I wonder whether there has been an academic copyright decision by some court somewhere ruling that nobody can speak publicly about Abraham Lincoln except Harold Holzer.
I looked up the word ‘civil’ in a dictionary once. Then I did the same for the word ‘war.’ I’ve been confused ever since.
Victors have a tendency to praise the vanquished because the winners look better if the losers look really good. Non-German military historians rave about Erwin Rommel, the German field general, as an example. Robert E. Lee is generally seen as a brilliant commander who lost. But how often do you read about Pancho Villa? He led an invasion of the US once, terrorizing a town in Texas. The US Army organized a special force to chase the bandits but even George Patton couldn’t catch Villa.
I might be the only guy named Lee who ever enjoyed himself in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Is there a more prolific Civil War author than Earl J. Hess? Maybe not. I think he writes books quicker than I read them. His book on Braxton Bragg (Braxton Bragg, The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy) is probably the most balanced treatment of Bragg in print. I am currently reading his book on Vicksburg and the depth of research seems to be outstanding.
The field of Civil War research, I am happy to say, is increasingly influenced by brilliant women. Carole Reardon, Susannah J. Ural, Caroline Janey, Megan Kate Nelson, Jill Titus, Ashley Lusky and Jennifer Murray are some of the many women who have done terrific work in the field. I’m happy to say that I’ve heard each of them speak at the Institute. Yes, there are brilliant male scholars, too, but that is not the point. My point is that this is a field open to gender equality and the Civil War historians I enjoy reading and listening to the most are increasingly females.
Is there a less relevant question in the field of Civil War research than whether the Confederates would have attacked the Culp’s Hill area on the first day at Gettysburg had Stonewall Jackson been alive?
Four states where slavery was legal remained loyal to the Union during the secession crises (aka, The Civil War). Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single enslaved person in those states. The Proclamation freed only those enslaved people in areas where the Union army chased the Confederate army away in Confederate states. The Proclamation was, basically, part of martial law in those areas. Was the proclamation important? Of course it was, but only an amendment to the United States Constitution could free the enslaved in those four states. Three amendments relating to the matter were added to the Constitution shortly after the war and the enslaved were not emancipated until that happened.
Don’t bother looking it up. The four slave-holding states that remained loyal to the Union were Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri.
The secession crises began when some leaders in some states where slavery was legal somehow convinced themselves that Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 spelled the beginning of the end of slavery. Those leaders were kidding themselves. There was as much bigotry in the north as in southern states. Abolition had very little support in Congress for that reason. Slavery would have lasted a lot longer without the Civil War. Slavery probably would have remained legal, in some form, as late as 1900 without the War. It might have lasted longer than that.
Grant me some Lee-way here as I attempt a little Civil War humor: While attending a junior college, I used to sit on a Stonewall between classes and wait for my pals to head for lunch like they were shot out of a cannon. Then we’d Charge around a Pickett fence into the commissary to buy our rations for the day. I don’t like to Bragg, but I had my own news show on the student radio station twice a week. The campus was near the Pacific Ocean so there were plenty of Gray days, which always made us feel Blue. I liked to tell people then that I was a conscientious objector because I didn’t want to go to college. Still, I completed two years of basic training (my freshman and sophomore years) and transferred to another command and served two more years. I sometimes wish I transferred to Gettysburg College and made one of the apartments near campus my Gettysburg Address. I didn’t attend the College then but I enjoy falling in the ranks of the Civil War Institute now. I recently wrote them and said, “It is all together fitting and proper that I shall attend the CWI in June of 2022.”
Thanks for reading.
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