Celebrating Lincoln, 7/4/09

Perhaps they were waiting for better weather, but a surprising number of venues postponed their Bicentennial observances from February to July 4. The weather was fine in some places, worse in others:

Rain didn’t prevent Abraham Lincoln from making a Fourth of July visit to downtown Springfield. Lincoln impersonator Michael Krebs was one of a large group of entertainers who performed Saturday as part of the Capital City Bicentennial Celebration ... Because of the wet weather, many entertainers had their performances moved ...

Notice how the writer conflates the performance of a vaudeville bit with an actual visit by the historic Abraham Lincoln. I guess history is the big winner when (similarly) an eight-year-old in Philly mistakes a re-enactor for an historical person:

"Awesome," Joey said, nodding. "I thought that Abe Lincoln was just a spirit, but he's right here."

There was not enough bad vaudeville availble to Sparta, Indiana, so Kiwanis there decided that "Children who dress-up like Abe or his wife, Mary Todd will be admitted to the park for free." This will help them get past the image of the man to penetrate his historical meaning, perhaps.

In Philadelphia, the art club Dumpster Divers strewed trash across damaged plywood on Independence Mall to "honor Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday." Sensing the kitsch imperative behind every Lincoln project, a spokesman said "Originally I wanted to make it look like Abe Lincoln's hat" but gave up for technical reasons. He was careful to use the word "whimsical" instead of "kitschy" but of course the "trash" content of the exhibit is immutable.

Another artist, Wisconsin cheese artist Troy Landwehr (top photo), sculpted a Lincoln form out of a 1,000-lb block of cheddar with the full weight of the task in mind: "I think it's a big honor to carve Lincoln." He did not take this honor lightly: "It's a lot of research."

When the figure was moved to Washington, hot weather and jostling caused the cheese head to roll off:

Landwehr couldn't salvage the stovepipe hat. "But we saved his face," the sculptor said. "He's OK. He's back to standing tall."

He, not "it." For you see, Joey, Lincoln has become a spirit that inhabits trash, kitsch, bad lectures, and vaudeville schtick.

"Comfort reads"

As someone who reads books only once (very, very slowly) I had never heard of "comfort reads" before this. I suspected there were people who read a book twice due to memory failure but this is wild stuff...

Sesquicentennial kick off

Virginia could not wait another moment and kicked off its Sesquicentennial program in Winchester this weekend with some 1859 re-enactors (!) in attendance (shown right).

I don't want to be too hard on "Bud" Robertson because I am relying on a third party - a reporter - to translate what he said into one and two syllable words for a mass audience. If, however, you read the linked story carefully you'll get a full measure of the kind of damage public history can do to the public and history.

This is the subject for a symposium, not a truism to be handed out to newspaper readers:

...the Shenandoah Valley proved to be crucial in the outcome of the war...

It gets worse:

Winchester alone changed hands between the Union and Confederacy more than 70 times, making it focal point of the war, he said.

We should rename it "The Winchester War" I suppose. Look at the phrasing in this whopper:

“The Shenandoah Valley was important because of location. It was the western flank of all military operations.”

All military operations. And does he know what a flank is?

Is it Robertson's own interest - as a specialist - in the Valley that skews his thinking this badly? Or is there more to it, something out of the public historian's public usefulness (emphasis added):

Robertson said the celebration of the war should be a time for enjoying history, building on visits by citizens to boost the economy of various towns and counties throughout Virginia.

Eventually every town in Virginia will be declared "crucial to the outcome of the war/tourist industry." Meanwhile, enjoy your celebration of war.

"For diligence in genealogical research..."

West Virginia has 4,000 unclaimed ACW medals awaiting an owner.

They found an angle

The New York Times ran a re-enactment story, believe it or not. Seems to have a Mason vs. Mason angle...

John Brown's Raid

John Brown will have died in vain if his end cannot be made to serve heritage tourism:

Harpers Ferry officials claim they have serious standing in the national celebration because the Civil War actually began when Brown and his men raided the arsenal that saw the first shot fired in the “War Between the States.”

They maintain Brown’s raid is the real jumping-off point for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and not the shot that was fired by the infant Confederacy on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., in April 1861.

Freshman dorm arguments apparently make good history (for some).

Speaking of which, this freshman dorm argument was inevitable:

"John Brown was, in effect, a terrorist. Whether you agree that what he was doing was right or not," says Gerry Gaumer, spokesman for the Park Service in Washington, D.C. "There are people in the Taliban who believe what they're doing is right. Can you separate John Brown from what's going on in Iraq or Iran or Pakistan or Afghanistan? "They fervently believe what they're doing is right," he says. "But is there a better way?"

Can we get some historians into the National Park Service and over to Harpers Ferry? The freshmen are running the seminar.

Professor demands Republicans apologize for slavery

Your children are in good hands at Vanderbilt:

Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University who had pushed for the Bush administration to issue an apology [for slavery], called the Democratic-controlled Senate's resolution "meaningless" since the party and federal government are led by a black president and black voters are closely aligned with the Democratic party.

"The Republican Party needed to do it," Swain said. "It would have shed that racist scab on the party."

Republicans = slavery?

Also interesting how some modern administrations are more responsible for events 150 years ago than others.

Intriguing, too, this legal scholar's idea that a (legal) party without (legal) standing can "shed" crimes committed by other (legal) parties through the simple issue of a legislative resolution by this or that political party.

Dr. Swain is a breakthrough thinker who offers us a whole bag full of historiographic bones to chew on.

Touring Wheatland

You would think that the "inevitability of war" doctrine would work in favor of Buchanan's reputation:

I asked Patrick Clarke, director of James Buchanan's Wheatland, what he thought of Buchanan's being on the worst-president list. Clarke said that nobody elected in 1856 could have averted the war.

Despite the iron grip of the inevitables on Civil War historiography, Buchanan reaps no gain.

U.S. Senate considers slavery apology

At last, I can be reconciled to my fellow man, thanks to a Senate resolution:

... a formal apology to African-Americans will help bind the wounds of the Nation that are rooted in slavery and can speed racial healing and reconciliation...

ACW publishing: trending up

After an astonishingly weak first quarter, the number of Civil War titles released in April-May-June has exploded.

Prize heaven

The list of recent Savas Beatie prizes.

You've just been insulted

From Publishers Weekly:

...one wishes for more rigorous, subtle analysis ... Still, McGinty's engaging account ... will delight history buffs.

Battle Hymns

A new choral/dance work, "Battle Hymns," will use Civil War texts and premier in a working armory. Pulitzer-winning composer David Lang says,

"The Civil War was different from the Revolutionary War, which was so clearly 'us versus them.' There's something inherently introspective about the Civil War, because it's about us."

Ayers kicks off Sesquicentennial in Virginia

Interesting account of the Sesquicentennial kickoff in the Chronicle of Higher Education by a slavery historian from Yale.

For a motif in his article, David Blight (right), despite his pedigree, sophomorically grabs onto so-called "Lost Cause history" and tells how he would like to stamp out this imaginary school of thought and re-educate its purported proponents. Deleriously waving this red herring, handed to him by respected Centennialists, he completely misses the up-to-date, historiographic struggle occurring under his very nose in realtime.

Agitating against "Lost Cause" historiography invites one into a fantasy struggle against a pretend school of thought invented out of scraps of writing and speech and then built into a menace. Centennialism dresses up as Don Quixote to tilt against this windmill while its real foes line up for hard jousting.

Edward Ayers' symposium, "America on the Eve of the Civil War," did something dramatic to grab the attention of the Centennialist's inevitability-of-war advocates.

Ayers immersed attendees in his system of "deep contingency" analysis, then he enforced that system throughout the event (apparently with rigor). The "inevitables" - if any attended - had to evaluate and discuss events as contingent in origin with multiple possible outcomes. Can you imagine the discomfort of the "inevitables" at this event?

Inevitablility vs. Contingency. How do you split that difference? How do you pretend the difference does not exist?

Blight's solution was to paper over the stark differences "deep contingency" bares: let's all unite to attack the French in Mexico - er, "Lost Cause History."

Nothing to see here folks. Keep moving.

The cost of war in Missouri

To right the wrongs, 11,200 lawsuits were needed.

Prizeworthy

The prizes are accumulating at Savas-Beatie, starting with Darrell Collins' Rodes bio.

Prepare to overreach

Prepare to exhibit!

Pretentious pseudo-biblical title ready?

Check, "Illinois Stories: 'How Vast and Varied a Field' ... The Agricultural Vision of Abraham Lincoln."

Tangential and irrelevant artifacts ready?

Check, ox yoke and John Deere tractor prepared for show.

Rationale ready to explain how a farmer who abandons the land remains an agronomist?

Check, all Whigs are actually agronomists:

He recognized how technological and industrial advancements could improve agricultural productivity; how improved roads and canals and new rail lines could tie outlying markets to burgeoning cities; how national banks and a new currency system could help both farmers and businessmen.

Civil War coiffure (cont.)

Lane - again with the hair.

CWPT redesign

Civil War Preservation Trust has redesigned its website. Maps steal the show.

President honors Confederate war dead

He did not lay a wreath on the tomb of the authors of the Rebellion but on their victims' graves.

Odd that pundits struggle with such distinctions, easy as they seem to us. (Link)

They're learning how to communicate

...or they're reading this blog. Either way, it's impressive to see journalists learn how to use the right words:

Civil War Projectile Discovered in St. Mary's Landfill

Vintage Find in Landfill: A Civil War Projectile

I don't think they've mastered the difference between shot and shell yet but this is a cautious step along that monstrously steep learning curve.

Lincoln, the movie

Spielberg's movie "Lincoln" appears to be in pre-production, with full production planned for autumn; this suggests a late 2010 release date. This project crept back into the news this month with NY Senator Schumer's public request that it shoot scenes at Seward's home in Auburn.

A student newspaper says the film will be based on Goodwin's Team of Rivals, but this information is probably based on stale newspaper clippings. All stories reporting on Tony Kushner's involvement simply say he is writing the script without mentioning adaptation.

In February, it looked as though a December 2009 release was planned, then that the film was dead, then Spielberg missed a President's Day announcement deadline, then news emerged that Disney would probably make it. So this is progress.

BTW, what proportion of projects make it out of pre-production?

"Party like it's 1862"

How incongruous.

Two kinds of revision

Confederate Heritage Month in Georgia.

Larry Tagg's new Lincoln book.

Juneteenth, Roy Harris, and bicentennials new and old

Fascinating news: Roy Harris's Bicentennial symphony is being dusted off by a pick-up band for performance at a Juneteenth celebration that is endorsed by the Lincoln Bicentennial Committee.

In other words, we have a convergence of 1809, 1976, and 1865 over the bones of the eternally neglected Harris (right).

That's historical.

The ACW overseas

If you like seeing historical patterns drawn, here's one that may be overdrawn: the Pakistani "civil war" vs the US Civil War.

The Sesquicentennial Tower of Babel

A couple of interesting quotes from a story about planning for the Sesquicentennial in Georgia:

the chance to make money on tourists

actually appears in black and white and is followed by

"We're certainly not celebrating the Civil War anniversary," said Edward DuBose, the president of the State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "We see the Civil War and the Confederate States here as a dark spot on the history of Georgia."

Note the linkeage of the Civil War to slavery, as part of slavery not as liberation.

Confusion and ambiguity about the meaning of the observance is not resolved by the false certainty of "making money on tourists." Without firm statements of purpose coming out of state commissions, all sorts of vocal, public, personal statements interpreting the events will drown out the stated purposes of observance.

The Centennial planners failed to "grasp the nettle" - address and resolve questions of meaning. This generation of planners is repeating the mistakes made in 1959.

"The general was ill-prepared to run the country"

I once seriously annoyed my mother-in-law by arguing Americans are all monarchists, without exception, judging by their national political rhetoric.

Here's a columnist who wants Grant taken off the $50 bill and replaced with Frederick Douglass. "The general was ill-prepared to run the country" you see. Presumably Douglass would have made a more effective Gilded Age imperator. This guy is a history reader, BTW.

Perhaps this is pop culture interpreting, in its own light, the Lincoln Administration and then using it as a standard...

(Hat tip to Russell Bonds who says he hasn't seen a fifty lately.)

Johnston's surrender site: big yawn

The local press dug into Jay Winik's 1865 to try to figure out how there could be surrendering in North Carolina after Appomattox.

They did a decent job of half-understanding what they tried to read. The reference to Winik as an historian, e.g., is cute (a civil servant, he wrote 1865 only, and that is merely an historical essay) but Johnston's surrender did not remove the spectre of continued war, as implied here. Nor can that conclusion be drawn from Winik. The Confederate government, led by Breckinridge, continued moving south and west after Davis's capture.

Lack of interest in Johnston's surrender site is not just about Appomattox blindness among ACW readers, it's also about the ambiguous end-of-war date. It's a discussion that needs to be aired.

Journalism's cannonball crisis continues

Flash from the professional wordsmiths among us: "Civil War-era 'cannonball' may be just a ball."

How do you mock a headline that stupid? Answer: you read down into the story where it begins to mock itself:

An iron ball that a gardener dug up from his yard is apparently just a solid-iron ball, perhaps intended to ornament the top of a wrought-iron fence post, and not a Civil War-era cannonball, a bomb-squad official says.

There's just no way a Civil War cannonball would be solid! Thank goodness for the bomb squad.

The return of an ACW meme

A proposal is made to close service academies (he forgot the Coast Guard, though). The only thing missing is the obligatory reference to "native American genius."

On a more serious note, the locus of the modern military's "professionalism" is indeed not the service academy; professionalism would not take a hit in that decision. The author's second point, about the deficiencies of advanced military education, were already explored by Martin Van Creveld at length.

The "professionalism" imbuing the services today is a business-influenced pop culture credo that the West Pointer of 1861 would never recognize.

The next wave in re-enactment

(p.s. Wonder if that's Uncle Mordecai's Restaurant?)

Clash of Extremes

Have begun Clash of Extremes and am quite impressed. The book opens with a broad rejection of James M. McPherson's work in the inevitability-of-war school. At the same time, it does not take an exclusively economic view of events nor does it take any heed of the world made by Lew Rockwell and Thomas DiLorenzo.

Tom Rowland referred to McPherson and Co. as "Unionists," representatives of (I would say ardent partisans for) a particular historiography. This grouping of like-minded friends into a school was a signal contribution of George B. McClellan and Civil War History. My own "Centennialist" is a little more specific in referring to Unionists united by connection to American Heritage and closely associated with the commercial success of Centennial-era historiography (which McPherson repackaged in Battle Cry).

In Clash of Extremes, Marc Egnal refers to McPherson and ilk as "idealists" representing an idealist school of history. This is broader than "Unionist" but still very useful in accurately depicting the kind of historian that takes a normative interest in past events.

I might argue that idealists can't do history at all, but that's for a future post. Back to Egnal for now.

Informed minds want to know

Has anyone ever heard of a museum display exploding? Anywhere? Anybody ever heard of routine police checks made on weapons displayed in a museum? This Chicago is a remarkable place. Some say "shakedowns" are conducted there.

At least the cops know shot from bomb although they call bombs "grenades" for some reason.

Maryland's Sesquicentennial

Maryland is considering whether to think about a Sesquicentennial commission maybe sometime uh in the future perhaps.

Just in time for the Sesquicentennial

Philadelphia's mothballed ACW museum loses funding for relocation.

Baltimore's President Street Station ACW museum was abandoned in 2007 and now the building itself (not an historical structure!) needs saving.

Meanwhile, get ready for another Lincoln museum.

The fuse went out

I searched for "bicentennial" news today and received one hit for a Lincoln's birthday event on the first page. That item was outnumbered three-to-one by 1812 bicentennial preparation stories.

Fizzle.

We hold these truths to be entertaining

Nothing speaks to the significance of Abraham Lincoln more than a dozen stovepipe hats: "cartoonish," "whimsically decorated," "fun," "really fun," "really colorful and fun," and did we mention "fun"?

Nothing speaks to the significance of Abraham Lincoln more than fun.

Or to take a meme from Kevin Levin, Nothing speaks to the significance of Abraham Lincoln more than entertainment.

Plus a dozen 300-pound blocks of concrete.

Tennessee's slavery apology

No state re-integrated into the Union on the basis of Reconstruction needs to own any pre-war history. There is no political continuity - the link is broken.

To see states like Tennessee prepare apologies for slavery is to see a modern polity voluntarily associate itself with an historical curiosity - as if Sarkozy were to apologize for the actions of Petain.

Further, it puts the government in the position of making a claim against the lives of Tennessee residents, the majority of whom are transients or descendants of non-Tennessee ancestors. It takes the fallacious idea of universal blood guilt and twists the principle around to produce an even more absurd "geographic guilt".

If some legislators seek to own the actions of a discredited and violently deposed slave government, surely there must be some punishment we can mete out to them without embroiling the entire population in political fantasy.

Meanwhile, as the apology law moves through state deliberations, the Republicans are opposing it on the basis that it might cost money down the road. Incredible.

Testing Lincoln's "Shroud of Turin"

The museum holding the pillowcase with Lincoln's blood and brains on it faces a request for DNA material.

Was the 16th president dying of cancer at the time of the assassination?

John Sotos, a cardiologist, an author, and a consultant for the television series House, wants to test the artifact to confirm what eyewitness accounts and 130 period images already tell him: Lincoln had a rare genetic cancer syndrome called multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B (MEN2B).

Apparently cancer detection by photograph has not of itself progressed enough.

No more Battle of Selma?

Just in time for the Sesquicentennial: re-enactment cancellations.

More Confederate money than...

South Carolina is auctioning off "40 cubic feet of banknotes issued by the Bank of South Carolina during the Civil War ... on eBay." They should auction it off in bales not in onesies and twosies.

Kindling my interest (cont.)

Harry Smeltzer had been mulling over Kindle issues in late February, it turns out, and he pointed out to me that Renee's Civil War blog went into Kindle deeply the same week. Harry comments on my post: "I think the real attraction of the device to CW bibliophiles is for the downloading of free, public domain pdf books." Renee is also enchanted by free ACW books.

But here are my reservations as a potential buyer.

(1) In the file types supported that Renee lists, pdf is not there.

(2) There does not seem to be a print-out capability.

(3) I would need inherent Zotero capability in a device and high levels of interoperability with Wintel computers for the cutting and pasting of passages I need in my writing.

(4) I read in the bathtub where electronics dare not go.

(5) I read on the patio where computer screens are unreadable.

(6) I read at lunch every day in restaurants where I may leave the table for the buffet or restroom.

I think one of Ted's examples paints a picture of perfect use: a frequent traveler reads her favorite periodicals indoors in waiting rooms and on planes. I think Renee and Harry have hit on another strength - reading for pleasure.

Consider me "still thinking."

Kindling my interest

Publisher Theodore Savas and his son Demetrius were in Arlington yesterday and we met for dinner, some trade talk and a few laughs. Ted is as wise as he is genial and I would urge authors to jump on the chance of working with him.

He caught me offguard with his interest in the Kindle reading machine promoted by Amazon. When you say "Kindle" I picture a curly wire sticking out of a taped-together shipping box stuck at the bottom of a closet - a closet filled with early adopter toys that never worked out.

I had seen the competitors' stuff and was not impressed. In fact earlier in the day, I had looked at an 8" USB-enabled $49 digital picture frame that could serve as a computer monitor in a pinch. I thought, "If the book pages were image files, this could also be a reading device." Then I thought, "This is stupid, I'm re-inventing the tablet computer."

Ted has seen people with Kindles in public places. He has talked to them about the thing and is impressed by its potential and the way people use it. He met a woman who gets her newspapers and magazines delivered to the system; he has seen travelers in airports and trains reading it; he remarked on its lightness and legibility.

He also mentioned an Amazon feature I had not noticed in my browsing. While looking at book information, Amazon enables the sending of a pestering email to the publisher asking for a Kindle edition of the work. What startled me is that as a publisher Ted gets such emails.

It seems Kindle has an active fan base. I am wiping off my Kindle spectacles for a fresh look.

Monocacy battlefield - your input needed

The NPS is seeking your input on the future of Monocacy National Battlefield. Story here, government website here.

Bull Run in the repertoire

Opera's sweetheart Renee Fleming has been scoring her biggest emotional gains in programs featuring John Kander's "A Letter from Sullivan Ballou," a Union officer killed at Bull Run.

There is a fine YouTube presentation of same by Fleming available here (marred by some slapstick coughing). The letter itself is transcribed incompletely in some places on the web, however this version seems full.

(Note: Although Kander is a Broadway composer, the music will strike listeners ill disposed to opera as uncomfortably operatic. But if you like what you hear, listen to Paul Hindemith's and Walt Whitman's When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, music that should actually be the theme for the Bicentennial.)

Shot, shell, whatever

There is work called "journalism" which was a trade when I learned it but which has become a "profession." The journalist now "professes" his desire to improve the world; this places reporting tradecraft at the bottom of a long list of more urgent priorities.

For us, this means reading endless stories that refer to Civil War shells or bombs as "cannonballs" and vice versa. Here, have another: "Civil War-era cannonball safely detonated." Note that "It turns out the cannonball was filled with gunpowder." Full of tricks, those cannonballs.

In a different kind of balls, Private Eye collects this kind of nonsense in a weekly column called "Colemanballs," named after an incompetent sports broadcaster. We need columns like that in this country, if shaming can still do any good.

Publishing: the digital editions pricing scandal

Authors are upset with publishers who are pricing digitial (e.g. Kindle) editions of their work near hardcopy levels.

It gets worse: Amazon users, availing themselves of that website's "tagging" feature tag overpriced digital editions with the word "BOYCOTT."

And so, some blameless authors (using Amazon's tag search feature) find their work at the top of Amazon's boycott list.

Have a look at this post, including the comments.

Hoofbeats in the distance

J.D. Petruzzi has moved his url to Blogger and posts a debut piece featuring meet-ups with Ted Savas and Duane Siskey, among others.

Bob Dylan: "Elvis must have felt it too"

From the Times:

Q: When you think back to the Civil War, one thing you forget is that no battles, except Gettysburg, were fought in the North.

Bob Dylan: Yeah. That’s what probably makes the Southern part of the country so different.

Q: There is a certain sensibility, but I’m not sure how that connects?

BD: It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web - some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere … a lot of times even in people’s backyards.

Q: Have you felt them?

BD: Oh sure. You’d be surprised. I was in Elvis’s hometown – Tupelo. And I was trying to feel what Elvis would have felt back when he was growing up.

Q: Did you feel all the music Elvis must have heard?

BD: No, but I’ll tell you what I did feel. I felt the ghosts from the bloody battle that Sherman fought against Forrest and drove him out. There’s an eeriness to the town. A sadness that lingers. Elvis must have felt it too.

A Bicentennial essay worth reading

It takes an Air Force captain to look at the Lincoln loving and ask What exactly is going on here?

...the inevitable corollary to this Lincoln love-fest in the capital is a good bit of self-aggrandizement served up by those who see themselves as the rightful political heirs to his legacy. Praising oneself while appearing to praise someone else, especially someone beloved and dead, is an invaluable political skill...

...a slew of recent Lincoln “scholarship” seems less concerned with historical study than with self-justification. A clinically depressed biographer concluded that Lincoln was clinically depressed; a gay rights proponent discovered that Lincoln was gay; former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo ... assert[ed] that Lincoln was at heart a Northeastern Democrat in the late 20th/early 21st century mold. In 1992, former President Ronald Reagan misquoted Lincoln to show that he was a staunch fiscal conservative. In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore misquoted Lincoln to show that he was a staunch fiscal progressive.

... Given Lincoln’s postmortem celebrity, understanding the extent of his unpopularity while governing and breathing is all the more important, and can’t help in the end but deepen our appreciation for him.

... Memorializing Lincoln, and especially rededicating a monument that has served as a backdrop for so many different political movements, requires us to walk a fine line. We pay tribute to him by distilling the lessons of his life, but risk being manipulative if we claim his legacy for ourselves.

Take care that your Lincoln love does not become a public display of self love.