Civil War Memory

Using Ken Burns's "The Civil War" in the Classroom

This talk was presented today in Philadelphia at the 2008 Meeting of the Society of Civil War Historians.  The panel was titled, "Gearing Up For the Civil War Sesquicentennial in the High School Classroom" and included, James Percoco, Ronald Maggiano, and Andy Slap. 

When it aired in 1989 Ken Burns’s epic documentary about America’s Civil War garnered the largest audience in PBS history. Viewers who had little interest or knowledge of the Civil War were attracted to the powerful images and sounds as well as the narration by David McCullough and commentary by Shelby Foote - the combination of which served to introduce a heroic and tragic story to a national audience. While historians have spent considerable time analyzing Burns’s documentary as historical interpretation, little attention has been given to the ways in which the film can be utilized in history courses on the high school level.¹  All too often the film is used as a launching pad to other classroom activities or simply shown with little student preparation; such an approach renders students as passive observers rather than engaging them in trying to better understand the choices that went into the film’s script along with how the various elements come together to tell a coherent story.²   More importantly, students fail to see the film itself as a product of long-standing assumptions about the war that are embedded in our popular imagination and often guarded as sacred.  The beginning of the Civil War Sesquicentennial in 2011 will provide a unique opportunity to introduce questions of memory and interpretation in our high school history classes.  In the time that I have today I would like to talk briefly about how I engage my students with questions of memory and interpretation through a careful viewing of Burns’s The Civil War. 

Ken Burns: Storyteller v. Historian

I am working to finish up my presentation on how I use Ken Burns's documentary, The Civil War, in my classroom for the SCWH meeting in June.  My goal is to demonstrate how the documentary can be used and interpreted as a secondary source alongside other sources.  This puts students in a position where they can more easily appreciate the decisions that went into the film.  Students should be able to critique the sounds, narration, images and how they come together to construct a coherent interpretation.  I am focusing on two moments in the film, including Lee's resignation from the United States Army in April 1861 and the events that led to Lincoln's decision to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. 

Students need to be prepped by the teacher to think critically about the role of the historical documentarist.  While the creation of a historical documentary has much in common with popular history Burns utilizes a wider range of sensory sources, including archival footage and contemporary images along with voices, and other assorted sounds, the combination of which often leads to a strong emotional connection to the past.  Understanding the ways in which history and film merge and diverge is crucial to picking out various interpretive threads that often go unnoticed.  For example, contrast the images of R.E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant that are used along with the actors used to give voice to those characters, both of which serve to reinforce the overly simplistic characterizations of Lee as the dignified gentlemen and Grant as the rough and unsophisticated modern general.  Students should be able to think critically about the choices made in a documentary and how they function. 

Consider one of the most famous chapters from the series titled "Honorable Manhood" which comes at the end of Episode 1: "1861--The Cause."  This is one of those moments where Burns works to bring the dead back to life with a letter written by Union Major Sullivan Ballou who was killed at First Bull Run.  The voice-over is accompanied by the stirring lament that serves as the series anthem, "Ashokan Farewell." Interestingly, the segment comes at the end of the episode which covers events through to the end of the year.  Students can discuss why Burns chose to place this scene out of strict sequence and what effect he was hoping to engender in his viewer.  There are six other couples shown along with static shots of the Manassas battlefield.  So, we have a letter written by a soldier that needs to be analyzed along with the sounds and images which accompany it.  Students can discuss whether these other elements help or hinder their understanding of the letter.  I usually wait to to tell my students that the letter was never actually sent to Ballou's wife; it was discovered on Ballou's person on the battlefield.  In addition, it is important to note that more than one version of the letter is available which raises other issues.  Some of my students are shocked to learn this and this usually has to do with the fact that they view the episode imagining his wife reading it.  Of course, Burns could have mentioned this, but chose not do so and thus another reflective moment for the class presents itself. 

[Note: forward the episode to 2:27 for the beginning of the letter.]

Shelby Foote on Civil War Entertainment

Here is Shelby Foote's short comment at the end of The Civil War by Ken Burns on what I call Civil War Entertainment:

We think that we are a wholly superior people – if we’d been anything like as superior as we think we are, we would not have fought that war.  But since we did fight it, we have to make it the greatest war of all times. And our generals were the greatest generals of all time. It’s very American to do that.

It's not clear to me whether Foote intends this as a criticism of our popular perceptions of the war.  If so, than I assume he means this as a self-criticism since Foote engages in just this type of speech throughout the series.  I made a similar point in a previous post:

I dare say that Americans love to remember their past when they can set the terms of the inquiry. We prefer a heroic past that is continually progressive and exceptional compared to the rest of the world. Just reflect for a moment on the way we think about our Civil War compared with news of civil wars from around the world. For most people the news of foreign civil wars conjures up images of confusion, sadness, corruption, uncertainty, and violence. Individuals and causes are rarely viewed as heroic or the product of benevolent design. No, foreign civil wars are reflective of the failure of governments and of the individuals who occupy high positions of power. We may see these nations and societies as the victims of a corrupt past void of democratic tendencies. For many it no doubt confirms American Exceptionalism. Whatever the case, civil wars are events that happen elsewhere and to others. I point this out to draw a sharp contrast with the way many Americans interpret our own Civil War. If you peel away the celebratory layers you will see that it has a great deal in common with the way we view civil wars elsewhere. It is the celebration of the war which troubles me because it seems to me that our gut reaction to foreign civil wars is a much more appropriate stance. Where is the confusion, uncertainty, violence, and sadness in our Civil War? I see the Civil War as a humbling event that serves as a reminder of the fragility of governments and the depths of violence that we all too often reach. I agree with the late historian William Gienapp that the “outbreak of war in April 1861 represented the complete breakdown of the American political system. As such the Civil War constituted the greatest failure of American democracy.” I wish more people would approach the study of the Civil War from this perspective.

Ken Burns Marathon

Yesterday I returned from two days in Richmond with a fellow historian to begin work on our Ken Burns project.  We are writing a book that is centered around the script of the Civil War series.  Our plan is to edit the entire script for publication along with an extensive introduction that places Burns's interpretation within the historiography of the last 20 years.  In addition, we will be including extensive tables that address such issues as the number of words spoken by the talking heads and the amount of time spent on various subjects and themes.  The book will hopefully be ready for the twentieth anniversary of the release of the series in 2010 and should be attractive to general readers, scholars, and teachers. 

We spent the last two days viewing the entire series and checking the script against the spoken word on the video itself.  Burns donated a number of scripts and other records to the University of North Carolina's Southern Historical Collection (Florentine Films Archives Inventory).  It was incredibly draining as we had to fit in 12 hours of video in two days and leave enough time to discuss various issues that will be addressed in the annotations and in our introduction.  We are going to identify the sources for all of the historical references, which should not be too difficult, as well as specific factual claims made by the talking heads and the narrator. The tedious part will be the identification of every visual used in the film; Episode 1 includes 365 images alone. 

I've never viewed the entire documentary in its entirety in this way and I suspect that most people have not.  After all, who has 12 spare hours these days?  I have to say, however, that viewing it in this way has given me a very different perspective on the interpretation as a whole.  In short, I am much more impressed with it.  Burns addresses a wide range of topics and he does so in a very sophisticated way.  For example, the theme of emancipation and the role of African Americans in bringing it about is much more apparent than if you were to only view specific sections, which I am no doubt guilty of doing. As an example of popular memory of the war Burns is well ahead of the curve.  This is not to deny that there are no interpretive issues that need to be addressed and many of them were analyzed in a book edited by Robert Brent Toplin.  Eric Foner does an excellent job of analyzing the reconciliationist theme of the film which the documentary clearly leans towards.  Foner's concern is that the emphasis on emancipation ignores the extent to which African Americans struggled both during Reconstruction and in the years to follow.  I've noticed a similar tendency in the past, but this time around I concentrated much more on the script and not as much on the images which in this case includes extensive video of both the 50th and 75th anniversaries of Gettysburg.  Those images of the veterans in various acts of friendship and camaraderie works to drive home the theme of reconciliation.  The absence of any substantial commentary on politics and ideology is striking.  While I understand that Burns did not want to address Reconstruction in his film he could and should have spent some time on wartime Reconstruction, including Abraham Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan and Wade-Davis Bill - at least as much time as he spent on "shoddy." 

Finally, having the script in hand places the talking heads in their proper perspective.  It is easy to magnify the importance of individuals like Shelby Foote who - depending on your perspective - either makes or breaks the series.  While I find him to be a colorful character much of what he says falls flat in terms of its scholarly import.  One wonders whether Foote has any conception that not all "southerners" were white.  Barbara Fields, Stephen Oates, and James Symington are much more impressive.  Following along with the script, however, reveals how little they actually contribute to the overall interpretation and this is one place where our tables will be useful.  Shelby Foote makes 97 appearances throughout the 9 episodes for a total of 7,771 words (71.6% of all words spoken by talking heads) while Barbara Fields comes in a distant second with 12 appearance throughout for a total of 1,109 words (10.26% of all words spoken by talking heads).  So, compared with the other talking heads Foote's impact is apparent; however, taken together and compared with the overall narrative by David McCullough the amount of time devoted to the commentators is minimal.  Again, this emerges much more clearly when following the script.

Viewing the film in its entirety has made me much more sensitive to Burns as a documentarian than as a historian which he consistently maintains that he is not.  In fact, I need to read much more on the process and, more specifically, how Burns goes about constructing films.  I guess the historian in me is overly sensitive to distinctions as well as a certain analytical style. You can expect to hear much more about this project in the months to come.

WARNING: Viewing The Civil War in its entirety and in a short space of time can lead to the narration of dreams in the voice of David McCullough.