Civil Warriors

This week and last I have been exchanging e-mails with a former colleague at West Point regarding the 1864 election and Atlanta Campaign a thought the readers of this blog might be interested in them. For those who don’t know Cliff Rogers, he is a longtime associate of Mark’s in the OSU mafia and one of the smartest—if not the smartest—guys I have ever crossed paths with in this profession. Sitting in a classroom as he teaches and being mentored by him on my own teaching are experiences I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had. Cliff’s research field, for those who are wondering, is Medieval Military History, (his books are listed here and a site documenting his Hundred Years’ War staff ride is here), and he is the editor of the Journal of Medieval Military History.

Of course, I invite any and all out there who, after reading this, thinks I need to rethink my views to jump in!

Anyway, here is our correspondence:

From: Rogers, C. J. PROF History
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 12:19 PM
To: Rafuse, Ethan S Dr CIV USA TRADOC
Subject: McClellan question

Hi Ethan,

Got a Civil War question for you: what would McClellan have done had he won the 1864 election? Although McPherson et al. argue for Atlanta as a turning point in the war based on the election, it seems to me that even if McClellan had won, he would have pressed on to victory, i.e. Union and emancipation, though he might have done something like offering compensation to slave owners to hasten peace.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Cliff

From: Rafuse, Ethan S Dr CIV USA TRADOC
Sent: Wed 12/17/2008 2:40 PM
To: Rogers, C. J. PROF History
Subject: RE: McClellan question (UNCLASSIFIED)

Cliff:

Great to hear from you. We just graduated the February class here at Fort Leavenworth, so the equivalent of summer break has just begun for me. Like Rob [Citino] across the hall from you, I now have lots of books cluttering up my office that I need to get to. Somewhere among them is your terrific volume on the Middle Ages in Greenwood’s Soldiers’ Lives Through History series. Congratulations! And do I ever envy your getting to do a Hundred Years’ War staff ride. Doing Cowpens, Yorktown, and Chancellorsville rides this year was cool–but not as cool as Agincourt or Paris!

Anyway, in response to your query: Atlanta was not a turning point in determining the outcome of the war, which was dictated by the fact that the North’s will to preserve the Union and ability to wage the war were too powerful to be defeated by a primarily conventional Confederate strategy. Also, it is hard to see contingency, as McPherson does, in what was probably an inevitable event. Sherman was too strong and too cautious a commander to give Johnston or Hood sufficient opportunity to do anything that might keep his army out of Atlanta. Moreover, on top of the fall of Atlanta, you also have to have Farragut not winning at Mobile Bay, take away Sheridan’s victories in the Valley, etc.–and assume Grant’s bad luck continues to hold in front of Petersburg. Not likely, and therefore the northern perception of progress in the war that made Lincoln’s victory so decisive holds.

Add to that Lincoln had a clear and simple platform to run on, while McClellan and the Democrats faced the probably impossible challenge (which they met with consummate incompetence) of figuring out how to win the support of those who believed the war should be stopped and immediate negotiations begun, those who supported the war but thought it was being conducted too aggressively militarily, those who supported the war but thought it was not being conducted aggressively enough militarily, those who supported emancipation but not by presidential fiat, those who opposed emancipation under any conditions, those who supported emancipation only with compensation to slaveowners, those who supported the war but thought the national government was being too aggressive in dealing with dissenters, AND those very few who wanted peace at any price. And, even had McClellan somehow pulled this off (something WELL beyond the guy’s capabilities), he just had so much disdain for how the American political system worked and so many irreconcilable enemies in critical positions in the Lincoln administration, that it is hard to see his having a particularly smooth
transition.

Your answer to the question strikes me as probably the best-case scenario, but a lot would depend on how long McClellan’s coattails would have been in the 1864 congressional elections (I suspect few, as to maintain his self-image as a man who was above politics he did even less to help any other Democrat out than he did on his own behalf). And then there is the question of whether the Republicans would have been at all cooperative. Republicans would have had a significant presence in Congress no matter what, given how safe so many of their districts were, with the greatest victims at the hands of the Democrats being those who represented more moderate districts. So the Republicans left in Congress would undoubtedly have been quite disinclined to compromise or cooperate with McClellan.

At the same time, it does not seem to me that all of this would have mattered much in March 1865 vis a vis the outcome of the war when McClellan moved into the Executive Mansion, given how much had been ground out of the body and spirit of the Confederacy by that point. But McClellan would have properly seen in his election a mandate for a conciliatory approach to the defeated white South, which ultimately prevailed anyway, albeit a decade later. In the event of a McClellan presidency, the Republicans do not get the political winds blowing for the 13th, 14th, or 15th amendments; nor can they push efforts to reform the South politically or economically. This would have made Reconstruction smoother, although that would not have been a good thing for the freedmen and ultimately not good for the country.

This is no doubt both more and less than you wanted, but as Mark and you have no doubt discerned together, with most counterfactual exercises, one ends up with more questions than answers. I hope there is something you found helpful here, though. Better and more intelligible efforts to address your questions are in Freehling’s Reintegration of American History and Davis, The Cause Lost.

Maybe I will throw this out on Civil Warriors to see what response it gets from others.

I hope all is well with you, Shelly, and Hannah.

Best,
Ethan

From: Rogers, C. J. PROF History
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 12:19 PM
To: Rafuse, Ethan S Dr CIV USA TRADOC
Subject: RE: McClellan question

Thanks also for the kind words on my book. It was fun to research and write, and I do think it breaks some new ground despite its “survey” nature.

The staff ride was indeed awesome– I learned a lot more than I expected at the battlefields.

Your answer is pretty much what I expected, which is good. About the contingency of Atlanta, though– if Johnston had stayed in command and husbanded his men, couldn’t he have defended Atlanta somewhat like Lee defended Petersburg– at least long enough to prevent its capture until after the election?

Our best to Rachel and Corinne.

Cliff

—–Original Message—–
From: Rafuse, Ethan S Dr CIV USA TRADOC
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 3:20 PM
To: ‘Rogers, C. J. PROF History’
Subject: RE: McClellan question (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Cliff:

Although I hardly consider myself an Albert Castel, Richard McMurray, or Steve Davis on the Atlanta Campaign, I have a hard time seeing how any Confederate commander could have followed a much different course of action from the one Hood did in July 1864–or achieved a much different outcome. The Confederates could not just withdraw into the defenses of Atlanta and let Sherman maneuver freely to cut their logistical lifelines and doom the town and its defenders to quick starvation. Given that Sherman had superior numbers, managed them with sensible caution, and had the initiative, the only course of action really available to the defender of Atlanta was to respond to Federal moves and then launch aggressive counterattacks—hoping far more luck would accompany these efforts than anyone familiar with the history of the Army of Tennessee had any hope of even wishing for. Successful or not, these efforts were invariably going to produce considerable casualties for the Confederate defenders, as they ended up doing.

Theoretically, I guess, a Hood or Johnston could have prolonged the fall of Atlanta by choosing not to fight (yeah, right) for their army’s logistics and refuse under any circumstances to leave the town—but that would have entailed accepting the death of his army, and even then he probably would have been compelled by starvation to give up before November. Pemberton holed himself up in Vicksburg in part due to a (futile) hope that Johnston’s army in Mississippi might rescue him. There were no hopes on this score for a Confederate army that holed itself up in Atlanta in 1864 and thus there was no way any Confederate commander would have adopted this course of action. Hence, I stand by my assertion that there was no contingency in the fall of Atlanta and, thus—-unless one is willing to indulges in counterfactual flights of the imagination beyond what the realities of 1864 justify—-no contingency in the election of 1864.

Of course, Mark may dispute some or all of this. Have you addressed this query to him?

Ethan

—–Original Message—–
From: Rogers, C. J. PROF History
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 3:54 PM
To: Rafuse, Ethan S Dr CIV USA TRADOC
Subject: RE: McClellan question (UNCLASSIFIED)

Dear Ethan,

No, I haven’t asked Mark. Maybe I will later, but for now I’m enjoying discussing it with you!

Why the need to respond to Sherman’s maneuvers with aggressive counterattacks? Why not just get in front and block, fighting as defensively as possible, just as Lee was doing? Or put a fraction of his army into Atlanta to hold the defenses, and use the rest to mess with Sherman’s LOC?

Cliff

—–Original Message—–
From: Rafuse, Ethan S Dr CIV USA TRADOC
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:16 PM
To: ‘Rogers, C. J. PROF History’
Subject: RE: McClellan question (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Cliff:

Lee was very aggressive in responding to Grant’s various thrusts at Richmond and Petersburg, launching counterattacks whenever he could. (This is a central theme of the chapter on Petersburg-Richmond in the Lee book I published earlier this year.) This paid dividends in that it made the Federals much more cautious in their movements and following up the successes they achieved, but ultimately was insufficient to tilt the balance against the Federals militarily or politically in 1864 to the extent the Confederacy needed. In any case, Lee required a heck of a lot of luck (much of which he manufactured through his aggressiveness) to be able to hold out as long as he did in front of Petersburg and Richmond.

Operating against Sherman’s logistics seems like a suitable strategy, but I don’t think the Confederates had the forces in theater to both hold Atlanta and dispatch a force of sufficient strength to really mess with the Federal logistics. Sherman, I think would have then just, as he did when Hood tried to go after his logistics after the fall of Atlanta, kept enough forces at Atlanta to advance the operations against the town and still been able to dispatch sufficient forces to neutralize whatever Confederate force might have menaced his rear. Perhaps if Forrest’s forces had been brought over from Mississippi, but they were there for good reasons. Indeed, what Forrest was doing was tying down forces that might otherwise have run wild in Mississippi and Alabama (something completely unacceptable to the Confederate government) or been transferred to Tennessee and north Georgia to further secure Sherman’s LOCs, thus neutralizing Forrest’s similar transfer.

I am throwing our correspondence out on Civil Warriors to bring it to the attention of Mark and the blog’s other followers. You know of course that Mark is a Sherman expert–at least he has been identified as one on TV, so it has to be so!

Best,
Ethan

To the 2008-02 class of the Command and General Staff College, which finished their tour at Fort Leavenworth last Friday. These events are a bit different at military schools from those I have experienced at civilian colleges. First among these is that our guest speaker is usually someone very high up in the national command authority. Last week, for instance, the graduateion speaker was GEN Peter Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff, US Army. At the first one of these events I attended, the 2002 graduation at USMA, the speaker was no less than President Bush. What sticks in my head from that event, though, is not the famous laying out of the “pre-emptive war” doctrine in Bush’s speech, but sitting next to my friend Matt Morton and his family (the fact that Matt, Charles Bowery, and others who were captains when we started teaching at West Point together are now lieutenant colonels is a source of no little bemusement to my wife) when the name of the class goat was announced and finding out we had both had the honor of teaching him that year.

Also, as Mark is seeing this year at AWC, the way the professional military education system operates has the effect of fostering stronger relationships between students and the faculty than does the structure of most civilian universities. At the staff college, the class is divided into sections, with the sections subdivided into staff groups and in the three-phase history core course at Fort Leavenworth I work with the same students the entire year. This, and the fact that all of our courses are conducted as graduate-level seminars, means that there is a lot of interaction with the students in the classroom. In addition, the institution expects that faculty will have some involvement in their professional and social lives outside the classroom. (Something that I think is at times pushed to the point where it takes on an in loco parentis tone that is unnecessary in dealing with field-grade military officers; but then nobody asked me.) Then there is the fact that the students are only a little bit younger than I am and get the pop culture references I throw out in the course of class and conversations.

One of the highlights of the graduation ceremony is seeing good officers you have worked with during the year receive recognition for their work. This year, one of the students in my section, MAJ Richard Mogg of Australia, won three awards: the Iron Major (for physical fitness), Excellence in Joint Services Warfare, and the Eisenhower Award (as outstanding international officer). I was also delighted to see MAJ Joseph Jackson win the Marshall Award, which goes to the best overall student, and MAJ Derek Zitko win the Smythe Award, which goes to the outstanding military history student. Both were students in my “Evolution of Military Thought” seminar, as was MAJ Robert Renfro, who won the Benjamin Grierson Award for Excellence in Military Studies. Joe also had to overcome taking my Research Methods seminar as part of his history Master of Military Science program, for which he wrote a thesis on Edward Braddock and the Monongahela Campaign under the direction of my colleague and staff ride comrade Joe Fischer.

While I don’t anticipate this post prompting much if any discussion, I would be remiss if I did not take whatever opportunity I could to foster wider recognition of Richard’s, Joe’s, Derek’s, and Robert’s great accomplishments–and bask in their reflected glory!

This report details the new home of the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant and the Ulysses S. Grant Association.

I hope the reception accorded Grant’s papers in Mississippi is better than the reaction I got in some corners when I was editing William T. Sherman’s wartime correspondence while I was teaching at Wofford College, in Spartanburg, South Carolina. 

Someone just now commented on War Historian, a long moribund predecessor to Blog Them Out of the Stone Age.  I was automatically notified, which led me to review the comment, which led me to review the post (which in the intervening three years I’d almost forgotten), which led me to reprint it here:

Drafted most of the Lincoln entry [for the Encyclopedia of War and American Society] yesterday afternoon. Once I got going it almost tumbled out of me:

Lincoln, Abraham
1809-1865
Sixteenth U.S. president

Abraham Lincoln, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, is universally regarded as one of America’s greatest presidents and one of its most effective commanders-in-chief. But unlike Roosevelt, Lincoln is also one of the most mythic figures in American history, a fact which helps to explain his standing as its quintessential war president.

Born in rural Kentucky on February 12, 1809, Lincoln grew up in Indiana and reached manhood in Illinois, the state in which he made his career. Starting out as a small-time store clerk, he soon strove to become a public figure within his community and as part of that effort, served in the militia during the Black Hawk War of 1832. Lincoln saw no combat and afterward made light of his military experience, but the record suggests that it meant more to him that he would later admit. He enlisted for three successive 30-day terms of service — in his own words, “went the whole campaign” — and was elected captain of a militia company. This achievement gave him lifelong satisfaction. Even after the war’s conclusion, Lincoln volunteered for yet a fourth term of service. Plainly something in military life appealed to him.

A member of the Whig Party who served several terms in the Illinois legislature, by the 1850s Lincoln was also a prosperous lawyer of wide reputation. He was married to Mary Todd Lincoln; they raised a family of four sons, only one of whom survived to adulthood. Elected to Congress in 1846, he served a single term from 1847 to 1849. His time in Washington coincided with the Mexican War, a conflict whose wisdom and justice he openly questioned.

Like most Whigs he was careful to vote in favor of the military appropriations required to sustain the armies in the field. Nevertheless he forcefully criticized their commander-in-chief, Democratic president James K. Polk, averring in one an address before Congress that that Polk must feel “the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, crying from the ground against him.” The conflict itself he considered a shameless attempt to distract public opinion, comparing it to “that rainbow that rises in showers of blood, that serpent’s eye that charms but to destroy.”

As the slavery controversy intensified in the 1850s, Lincoln joined the fledgling Republican Party, which was committed to excluding slavery from the western territories. In 1858 he ran for the U.S. Senate. He lost, but his debates with opponent Stephen A. Douglas gave him national stature and paved the way for a presidential run in 1860. Although he received less than 40 percent of the popular vote, he won a resounding victory in the electoral college and became president-elect. Viewing a Republican president as illegitimate and unacceptable, the state of South Carolina seceded in December 1860, and by the time Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, seven states in the Lower South had left the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

Lincoln supported peace talks with the seceded states but refused to permit discussion of terms that ran counter to his party’s opposition to slavery in the territories. He refused to evacuate the garrison of Fort Sumter, which controlled the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Unwilling to endure a “foreign” military installation at the door of one of its most important ports, the Confederate government ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12. Lincoln promptly summoned 75,000 troops to quell the rebellion, a move which led four states in the Upper South to join the Confederacy as well.

Although many considered him a political lightweight with neither the experience nor judgment to deal with this civil war, Lincoln unhesitatingly —- and extralegally —- raised additional troops (Congress retroactively endorsed his action), and suspended habeas corpus in the border state of Maryland (the Supreme Court eventually condemned this measure, but only after the war). He overruled his general-in-chief, Winfield Scott, and insisted on an immediate offensive to end the rebellion quickly.

(Continued)

I have just learned that the Department of History at the U.S. Military Academy has posted its call for applications for the 2009 Summer Seminar on Military History. This three-week program brings together approximately two dozen junior scholars of military history (graduate students who have completed all but their dissertation are also eligible) at West Point to participate in a terrific program of seminars, lectures, and staff rides.

This is pretty much a mandatory experience for anyone who has aspirations as a military historian. When I did the program as a fellow in 1999, the guest lecturers included such great scholars as Fred Anderson, John Lynn, Don Higginbotham, William Skelton, Brian Linn, and Williamson Murray, while the staff rides were led by Carol Reardon (Gettysburg) and Mark (Antietam). On top of all the great stuff you get to do in the course of the program, participants receive a very generous stipend, as well as coverage of expenses.

The deadline for applications is 1 February 2009. More information can be found here.

It’s December, and our thoughts all turn to … final exams!  Once I took them, now I grade them (or have my grader, who this fall is a student who was once one of my undergraduates, grade them).  This fall, I’ve taught two courses … the upper division “Civil War and Reconstruction” course and the introductory course for majors, where I have shamelessly joined the Civil War memory bandwagon as a way to teach our incoming majors how to think as historians, do research, and write (actually, I was on this bandwagon some time ago, and I’ve taught the course before).

We all experiment with new ways to communicate with students to get them to understand the past, sometimes through relating it to the present.  We as teachers also must come to terms with new ways in which our students communicate with each other.  With that in mind, and with a hat tip to Joe Cooper over at the Yahoo Discussion Group StudyoftheCivilWar, you are invited to view this.

When I was in college I recall the appearance of a movie (with book tie-in) called “The Lincoln Conspiracy.”  I even went to the movie for amusement’s sake.  The movie (and book) rehashed (and mixed up) some tried and true conspiracy tales (I never understood how they fit a grassy knoll into Ford’s Theater):  I still preferred “Animal House.”

But now I see that there is a new conspiracy afloat, one with far-reaching implications.  I discovered that it had been revealed on Dimitri Rotov’s blog.  Apparently Lincoln scholars are involved in a “conspiracy of silence” regarding certain recent events in Springfield, Illinois.

I’d say the silence has proven quite successful.  After all, I’m on the board of directors of the Abraham Lincoln Association, and I’ve spoken several times in Springfield, including multiple appearances at the Abraham Lincoln Symposium.  I’ll be in Springfield next February 12, and I’m supposed to be speaking on some topic again.  I’ve written about Lincoln and edited a collection of his documents.  But no one has told me about this conspiracy.

Come on, folks.  Fess up.  Which one of you is a part of this conspiracy?  I’m sure the governor will pardon you.  Oops, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.

I feel like such an outsider.

Just got my series editor’s copy of Ethan Rafuse’s battlefield guide to Antietam, South Mountain & Harpers Ferry.  It’s great to see it.  Brooks Simpson and I had planned to write this guide ourselves when we originated the guide series in 1995 (and we spent several days tramping Antietam together).  But professional and personal demands diverted us.  It’s just as well.  Ethan has done a splendid job — I think Brooks would concur with me in saying that Ethan’s done it better than we could have done it ourselves.

Here’s the catalog description from the publisher:

About the Book

In September 1862 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac conducted one of the truly great campaigns of the Civil War. At South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Antietam, North and South clashed in engagements whose magnitude and importance would earn this campaign a distinguished place in American military history. The siege of Harpers Ferry produced the largest surrender of U.S. troops in the nation’s history until World War II, while the day-long battle at Antietam on September 17 still holds the distinction of being the single bloodiest day of combat in American history.

This invaluable book provides a clear, convenient, stop-by-stop guide to the sites in Maryland and West Virginia associated with the Antietam campaign, including excursions to Harpers Ferry and South Mountain. Thorough descriptions and analyses, augmented with vignettes and numerous maps, convey the mechanics as well as the human experience of the campaign, making this book the perfect companion for both serious students of the Civil War and casual visitors to its battlefields.

About The Author

Ethan S. Rafuse is an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He is the author of several books, including McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union, and is the coeditor of The Ongoing Civil War: New Versions of Old Stories.

Praise

“Excellent guides at a reasonable price, written by experts on the battle.”—James Durney, Suncoast Civil War Society Newsletter

“A refreshing and original study of America’s bloodiest day that is free of the clichés found in some previous works on this subject. Using original sources and consulting the latest scholarship on Antietam, Rafuse has written a superb battle and campaign study.”—Ted Alexander, chief historian of Antietam National Battlefield

“Insightful and informed, written in a graceful style, with excellent maps, Antietam, South Mountain, and Harpers Ferry: A Battlefield Guide will be an invaluable resource for the Civil War aficionado, as well as the casual visitor to the battlefield.”—Edwin C. Bearss, chief historian emeritus of the National Park Service

“Teems with incisive narratives, telling vignettes, and astute analysis. First-time visitors and seasoned students of the Civil War alike can learn much by consulting this work before, during, and after they tour the site of the costliest single day in American military history.”—Carol Reardon, professor of military history at Pennsylvania State University

Congrats, Ethan.  I’m just tickled as hell to see this.  Now for a quick trip downstairs to the Army War College book store to get them to order a few dozen copies!

Is there anyone who has the answer to this query from my colleague Terry Beckenbaugh?

Do you know why on WT Sherman’s Grave there is a cartridge box with the words “40 Rounds” on it? What is the significance? Do you think anyone on civilwarriors.net would know? One of my students asked me and I could not find the answer. T

From the Chocolate News on Comedy Central. Funny as hell, but not for the easily offended.

Attended a wine tasting last evening at Alibi’s, my favorite Carlisle pub. It showcased the wares of the Adams County Winery, located near the route of Lee’s retreat from his brief vacation in southern Pennsylvania. I’m not usually a fan of sweet wines, but naturally I had to sample the Tears of Gettysburg. Having grown up in rural North Carolina, my palate is relatively unsophisticated, but even I could discern the forced union of two culturally distinct varieties of grapes.

While contemplating the parade of Lincoln scholarship that has appeared in anticipation of his bicentennial year (a sharp contrast to the surprisingly small body of scholarship inspired by the Lee bicentennial, which has recently been more than made up for), I could not help but recall Joseph Harsh’s wonderfully irreverent yet insightful proclamation that “You can be a Lincoln scholar or a Civil War scholar, but not both.” His argument was that the scholarship in both fields is so extensive that truly mastering one, much less trying to also add something useful to it, would preclude one’s ability to master the literature on the other.

Back in the 1930s, James G. Randall asked whether the Lincoln theme had been exhausted yet. I have to confess that in my case the answer in 2008 is, if not yes, then pretty darn close. In part this is because, to paraphrase Professor Harsh, I have found trying to be both a military historian and a Civil War historian more than enough of a challenge. Besides, I have found that when I need information on Lincoln, it is rarely necessary to look beyond the Basler edition of his writings, Paludan’s Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and Donald’s 1995 biography (man, did Mark pick the wrong year to put Hard Hand of War up for the Lincoln Prize, or what?) to find it. Quick skims of Goodwin’s and McPherson’s recent books, which because they have become part of a larger public dialogue I could not avoid, have done little to lead me to modify my thinking on this.

At the same time, I have followed with no little interest Dimitri’s commentary on McPherson’s work. I have a hard time understanding what I think is an overly hostile tone in Dmitri’s commentary regarding McPherson, whose works I have valued even when I disagreed with them and who I have never found to be anything but a real gentleman in the rare dealings I have had with him. Of course, no one familiar with my own work will be surprised that I do not agree with both his and Goodwin’s portrayal of Lincoln as a masterful commander in chief, the notion that there were actual points in the war (as opposed to in counterfactual flights of imagination) where northern will and ability to continue the war to victory were ever in question, or with their use of particular generals as foils to advance their arguments. Moreover, from what again was an admittedly quick skim I saw little in the way of argument in Tried By War that will be unfamiliar to anyone who has read T. Harry Williams’s Lincoln and his Generals . Heck, a search for familiarities between these books need go no further than the cover images! Like Grant and the tree, there just seems to be something about the sight of Lincoln looking down on McClellan people like. (I suspect an image of the great commander in chief snubbing the First Corps during that same trip to western Maryland would not be so popular.)

Dimitri makes some especially good points, though, about how Tried by War offers a fine example of the misunderstanding and misuse of Clausewitz that is too common in Civil War literature—a matter especially on my mind as someone who has written on Clausewitz and the Civil War for the most part (at least I think so) correctly, recently taught a four-hour block on the Prussian’s writings in the SAMS prerequisite course, and just finished Jon Sumida’s recent book on Clausewitz. I have also enjoyed the critiques by Matthew Pinsker and others (great to see A. Lincoln Blog up and running again!) of Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” thesis and how political commentators have latched onto it.

Of course, I see little prospect of the efforts of Dimitri, Pinsker, Brian, etc., having much effect in checking the influence of these books, especially outside the professional historical community. The ideas in these two works are in the conversation. And, like urine in a swimming pool, once something gets into the conversation that lets political commentators think they are well-informed on history, it ain’t coming out.

To see what happens when one of these folks runs into someone who really does know his history, click here.