June 24, 2008
Year of the Rat
Yesterday was "Year of the Rat" night at the St. Paul Saints game. Thus, in true Saints fashion, there were a ton of gags involving rats and not just the animal. As we walked into the stadium the sides of the concourse were plastered with photocopies of famous rats. The Rat Pack got several mentions, there was a guy dressed as Benedict Arnold and the entertainers at the game frequently mentioned the type of rat that snitches and goes into the Witness Protection Program. Their favorite target however, was Norm Green. Perhaps the most hated man in Minnesota's entire 150 year history, Green was the guy that moved the North Stars hockey team to Dallas in 1993.
The most amusing moment came during the "Is it a Fish?" game, in which a fan is given a bunch of names and he has to decide if it's the name of a type of fish or not. The final name the fan had to decide on was Bonpensiero. This name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it. Then they showed a picture of the actor Vincent Pastore and I realized that they were referring to the character Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero from the Sopranos, who betrayed the family by becoming a rat and wearing a wire. Of course he was then murdered and tossed off Tony Soprano's boat. So, although Bonpensiero is not a type of fish, he certainly does sleep with the fishes. Ha!
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June 10, 2008
Summer Plans
As usual, my plans for this summer include a lot of travel. Here's a rundown of what I'll be up to over the next few months...
On Friday I'm heading to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota for a week of canoeing. This is a remote region of Minnesota up near the Canadian border which has many of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes. It will be the first time I've ever done something like this and, frankly, I'm a bit nervous. My fellow travelers have been making this trip for the past several years but I was never able to make it because I've always had other plans. Since I'm the least experienced canoeist and camper, they've done most of the planning and I simply have to follow directions which is nice. Fortunately, they've planned a route that will give me a true taste of the wilderness but also includes stops at some historic places that have Native American pictographs. They're counting on me to document the trip in photographs and there will be no shortage of photo opportunities.
In early July I'll be flying to New York then taking a road trip up to Montreal with my friends Matt, Kabrina and Kristin. We'll be spending America's Independence Day in Canada which is a bit ironic. We traveled to Montreal during the winter of 2007 but our trip was cut short by a blizzard and I was sick one of the days we were there. I'm excited to see the city in the summer this time around.
After Montreal I'll be hanging out in New York City for a week, then taking a train 100 miles north up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie to spend a week learning about Franklin Roosevelt at his home in Hyde Park, NY. That will be followed by a second week-long history seminar in Lower Manhattan where I'll be learning about Ellis Island. The Ellis Island workshop should be particularly good because our group will be given a tour of the unseen portion of the island - the part that has all of the abandoned buildings and is completely off-limits to the public. Unfortunately, I've already been forced to sign a waiver/agreement which limits photography at these sites. This means that any photos I do take cannot be exhibited, sold or even viewed by anyone other than myself. There is nothing that bugs me more than stupid photography rules and this is definitely one of them but I'll take what little I can get in this case.
August is still up in the air right now but might include the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago. I'd also like to visit my godmother Sherri and her husband Bruce who are in the process of moving to from Oxnard, CA to Omaha, NE as I type. There may also be some more extensive travels in Iowa if I haven't used up my travel budget by then.
Keep an eye on this space for more posts and photos throughout the summer.
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July 27, 2007
Mark Twain's House
Click here to view the photo gallery.
One of the advantages of spending a whole week at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford is that we were allowed to take photos inside the house. Usually, photos are strictly forbidden because the curators are worried that stuff will got knocked over. I hate it when photography is forbidden and I think the restrictions are a bit ridiculous so I was pleased when I was allowed to take photos on a private tour of the house.
The other advantage of our special tour is that were told a few things that the ordinary visitor doesn't get to hear. For example, we were told how most of the small objects in the house are tied together with fishing line so that it will be obvious when someone tries to snatch something. But the most thrilling part of the tour was being allowed to go behind the ropes in the room where Mark Twain did most of his writing: the billiard room on the third floor. It also allowed us to get a closer view of some of the smaller objects in the room. The neatest thing I noticed was a copy of a check that Twain's publishing company wrote to Ulysses S. Grant's wife, Julia. Twain published Grant's memoirs which basically saved the Grant family from bankruptcy. The amount of the check was $200,000 which was an astronomical sum of money in 1885.
You'll see a photo of the check, along with a number of other photos of the Twain home in the photo gallery.
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July 24, 2007
The First Lady Likes Mark Twain
Mrs. Laura Bush just stopped by our classroom here at the Mark Twain House and Museum to say hello and have her photo taken with us. Accompanying her were Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and the head of the National Endowment of the Humanities, Dr. Bob Cole (he got the biggest round of applause because NEH sponsors all these workshops).
Now I have no love for her husband, but I have to admit that the First Lady is very personable and seems like a nice woman. The White House photographer took a group photo of us all so I'm hoping it will be available online at some point. My photo on the left is a closeup. View the full version at Flickr.
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July 23, 2007
First Day at Twain's House
Today was the first day of a workshop on Mark Twain that I'm attending in Hartford at the Mark Twain House and Museum. Today we took a tour of the house which was nice despite the crabbiness of our guide and photography ban. I'm always disappointed when a place like the Mark Twain House doesn't allow photos to be taken inside, especially when they don't give a good reason for it.
Throughout the week all of the workshop participants will get to use the library and archives at the museum which could yield some really cool stuff. Since I'm a Ulysses S. Grant fanatic, I'll be using much of my free time to look at the correspondence between Grant (1822-1885) and Twain (1835-1910). Since Twain published Grant's wildly popular memoirs, hopefully there is some correspondence between them that I'll be able to pore over, or maybe even an original copy of a letter in Grant's hand that I could look at. I would get a real thrill out of that.
This afternoon we took a bus tour of Hartford in which we stopped at some historic places around town like the Asylum Hill Congregational Church (Twain attended regularly and sat in the third pew on the left), the city's oldest cemetery, the now abandoned Colt firearm factory and the Old State House (site of the beginning of the Amistad trial). Another highlight of the tour was when we drove past the site where the Hartford Dark Blues used to play. The Dark Blues were a baseball team in existence from 1874-1877 and were a part of baseball's first professional league, the National Association (now known as the National League). Not only that, but one of the people hosting our workshop is a member of the modern, recreated Dark Blues that "are a member of the 8 team New England Vintage Base Ball League (NEVBBL), which plays by 1861 rules!" I'm hoping to get a chance to talk to our host and learn more about how the national game was played back then.
Finally, we were all very excited to hear that First Lady Laura Bush will be visiting the museum tomorrow. Now I have absolutely no love for her husband but I have to admit that it would be sort of cool if she popped in to our classroom to say hello. Maybe it will get us on the news again.
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July 21, 2007
A Week in Spartanburg, SC
Every summer for the past four years I've attended workshops on American history at various sites around the country. This year I'm going to two and the first one, on the American Revolution in South Carolina, just finished up yesterday. It was held in Spartanburg at Converse College. Highlights were our visits to Kings Mountain, Cowpens and Ninety Six. We also went to two Spartanburg Stingers baseball games and spent a lot of time at Delaney's, a great Irish pub.
Tomorrow I head to the second and final workshop which is in Hartford, Connecticut and focuses on Mark Twain.
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January 8, 2007
What Would Lincoln Do?
During a recent spate of subscribing to numerous Civil War blogs, I came across an op-ed in the L.A. Times by Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer comparing Bush's leadership in the Iraq war with Abe's in the Civil War. Holzer presents a number of points on how Lincoln might handle the current struggle were he alive today.
As it turns out, the article is one in a series of four. Each article is written by an expert and looks at a different leader and how he would handle the Iraq situation and each presents some great points which should be required reading for President Bush:
Abraham Lincoln: Focus on the Right Foe
Ghengis Khan: Law and Order
Julius Caesar: Diplomacy and Power
George Washington: the Crying Game
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February 6, 2006
"Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell, the mousey-voiced contributor to NPR's "This American Life" and voice of Violet in "The Incredibles" is a nerd when it comes to presidential assassinations. "Assassination Vacation" is a collection of historical tidbits about the murders of presidents Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield. It's a fascinating read for history buffs and even for those who only have a casual interest in presidential history and forensics.
Vowell visits all sorts of crazy sites related to the assassinations including the National Museum of Health and Medicine which contains fragments of Lincoln's skull and the Museum of Funeral Customs which is just a short walk from Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, IL. Along the way, she tells the story of the assassinations and the characters that are involved in them. Lincoln's son Robert, for example, was in the vicinity of all three presidents when they were killed. It's such a weird coincidence that Vowell refers to him as Jinxy McDeath. Stranger still is the fact that John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin saved Robert's life during the war when Robert fell off a train platform next to a slowly-moving train and was pulled out of the gap by Booth. The book is full of interesting stories like these and Vowell comes across as an expert in the telling.
Along the way, Vowell isn't afraid to criticize the current administration and make some connections between the present war in Iraq and McKinley's preemptive Spanish-American war. Later in the book she likens the squalid conditions that a Booth co-conspirator faced at a prison in Dry Tortugas, FL to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (which isn't as far-fetched as it probably sounds).
Although Vowell wanders off-topic often, this humorous and entertaining book is a quick and enjoyable read for anyone who has even a slight interest in history. I just hope that she someday writes a sequel about the fourth (and still taboo?) presidential assassination of John F. Kennedy.
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November 25, 2004
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving in America has been celebrated annually since 1863, when president Abraham Lincoln issued the following proclamation:
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
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October 11, 2004
OHNY: High Bridge Water Tower
Click here to view the photo gallery (16 images).
The highlight of today's OHNY events was the climb up the High Bridge Water Tower. Built in 1872, the tower is approximately 200' tall and was an important part of the city's water system. Today it is no longer used and the 47,000 gallon water tank has been removed. This means that there is a large space at the top with windows facing all directions which provide fantastic views of the George Washington Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.
There are two spiral staircases inside the octagonal tower. The first spiral goes up to the tank room. Then, in the center of the room is a very narrow spiral staircase which goes up to the highest, windowless level of the tower. This smaller staircase seems suspended in the middle of the room because it is not attached to the wall. I'm not a huge fan of heights and the first part of the climb was no problem for me but the second flight looked pretty scary. Finally, after some encouragement from the friend who accompanied me, I started up the second staircase. After what seemed like an eternity we reached the top. This is when I realized that the climb down was going to be ten times worse. I caught my breath and took a few photos which came out blurry because my hands were literally shaking and my knees were wobbly. On the way down I stepped very slowly, concentrated very hard, tried to ignore the 15-20 feet of open air between the stairwell and the wall, and didn't think about the 200 foot drop just underneath the thin metal stair treads. I was breathing heavily and had the cold sweats, but I made it.
I don't think any spiral staircase has ever scared me as much as this one did... but it was worth it. Check out the gallery of photos.
Other photos from the weekend are over on my photoblog.
permalink | comments (4) | posted at 11:09 AM
OHNY: Pratt Institute Power Plant
Click here to view the photo gallery (22 images).
I had been looking forward to the annual Open House New York for weeks and it did not disappoint. This year the organization opened over 100 sites of architectural significance for the weekend, free of charge. I saw several sites on Saturday but the highlight was the Pratt Institute Power Plant in Brooklyn. The plant has been producing electricity for the Institute continuously since 1887 and is a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.
The chief engineer himself, Conrad Milster, showed visitors around. Most impressive is the main floor where the generators sit. Amazingly, there were no restrictions during the tour and we were able to get very close to all of the equipment including the spinning generators. Milster next led us downstairs into the boiler room, a large space with oil stains on the floor and water condensing on the ceiling and dripping onto our heads. The boilers provide heat to the entire five block campus and hot water to the cafeteria.
After the official tour was over, we were allowed to walk around on our own. Workmen in grubby overalls answered some of the visitors' questions and even posed for photos; one guy held up a huge wrench and stood next to a generator while a photographer snapped pictures. My photos of the power plant are in the gallery.
Other photos from the weekend are over on my photoblog.
permalink | comments (2) | posted at 10:35 AM
September 21, 2004
Alexander Hamilton: the Man Who Made Modern America
I was lucky enough to be invited to a special showing of the new exhibit at the New York Historical Society today. "Alexander Hamilton: the Man Who Made Modern America" is the largest Hamilton exhibit ever mounted and comes at an opportune time: the 200th anniversary of his famous duel with Vice President Aaron Burr that ended his life.
The exhibit's main focus is not only bringing to life the man on the $10 bill whom so few people know about, but also to explain how this founding father connects to the modern world. The exhibit is largely successful in the first part of that goal, and just barely achieves the second.
The exhibit is divided amongst the first floor rooms of the building. The Introduction gallery has seating and paintings of famous Americans from the Revolutionary era on the wall. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Martha, Burr and nearly 20 other original portraits hang on the wall and are together valued at more than $100 million. Two large screens show Hamilton's contemporaries debating the issues of the time and making their opinions of Hamilton known and a small doorway beckons the visitor to explore further.
Next is the main gallery: His Vision. This is the most fascinating portion of the exhibit. Dozens of artifacts and documents tell Hamilton's story. Personally, the highlights for me were:
- British map of Yorktown, printed just months after the battle. It's probably the most recognizable map from the battle, reprinted in most books about the revolution.
- A "delegate copy" of the Constitution. This one was Ben Franklin's personal copy bearing his signature in the upper right corner.
- Hand signed roster listing the men that signed up for the Continental Army with Hamilton.
- Copy of the Federalist papers.
- The pistols used in the famous Hamilton-Burr duel.
The artifacts largely speak for themselves and there is surprisingly little text about Hamilton's life. I'm assuming that the acoustiguides (the telephone-like objects that visitors carry around) give more information than what is written on the exhibit panels themselves. The emphasis on artifacts rather than words gels with the Society's mission of making the exhibit more friendly to the general public and especially schoolchildren.
To accomplish the standard biographical sketch of Hamilton, his vision is divided into six different phases. First he is spoken of as Hamilton the Immigrant (he was born on Nevis in the Caribbean and lived on St. Croix as a boy), then Hamilton the Soldier, Lawmaker, Economist, Activist and finally Futurist. With modern day video playing on screens opposite the artifacts, the exhibit allows visitors to make their own connection between Hamilton and the present.
Next, a long narrow hallway shows a giant timeline of Hamilton's life. The area is a bit cramped which might make viewing a problem if the exhibit gets busy but the timeline is a nice way to illustrate the man's life and draws together the different roles mentioned above.
Finally, and almost as an afterthought, is the duel. The exhibit largley keeps the explanation to a minimum which is wise considering that most Americans know the story or at least recognize it when they hear it. Standing exactly ten paces apart are bronze sculptures of Hamilton and Burr facing each other, guns drawn. The scene represents the last moment of Hamilton's life and the specially created statues are as historically accurate as any representation of either man is ever likely to be. Hamilton's pistol is pointed slightly upward to show that he purposely missed Burr and the Vice President's pistol points directly at Hamilton's abdomen, where the bullet entered and penetrated through to his spine. To the side, in a case against the wall, are the pistols themselves. They need virtually no explanation and the curators of the exhibit wisely chose to let the items and statues speak for themselves.
Overall, the exhibit lives up to its claim as the most definitive exhibit of Hamilton's life. In addition, one will need no imagination to see the larger picture, the history of America itself. Although there are some flaws, the most notable being that the exhibit does not highlight the links between Hamilton's life and our own well enough, I still highly recommend the exhibit if you have even a slight interest in the man who's portrait you may be carrying in your wallet or purse right now.
permalink | comments (5) | posted at 8:33 PM
September 1, 2004
"Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose
By far the best book I read on my recent journey, "Undaunted Courage", by Stephen Ambrose details the journey of Lewis and Clark across the American frontier. I read this book at the perfect time because the 200th anniversary is this year and I recently traveled across much of the same ground that Lewis and Clark did. Ambrose, if a bit un-academic at some points, is a fantastic writer and he relates the tale of the journey of the Corps of Discovery in riveting fashion. I never understood all the fuss about the anniversary of the expedition but Ambrose brings the topic alive. Someone really ought to make a feature film about this expedition and base it on this book (the Imax film "Great Journey West", highly recommended, is as close as you can get for now).
Drawing heavily on the journals of the expedition, Ambrose goes into fascinating detail about the character of Merriweather Lewis, picturing him as a highly motivated and skilled explorer, naturalist and ethnographer. I had virtually no knowledge of Lewis before I read this book but I now see him as one of the most fascinating characters of American history. He and the others set out into the unknown, documented almost everything they saw, and lived to tell about it. The expedition made huge leaps forward in science, relations with the natives and geography. It's not hard to see how Lewis and Clark's journey changed America forever by expanding her borders and making the unknown of the frontier accessible to settlers.
I have newfound respect for all the men, woman and baby who took part in the expedition. They were perhaps the last true explorers, at least until humans land on Mars. Thanks to Ambrose, I now understand why the 200th anniversary is such a big deal. Whether you're travelling over the same ground or not, this book is a fascinating story worth reading.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 2:29 AM
July 31, 2004
"In the Presence of Mine Enemies" by Edward Ayers
In his book "In the Presence of Mine Enemies", Edward Ayers takes two typical counties during the Civil War, one from the South and one from the North, and compares and contrasts them. In the early 90's, Ayers started the "Valley of the Shadow" project. After choosing two counties linked by the Shenandoah Valley, Franklin to the north of the Mason-Dixon line and Augusta to the south, Ayers obtained relevant documents from both counties during the Civil War period, transcribed them with the help of an army of UVA students, and put them all on the internet. The project alone is remarkable, and has become a valuable online resource for the war, but Ayers went a step further. He dug through the collection that he himself created and used selected resources to write a history that compares and contrasts the counties. His results in some cases are typical and fit the stereoypes for each side, but they are simply astonishing in others. What is most noticeable in the end is that the two counties weren't all that different at the start of the war, and both became almost completely devoted to the side they were fighting for.
Ayers has written a book that successfully uses micro-history to tell the reader about individual people and events while maintaining the wider context and relevance to the Civil War period as a whole. With "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" Ayers has made a valuable and lasting contribtion to Civil War scholarship.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 11:37 PM
July 2, 2004
Minneapolis: Mill City
View the photo gallery: "Mill City"
The biggest surprise of my trip to Minnesota this week has been the Mill City Museum in downtown Minneapolis (view my photo gallery: "Mill City"). Opened in 2003, the museum showcases the history of the flour industry in the city - a topic which I readily admit sounds pretty boring. Thankfully, the museum is incredibly well produced and is as much a history of the Twin Cities as it is of the industry.
As any good museum director knows, location is critical. Not just in driving visitors to a museum, but by making a connection between the history and the physical site. This museum benefits from a perfect location - the ruins of the Washburn "A" Mill. The mill sits on the banks of the Mississippi River which provided the water power to grind millions of tons of grain into flour and make the mill the largest in the world. At its peak production the mill ground enough flour to make 12 million loaves of bread per day. The Mill closed in 1965 and sat abandoned until 1991 when the rusting equipment inside was destroyed by a fire, the cause of which is still unknown. Only a brick shell remains. Today, the ground floor of the mill serves as the courtyard for the museum. Inside, exhibits explain how grain is turned into flour and how the city of Minneapolis expanded as it became the center of milling in the country.
Visitors who are still bored at this point will want to hop on the "Flour Tower", a multimedia exhibit which takes place on a freight elevator. Visitors enter the elevator at the ground floor and are seated on a raised platform. The elevator then moves up and down between eight floors and showcases a different part of the flour milling process at each level. The presentation makes good use of oral accounts from former mill workers, video, sound and light to immerse the audience in the daily workings of the mill. The elevator comes to a stop at the highest level of the museum where visitors emerge onto an outside observation platform which provides spectacular views of St. Anthony Falls, the stone arch bridge and other Minneapolis landmarks. It's a perfect way to cap off the experience and a perfect place to ponder how the Mississippi gave rise to an entire industry and a beautiful city.
View the photo gallery: "Mill City"
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 6:31 PM
June 27, 2004
"The Confederate War" by Gary Gallagher
Noted Civil War historian Gary Gallagher takes on some of the common perceptions of the Civil War in this thoughtful historiography, "The Confederate War". He contends that Civil War historians look at the conflict by working backwards from Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and by examining why the South was defeated. Gallagher takes on the issue in a different way, looking at the conflict from beginning to end and detailing how the Confederacy was able to last so long in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
Gallagher begins by looking at the previous works of other historians and sets forth his own hypotheses in three areas: popular will, nationalism, and military strategy. In the first, he looks at the widespread belief that the South lost the will to fight. Most historians contend that this occurred in the summer of 1863 after the dual defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Gallagher disagrees, and gives ample evidence that the South was still in favor of continuing the war. He even claims that, if anything, the South became more determined as the war stretched into '64 and '65. To prove his point, Gallagher looks at desertion rates and attacks the widely held theory that the Army of Northern Virginia was disintegrating during the Petersburg campaign. He argues that desertions occurred because soldiers were worried about the safety of their families in the face of the Union advance into Virginia, not because they were losing faith in the cause. He also contends that many soldiers actually returned to the front lines after ensuring the safety of their families.
As the war continued, and as the Confederacy became more desperate for troops, the idea of gradual emancipation was raised, even by such notables as Robert E. Lee. Gallagher uses this to show that the South was willing to do anything necessary to win the war; they were even willing to give up their basic social structure: slavery, in order to become an independent nation. At this point Gallagher brings up the idea of nationalism, and contends that civilians of the South felt a strong national identity. Furthermore, that sense of nationalism is due in large part to the Army of Northern Virginia and it's charismatic General Lee. Gallagher makes a strong case throughout the book that the Confederate people saw the army as the figurehead of the South.
Finally, Gallagher tackles military strategy. Historians often make the case that the Confederacy should have changed it's military strategy by waging a defensive campaign and by adopting guerilla warfare. Gallagher argues that these are flawed ideas, and this is the strongest portion of the book. Neither of these strategies would have been successful because they both lack inspiration. By waging a defensive war, the South would not have received the benefits of the morale boosts provided by Lee's army after victories like Chancellorsville and Fredricksburg. Gallagher uses Lee's first campaign as an example. During the Seven Days, he was nicknamed "King of Spades" because of his insistence on digging earthworks. During this time morale flagged in the South because Lee was waging a defensive campaign. Thereafter, he employed an aggressive offensive strategy which was mostly successful until Ulysses S. Grant took command in 1864.
Gallagher uses a similar argument to contend that a guerilla war would not have produced a Confederate victory. He goes through a long list of problems with this theory. Most importantly, there would be no massive army like Lee's to look up to, which would cause morale problems amongst the civilians of the South. A guerilla war would have caused problems with slavery and would have required ceding some territory to the Union because the very nature of a guerilla war is that it is fought against an occupying force. Also, the professional military would have been alienated and there would be almost no chance that the Confederacy would be recognized, much less supported, by European nations.
In summary, this book looks at some of the most common perceptions of the Confederacy which have been in place throughout this century and refutes them. However, Gallagher encounters the same problem of the historians that he is refuting, in that he is still generalizing. Of course he can find letters from the common Southerner that speak of "our country", but there are plenty of letters that support the opposite theory. Because of this, there will always be disagreements about what was in the hearts and minds of Southerners during the war. The strong point of this book is when Gallagher shows that Lee's army was the rallying point and figurehead for the Southern cause and that they followed the best strategy possible by more often than not taking the fight to the enemy, rather than letting the enemy come to them. In the end, the book once again shows just how important Lee and his army were to the Confederacy, and demonstrates that without his leadership and the inspiring effect he had on the populace, the war would certainly have ended much sooner.
permalink | comments (1) | posted at 12:24 PM
June 22, 2004
"Dreams of Iron and Steel" by Deborah Cadbury
Originally a television show aired on the BBC in Britain, "Dreams of Iron and Steel" is TV presenter Deborah Cadbury's print version of the popular series. In it, she looks at seven wonders of the industrial age: the Great Eastern, London sewer system, Brooklyn Bridge, Panama Canal, transcontinental railroad, Bell Rock Lighthouse and Hoover Dam. Each modern marvel receives its own chapter in which Cadbury delves just deep enough into the topic to keep the reader informed and interested. She gives enough technical information to show the genius of each design, and tells of the common workers and the conditions they endured to build each of the seven wonders. If anything, Cadbury's book is as much about the people as it is the technology. And, considering the volumes that have been written about every one of the wonders in this book, she manages to narrow each one down to perhaps 40 or 50 pages, making "Dreams of Iron and Steel" a captivating read.
BBC History has a brief summary of it's popular series along with a gallery of images that were not put in the book.
permalink | comments (0) | posted at 11:10 PM