Civil War Memory

Referencing Civil War Memory and a Very Special Speaking Engagement

About a year ago I did a phone interview with Julie Holcomb who is a lecturer at Baylor University and former director of the Pearce Collections at Navarro College in Texas.  Julie was in the process of writing an essay on the challenges of creating public exhibits and museum displays concerning the Civil War.  Julie focused specifically on how our competing interpretations of the Civil War continue to shape the content and interpretation of various exhibitions.  We talked for about an hour and I wished her all the best in her research. 

A few days ago one of my readers notified me that Julie's essay appeared in a recently-published book by Charles Grear, titled, The Fate of Texas: The Civil War and the Lone Star State (University of Arkansas Press, 2008).   It arrived yesterday and I finally had a chance to read Julie's essay.  I was pleased to see that Civil War Memory was cited extensively throughout the chapter and alongside notable historians of memory and public history such as David Blight, Edward Linenthal, John Coski, and Dwight Pitcaithley.  It's nice to see that blogs are being taken seriously by scholars.   There has been a continuous stream of controversies surrounding museum displays and other exhibits over the past few years and blogging provides an ideal format with which to address these issues and in a way which reaches competing interest groups among the general public.  Thanks Julie.

Today I enthusiastically accepted an invitation from the National Park Service to be the keynote speaker at this years Annual Battle of Fredericksburg Ceremony on December 14 at 2pm.  The ceremony includes the laying of wreaths by the UDC and SUV.  I am going to talk about what we as a community can learn from these battlefields and how battlefields such as Fredericksburg fit into my own teaching about the Civil War and memory.

Racist Abolitionists?

One of the things that I work hard on in all my classes, but especially in my Civil War course, is to show that history is far more complex than the version taught at an early age.  I want my students to struggle with some of the distinctions and categories that they bring to the classroom.   My two Civil War sections are working on finishing up essays which examine the movie Glory and an article on the 54th by historian, Donald Yacovone.  Our discussion about the article was quite productive, but some of my students had a great deal of difficulty accepting the fact that the Lincoln administration refused to address the repeated calls for equal pay until the summer of 1864.   By then the 54th Massachusetts - as well as other units - had engaged in acts of mutiny, which led to the execution of at least two soldiers.  Especially difficult for my students was the reaction from within the black units from white officers who were known as staunch abolitionists.  One in particular was Colonel James Montgomery of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers and one-time brigade commander of the 54th.  Consider the following paragraph from the article:

"You ought to be glad to pay for the privilege to fight, instead of squabbling about money," Montgomery exclaimed.  He warned that the soldiers "refusal to accept what the government offered amounted to mutiny, "and mutiny is punishable with death."  Ignoring the regiment's enviable reputation, Montgomery declared that the Fifty-fourth still had not proved that blacks could fight as well as whites.  He confessed that black soldiers' "inherent" disadvantages left them with much to overcome.  with words that enraged all who heard them, Montgomery declared, "You are a race of slaves.  A few years ago your fathers worshipped snakes and crocodiles in Africa."  The men of the Fifty-fourth listened to Montgomery berate their very appearance: "Your features partake of a beastly character.... Your features can be improved.  Your beauty cannot recommend you.  Your yellow faces are evidences of rasaclity.  You should get rid of this bad blood," he recommended.  "My advice to you is the lightest of you must marry the blackest women."

Part of the problem for my students is the difficulty in acknowledging the important distinction between race and slavery.  We see this all the time when it comes to Lincoln where evidence of his racial outlook is taken as evidence of his position on the morality of slavery.   Failure to acknowledge the distinction leads to all kinds of absurd conclusions surrounding Lincoln's motivation and handling of slavery during the Civil War.  Republicans argued against slavery in a number of ways, but their position on the issue did not necessarily have anything to do with race or, more specifically, a belief in racial equality.  In fact, many Republicans harbored deep-seated racial prejudices that surfaced at different times throughout the war. 

Abolitionists, however, present us with a more difficult challenge since these are the people that we have been taught to believe transcended nineteenth-century racism.  We emphasize William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others, but in focusing narrowly we fail to acknowledge the wide spectrum of belief regarding race.  There are a number of ways to approach the complexity of the issue from analyzing place of origin, economic and social identification as well as religious affiliation.  All of this, however, takes time and usually only leads to more questions and a muddier picture of the past.

These are crucial teaching moments.  Much of our time as history teachers is spent trying to fill in a picture of the past that is meaningful and sufficiently complex.  At the same time it is our job to identify and embrace by example those moments where answers are not forthcoming.  I don't think we do enough of this in the classroom.  As authority figures we are expected to have answers.  Most of my students know when I do not have an answer for them.  In response to a question I usually just stare blindly back at the student for a few awkward moments after which I take a moment to write the question down on my legal pad. 

The lesson for the day: Questions and confusion matter as much, if not more, than answers.

The Politically Incorrect [or just the Incorrect] Guide to the Civil War

The good people at Regnery Publishing offered to send me a complimentary copy of the latest in their series of politically incorrect guides, which I kindly accepted.  I figured I would at least get a few laughs out of it, but as I made my way through it I couldn't help but think that this is nothing but a huge waste of paper. The book is essentially for people who are already convinced that there is a conspiracy against Confederate culture and that intellectuals in the academy are against all things Southern.  In that sense this book is a 350 page security blanket, kind of like a trusted friend that you can always count on to help bail you out of those tight situations when ideas are being discussed.  Consider the blurb on the back cover:

The politically correct history that dominates our schools and universities insists that Jefferson Davis was another Hitler, Robert E. Lee was the equivalent of Rommel, and the Confederate States of America was our own little version of the Third Reich--a blot on American history.

From the website:

The Politically Incorrect Guide^TM to the Civil War is a joyful, myth-busting, rebel yell that shatters today's Leftist and demeaning stereotypes about the South and the Civil War—showing why, in G. K. Chesterton's words, "America and the whole world is crying out for the spirit of the Old South." Civil War buffs, Southern partisans, and everyone who is tired of liberal self-hatred that vilifies America's greatest heroes—must have this book on their bookshelf.

That's called a strawman argument, which involves creating an enemy that doesn't really exist and than tearing it down.  I think this logical fallacy is covered on the first day of Critical Thinking 101.  The book has a hilarious feature called "Books Yankees Don't Want You to Read" which includes Jefferson Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, MacKinlay Kantor's If the South Had Won the War, and Clifford Dowdey's The History of the Confederacy. 

The book has a wonderfully cartoonish quality to it, which makes it the perfect gift for the person who will never pick up a serious work of history. 

Were You Lucky Enough to Attend a High School Named After a Slaveowner and Founder of the Ku Klux Klan?

Well, if you attended high school in Jacksonville, Florida (of all places) after 1959 you probably did.  How did a high school in Florida end up being named after a Confederate general from Tennessee?  It turns out that when the school opened in 1959 various interest groups, including the United Daughters of the Confederacy, competed to win the chance to name the school.  The UDC won and the school was named for Nathan B. Forrest.  It was an ideal name for a school in the South at the height of "Massive Resistance" against a burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. 

On November 3 the Duval County School Board will vote on whether to change the name of the school.  Of course, not everyone is happy about such a possibility given their commitment to ensure that our youth model their lives on such upstanding Americans as Forrest:

Bodie Catlin, owner of a truck accessories retailer who speaks publicly about Confederate history, has been an outspoken supporter of keeping the school's name and said Forrest was a man of his time who was "nice" to his slaves.

"They loved him," he said. "The only people [in favor of the name change] are people from the North who don't care about our heritage and some that think the whole war was fought over slavery."

It's always those damn northerners who are getting in the way.  Stay tuned for further updates.

Tall Flag Poles as Compensation

[Hat-Tip to Robert Moore]

Looks like the SCV in the good state of Tennessee is pushing for zoning amendments that will have the potential to legitimize an 80-foot-tall flagpole which will support a Confederate flag measuring 20-by-30-foot.  According to the article some "have described the display as a 'political agenda' and a warning to motorists on Interstate 155 that they have entered the South - a country within a country." 

Let me suggest something a bit more Freudian.  Perhaps these guys are compensating for inadequacies or shortcomings in other departments - if you know what I mean.

"Wild Bill" Strikes Again

You will find his name on a host of message boards, listservs, and other sites.  His mission is nothing less than to protect and defend Confederate heritage from anyone who asks questions or offers a view that differs from his own.  No, he does not live in the "Heart of Dixie", but in Commack, New York - or as he fondly notes at the end of emails and comments, "behind enemy lines."  I've been the target of "Wild Bill" for some time now, but by  now I've grown to appreciate his enthusiasm and good humor.  Today I received an email from a friend who monitors a number of these message boards and email lists.  Today's installment by "Wild Bill" is a real doozy, which you can read in its entirety here.  This is my favorite part of the post:

Don’t waste your time trying to debate Levin. He won’t allow it. It would spoil the nice, neat look of his blog. “Thank God for Kevin Levin”, was one of the comments on his blog!! (YIPES!?) Don’t waste your time trying to engage him in debate on neutral territory either. He has nothing to gain by it. And don’t waste time trying to enlighten those who worship at his temple. They are already in. So what to do then? Email him?   While it might get under his skin, it isn’t going to change anything.   Start a counter blog?   Having had a website myself once upon a time, I can tell you that such things are extremely time consuming. Actually folks, there’s a lot more at stake here than simply counter-pointing a blowhard yankee blogger. Levin, you see, is a teacher, the same kind of teacher who teaches your kids to be ashamed of who they are and where they come from. I wish I had a dollar for every Southerner who’s told me that he’s lost one or more children to an educational system which has seen fit to ingrain shame into them. 

And there are many Kevin Levins, in public schools and in private ones, all over the South and indeed, all over the country. The way to combat people like Levin is not to challenge them to intellectual duels, which they will not accept because they have nothing to gain, but to challenge them when they try to (and I mean this in the most literal sense) take your children away from you! Remember, you pay their salaries. You pay for your kids to go to the school, be it a private school or a public one. Don’t send your kids to them without first giving those kids the “lowdown” on who they themselves are, and who people like Levin are! And when teachers like Levin try to make your kids ashamed of who and what they are, go pay those teachers a visit and tell them that you pay their salaries and that you don’t appreciate what they are trying to do. I could be wrong, but my gut tells me that such schools as the one Levin teaches in are full of “latchkey children,” (children whose parents simply turn their kids over to the educational system without keeping tabs on what’s being taught).

You will notice that he spends quite a bit of time criticizing me for not allowing certain comments through on my blog.  As all of you know I do monitor comments for language as well as content.  If the comment contains offensive language or deviates significantly from the topic I delete it.  Readers, however, are free to disagree.  What "Wild Bill" doesn't tell his readers is that I allowed one of his crude comments through in response to Peter Carmichael's guest post on Confederate slaves.  In fact, both Peter and I welcomed "Wild Bill" to respond directly to the content of the post, which he attempted to do, but than failed to follow-up at all.  It was clear to us that he simply had nothing useful to say.  I couldn't be happier that this blog has brought "Wild Bill" to the point where he feels a need to lash out once again. 

Well "Wild Bill", the cat's out of the bag.  Anyone who bothers to look can see that you are nothing but a fraud and a liar.  It's just more evidence that Civil War Memory is on the right track.  By the way, I will be teaching a course on Civil War memory next semester and I plan on using your emails and postings as a case study for a lesson on the divisive nature of remembrance and commemoration.  Thanks buddy.  Keep them coming.

Note: I've decided to create a new category titled, "Fan Mail" for just this sort of thing.

Big Ass Confederate Flag Just Got Bigger

I first reported on this story back in May when a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Florida decided to erect the largest Confederate flag at the junction of Interstates 4 and 72 outside of Tampa.  Well, it looks like a flag measuring 30-by-50 foot was not large enough, so this past Sunday Marion Lamber and the rest of the boys unveiled a new flag measuring 30-by-60-foot.  But wait, here's the best part.  Apparently, these geniuses have decided to cut up the old flag and sell it in pieces on Ebay to help pay for commemorative plaques which will be situated at the base of the flag pole.  Isn't this the same organization that claims to revere the flag as the symbol of courage of their Confederate ancestors?  What better way to show your respect than to cut it up into little pieces for profit.  I guess this is exactly what their ancestors fought and died for.  Oh...and I almost forgot to mention that the old flag was made in China. 

What a bunch of hypocrites.  Don't hold your breadth for the national office to voice any concern. 

Calling All Artists

How about a Civil War print that includes Lee, Jackson, Davis, Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln in prayer together?  Would anyone buy it?  I am sort of imagining something like what happens on occasion at the end of a football game where members of rival teams briefly join in prayer. 

Print by John Paul Strain

Civil War Memory Stats or Why Blogging Matters

I am collecting some basic statistics about Civil War Memory for my upcoming talk on Civil War blogging and thought I would share them with my readers.  Compared to political blogs and other high-profile sites the number of visits and page views is trivial, but within the history blogosphere I assume it ranks somewhere in the middle.  Right now this site attracts around 450 unique hits a day.  As a military history blog (broadly defined) it ranks very near the top.  This blog's Technorati ranking is 62, 589 with an Authority of 96, which measures the number of links from other blogs over the last six months.  The smaller the number, the better. 

One of the points that I hope to make is that the battle for Civil War memory or how we approach the history will be won or lost in cyberspace - including blogs, listservs, message boards, etc. - and not in books, conferences and other traditional forms of public outreach.  This is a tough sell since my goal is not in any way to instill feelings of guilt in my audience.  My purpose is not necessarily to convince one person in the audience to pick up blogging, but to share my experiences engaged on the front lines and how that experience reflects a changing public discourse about what it means to talk meaningfully about a crucial moment in this nation's past. The numbers speak for themselves.  Of course, the numbers don't tell us anything about what readers have learned - if anything - or whether they will return at some point in the future.   For me the numbers reflect the potential or promise of blogging.  It's a powerful tool that can expand a historian's ability to reach out to fellow academics as well as, more importantly, to all corners of the general public.

Blogging has given me the opportunity to join public debates about some of the most controversial subjects within the Civil War community such as black Confederates.  Hopefully, my posts have helped to clarify the complexity of the subject as well as the broader questions of memory that have come to shape our national and regional narratives.  More importantly, I've heard from countless readers that the focus of this site on issues surrounding memory and public history - subjects that are typically discussed only in academic circles - have not only enriched their understanding of the Civil War, but of history in general.  

With the Civil War Sesquicentennial right around the corner I think it is crucial that state commissions and other professional organizations think critically and imaginatively about how to use the Internet to educate the general public.  The number of Americans who will attend a conference, museum exhibit or read a book between 2011 and 2015 will pale in comparison with the reach of various websites - much of them filled with myth and propaganda.  Let's reach out.

Confederate Bunnies "Succeed"