Allen C. Guelzo. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. xx + 632. Black & white plates, notes, index. $35.00.
The question to ask is not whether or not we "need another book on Gettysburg", but rather on whether or not the author seems to have something new and fresh to say. Guelzo's book seems to meet that criteria. While it could certainly serve as an introduction to the subject for a novice, he also reevaluates several near-canonical beliefs about the events at this pivotal battle and draws some very new conclusions.
I will leave it to specialists and well-read aficionados to sort out how convincing these arguments are. From my own perspective, his contention that Joshua Chamberlain's role in saving Little Round Top has been overstated seems compelling, and I would say the same for the argument that James Longstreet does not deserve the decades of blame he accumulated in the wake of the Army of Northern Virginia's defeat. But the most intriguing argument Guelzo makes is that the main credit for the battle being fought where and when it was--and, by extension, for Lee stumbling into a defeat he might otherwise never have fought--belongs to John Reynolds, for the simple reason that he ignored Meade's orders and intentions and instead took his 1st Corps forward into a confrontation with elements of Lee's army. Again, I will defer to others on these issues, but it is clear enough that Guelzo is doing more than replowing old ground.
The book is accessible to the general reader and avoids weighting the reader down with military minutiae. Guelzo's prose style is clear and supple, and he is adept at sketching the numerous characters with wry wit and knowing characterizations. These are real--often deeply flawed--men, not mythic figures. The dry humor never takes away from a genuine sensitivity to the dreadful carnage being produced. The one real complaint I have is that while there are numerous small detailed maps of individual actions and skirmishes, there is not a larger main map of the entire battle or the entire field of operation to refer back to.
Highly recommended.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
A Disease in the Public Mind
Thomas Fleming. A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War. New York: Da Capo Press, 2013. xiv + 354 pp. Black and white plates, notes and index. $26.99
Thomas Fleming opens his book by noting that the Civil War was both a great triumph and a great tragedy; the former because of the abolition of slavery, the latter because of the enormous suffering and loss of life. This assertion is both clear and unobjectionable. Unfortunately, much of what follows is neither.
The phrase "a disease of the public mind" is attributed to James Buchanan, referring to John Brown and the raid on Harper's Ferry. While Fleming isn't quite so bold as to attempt a restoration of Buchanan's thoroughly-pummeled reputation, by subsequently arguing that 'diseases of the public mind' have been a real, and influential, factor throughout American history, he is at the very least giving him credit for identifying a real phenomenon. Fleming lists several other such 'diseases', making it clear that this is no metaphor--he is arguing that the Civil War was caused by a collective psychological imbalance. Namely, the contending extremism of emancipation in the North and fear of race war in the South. And while he contends that both of these 'diseases' were at fault for the Civil War, the weight of his argument certainly leans towards blaming abolitionism and abolitionists for a war he clearly regards as having been avoidable and unnecessary.
Fleming seems to believe that this is a new argument, but it really isn't. He also argues that his argument is based on the latest historical research, but he leaves out much more recent scholarship than he includes, and he is tellingly vague on what this new scholarship actually is. The idea that the North fought for the Union not for abolitionism isn't particularly new; nor is the idea that fought to defend their homeland rather than the institution of slavery. There is quite a bit of recent scholarship that argues quite the opposite--that slavery was at the center of the war, and participants on both sides knew it. Fleming doesn't rebut these argument--he ignores their existence.
That would be disservice enough to the reader, but an arguably graver sin is his reliance on secondary sources to support claims completely at odds with the source he is quoting. A historian is under no obligation to agree with the fellow scholars he quotes, but Fleming's contemptuous portrait of John Brown relies quite heavily on David Reynolds' largely sympathetic "John Brown: Abolitionist", and his equally disapproving portrayal of William Lloyd Garrison refers frequently to Henry Mayer's "All On Fire", a frankly admiring biography. Fleming is free to disagree with those authors, but he owes them and his own readers to acknowledge his disagreement with the very sources he is relying on. Let alone the obligation to explain the basis for his contrary interpretations.
Other examples of his use of information are less deceiving but more disturbing. Early in the book, he presents the bald statistic that only 6 percent of the white population in the South owned slaves, and roughly half of those slaves were owned by a small minority of planters; i.e., men who owned 50 or more slaves. Later in the book, he makes the argument that abolitionist claims about the sexual exploitation of slaves by their masters were grossly overblown; his evidence to support this claim is that only around 10 percent of slave women were mulatto. The reader might question whether or not 'only' one out of ten black children under slavery having been notably mixed-race refutes charges of the sexual exploitation of slaves by masters; when the reader recalls that fewer than 1 percent of Southern whites owned around half of all the slaves in the South, that 10 percent figure actually looks damning. And this is not, sadly, the only instance in which Fleming argues rather too strenuously that slavery was not as thoroughly degrading and loathsome as abolitionist rhetoric would have it; particularly given that he is far more sympathetic to Southern fears of a race war than he ever is to abolitionist "hatred" for southern whites.
Given that Fleming offers several counter-histories throughout this book--he regards Robert E. Lee's decision to serve for the CSA rather than the Union to be a great "what-if" in American History (he blames this decision, in part, on Nat Turner and John Brown)--it is fair to note one counter-history he does not really offer. Namely--how was slavery to be eliminated? He brings up the southern ideal of "diffusion" several times without making his own feelings on that dubious theory clear; he also hints at compensated emancipation. And at the same time, he dismisses abolitionist fears about Texas given that it "only" had a few thousand slaves (but would still have two pro-slavery Senators; a fact he ignores), one of numerous examples where he dismisses and even outright mocks the very idea of a "Slave Power." Yet none of those mid-nineteenth century developments led to any demise in slavery as an institution. Fleming regards the Civil War as a giant waste of life which was not really fought over slavery anyway, yet cannot offer an alternate scenario which is even faintly possible.
This is less a history student than an admittedly well-crafted assemblage of anecdotes.Fleming is also a novelist, and in this book he seems to have borrowed far too many techniques from fiction. The main lesson here is that American history is rich in sources, and if one wants to argue that abolitionists were hateful maniacs who ignored Southern white fears of race war and plunged the country into armed conflict, one can easily find sources to buttress that ready-made conclusion. That is what Fleming has done here; something that looks like objective history at first but quickly unravels.
Thomas Fleming opens his book by noting that the Civil War was both a great triumph and a great tragedy; the former because of the abolition of slavery, the latter because of the enormous suffering and loss of life. This assertion is both clear and unobjectionable. Unfortunately, much of what follows is neither.
The phrase "a disease of the public mind" is attributed to James Buchanan, referring to John Brown and the raid on Harper's Ferry. While Fleming isn't quite so bold as to attempt a restoration of Buchanan's thoroughly-pummeled reputation, by subsequently arguing that 'diseases of the public mind' have been a real, and influential, factor throughout American history, he is at the very least giving him credit for identifying a real phenomenon. Fleming lists several other such 'diseases', making it clear that this is no metaphor--he is arguing that the Civil War was caused by a collective psychological imbalance. Namely, the contending extremism of emancipation in the North and fear of race war in the South. And while he contends that both of these 'diseases' were at fault for the Civil War, the weight of his argument certainly leans towards blaming abolitionism and abolitionists for a war he clearly regards as having been avoidable and unnecessary.
Fleming seems to believe that this is a new argument, but it really isn't. He also argues that his argument is based on the latest historical research, but he leaves out much more recent scholarship than he includes, and he is tellingly vague on what this new scholarship actually is. The idea that the North fought for the Union not for abolitionism isn't particularly new; nor is the idea that fought to defend their homeland rather than the institution of slavery. There is quite a bit of recent scholarship that argues quite the opposite--that slavery was at the center of the war, and participants on both sides knew it. Fleming doesn't rebut these argument--he ignores their existence.
That would be disservice enough to the reader, but an arguably graver sin is his reliance on secondary sources to support claims completely at odds with the source he is quoting. A historian is under no obligation to agree with the fellow scholars he quotes, but Fleming's contemptuous portrait of John Brown relies quite heavily on David Reynolds' largely sympathetic "John Brown: Abolitionist", and his equally disapproving portrayal of William Lloyd Garrison refers frequently to Henry Mayer's "All On Fire", a frankly admiring biography. Fleming is free to disagree with those authors, but he owes them and his own readers to acknowledge his disagreement with the very sources he is relying on. Let alone the obligation to explain the basis for his contrary interpretations.
Other examples of his use of information are less deceiving but more disturbing. Early in the book, he presents the bald statistic that only 6 percent of the white population in the South owned slaves, and roughly half of those slaves were owned by a small minority of planters; i.e., men who owned 50 or more slaves. Later in the book, he makes the argument that abolitionist claims about the sexual exploitation of slaves by their masters were grossly overblown; his evidence to support this claim is that only around 10 percent of slave women were mulatto. The reader might question whether or not 'only' one out of ten black children under slavery having been notably mixed-race refutes charges of the sexual exploitation of slaves by masters; when the reader recalls that fewer than 1 percent of Southern whites owned around half of all the slaves in the South, that 10 percent figure actually looks damning. And this is not, sadly, the only instance in which Fleming argues rather too strenuously that slavery was not as thoroughly degrading and loathsome as abolitionist rhetoric would have it; particularly given that he is far more sympathetic to Southern fears of a race war than he ever is to abolitionist "hatred" for southern whites.
Given that Fleming offers several counter-histories throughout this book--he regards Robert E. Lee's decision to serve for the CSA rather than the Union to be a great "what-if" in American History (he blames this decision, in part, on Nat Turner and John Brown)--it is fair to note one counter-history he does not really offer. Namely--how was slavery to be eliminated? He brings up the southern ideal of "diffusion" several times without making his own feelings on that dubious theory clear; he also hints at compensated emancipation. And at the same time, he dismisses abolitionist fears about Texas given that it "only" had a few thousand slaves (but would still have two pro-slavery Senators; a fact he ignores), one of numerous examples where he dismisses and even outright mocks the very idea of a "Slave Power." Yet none of those mid-nineteenth century developments led to any demise in slavery as an institution. Fleming regards the Civil War as a giant waste of life which was not really fought over slavery anyway, yet cannot offer an alternate scenario which is even faintly possible.
This is less a history student than an admittedly well-crafted assemblage of anecdotes.Fleming is also a novelist, and in this book he seems to have borrowed far too many techniques from fiction. The main lesson here is that American history is rich in sources, and if one wants to argue that abolitionists were hateful maniacs who ignored Southern white fears of race war and plunged the country into armed conflict, one can easily find sources to buttress that ready-made conclusion. That is what Fleming has done here; something that looks like objective history at first but quickly unravels.
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