On the Way to Manassas

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Well, our invading force of 300 or so has boarded the busses and we are about to hit the road to the Mannasas battlefield. Ray Brown will in command of our unit, and the C-Span crew is attached. From what I understand, our invasion will air on July 24 on C-Span 3.

The last time I was on this particular field I got hopelessly lost...so I am looking forward to being led by someone who knows the lay of the land.

Assuming that Verizon doesn't fail me, I'll be reporting on the trip via my iPhone (i write this post with exactly that remarkable device).

And be sure to check all my social media links over the next few days. I'll be uploading more videos and pictures tonight and tomorrow. Yesterday's lectures were first rate - you'll want to check them out.

Peace,

Keith

Civil War Institute Conference Day Two

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Day two is officially in the books and we are just getting under way with day three.

In short - yesterday we heard a great deal on the goings on in 1861. Lincoln, mobilization, regular soldiers, and the Old Army were among the topics. The highlight of the day had to be Allen Guelzo's talk on Lincoln and the first year of the war.

As with all conferences such as these, there is always plenty of room for debate. In other words - don't believe everything you hear. The good news is, this is a very engaging group - on the parts of both the faculty and the participants. There have been some nice back and forth exchanges and some great conversations.

Today we are going to hear about some military actions - Balls Bluff and First Bull Run - I mean, after all...there was a war going on - we should hear a little about the battles!

On a side note - last night around ten or so, I walked out on to the Union line at the High Water Mark. It was nearly pitch black out and there was no one on the battlefield but yours truly. I hiked over to the Pennsylvania monument and hung out for a while until I heard a distant tour group (I assume....maybe they were ghosts) give three loud "huzzahs!" It was a most evocative moment indeed - and for a Civil War historian, the best kind of moment there is.

And then my phone started pinging...alerting me of messages. So as the twenty-first century invaded...I walked back to town and enjoyed a beer after a long day.

Hey Pete....if you are reading this - you see, I DO talk about myself (snicker).

Stay tuned friends - we hear from some first-rate historians today, including Joe Glatthaar and Gary Gallagher. I will provide the debriefing tomorrow.

Peace,

Keith

Civil War Institute Conference Day One is in the Books - Day Two Under Way

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Day two of the CWI conference is officially under way - this is jsut a quick post before I head to the next talk - this morning we heard from historian Jason Phillips on Civil War soldiers in 1861 and their prophetic imaginations - it turns out (according to Jason) that they didn't necessarily expect a short war after all...food for thought, anyway. But I am not sure I agree. At any rate, the topic is certainly worth further examination.

Last night, we heard from Peter Carmichael regarding the first year of the war. Pete's talk was among the most dynamic and engaging that I have ever heard - if you ever get a chance to hear him speak...by all means, take it! You can check out snippets from his discussion by going to my Youtube page - I will post segments from all the daily talks each night of the conference, so check back regularly. And of course, stay up to the minute by searching the #cwi150 hashtag on Twitter and following me on Facebook.

Peace,
Keith

Civil War Historians, Buffs, and Geeks Unite! The festivities begin in 3...2...1...

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Things are just about to get under way. The first lecture is at 2PM EST: Leadership Issues in High Command at Gettysburg - featuring historian Chuck Teague. I will be there, iPhone and laptop at the ready updating as it goes. Be sure to catch the next lecture today at 7PM EST: The War in 1861 - featuring historian Peter Carmichael. For those of you on Twitter...keep an eye out for hashtag #cwi150. It will be almost like being here yourself...or at least a teaser to get you excited about signing up for next year.

So I am now well fortified with an overly indulgent breakfast from the Lincoln Diner (the unofficial Cosmic America HQ for the week) and I am ready to bring the Civil War Institute conference to you in real time. Enjoy!

The good news is - I have been given a reserved media table to set up shop. I will be blogging, tweeting and Facebooking as the events unfold. And if all goes well and Verizon does not fail me, there will be updates from the battlefield as well. Please feel free to weigh in on anything - I will be sure to forward your questions to whomever you direct them.

Peace,

Keith

Greetings from Gettysburg!

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Well, I finally made it - the much anticipated Civil War Institute conference begins tomorrow...and I got here a little early just to have a look around.

I love Gettysburg - for a CIvil War historian who specializes in both history and memory, this is the place. Gettysburg is sort of like an epicenter for CIvil War remembrance and commemoration - and you meet all sorts of characters here. Check out these guys. I ran into them right next to the "High Water Mark" marker. We talked about all kinds of fun stuff, including why a WWII reenactor was hanging around Gettysburg (apparently - he really likes Ike, who retired here after his presidency) - and I got their trivia question correct (Who was the first president to graduate from West Point...hint: it is a trick question)

Anyway - the entire economy of this town is centered on Civil War commemoration, so you run across all kinds of interesting little tidbits - like this painting of Abraham Lincoln, for example. Now who wouldn't want this framed and hanging over their bed? I know I would. So stay tuned. I will be posting updates here and on Facebook and Twitter fr the rest of the week - keeping you all up to date on the goings on at Gettysburg!

Peace,
Keith

PS - mission accomplished. 

More on Contingency - Ed Ayers's In the Presence of Mine Enemies

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Continuing on with yesterday's post discussing (in part) contingency and the Civil War, I thought I might offer a few words on Edward L. Ayers's book, In the Presence of Mine Enemies.

Ayers crafts a narrative claiming to be free from such analytical impediments as simple explanations, stark opposites, and sweeping generalizations. Seeking to clarify how otherwise intricately linked communities - one northern and one southern - wound up on opposing sides of the conflict, Ayers builds a case for “deep contingency.” For Ayers, deep contingency emphasizes “dense and intricate connections in which lives and events are embedded.” Further, it rejects formulations of inevitability, particularly those that pit “progress” against “backwardness” implying an obvious victor. He does so by weaving together national events with sectional, political with cultural. Ayers considers previous analyses of chance, what he refers to as “surface” contingency, flawed. This scholarship, Ayers argues, has only emphasized and dramatized national affirmation and redemption thus obscuring the realities of the period. Arguments boiling down to simple “unfolding inevitabilities,” he claims, “ miss the essence of the story.” Yet, does observing contingency at a supposedly deeper level represent a significant departure from previous efforts to understand the Civil War era? I am not so sure.

Ayers’s principal objection to James McPherson’s brand of contingency refers to both his Pulitzer Prize winning Battle Cry of Freedom and his later publication illuminating the “turning point” at Antietam, Crossroads of Freedom. He acknowledges McPherson’s conclusions regarding battlefield contingency and admits that momentous events on the battlefield had dramatic repercussions for both the Union and Confederate causes. Further, Ayers agrees that events in the war were unpredictable and could have deviated in multiple directions with innumerable potential outcomes. Thus, he similarly emphasizes the so-called turning points of 1862 – the Valley campaign during the summer arresting the Union onslaught in Virginia, and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation following the narrow Union victory at Antietam that autumn. However, while Ayers maintains that prior works concerning these events appropriately underscore the lack of predictability in a war, he concludes that they do not support the notion of deep contingency that frames his book. “We acknowledge contingency,” Ayers suggests, but because contingency eventually led to the end of slavery, we “still feel the pull of the inevitable.”

For Ayers, an understanding of deep contingency helps one read beyond the simplistic formulation of the Civil War as a slave society versus a non-slave society. To avoid “false impressions that we have explained something when we have not,” Ayers insists on gathering as much data as possible concerning the whole society. Only then will the profound web of connections between politics, ideology, culture, and economics be revealed. One can identify sudden historical shifts easily enough, but illustrating the root cause (or causes) is infinitely complex.

Ayers’s reading of Battle Cry and Crossroads suggests that McPherson has made the critical error of illustrating the forces of history working in a predictable and ultimately positive direction, and that McPherson illustrates contingent factors – the chance occurrences on the “surface” – as events further aligning the war toward the known outcome: the prevailing cause of freedom.

Well...maybe so, but I am still puzzled at the need to differentiate between deep and surface contingency. You be the judge - as always, your two cents are more than welcome.

Peace,

Keith

Turning Points

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

One of the most useful tools for bloggers is something called Statcounter. Just in case you are not familiar with this free service, Statcounter is an invisible tracking service that you can configure to track just about anything that happens on your blog (or website). Where the hits came from, where they went, how long they were there, and what they searched for on Google (or whatever) to find you. It might seem a little obsessive to meticulously go over these stats every day. But really, the information gleaned from this site has really helped me tune Cosmic America to my liking.

Anyway....the reason I mention all of this is because the other day I noticed a few hits from someone who had done a Google search with this intriguing question: "Why was Gettysburg the turning point of the Civil War?" The phrasing is what caught my eye -  because the person asking presumed that Gettysburg was the turning point...as opposed to a turning point.  Suffice to say, Gettysburg was a significant battle in the overall scheme of things. It was the last time a major Confederate army advanced into United States territory and the Union victory greatly improved the morale of the loyal population in the North. But to suggest that Gettysburg was the turning point obscures the ebb and flow of prospects for victory for either side. The war was hardly a downhill ride for the Rebels from July 1863 on.

The notion of turning points is always a tricky matter. While is it tempting to view them, especially in the case of Gettysburg, as clear cut lines of delineation, in doing so we run the risk of falling into an ahistorical trap...that is, reading history backwards.

(sidebar: I once heard of a history class taught precisely this way. It began in the present...and worked backward to discover the origin of events. Honestly, I shuddered at the thought.)

Suggesting that Gettysburg (or Vicksburg or any other battle) was the turning point in the Civil War is is a sure-fired way to get it wrong. In fact, from our twenty-first century perspective, there were many turning points in the war. The ascendancy of Robert E. Lee in the early summer of 1862, the Battle of Antietam in the autumn of the same year. The fall of Atlanta in 1864. The reelection of Abraham Lincoln. The list goes on and on. We can point to any of these events and say with confidence: AHA! There it is! From this point the outcome of the war was set in stone. But we can only say that because we know how things turned out.

The point is, those in the ranks and on the homefront did not. Soldiers and citizens on both side sides had their doubts, their certainties, their hopes...and all of these could (and did) change with changing events.

James McPherson, in his Pulitzer Prize winning Battle Cry of Freedom warns against viewing the war as destined to end the way is did from any given point. His ideas regarding contingency illustrate that any number of things could have happened potentially changing the outcome of events. Meaning: the United States proving victorious at Gettysburg did not mean the war was over - not by a longshot. While McPherson in this regard provides a valuable lesson for Civil War students, I would caution nonetheless. Even esteemed historians can accent the battles and other events - providing a trajectory (contingency intact) of a steady movement toward Union victory and all that came with it. Contingency or not, a certain teleology bleeds through in Battle Cry. Nation, freedom...it almost seems foreordained from the onset.  There is an overall triumphal tone to his book, implying a progression toward the ultimate goal of victory and freedom. McPherson writes  always knowing what is at the end of the tunnel. He generally stresses the significance of contingency when it works in favor of the Union cause and Union victory, but does not give the same treatment to the Confederacy at Chancellorsville or Jubal Early’s shelling of Washington City in 1864, McPherson's work is strikingly similar in terms of the relationship between civilian morale and battlefield events…he concentrates on the tendency of northerners to steadily grow in support of things such as the Emancipation Proclamation.

And so we need to think carefully about turning points - or any events for that matter. What they mean to us...what they meant to those who lived through them - did they suspect that such turning of the tides were actually taking place? I have indeed looked at a number of soldiers' and civilians' letters and diaries written shortly after Gettysburg - from both sides. With a few exceptions (such as sensationalist newspaper headlines), I have seen scant trace of certain victory or certain defeat. Unionists were thrilled - Confederates were not...but the war dragged on.

Peace,

Keith