He said Gettysburg, though, pales in comparison to Vicksburg.
"In Vicksburg, not only did you lose your whole Army, you also lost the entire Mississippi River valley and half of your territory," Groom said.

"The South was almost mad to continue the war after that," he said, adding that President Abraham Lincoln would have provided much more favorable terms had the Confederates ended it then rather then almost two years later.

a number of us set out last Sunday morning, on a spectacular Shenandoah Valley day

[above: historic Pritchard House on the Kernstown Battlefield]

With Scott Patchan's Cedar Creek issue of Blue & Gray in hand, a number of us set out last Sunday morning, on a spectacular Shenandoah Valley day, to visit the parking lots, ditches, and medians where interpretation of that battle is most easily conveyed. Best of all, however, was the stop at Belle Grove, where rolling pastures and lines of sight made it somewhat easier to envision the events of 1864, the quarry notwithstanding. Our guide eschewed a visit to the visitor center as part of one of the preservation world's ongoing feuds. All in all, it was another memorable gathering for the intrepid members of The Civil War Forum. All of this week, we've been voting on next year's (Western) venue, and early returns point to New Orleans. Here are a few photos from last week (click to enlarge):













Above, site of John Brown's scaffold, Charles Town, West Virginia; below, Kennedy Farm where Brown plotted, near Harpers Ferry













left: Steve Meserve,
inveterate tour guide,
historian par excellence,
misguided football fan







Scott Patchan, and Steve

















Above: The Pritchard House