Civil Warriors

With the 148th anniversary of the battle approaching, I thought I would share these images of the Ox Hill (Chantilly) Battlefield. The first was taken over twenty years ago (1987, I think), when I was taking an undergraduate Civil War course at Northern Virginia Community College with Charles Poland. At the time West Ox Road was transforming from the two lane rural road with large lots on both sides it was when my school bus travelled on it every morning to what it is today with Monument Drive just having been built. The second picture was taken two weekends ago, when I was in the area doing work on the Manassas guide for the This Hallowed Ground series Mark and Brooks edit with Steve Woodworth for the University of Nebraska Press.

It is sad how little of the battlefield is preserved, but the Fairfax County Park Authority deserves kudos for doing a very good job with what is left in developing the park a few years ago. You certainly get a better understanding of the battle today than you did when all I remember there being was a trail leading to the Kearny and Stevens monuments and Kearny stump. Plus, you can now honor the men who fought there by grabbing a burger, catching a movie, and stocking up at Bed, Bath and Beyond just across the street. I’m pretty sure that’s what Stonewall and Kearny would have wanted.

By COL (Ret.) Charles D. Allen

The academic year at the U.S. Army War College begins with a course entitled Strategic Thinking, intended to introduce (or re-introduce) students to an assortment of intellectual tools by which to make sense of what is known around the war college as the “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA)” environment of national security at its higher levels.  There are blocks of instruction on critical thinking, creative thinking, systems thinking, and so on; also a block on the uses of history.  The final day of the course–its integration phase–takes the form of a staff ride to the Gettysburg battlefield 30 miles south of Carlisle Barracks.  The entire class–some 400 students–descends upon the battlefield in ten buses, each “commanded” by a faculty member tasked to walk them through the events of the battle.

The student body consist primarily of U.S. colonels, with a leavening of senior civilian leaders from other government agencies (e.g., the Department of Homeland Security).  But it also contains over 50 “International Fellows”: colonels from foreign countries, ranging from Brazil to Poland to Saudi Arabia.

COL (Ret.) Chuck Allen, a professor in the U.S. Army War College’s Department of Command, Leadership, and Management, offers a vignette from this year’s staff ride.

To paraphrase, “a day on the Gettysburg battlefield beats any day in the seminar room.”  Of course for our U.S. Army War College trip, the seminar room was the battlefield.   Over the years, I have been privileged to observe several student groups vicariously experience the great national contest of wills that was our American Civil War. It is advantageous for our students that contest came to be realized in central Pennsylvania.

I am not sure what students expected after a night of reading about the strategic setting of the campaign and then taking the 45-minute morning bus ride from Carlisle to Gettysburg.   History buffs in the class may have had unbridled anticipation while the rest of the students may have dreaded a day in the hot sun hearing about a battle that occurred nearly one and a half centuries ago. The questions in many student minds may have been, “what can this battle teach me” and “how is this useful to me in the current operating environment.”

From the first stop on the battlefield, the focus was not on the tactics and dry, sterile facts of unit names, locations, and size (which can be overwhelming in a hurry).  The historian talked about the people in command of the formations on the field, their personalities, critical events in their lives, and their relationships with other key leaders both on and off the field.  The historian engaged students to think about the challenges, stresses, and myriad other factors that would influence the decisions of the day.  Proceeding from one historical position to another, it became clear that those tactical events would have operational and strategic effects for our nation.

The measure of the long day came at our final stop on Cemetery Hill where we gathered at the base of the statue of Union General Winfield Scott Hancock.  As the historian provided the soliloquy to wrap up the day, I looked around at the group of students as they nodded their heads in reflection of what happened on that battlefield over the three days.  Perhaps they thought of the enduring themes of leadership, and, maybe even, considered lessons that could be useful in future conflicts.

That would have been enough, but then I spied two students seated on the ground in the cooler shadow of the statue.  That in of itself was unremarkable except that they were two international fellows.  Both officers were from different faith groups (one Jewish and the other, Muslim) and this scene would have been implausible, apart from being USAWC students this year. These international fellows were from nations that have a long history of conflict (both internal and external) and have been the focus of international attention for many years.  It would have been informative to hear how they viewed a civil war that lasted a mere 4 years and was the only challenge to the existence of a nation since its founding.

But there on an American battlefield and in an educational setting, seeing those two groups of students—American and International—I envisioned hope. Maybe it lies in studying and extracting the lessons of the past to provide promise for the future.

Over at Civil War Memory Kevin Levin’s offered information on what the National Park Service hands out to visitors at Governors Island in New York.

I would enjoy seeing the evidence and the sources upon which this description is based.  Let’s see what happens with your tax dollars at work.

I must admit … after seeing the NPS work so hard to bring professional historians to help discuss their interpretation of sites, this is an eye-opening event.

This afternoon an email landed in my mailbox from the University of Richmond’s Online and Social Media Officer, informing me of the City of Richmond’s upcoming commemoration of Civil War & Emancipation Day.  I was struck by its juxtaposition of the commemoration with Gov. Bob McDonnell’s initial proclamation of Confederate History Month. With her permission, here’s the text:

I am sending this information to you as your readers may be interested in a Civil War commemoration coming up this Saturday. With Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s recent omission of slavery in his Confederate History Month proclamation (which he later corrected), the City of Richmond’s commemoration of the Civil War & Emancipation Day points the discussion of Civil War history in a direction of inclusivity.

As Gov. McDonnell’s proclamation struck a chord in this nation, I hope you will blog about Richmond’s initiative to move the conversation about the Civil War in a more comprehensive direction.

The need to tell a more accurate and inclusive story about the Civil War has led to an initiative in the City of Richmond, Va., to explore the Civil War from a more comprehensive perspective, through Civil War and Emancipation Day, a commemoration of the 150th anniversaries of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves in America. The event will be held in downtown Richmond at The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar and Shockoe Bottom on April 17, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, and 15 sites will offer exhibits, activities, performances, discussions, tours and other events.

As there is a clear need in Richmond, Virginia and the United States to include more information about the different perspectives of the Civil War – such as the  suffering and triumph of African Americans during one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s history – The Future of Richmond’s Past has organized the commemoration to present a more truthful, comprehensive perspective of the Civil War. Slavery will be addressed in addition to Confederate history.

For more info on Richmond’s Civil War & Emancipation Day, visit the event page on Facebook: http://ow.ly/1xsmC.

Visit The Future of Richmond’s Past on Facebook: http://ow.ly/1xsic or the website at http://www.futureofrichmondspast.org.

From Tom Ricks’s blog, The Best Defense, April 7:

The governor of Virginia has just issued a proclamation declaring this month “Confederate history month.” He did so at the request of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I can live with that. I have no problem with honoring a state’s heritage — as long as all the citizens have their heritage fairly represented.

So, Gov. Bob McDonnell, how about a Nat Turner Day?

<snips>

… Thanks, governor. Your statement reads like something that could have been issued in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964….

Full post

NPR, March 25, 2010

Honest, Mr. President: Abe Never Said It
by John J. Pitney Jr.

John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. With Joseph M. Bessette, he is the author of American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship.

In his remarks to Democratic lawmakers the day before they passed the health care bill, President Obama said: “I was tooling through some of the writings of some previous presidents, and I came upon this quote by Abraham Lincoln: ‘I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true. I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.’ ”

The Lincoln quotation was stirring. It was also bogus. There is no documentary evidence that Lincoln ever said any such thing.

Obama is hardly the first speaker to pass counterfeit prose. A couple of entertaining reference books — They Never Said It by Paul Boller and John George, and The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes — are full of fake quotations and mis-attributions that have come into common usage. The process starts when an honest mistake or flight of fancy leads to the publication of a spurious passage. Seeing it in print, writers and speakers assume it to be genuine and repeat it. Then they copy one another, and the dubious words spread like a computer virus.

It is understandable that many of these cases involve Lincoln. By quoting the Great Emancipator’s words, public figures try to capture some of his magic for themselves. The temptation to touch the hem of his garment is so great that they sometimes get sloppy about fact-checking and grab for a knockoff.

That temptation crosses partisan and ideological lines. President Reagan used the “bound to be true” line several times. (One may guess that President Obama’s speechwriter got it from a Reagan speech and incorrectly took it for granted that the Gipper’s staff had sourced it.) After his presidency, at the 1992 Republican convention, Reagan quoted this favorite of anti-tax groups: “You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.” Lincoln never used those words. They came from William Boetcker, a prominent minister of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Boetcker did not credit Lincoln with the lines, but some of his conservative admirers did.

Full article

From last week’s visit to Les Invalides:

Last week a group of historians met in Columbus to discuss the interpretive framework for Ohio’s observance of the Civil War Sesquicentennial.  (The Ohio Historical Society organized the event; the Ohio Humanities Council sponsored it.)  The first order of business was to offer our initial thoughts on “An Overarching Theme:  The Big Picture.”  On a scratch pad I scribbled “Democracy is hard” and “War as an engine of social change.”  We wound up discussing these and other potential themes — “Memory” and “Transformation” — and at the end of the day, “Democracy is Hard” was one of those we decided to explore in more detail.  I was tasked to write a brief summary, reprinted below:

The Civil War, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman insisted, stemmed from an “excess of democracy.”  He had a point.  The Founders had established a republic, not a democracy.  Well aware that, historically, most republics had failed, they were convinced that success depended upon the restriction of political participation to those with “civic virtue”:  the capacity to understand the complexities of government and a willingness to make choices based not on narrow self interest but on what was best for the commonwealth as a whole.  To ensure this, they instituted property and residency requirements so that only those with a strong stake in the community could vote.  Further, they placed a premium on consensus and had no conception of political parties as we understand the term.  Instead they regarded strong differences in political opinions as evidence of a destructive “spirit of faction.”

Despite the Founders’ wishes, the American Revolution unleashed forces that by the late 1820s had transformed the republic into a democracy characterized by universal white male suffrage.  (Women and African Americans remained largely excluded.)  Political parties emerged, with strongly contrasting views on government and an ability to mobilize voters seldom matched in American history — voter turnout frequently reached 80 percent.  The parties flattered the common (white) man.  They argued, in effect, that the common (white) man had the requisite civic virtue precisely because he was common.  They relentlessly exploited the fears of voters and routinely portrayed the opposition as a threat to liberty, a trait since characterized as the “paranoid style in American politics.”  Shamelessly partisan, newspapers of the day slanted the news in favor of their preferred political party.  They were little more than extended editorial pages.

Initially this system worked.  The two major parties — the Whigs and Democrats — were about equally matched and enjoyed support in all parts of the country.  Well aware that slavery had the ability to split the country along sectional lines, for two decades Whigs and Democrats managed to exclude it from national political life.  The War with Mexico (1846-1848), however, raised a vexing issue: whether to permit slavery in the vast territories the United States had acquired as a result of its victory.  From then on, politicians never found a way to contain the slavery question, and by 1854 a major new party — the Republicans — had emerged, largely on the basis of its opposition to slavery in the western territories.  At stake was a fundamental question about the nature of the United States.  Was it, at bottom, a free republic with pockets of slavery; or a slaveholding republic with pockets of freedom?

Compromise on this issue was possible.  Most Republicans did not object to slavery per se, and only a small minority regarded as a moral imperative the immediate, uncompensated emancipation of slaves and the extension of full legal, political, and social equality to African Americans.  But hotheads on both sides exploited the “paranoid style” for all it was worth.  Tempers flared.  Mob violence became common — lethally so in some cases, particularly “Bleeding Kansas.”  In its Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court unsuccessfully tried to resolve the slave issue.  The victor in the 1860 presidential election, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, consistently denied any intent to abolish slavery, candidly regarded African Americans as inferior to whites, and thought the racial problem could best be solved by sending the African American population to colonies in Africa or the Caribbean.

The Deep South, however, regarded Lincoln’s election as a mortal threat.  During the winter of 1860-1861 seven states seceded from the Union rather than accept the verdict of a fairly conducted election whose winner was never in dispute.  Last minute efforts at a compromise solution went nowhere, and when Lincoln attempted to “hold, occupy, and possess” federal installations in the seceded states, the newly created Confederacy fired upon the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.  Lincoln’s call for 75,000 militia to suppress the rebellion led four states of the Upper South to join the Confederacy.  A full-scale war began, heartily welcomed by most of the American population, who saw it as an opportunity to cleanse the republic.  It took four years, ten thousand military engagements, and 620,000 dead to resolve through violence an issue that the democratic process had utterly failed to solve.

Nowadays when Americans think about the Civil War they typically do so with a sense of nostalgia.  To them democracy seems easy.  They see little problem with exporting it to other countries, even those devoid of the history, institutions, or political culture necessary to sustain it.  Nor do they see danger in the extreme present-day partisanship — a renewal of the paranoid style of politics — that between 1830 and 1860 pushed the republic off a cliff.  In so doing they overlook a central lesson of the Civil War:  Far from being easy, democracy is extraordinarily hard.

Cross-posted from Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

Education at the Army War College is delivered by way of twenty seminar groups, each consisting of about fourteen U.S. students and two or three International Fellows; i.e., foreign officers.   Faculty members from the three war college departments are assigned to specific seminars and teach that group and that group only.  Each group has its own seminar room.  And although seldom noticed, each room is named for an American general, with his name on the door and his photo and biography adjacent to it.

[NB.  The justification for cross-posting here is that seven were Civil War generals (though Scott, Miles, and Crook are associated mainly with other wars) and two -- Lee and Jackson -- arguably should not have seminar rooms because they were never generals in the *United States* Army.  Plus, you know, their participation in a rebellion against the United States.]

Here’s the thing.  The International Fellows (IF) program pays huge dividends to the Army.  As the program web page explains, its  objectives are

To establish mutual understanding and good working relationships between senior U.S. officers and senior officers of selected foreign countries.

To offer an opportunity for senior military officers from allied and friendly countries to study, research, and write on subjects of significance to the security interests of their own and allied nations.

To extend and deepen the professional qualifications of military leaders of other nations.

To enrich the educational environment of the USAWC.

To improve the Fellows’ firsthand knowledge of the U.S. culture and institutions through study and travel in the Continental United States.

These are all worthy objectives, but the first is hugely important, given the fact that most of the officers wind up in top leadership positions in their own armed forces.  (Root Hall has a wall festooned with portraits of foreign chiefs of staff who were graduates of the war college.)  As you might imagine, this kind of informal access can come in very handy at times.  The Chief of Staff of the Army, GEN George W. Casey, Jr., likes the program so well he has tasked the war college with doubling the number of IF’s, from 40 last year to 80 by 2012.  (This year’s resident class has 50.)

It is estimated that among other things, such a dramatic expansion will require the creation of four new seminar groups.  Which in turn will require four new seminar rooms.  Which in turn will require four new names.  I doubt that anyone has given the least thought to the issue of names — it’s got to be dead last among the considerations involved in doubling the IF program — but what the hell.  Here’s a chance to be of service to your country.

(Continued)

Maybe not, but this is still pretty cool. From the 16 July edition of Martinsburg, WV’s The Journal:

HAGERSTOWN – Bobblehead collectors and sports fans have something to look forward to this weekend. The Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau will present General Abner Doubleday bobbleheads to the first 1,000 fans arriving at the Hagerstown Suns’ 7:05 p.m. game against the Asheville Tourists on Saturday. Gates will open at Municipal Stadium at 6:05 p.m., and the Suns advise fans to arrive early, as the supply of bobbleheads is not expected to last long.

The bobblehead commemorates Doubleday’s legacy as a key figure in the military history of Washington County, as well as his mythic role in the origins of the game of baseball. “The Convention and Visitors Bureau is very proud to be the financial sponsor of this bobblehead giveaway,” said Bureau President and CEO Tom Riford. “Abner Doubleday and the modernization of baseball are forever linked, just as General Doubleday’s Civil War leadership in Hagerstown and Washington County should always be celebrated.”

Doubleday is the fourth figure to be honored by the Convention and Visitors Bureau with a bobblehead giveaway at Municipal Stadium, joining Gen. George Washington, author Nora Roberts and Maryland Symphony Orchestra music director Elizabeth Schulze.

Jim Gates, Librarian at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. – where Doubleday Field plays host to the annual Hall of Fame Game each summer – confirmed that the Suns were the first team of which he was aware to present a bobblehead honoring Doubleday’s significance as a military figure. “Baseball wasn’t invented anywhere – it has evolved over time into the game we have today,” Gates said. “Doubleday should be honored for his legacy as a general, and as one of the great figures of the American Civil War.”

The full story is here.

(Hat tip to Terry Beckenbaugh.)

I just learned that Billie Cranford has died.

I realize that probably none of you know the name, but if you know me or my work, then in a way you know Billie.  She’s was my ninth grade English teacher, though that description doesn’t begin to convey who she really was to me.  She was my first mentor and the first adult to take me seriously as a writer and historian.  Without  her I would not be the person I am today — certainly not a professional historian, probably not even a published writer.

In October 2006 I wrote a post about Billie:

The Life Changer

Yesterday I visited Westminster – Thurber [Retirement ] Community here in Columbus, to give the first of four classes in a mini-course on the History of War. The course is under the auspices of an initiative called OWLS — Older, Wiser, Lifelong Scholars. This is its eleventh year in operation.

At the outset of the class, I noticed that the fellow introducing me had in his hands a copy of my first book, The Hard Hand of War. I assumed he intended merely to waggle it at the fifty audience members by way of confirming that I was indeed a bona fide military historian.

After a very generous summary of my career to date, he held up the book. “There’s something very special about this book, this copy,” he said. “It is inscribed on the title page, ‘For Billie, with gratitude.’ Billie Cranford happens to live in Thurber Towers — the same Billie. The book is dedicated to her and two other of his former teachers, and all this makes a very special kind of connectedness that we are enjoying this afternoon. And I would just like to read a couple of lines from the acknowledgments.

“‘As my ninth grade English teacher, Billie Cranford supported both my writing and historical interests, encouraged me to think in terms of publication, and even excused me from regular assignments to undertake an independent writing project that formed my first attempt to grapple with the sweep of the Civil War.’ And there’s a bit more.”

He turned to me and said, “Did we surprise you?”

It had just hit me that Billie Cranford must be in the room. I looked and, sure enough, she was.

“Yeah,” was all I could say. The room erupted into laughter and then applause. I walked over to Billie and hugged her for a long time. “Ah, that’s a wonderful surprise,” I said. “Thanks. Thanks for everything,” I said.

Her eyes were gleaming with tears. “Thank you,” she said.

The fellow who introduced me completed his remarks by talking briefly about the origins of the History of War course, then turned over the floor to me.

I made sure my microphone was on, then began, “Well, I just — I’m very pleased to be here, and I was very flattered to be invited. But to have Billie here is just a really unexpected pleasure and so much more than that; I think I’m gonna cry. There are probably three people in the world without whose help I would be doing something very, very different. I don’t know what it would be, but I know that it’s the kind of thing that I wouldn’t have enjoyed as much, I wouldn’t have had as fulfilling a life, and so forth. I think as many of you know, in life there are a few people who are really in your corner and supportive, and then there are a lot of people who tell you, That dream you’ve got? Forget about it. Grow up. Childhood must end, and you need to think in terms of something practical.

“My father loved me dearly, but when I decided to major in history, he said, ‘Son, major in what you want, but minor in computer science –” the audience laughed — “which was his little way of telling me that, you know, you’re going to wind up in business no matter what you think you’re gonna be doing. And people like that are very well intentioned. They think that they’re doing you a big favor.

“But the folks who really matter, people who are just life-changing people, are the ones who have a sense of your dream, and share it with you, and encourage you to go for it. And people like that are just as rare as rubies. And I just could not be more grateful to them and to you, Billie, because you were the first.”

The audience applauded again. I got down to the business of teaching the class. Two hours later, with the first lecture behind me, I made sure to have my photo taken with Billie. Later I went up to her apartment and we chatted for a couple of hours.

Billie — “Mrs. Wilson” to me back then (Wilson because she had not yet gotten divorced) — was thirty-seven when I entered her ninth grade English class in September 1973. She has just recently turned seventy, though to my eyes, at least, she doesn’t look it. About four years ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. She lives more or less independently within the retirement community, but only because her friends and family carefully look out for her.

Like many people with Alzheimer’s, she can remember things from long ago, but what happened yesterday is often a blur. She has been living in the retirement community for nearly two years. Years before that, she resided for an extended period in Prague. She said several times in the course of our talk that she had just recently returned from Prague.

We talked about Blendon Junior High School, where she taught and I endured the Lord of the Flies atmosphere of early adolescence. We talked about how she had taught me to diagram sentences — a really tedious exercise but one that gave me an unshakable life-long grasp of proper sentence structure. We talked about her conclusion that the regular curriculum was not challenging me and her decision to have me embark on an independent writing project, which turned out to be a book on the Antietam Campaign, complete with footnotes. (My parents were initially appalled when she did this. To them it seemed a complete abdication of her responsibilities as a teacher.) I never got more than four chapters into the book, but over the years have published a number of articles that, one way or another, hearken back to it.

About an hour into our conversation, she said she had forgotten my name — the way it sometimes happens when you’ve met a new acquaintance and have been talking a while, but have just realized you didn’t really catch their name.

“Mark Grimsley,” I said.

“I remember you,” she said, nodding.

And I will never forget you, Billie.

Billie’s obituary appears in this morning’s Columbus Dispatch.

Billie Irene Cranford

CRANFORD Billie Irene Cranford, age 72, of Columbus, died Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at Westminster Thurber Community. Billie was born in Huntington, W.Va. on August 29, 1936, the daughter of Charlotte (Kitchen) and William Sorrell Cranford. She grew up in the small town of Proctorville, Oh. Billie graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from Ohio University and a Master’s Degree from The Ohio State University. She spent the majority of her teaching career in the Westerville School District teaching English. After retirement Billie taught English at the Czech Agricultural University in Prague for four years. Billie is survived by her children, Julie Carpenter-Hubin and her husband, Don Hubin, Paula Wilson Render and her husband, Don Render, and Greg Wilson and his wife, Colleen Wilson; and grandchildren, Lindsay, Leslie, Max, Kate, Dan, and Dave. A funeral service will be held at 5 p.m. Saturday, March 21, 2009 at SCHOEDINGER STATE STREET CHAPEL, 229 E. State St., Columbus, where the family will receive friends 4-5 p.m. prior to the service. Rev. H. Thomas Wilson will officiate.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that contributions be made to Westminster Thurber Community, 645 Neil Ave., Columbus, Oh. 43215. Online condolences may be sent by visiting www.schoedinger.com.

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From the University of Richmond:

The nation’s first major event commemorating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War will take place at the University of Richmond on April 29, 2009. The program attempts to set an inclusive and innovative tone as we launch a national conversation about the Civil War over the coming years.

The conference features a group of outstanding historians who will participate in four unscripted conversations that view events from the perspective of 1859: Taking Stock of the Nation in 1859, The Future of Virginia and the South, Making Sense of John Brown’s Raid, and Predictions for the Election of 1860.

Our presenters are Jean Baker (Goucher), David Blight (Yale), Christy Coleman (American Civil War Center), Daniel Crofts (College of New Jersey), Charles Dew (Williams), Eric Foner (Columbia), Gary Gallagher (University of Virginia), Walter Johnson (Harvard), Robert Kenzer (University of Richmond), Gregg Kimball (Library of Virginia), Nelson Lankford (Virginia Historical Society), Lauranett Lee (Virginia Historical Society), David Reynolds (City University of New York), Manisha Sinha (University of Massachusetts-Amherst), Elizabeth Varon (Temple), Clarence Walker (University of California Davis), and Joan Waugh (UCLA). Edward Ayers, University of Richmond, will act as moderator.

We hope you will join us in person or via our webcast. Additional details are available here.

Crisis:  Behind a Presidential Commitment is a remarkable documentary. The film makers got JFK to agree to let himself be filmed during a crisis. It couldn’t be an international crisis so it turned out to be a domestic one: JFK’s June 1963 confrontation with George Wallace over the admission of two African American students to the University of Alabama. Four camera crews followed JFK, Attorney General RFK, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenback — and George Wallace, who when informed of the project gave it full cooperation (and comes off as surprisingly graceful). I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The DVD commentary by two of the film makers is fascinating as well.

For me the most riveting segments were those filmed by the crew that followed Wallace.  The commentary says that the day began with Wallace hosting a private breakfast with the crew in which filming was forbidden and the camera equipment actually locked away.  The first Wallace segment to appear in the documentary shows an establishing shot of the exterior of the governor’s mansion.

Then the film cuts to the interior of the mansion, with Wallace’s toddler daughter plinking on a piano while an African American maid (or perhaps nanny) chides her not to pinch her fingers.

Cut to: portrait of Jeb Stuart

Wallace appears, picks up his daughter and kisses her, shows the camera crew around.

George Wallace, pointing out a painting: “That’s William Lowndes Yancey there. I read a profound statement he made the other day that, ‘To live is not all of life and to die is not all of death.’ I’d rather live a short life of principle than lead a long life of compromise. [unclear if second sentence is Yancey or Wallace]. Of course, that may not mean much to you folks.”

Pointing out a second painting: “William C. Oates was a governor of this state. He was a real fighter. He was at Gettysburg, and he lost an arm. . . . I hope we’ll never see another war of any sort going on in the world, but I think it does us good to reflect and draw on the courage of those who do fight and stand for what they believe in. And there were brave folks on both sides of that combat. There were just a lot more of them than there were of us.”