I like to send interesting stories and commentary to my friends.
Recently, I sent a friend a link to an article written by Alan Dershowitz, the great Harvard lawyer and champion of American liberty and of Israel, which defended and explained Israel’s right to defend itself against the ongoing rocket attacks by the terrorist group Hamas I thought quite convincingly. (You can read the article here.) My friend did not like the article at all, finding fault in it, and declaring himself in disagreement with it.
I had thought Dershowitz’ arguments solid and difficult to refute as they were so grounded in international law, precedent, and logic. The reaction of my friend, which so confused me, gave me great pause and took me on a path that finally led me to the beginning of understanding how some Americans, otherwise intelligent and thoughtful, can be so self-hating and so seemingly out-of-context that what they consider reasoned, thoughtful argument is, in actuality, some form of Orwellian anti-rational intellectual and moral confusion.
To me, my friend, a very religious man was, in his astounding refutation of Dershowitz a man sunk in moral confusion. I wanted to understand how this could be so.
I asked him to explain.
I wrote, “What are your counter arguments?”
He replied, “They are all insane over there. I hope someday sanity will return.”
“They are not ALL insane,” I replied. “There is such a thing as good and evil.”
The correspondence continued with his reply, “Those who are in power over there have chosen the path of mutual destruction. That is evil. Nothing good will come of this until another path is chosen. You see, I can tell the difference. It is obvious.”
I replied, asking, “Those in power in Israel have chosen mutual destruction because they are defending their country from attack which is their right according to every international law and treaty? Your world is upside down.”
My friend replied asking if I thought that “mutual destruction is their right? Now whose world is upside down?”
Things were getting very interesting. I could sense that this discourse would lead somewhere important. And maybe I could understand finally how and why he thought in a way that I simply could not comprehend.
I replied that I had never suggested such a thing (that mutual destruction is either party’s “right”).
I asked, “Are you suggesting that self-defense is equivalent to mutual destruction?”
His response was instructive. “Yes, you are finally starting to see the light. In the long run, (making war) in self defense or any reason=mutual destruction. Both sides are engaging in a conflict that NEITHER can win.”
My friend concluded by writing, “They are both engaged in hurting themselves. This is insane and evil. It is important for everyone to understand that what is going on over there has got to stop.”
What was happening here? My friend, an otherwise brilliant and caring fellow, was deeply confused about the morality that characterized the aggressor and the defender (or victim). For him, conflict itself was evil and any party engaged in it was “wrong” regardless of the fact that they were defending themselves from attack.
This moral confusion does not allow him to differentiate between right and the wrong in the midst of conflict, the attacker and the victim. I finally began to understand. My friend could not, would not, make a moral stand and identify aggressor and victim, both were in the wrong, because both were in conflict. This irrational approach to the world is contrary to all of human history and contrary to our own experience of 9/11 and our post-9/11 world.
In his mind the United States is wrong to be in Iraq, though we have freed an entire country from despotism and are building a nascent democracy in a region that has never known freedom. Our several thousand casualties are mourned by us all. The cost in treasure and blood is high. However, in the context of previous wars the cost has been comparatively low in the bloody calculus of war. Consider: at Antietam 5,000 casualties in 15 minutes; at Cold Harbor 5,000 casualties in ten minutes; at Franklin 7,000 casualties in 4 hours. Comparatively, the war for Iraq has been astoundingly low in casualties after conquering the country, fighting a brutal insurgent enemy, and having some 3,000 American’s killed in 5 years of war there to keep the country free and to prevent its return to barbarism and tyranny. This does not include the ongoing fighting in Afghanistan where fighting has been increasing lately. If we are successful in Iraq and Afghanistan, our futures are all brighter as are the Iraqis and Afghan people’s and that is why we fight.
There is the complaint (and demand) that the soldiers must come home- now! But the war is not over, and to leave would create a vacuum that would be filled by our enemies nullifying every gain, and showing our hardened and callous enemies that we are weak. The context of history shows that restructuring countries and cultures is time consuming-WW2 ended in 1945, but US forces are still in Germany, and still in Japan.
During World War 2 the refrain had often been “this is why we fight”. The country was reminding itself that the horrifically high costs of fighting Nazism and Japanese Imperialism in blood and treasure were justified. Our current war is much different.
9/11 was a far more horrific attack than Pearl Harbor. After Pearl Harbor the entire society of the United States was mobilized for war. But since our enemies now do rarely wear uniforms but turbans and beards and burkhas, and a book, the response has been quite different. The West has long been in conflict with Islam. Wars have been fought in the past between the West and Islamic expansion, this current conflict is the newest campaign in a centuries old conflict of attack and defense. Now, we in the United States who look mainly to the future are faced with an enemy who looks to the future only as a means to return to the distant past. This is an enemy we can barely understand… but slowly it is sinking in with some of us that their goals are contrary to our own survival as a nation and a people, and that they will do anything and everything to achieve them. Fundamentally, their goal is the destruction of our society, culture, religions, and way of life. How many beheaded Americans, and blown up office towers does one need to understand the goals of the enemy?
My disturbing but enlightening correspondence with my friend got me to reading and research. How can my friend be so confused? The answer is complex and simple. Please watch the video posted at the end of this thread. I found it very enlightening and very important.
I read “The Closing of the American Mind” by Allan Bloom. Professor Bloom makes a convincing case that the culture and our higher educational institutions are to blame for my friend’s moral confusion. Our universities teach inclusiveness, to the exclusion of all else, and political correctness - we mustn’t offend, we mustn’t suggest that our culture is superior, that our way of life of government is better than some other form(s). This could cause offense or upset. So it must be avoided. But the fact remains that our system is by far superior to most other forms currently in existence or those that have passed into history. It ought to be no crime to suggest it, or state it.
Our enemies see this pervasive almost bizarre desire in American society to be inclusive, to not offend as one of our greatest weaknesses. They exploit this flaw in our culture and political and legal institutions and our rampant moral confusion to undermine our society, sow dissent and legitimize their own cruelties and destructive and malicious goals. Our enemies have a long-term horizon that we can barely even conceive.
Albert Einstein was the greatest thinker of the 20th century. A native German who fled the rise of Nazism, Einstein’s mother tongue was German. When he died in 1955 his last words were heard, but not understood. I compare the modern American left with Einstein’s nurse.
“He died in his sleep at a hospital in Princeton, New Jersey on April 18, 1955, leaving the Generalized Theory of Gravitation unsolved. The only person present at his deathbed, a hospital nurse, said that just before his death he mumbled several words in German that she did not understand. He was cremated without ceremony on the same day he died at Trenton, New Jersey in accordance with his wishes. His ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.”
It seems that so much is happening, so much that is so clear and so important, but simply cannot be seen by so many. It’s almost as if a great segment of the country has become Einstein’s nurse and the world is utterly unintelligible to them.
There is more of course.
An angry, deeply confused columnist in the Philadelphia Inquirer today posted a piece stating that the United States has “sinned”, and that “America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday.” Mr. Satullo suggests that we have betrayed the July 4th “creed”, and that we have trampled the vows we have made as a country. He says that we must “put out no flags” on the 4th, and that we mustn’t sing patriotic hymns as “we deserve no Fourth this year”. Mr. Satullo demands that we all “atone” for our “sins…in quiet and humility”.
Can there be a more disrespectful, clueless, bitter, partisan, out-of-context screed anywhere published in the country more abysmal and disgusting than this tripe from a disaffected Utopian in Philadelphia - for July 4th during time of war?
Where is Mr. Satullo’s condemnation of our enemies? Where is the congratulations for our brave military men and women? Where is the acknowledgment of our current economic difficulties and tribulations? Where is the appreciation for the greatness of this country?
I ask all of my readers to cancel their subscription to the Philadelphia Inquirer. I ask any reader who advertises in the Philadelphia Inquirer to cancel all business relationships with that company.
Otherwise intelligent people like Mr. Satullo, apparently have no context in which to judge the actions of the United States; have little understanding of international events and their complexities, have a minimal grasp of conflict and of warfare and of history.
Abraham Lincoln, considered by many to be the greatest President in our history might have closed the Philadelphia Inquirer for sedition, had Mr. Satullo been published in 1862 or 1863. Mr. Lincoln actually did close newspapers for sedition in Baltimore. I am not suggesting that Mr. Satullo be censored, or the paper closed.
I am hoping instead that a groundswell of public revulsion will greet the Philadelphia Inquirer in the coming days and months so that they are impacted where it hurts the most for them - in their pocket books. If every reader of that publication were to abandon it- that would be perfectly acceptable to me.
Undermining our will to fight, supporting our enemies who want us all dead or enslaved - during wartime - is an abysmal thing and ought not to be countenanced. Mr. Satullo is certainly welcome to his mistaken opinions, but he should understand that most Americans do not concur with his self-hating and ignorant ideas. In fact, most Americans most assuredly find his article reprehensible and worthy of strong criticism.
The moral confusion of my friend, and the obvious self-hatred and ignorance of the Philadelphia Inquirer columnist are not isolated or rare events.
This deeply confused and morally corrupt approach to the world, based on a slanted mis-education from our universities overrun with leftist activist “educators” to a culture that demands a legitimazation of philosophies having even our own destruction at their core, and the diminishment of our martial abilities and a revision of our recent and distant pasts so that we will not fight, because as my friend has stated, “fighting is wrong” is a hideous response to attack and will not sustain us. We must accept that the world is not Utopia, and likely will not be, ever. IF however, Utopia is possible, we must defeat evil first in order to bring it about, yes?
But we must fight - there is no alternative.
Can one convert a Nazi? Can one convince a Hitler that world domination is not the best course? Can one overturn centuries of hatred and arrogance with words, when the world is overrun with swords and bombs and guns - and a book that instructs adherents to “kill the unbelievers”? We are almost too sophisticated for our own good. Too many of us cannot conceive that there can be so many millions who believe that “unbelievers” (us!) must die, that no form of religion is acceptable to them but theirs and that no form of law or society can exist but theirs.
How can it be that 9/11 was not “enough”? Do we require another attack before the country will unite and fight against this horrific philosophy whose goal is our destruction and enslavement? I pray not.
We are in an existential fight. To quit, or undermine our will to fight, is the end of all things.
There is right, and there is wrong; there is evil and there is good. Our country G-d bless her has the finest government ever conceived, and blessed by our brave men and women who protect our way of life and guided by the brave and selfless of ‘76, of ‘12, of ‘61, of ‘18, of ‘41, of ‘65 and now in 2008 we have our path, we have our heroes, we have our cause. G-d help us all.
Because so many cannot see evil does not mean that it does not exist; because so many cannot see the greatness in their own country does not mean it is not great. Happy 4th of July, and G-d Bless America.
Stephen Vincent Benet’s John Brown’s Body is one of the finest books of prose poetry in American literature. It well-deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1929. It has always had a special place in the hearts of most Civil War students, and those who appreciate the Blue and Gray. Benet died young, but was prolific and busy publishing often.
Long considered one of the finest biographies in Civil War literature, Douglas Southall Freeman’s R.E. Lee is still considered the finest biography of Lee, one of our greatest Americans. I was unaware that Benet and Freeman and their work ever overlapped but it is right and good that they did.
I had the great fortune recently to purchase a 1st edition set of R.E. Lee by Douglas Southall Freeman. I’ve always wanted to read this biography, but never blocked out the time much to my ongoing frustration. Now, that frustration can end. The set has some water damage on the covers, so it has little value to collectors but its value to me is enormous. Freeman won the Pulitzer prize for biography for this monumental work in 1935. Many years ago, I read Freeman’s Lee’s Lieutenants. R.E. Lee was always beckoning me.
As I examined my newly acquired set I was amazed to see that the seller had included a special gift for me. This gift I will soon pass along to you.
Out from in between the front covers of the first volume fell the original newspaper clipping, neatly folded of Stephen Vincent Benet’s review of the first two volumes of Freeman’s R.E. Lee. This review appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, Book Section, Sunday, October 14, 1934, the year that the first two volumes were published. My delight at reading this previously unknown, to me, review by Benet was obvious from my smiles and “wows” as I read the fragile paper. What a great thing for the fellow who sold me this set to do! My surprise at finding an important review I never knew existed was matched in large part by the appreciation I felt for the kind person who left it there in Volume 1 for me to find. I’ve since done a search on the internet for this review and have not been able to find it anywhere. I suspect that it is not posted on the internet at all. But it is now.
Benet is not shy about heaping praise on Freeman for this biography of Lee. Rarely, a review will surpass the utilitarian and step into the realm of art - as Benet’s does. Clearly, Benet was very happy to read this excellent biography it’s quite obvious. Benet says, that in this biography, “Lee is all there”, and that certainly is high praise for any biographer. Freeman’s Lee set the standard for Lee scholarship and has to my knowledge not yet been surpassed.
Benet writes that Washington and Lee are the two greatest Americans. He respects Lincoln and Grant, and many others but Lee and Washington are clearly, for Benet, in a pantheon all their own. After reading Freeman’s Lee, the first two volumes, at that point, Benet makes a plea that Freeman must now write a biography of Washington to match the Lee study. Bowing to Benet, in a sense, Freeman did just that.
Freeman would win his second Pulitzer for biography (posthumously, in 1958) for his 7-volume biography of George Washington.
I transcribed this myself. If you find any errors, or bad syntax please blame me and not Mr. Benet. I do not believe that this review is currently available online, and I post it as a service to everyone who loves literature, and Lee, and the great heroes of our Civil War on both sides. This is a beautiful review of a fantastic biography. I know you will enjoy this as much as I have.
-Daniel Mallock
New York Herald Tribune, Book Section, Sunday, October 14, 1934
Robert E. Lee: a Great American Biography
The Whole Man–Boyhood, West Point, Mexico, and the Civil War
R.E. Lee
By Douglas Southall Freeman…Illustrated.. Vol. I., 647 pp; vol. II, 621 pp… New York Charles Scribner’s Sons… 2 vols., $7.50Reviewed by Stephen Vincent Benet
It may seem odd, at first, that we should have had to wait so long for a life of Lee like this one, but, when one thinks it over, it is not so odd after all. Certain great men attract biography from the first, others, equally famous, for years attract only biographers. Learned biographers, enthusiastic or caustic biographers, but biographers who do not get to the roots of the man. Nor is it merely a question of luck or celebrity – though luck enters into the matter. Certain names, certain stories are always explosive material. It is easy enough to write a bad life of Napoleon but it is extremely hard to write a thoroughly and conscientiously dull one – though Sir Walter Scott, of all people, worked notably hard at it. Conspicuous rascality in the subject is not enough; there have been tiresome rascals. Virtue is not enough– there can be no question as to which was the more admirable human being in almost every ordinary relation of life, Byron or Southey. Yet there will be biographies of Byron till the world runs out of ink, while biographies of Southey sleep soundly in great public libraries. Literary genious in the biographer is not, by itself, enough – as witness Charles Dickens and the “Life of Our Lord.”
For true biography is a very difficult art. And it is curious that, in our short history as a nation, two of our greatest figures – Washington and Lee – should have been such difficult subjects for true biography. We have almost every possible view of Washington, from Parson Weems to W. E. Woodward. We have views of his that show him as an impossible demigod and views of him that seem to concentrate almost entirely on his false teeth. And yet, in spite of much interesting work, we still have no life of Washington as full, as just, as sound, as comprehending, and yet as readable as many of us would like.
Mere reverence is not enough, for reverence, by itself, quickly turns men into marble statues a little over life—size. Nor is the Stracheyesque method–which produces brilliant results with the proper material–adapted to them. I remember one life of General Grant from which the chief psychological fact I garnered was that the general was deeply in love with his horse. That is interesting, if true, but it hardly explains the capture of Fort Donelson. And it is easy enough to paint George Washington as an ordinary Virginia planter of limited capacities–until you begin to explain why all the other Virginia planters did not turn into Washingtons.
Dr. Freeman, fortunately for us all, is a true biographer. He has a great subject to deal with–which is to his advantage–but the subject, as I have said, is not an easy one. The man’s life, and himself, are, in one sense, like a marble shaft; you may look in vain for the disfiguring–and interesting–cracks and crevices that spot the characters of many great men. A hero, born in obscurity, who fights his way up to greatness–there is an easy story for you! But Lee was born at Stratford, of the blood of “King” Carter and “Light Horse Harry” Lee. We like to read of the awkward, ugly duckling, the butt of his mates at school and college, who became their master in the end. But Lee was one of the handsomest men of his day, and at West Point he graduated second in his class. In childhood he had the weight of a great tradition behind him; in youth and manhood he fulfilled the full promise of that tradition. When Lincoln was a disappointed ex-Congressman, his political future, apparently, at a dead end, Lee was winning notable distinction in his chosen field. When Grant was still the failure of Galena, Lee was being sounded out as to the commander-ship-in-chief of the whole Union Army. No breath of romantic scandal ever touched his private life; he became the idol of a people and the symbol of a cause without ever losing his simplicity; even his religion, simple, natural and profound, has nothing of the Cromwellian tang of Jackson’s. It did not torment his soul, it gave his soul peace. A good man, a great man, one of our finest human beings. You are right. But a difficult man to depict and yet keep human, for the rest of us. Let us see what Dr. Freeman has done with his material.
In the first place, he shows us from the very first lines of his forward the thoroughness, the patience, the honesty and the true gift for research which are the rare marks of the real biographer.
He has winnowed, and winnowed away an enormous mass of legend. He has collected and set down for the first time in print a vast number of new, precise and salient facts. He has woven together a thousand strands of testimony from the words of forgotten reports to the words on the lips of old men remembering their great youth. In Dr. Freeman’s two volumes we get for the first time the complete, slow growth of a man. The unregarded years–the years of youth and early manhood, the years before the Mexican War and after it, are filled in with completeness and patience for the first time. We see not only Lee the star cadet or Lee the Mars’ Robert of the tales, but Lee at thirty-one on an Ohio River steamer enjoying little roast pigs and sausages but looking with a dubious eye on the crowding and squeezing at the table; Lee building a house of twigs for seven military hens at a desolate army outpost near the fork of the Brazos; Lee, the conscientious but somewhat baffled inheritor of a historic but land-poor estate, wondering how to keep it up on an Army colonel’s pay–a dozen Lees, younger and older, whom the well known stories leave out. We see Lee the military organizer; we even see Lee in a temper.
But thoroughness and patience are not enough. A scholar may be very thorough and very patient and yet remain a scholar read only by scholars. There must be proportion, balance, composition; most of all, vitality in the work itself. Dr. Freeman’s style is not a showy one, and he does not go in for the purple passages. But every one of the 1,200 pages is intensely readable from the first page to the last. He is readable when he describes the Battle of Chancellorsville; he is readable when he describes the education of a West Point cadet in the 1820s or the technical details of the building of an obscure fort by an Army engineer. He has a positive genius for quotation–it is always the live quotation, not the dead one, that appears in his pages–and always at the point where it simplifies, explains, elucidates, gives life and color to the whole. He never points out the obvious; he never grows windy or pedantic. When he gives you an opinion on a disputed point he gives you his reasons as well. “There they are,” he seems to say, “to the best of my judgment. My conclusion is this–you may draw another if you disagree with me. But here are the facts, as far as they can be known.”
If I had sufficient space, I should very much like to quote his brief sketch of Anne Carter Lee, Lee’s mother, on pages 87 seq. It consists of a short appraisal and the only two known surviving letters of Mrs. Lee. The appraisal is short enough. It tells what is known of Anne Carter Lee; it does not tell what is not known. And it is a model to biographers. There is no one fact and twenty barrels of conjecture. There is no “As she did this, she must have done that.” There is a human being there, faintly outlined, because the written evidence is slight; but the outlines, though faint, are definite. There is a real and living woman, not a fictional character or a reverential image. I, for one, never knew her before.
As it is with Anne Carter Lee, so it is with the whole of the story. Slowly, on the firmest of foundations, there builds up the full picture of the man. And it is not the story of Fortunatus–of a silver-spoon youth who marched easily from conquest to conquest. It is something, indeed, to have been born at Stratford, of the Lees and Carters–but to have to leave Stratford at three, because the sheriff’s men are in the house, the horses sold, the furniture attached–that is something, too. One’s father is a revolutionary hero–and that is a great tradition–but one’s father has been twice imprisoned for debt and is to die on the way home from a self-imposed exile. One’s half-brother, “Black Horse Harry” Lee’s career is to be wrecked by tragedy and scandal. A background of great traditions? Very true–but there are other colors in the background than gold.
All through the life, the threads in the web are mixed ones. When Lee married Mary Custis he married a delightful woman but a temperamental one–and a woman who was to become an invalid, needing and invalid’s care. And, when he married her, as Dr. Freeman points out, he married Arlington as well–Arlington with its name, its heavy responsibilities and the great shadow of Washington brooding over it. Dr. Freeman’s analysis of the influence of the Washington tradition on the character of Lee is subtle, convincing and profound. Throughout the book, indeed, his study of the gradual development of Lee’s character is masterly. It has the fascination of a detective story and the inevitability of the growth of a tree.
Certain traits were there from the first and they were fine ones. But the gay, brilliant, teasing Lee of the twenties, the Lee who wrote amusing mock love letters to pleasant girl acquaintances in the Southern tradition of beaudom, had become, at fifty-four, a very different man. Throughout those first fifty-four years there is always upon him–and we see it and feel it–a continuous pressure of responsibility, never slackening, slowly increasing; responsibility for his name, for Arlington, for his work, for his wife, and children, for the men under his command. Except for the Mexican War, it was not a dramatic responsibility, in the usual sense. But a weaker man would have broken under it, and a man [of] a nature less naturally sweet become crotchety, like many another army officer who turned to drink or lethargy to while away the tedium of dull courts martial in Godforsaken frontier posts.
I have stressed Dr. Freeman’s dealings with Lee’s early years because they are the essential foundation on which all true knowledge of Lee must be built. When Lee assumed command of the forces of Virginia he was fifty-four and the main lines of his character were formed. He grew after that, be he grew along those lines, not contrary to them. Where many biographers are content to show effects, Dr. Freeman shows us the causes of those effects–and he does it so well and so thoroughly that by the time we come to the Civil War we have a real knowledge of Lee, not a set of phrases about him, and a real ability to know what Lee may do in a given circumstance. Dr. Freeman shows also–and this is invaluable–on the military side, exactly what experience of war and the conduct of war Lee had had, the sort of strategy and tactics that were likely to appeal to him, both his practical knowledge and the bent of his mind. I have never seen this done so clearly and so well.
There were weaknesses as well as strengths in both Lee’s temperament and Lee’s training–Dr. Freeman shows them both unfalteringly. The first untrained Virginia volunteers were a very different from Scott’s Mexican army–and Lee made mistakes in the West Virginia campaign. Dr. Freeman shows us what the mistakes were and what Lee learned from them. A courteous amiability, in dealing with subordinates, was likely to develop, with an obstinate subordinate, into failure of execution at a critical moment–as it did with Longstreet at Gettysburg–Dr. Freeman shows us the cloud at its beginning, no bigger than a man’s hand. Indeed, for all Dr. Freeman’s practical delineation of the campaigns up to and through Chancellorsville (with which these two volumes end) I can only have the most unstinted praise. With their excellent, clear and numerous maps, they should prove invaluable to all students of military history. And to the average reader they are perfectly fascinating.
For Dr. Freeman, in describing them, has taken a novel point of view. The reader is always with Lee, at Confederate headquarters, in possession of such knowledge as Lee has but no more. In other words, the battles develop before us as battles do to a general who is fighting one, with all their momentary chances. Excellent schemes go astray because of unknown factors–the “fog of war” is over the field, not swept away by after–knowledge. And the battles and campaigns are real. Behind the charges and the yells there is always the constant, wearing question of food and shoes and horses, of men who come down with measles and men who cannot march on the hard roads of Maryland because their feet are sore. All this is a constant reminder of warfare, but it does not always get into the histories. It is continually present in Dr. Freeman’s. And we know not only Lee, by the time we have reached Chancellorsville–we know the Army of Northern Virginia as well.
In any account of the events in the Civil War, the historian or biographer must strike upon a number of moot points. Dr. Freeman, as Lee’s biographer, inclines, very naturally, to cast his vote for Lee, on most of these points. But he never does so without giving full reasons for his statements. His explanation of Jackson’s lethargy during the Seven Days is clear, well reasoned and convincing–and his account of the genesis of the turning–movement at Chancellorsville seems to me a little miracle of reconstruction. On the other hand, for the average reader, I think he might have stressed, even more than he does, Jackson’s personal brilliance in the Valley Campaign. It is one thing to tell a general you would like a certain enemy beaten, if possible, and quite another to have the general do it–as Lincoln, to his sorrow, very often found. Nor is it my opinion that the reader who is unversed in the Civil War will form an utterly correct estimate of the military abilities of Joe Johnston, from Dr. Freeman’s account of him in these two volumes. Johnston was an unlucky general, in many ways, but the most competent testimony, including that of great adversaries, pronounced him a master of craft.
These are small criticisms on a monumental work, but, while I am about it, I will make one or two more. Dr. Freeman deals with John Brown and Harper’s Ferry entirely from the viewpoint of Lee and he is perfectly justified in doing so. But John Brown was not exactly an ordinary disturber of the peace nor was the raid on Harper’s Ferry precisely a riot. And the actual confrontation of Robert E. Lee and John Brown happens to be one of the great dramatic coincidences of history. I think Dr. Freeman could have made more of this than he has done without sacrificing truth to false picturesqeuness. If Lee dismissed Brown as a mere madman–as the testimony would indicate–that, too, shows something about Lee and about the South.
Jackson, Stuart, Longstreet, Magruder, Hood are vividly portrayed, but one might wish for a little fuller physical description of the two Hills, Ewell, Alexander and some of the other Southern leaders. They appear in their words and actions–and admirably–but the readers of an Iliad like to know the faces and armor of all the chiefs. The same might be said of the Northern commanders opposed to Lee. It does not fall directly within Dr. Freeman’s province to describe them, except as they showed themselves in action–but a brief, well-placed footnote on each, showing what sort of man he was, would assist the casual reader. Another, and somewhat vaguer criticism, is this. The heart of the Northern resistance was a man named Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Freeman is writing a life of Lee, not a life of Lincoln. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Lincoln’s presence should somewhere, somehow be felt by the reader–not as the amateur strategist recalling troops for the safety of Washington but as the soul of the o’her Cause. However, there is room for all this, and more, in the next two volumes.
Dr. Freeman is kinder to Davis than some Southern historians have been, and, I think, juster. In his dealing with Northern “atrocities” (the term is not his) he seems to me, now and then, a trifle biased. War is a dirty game, no matter how played. I remember an old man, with passion and indignation in his voice, showing me the marks of Confederate shell on the walls of my mother’s town. And he was as right–and as partisan–as Dr. Freeman. There is little of this in the book, very little, but as it struck me, I mention it. On the larger issues, he states his own feelings admirably in his Foreword–and they are without illusion.
The present two volumes begin with Stratford and end just after Chancellorsville. There are two more to come. One can ask no more of them than they should equal the two already in print. For those two already comprise by far the best biography of Lee of which I have any knowledge. And when I speak of a biography, I do not mean merely a work for research students and Civil War enthusiasts. The whole man is here, as he lived–Stratford–West Point–Arlington–Mexico–the heights of Cerro Gordo and the swamps of the Chickahominy. He is here, in war and in peace. He is writing a letter to somewhat stilted, anxious advice to his children on how to be good boys–and, at Chancellorsville, his is hearing “that shrill, sustained cry like a thousand men calling the dogs to a fox hunt” that was the rebel yell. And behind him is a tradition, an army, a time and a people–all as it was and not otherwise. Dr. Freeman has worked nearly twenty years on these volumes. And for those years, we are all of us in his debt. For he has revivified for us, lastingly and surely, one of the largest figures of our national past. It is a superb achievement. I do not know how Pulitzer prizes are awarded but I should be in favor of giving at least ten of them to Dr. Freeman. And then, if I were dictator, I would have him chained to a desk and make him spend his next twenty years writing a life of Washington whether he wants to or not.
Last year I had a most abysmal job. The only joy in it was the location, nearby to Centennial Park in Nashville, Tn.
Nashville was surrendered without a shot to the Union after Forts Henry and Donelson fell to US Grant in early 1862. The Federals immediately began to dig in and fortify, and Nashville became the 2nd most fortified city on the continent second only to Washington, DC. An important supply depot for the Union in the west, Nashville was considered critical - and would be held. Only John Bell Hood in 1864 would come close to threatening the Union’s hold on the city.
Ringed by forts and blockhouses, Nashville was a formidable place. Fort Negley, recently refurbished and re-opened to the public, is a fantastic example of the star fort style of the War. It’s an amazing place to visit. Bristling with guns Nashville was quite the prize and not easily taken, in fact it never fell.
The Federals built fortifications and gun emplacements all around the city. One of these locations was the Centennial Park area where a very impressive replica of the Parthenon now sits.
My abysmal job was located near by to Centennial Park and I took a stroll in the park during my first week. There was a Union mortar emplacement in this particular section of the park and I went to look at the muzzle - you know to see if they were legit, etc. Well, sure enough, they were the real deal.
This emplacement had two mortars side by side both screwed down tight to concrete platforms. Very imposing and impressive one could imagine the shells being thrown for miles from these guns. I was most impressed - then I was horrified as I saw to my shock that one of the mortars had a round half in and half out of the mouth of the gun! I saw no indication whatever that the shell (round shot) had been disarmed. I thought, gosh, some drunken fool with a hammer or bottle banging on that thing… boom!
(Look at the pedestal behind this behemoth… it’s empty! Now you know why! Photo courtesy of Mr. Chip Curley. I am not an artillery expert and do not know exactly what kind of mortar this is. I invite any of my kind and ever patient readers to comment and let me know as much as they do about this critter.)
So, being the good Civil War student and humanitarian I looked on the Internet for the email address of the director of Public Works for the City of Nashville. I figured that the Department of Public Works would be responsible for such things, you know, like Civil War artillery pieces with live rounds in them in public places and such. I found his contact information readily and, consulting a map out of curiosity, also determined that sure enough this fine fellow’s office was located about 200 yards from the mouth of the gun and directly in its line of fire.
I crafted a nice little email and sent it along politely informing the Director of Public Works for the City of Nashville, TN that his office could be fired on at any moment from a Yankee cannon located nearby that was still loaded.
He replied that he would investigate the matter, right away.
Well, sure enough, three days didn’t go by before that mortar and its solid shot disappeared from the park!
The following week the local newspaper “The Tennessean” printed a single paragraph item buried deep in its pages that one of the mortars from Centennial Park had been removed. The paper stated that they didn’t know why the gun had been moved, or when and/or if it would be replaced. I didn’t get any credit at all but the comfort of knowing that the danger of the Yankee gun had been resolved! Several months back I did a little recon and the gun was still absent.
So you see, the moral of the story is this… just a little of bit of Civil War knowledge can be a life saver!
The Responsibility of Command - John Bell Hood and the Nashville Campaign with the John Bell Hood Society
by Daniel Mallock
There is no question that John Bell Hood is one of the great tragic heroes of the Civil War. His story is full of pain, frustration, victories and defeats, advances and finally retreats. A hero at Gettysburg, Antietam, Chickamauga, Gaines Mill, and other hard fought fields Hood was promoted to command the Army of Tennessee in July, 1864 as Joe Johnston’s strategic withdrawal strategy and refusal to work with Jefferson Davis finally got him removed from command.
Hood’s short but monumental career as commander of the Army of Tennessee is covered in violence and controversy with the culmination of both at Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864. Besmirched in modern Civil War history by the slanted and agenda-laden approach of Wiley Sword’s “Confederacy’s Last Hurrah” General Hood’s reputation has suffered intensely in recent years. It is time for a re-examination of General Hood’s career, and most particularly the nature of the decisions that were made at Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville by General Hood.
There is a small but intense group of defenders of the truth, historians and students who search for the truth about Hood. It was my pleasure and privilege to tour Spring Hill and Franklin with them and my entire family with kids in tow this weekend. They are the John Bell Hood Society ably led by Sam Hood, a true defender of Hood and a true historian. Walking the ground is the only way to really understand a battle and to understand the decisions that were made based on terrain, local conditions, etc. Reading the records and memoirs is a start, but real understanding can only come when the ground is seen, the killing ground over which the blue and gray heroes fought at Franklin, Spring Hill and Nashville.
With a ruined arm from Gettysburg and a lost leg at Chickamauga, John Bell Hood is an unlikely army commander. But so it was, and under the command of Hood (unfortunately for him), the fortunes of the Confederacy in the western theatre came to a painful end under his tenure and leadership.
It has been said that the battle of Nashville was the only true decisive victory of the War. This may be so as due to losses of the campaign culminating in the battle of Nashville, the Army of Tennessee was no longer a feared army or formidable fighting force afterwards. Yes, there would be Bentonville later, and Joe Johnston would again be in command to oversee a bitter victory followed by a bitter surrender. But the Army of Tennessee was shattered at Franklin then crushed at Nashville. Bentonville saw an amalgamated Army very different from the army that crossed the Tennessee River in November, 1864 to free Nashville and assail Louisville and even Cincinnati.
General Schofield of the Union army says as much in his memoirs as does George Thomas - that the Army of Tennessee was shattered during the Tennessee Campaign and was no longer feared afterwards. It was still respected, but it could readily be dealt with - the Army of Tennessee would no longer command the ability to shift the balance of the war - anywhere.
But two weeks before Nashville there was Franklin - an astoundingly brutal battle even by Civil War standards. The violence at Franklin is on a par with few if any battles in that War and most all of its survivors have ranked it as likely the very worst experience of their entire lives. Franklin happened because General Hood gave one order: “We will make the fight.”
The origins of this order, the options that he had, the high cost of the order itself and the incredible bravery of the men on both side who fought at Franklin were discussed this weekend on a tour of Franklin and Spring Hill that my family and I (yes, including wife and kids!) were fortunate and honored to have enjoyed. Sponsored by the John Bell Hood Society, this tour was thorough, fascinating, and educational. Hood has not recently received such a fair hearing as he got on this tour.
Before the bitter fighting at Franklin there was Spring Hill. Some 18 miles south of Franklin this small town could have been the site of one of the greatest victories of Southern arms in the entire War. But due to confusion of orders and difficult terrain a masterful flanking and envelopment movement directed by General Hood came to not with the following day being the battle of Franklin. The frustration that the failure to bag Schofield and his army at Spring Hill created in the Confederate army cannot be overstated. To understand Franklin, one must understand the events of the previous day at Spring Hill. It has been described variously as the greatest error, controversy, and lost opportunity of the War. There is no one more studied on this battle and its maneuvers than Mr. Eric Jacobson. Lucky for me Mr. Jacobson led the tour at Spring Hill and to Winstead Hill- the jumping off point of the great Confederate charge at Franklin.
Eric Jacobson is the lead historian at Carnton Plantation in Franklin. His recent book “For Cause and Country” certainly is the most authoritative study of Spring Hill in print. I recommend this book highly. Eric Jacobson is a superb guide- he is engaging, thoroughly knowledgeable of the terrain, the battle and the campaign. Spring Hill is one of the most confusing engagements/battles of the War. Mr. Jacobson’s explanations make it all come into focus. Standing on the hilltop nearby to the Columbia Pike it becomes clear how the entire Union army under Schofield (some 25 thousand men with horses, mules, wagons, artillery, etc.) could walk literally under the very noses of the Confederate army in the darkness of November 29, 1864. As Mr. Jacobson mentioned in passing, one cannot really understand Spring Hill without actually traversing the ground. We did. It has always been difficult for me personally to get a great feel for the ground and the events that happened at Spring Hill on the 29th of November, 1864. Now I “get it”- thanks to Mr. Jacobson.
Moving on from Spring Hill we made our way to Carnton and the Carter House. Carnton is lovely and haunting. Four CSA generals were laid out in death on its outside porch. Hundreds of Confederate soldiers were there suffering and dying as the MacGavock family cared for the wounded in their home and on their property. Blood stains from wounded Confederate soldiers still can be seen in the wood floors of the home. The horrific conditions there after the battle have been documented and written about but can truly only be imagined. Seeing the blood stains and hearing of the sufferings of everyone there, one can begin to see it.
There is a clock in the main parlor at Carnton that was there during the battle and after. We all fell silent and listened to the clock ticking just as it did that day as men suffered and died within hearing distance of it. It was a special moment, and can transport one to the past if one allows oneself to imagine it all - all the misery and horror of it. The appalling sites and events that occurred at Carnton around that clock that we heard ticking can only be imagined and all with a shudder.
After Carnton we made our way to the Carter House where David Fraley the chief Military Historian there gave an excellent tour starting in the yard where hundreds of Union and Confederate soldiers fought in ugly bloody hand to hand combat on November 30, 1864 there on the Carter property. Mr. Fraley has a wealth of knowledge of the people who fought at Franklin on both sides, the tactics and military issues involved and the very high cost to all involved that the battle exacted. Touring the house which was Union General Jacob Cox’ headquarters during the battle is to be transported back in time a bit.
Still covered in bullet holes and battle damage the Carter House at Franklin is one of the most historically significant homes in the entire United States. Standing in the yard one can almost imagine the brutal combat that took place there. It’s hallowed ground and a very special place that every Civil War student and every American should visit. There may be no place in the country where combat more vicious and brutal occured.
The charge of the Confederate Army of Tennessee that opened this brutal battle was double the distance of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg; had more participants, and was not preceded by artillery as the brave men at Gettysburg were. The events at Franklin are off the charts of grandness, brutality, violence, bravery, etc. And how lucky to have had a tour of the area by Mr. Fraley.
Decisions made at Franklin and Spring Hill by General Hood and then at Franklin and Nashville that would lead to the almost complete destruction of the Army of Tennessee have been analyzed often. Mr. Sword’s book on the subject has skewed the debate against the General unfairly. It is time to approach this battle and the entire Tennessee Campaign not from sadness and anger at the resulting brutality and apparently avoidable losses but more from an objective perspective whose only purpose is to determine the truth. This is certainly the historian’s duty.
There are no greater seekers of the truth about General Hood than the John Bell Hood Historical Society. Mr. Sword’s book “Confederacy’s Last Hurrah” is not the final word on these battles and the Tennessee campaign of 1864. It is important to give General Hood a fair hearing and to understand his motives, his abilities, his mood and thoughts during those difficult times of decision in middle Tennessee.
(Photo of Brigadier General John C. Carter’s grave, Columbia, TN. Mortally wounded at Franklin, Carter would die ten days later [the General is not a relative of the Carter House Carter Family]. Not believing that he was to die, and ignoring the assurances of doctors that he was mortally wounded and could not survive, General Carter would ask for his wife repeatedly. His grave would be unmarked for over 50 years. Photo of General Carter courtesy of Generals and Brevets.)
General Hood is a tragic hero who suffered greatly for his country. “He did the best he could under the circumstances” was heard often during this event. And it is so. I think that he did. While I disagree with some of the decisions that he made and wish that he hadn’t made them, I wasn’t on Winstead Hill as the sunlight was dimming on November 30, 1864; I didn’t marching down country backroads in the dark at Spring Hill the previous day.
However, men’s lives are not to be thrown away in order to do “something” rather than nothing. The commander has a responsibility to take calculated, reasonable risks. The attack at Franklin was contrary to all understood military theory and planning. It is difficult for an objective historian to defend the attack at Franklin as ordered by Hood. Frank Cheatham, Corp commander of the Army of Tennessee said to a Union survivor after the War that had Wagner’s two divisions not been in his advanced exposed position south of the Carter House, Schofield’s army would likely have killed everyone in the Army of Tennessee.
The battle of Franklin was a savage affair that was not pre-ordained nor determined by circumstances as some historians and defenders of General Hood have suggested. It occurred because Hood gave the order to advance - despite reasonable objections based upon sound judgments and reconnaissance by his subordinates particularly Cleburne and Forrest. These men are no longer alive to give explanations as to why they made their decisions. This is one of the reasons why historians exist.
General Hood will always be held accountable for his decision to attack at Franklin then to move forward to Nashville despite the heavy losses for not at Franklin. The devastating costs of both battles demand attention and explanation. Only the students and the historians can begin to understand how these nightmare battles came to be, as the commanders and the soldiers are gone now so long ago. There is no inevitablity about Franklin’s frontal assault or the advance to Nashville in my opinion. General Hood as the commander of the Army of Tennessee had the responsibility and privilege to make the momentous decisions during the campaign. The lives of his men are literally in his hands. Because the campaign failed and because so many lives were lost as a result of it, General Hood must be understood and held accountable by history for the decisions that he made. All men and women who make momentous decisions are thus held to account by history. This is no disservice to the General commanding but a duty accepted by the true student and historian.
The Union lines (three of them) at Franklin were fully manned and fully covered by artillery and were complete, so said Cleburne. The Union main line could be flanked if the requisite manpower were provided, so said Forrest. If Forrest can get across the Harpeth so can infantry - if Forrest asks for two hours to flank the position when the alternative is a potentially suicidal frontal assault without artillery support then Forrest should be given his chance. If Fort Granger is mounted with artillery it must be attacked or flanked and the divisions supporting it. Truly, had Forrest’s attack been fully backed with a complete compliment of cavalry and the additional division of infantry as requested by Forrest, Wilson well could have been driven back and defeated. This issue is worthy of more posts and articles and even a book. Dismissal of Forrest’s flank attack is not reasonable particularly by suggesting that the Harpeth was running too high to get infantry across. Forrest had a ford and got his horseman across, he would have got infantry and guns across too had he been given the opportunity.
But Hood would not wait, it was a race against time for him - and he must be held accountable as the results were so utterly devastating - even for him. After the battle of Franklin he sat on his horse viewing the carnage and loss and cried… anybody with a heart would do the same. Yes, he was concerned that Schofield would escape him again just as he had slipped the trap the previous evening at Spring Hill, but this is not justification for ordering a frontal advance unsupported by artillery and with the cavalry main force across the river. This race against time concept causes men to make rash decisions and ignore good council. There are options, even in war and even 18 miles south of Nashville. An army destroyed in a risky adventure is not likely to fight well or at all the following day.
For Hood, the advance to Nashville was little more than an act of honor and psychology as he knew, and essentially stated so in his memoirs, that little could be done at Nashville after the horrors and losses of Franklin. These decisions must be understood in their context. This is not a matter of excoriating anyone or of criticizing unnecessarily men facing the most extreme stress possible, it is rather about the need and desire to really understand what happened. This is what history is all about.
Great history is not about analyzing events with modern eyes it is best done when we can put ourselves “in the shoes” of the people involved. Understanding best comes when we can learn what the people involved understood - history with 20:20 hindsight isn’t real.
For analysis we should include everything we learned after the events… but for true understanding we need to in some way, as best we can, become the actor himself/herself and use the information that they had available to them (and perhaps much that they did not) to try as best we can to come to understand why decisions were made and how events came to occur. This is an honest approach to history - as honest as perhaps we can be - and removes our biases and prisms and agendas as much as possible.
It is important for Civil War students and those interested in these important events to try their best to understand General Hood. He has been dealt with unfairly by recent historians, most particularly Mr. Sword. The John Bell Hood Society and Mr. Sam Hood are leading the way in correcting the errors of some historians and showing those interested in our nation’s history that John Bell Hood was not perfect but was a hero nonetheless.
Like the Civil War itself, there was certainly an air of inevitability about “This Republic of Suffering” by Drew Gilpin Faust. The almost universally shocking devastation and death wrought by the Civil War fundamentally changed the character of American society and how Americans (and former Rebels) understood their relationship with government and with one another. Dr. Faust has undertaken this ambitious project of documenting “death” in the Civil War. Interested readers and students of the War can applaud the attempt while mourning her myriad failures.
“This Republic of Suffering” was written by the current president of Harvard University. Debuting to overwhelmingly positive reviews, fawning encomiums in print, on the internet, and in broadcast media this book currently has garnered little criticism or critical analysis. As one of the few books on the subject of Civil War “death”, the author perhaps has overwhelmed her audience with the 50-odd pages of end-notes that might tend to lend credence to a better formulated argument. End notes of such length can be misleading. A flawed or erroneous proposition can have endless endnotes associated with it, but the fact of the original error is not altered. And that is the problem with “This Republic of Suffering”—founded upon a false premise this book is neither enjoyable to read nor correct in its central theory.
The cover photo of Confederate battle dead is a stark, disturbing image. It is disturbing, sad, and sharply simple. Dr. Faust has done the opposite in the text—transmogrifying an ugly simplicity to a much larger society-wide but completely false and essentially unnecessary academic concept that, she proclaims, is at the heart of Civil War death.
The foundation of her book (and reiterated in media appearances) is the author’s bizarre and completely convoluted and artificially constructed concept of the “Good Death”. She argues that the absence of this “Good Death” for men dying in battle caused so much additional (pain) for them and for those they left behind. She claims extensively that this concept is a conscious idea that participants of the War so desperately tried fulfill their Victorian-era ideas of what a “proper death” ought to be.
This “Good Death” trumpeted by Faust for several hundred pages is nothing more than the pre-war death and funeral rituals involving last words, and the comforting presence of friends and family around the dying person’s death bed. Warfare does not generally afford the continuance of such civilized traditions when so many men are so far from home dying in camp and battle. Faust is unrelenting in describing this concept even giving it a proper academic Latin name “ars moriendi” to lend it more credence. Faust writes that “the work of death was Civil War America’s most fundamental and most demanding undertaking”. Death, the result of combat and warfare in conjunction with suffering on the homefront, is not as she says “the most demanding undertaking”, the War itself – its sacrifices, privations, and sweeping changes that it brought - with death as one of its main and most appalling results is at the core.
Faust’s theory is wrong not because she has misidentified a serious issue, but rather because she has misunderstood universal human needs and warfare’s results with a particularly American causation or response. Every society since the beginning of civilization has had to deal with the horrors of war, with the absence of friends, brothers, sons and husbands, and their deaths far from home and loved ones. This desire to be with the dying, this need on the part of the soldier to be comforted to have his family near to him is as universal as any human concept. There is nothing in this concept of the “Good Death” other than an academic’s hubris and fundamental misunderstanding of universal human truths. Faust removes Civil War death from the human continuum and isolates it as an American event alone. But our Civil War wounded and dead experienced the very same devastating losses though on a much greater scale that societies have experienced for thousands of years.
“Soldiers and their families struggled in a variety of ways to mitigate such cruel realities, to construct a Good Death even amid chaos, to substitute for missing elements or compensate for unsatisfied expectations,” writes Faust. These are universal needs, not localized American concerns illustrative of anything about American society or culture. This confusion of the universal for the local is one of the main failures of this book. No one wants to die alone; no one wants to die without last words recorded, no one wants their burial places unrecorded and their families forever without knowledge of them. Extensive details of deaths and deathbed letter writing or recordings of last words or lack of same are just further fake proofs for Faust’s confusions.
Confusion and misunderstanding, lovingly footnoted, are at the heart of this highly disappointing and frustrating book. Rarely has a historian been so out-of-touch as to suggest as Faust does repeatedly that the soldier’s behavior is further evidence of their need/desire to “act out” some pre-ordained concept of what they should be doing or thinking as they die. One cannot be completely sure as to the motivations behind this research except to foist this false notion of the “Good Death” upon an interested but unsuspecting public hungry for history of moment. There is an agenda at work in the book quite separate from any affection for the subject that tends to override feeling at the expense of the dying. It’s almost unseemly.
Faust posits that without these “Good Death” concepts being enacted by the dying, understanding their “roles” in this “play” of working through the “Good Death”, the poor about-to-be deceased and his family would forever be frustrated and unhappy on account of it. Faust believes that Americans during the Civil War were required according to her concept of the “Good Death” to be around the bed-side, to hear the final words, to see a brave departure so that they could be assured that the dying fellow was worthy to get to heaven. Without this viewing of the death in a social setting, the poor dying fellow’s life would be without a satisfactory conclusion. “Kin would use their observations of the deathbed to evaluate the family’s chances for a reunion in heaven. A life was a narrative that could only be incomplete without this final chapter, without the life-ending last words.” For soldiers killed outright on the field of battle there could be no last words. However, this is overstatement and excess on Faust’s part, as such motivators—to get to heaven, to do their “Good Death” duties, were rarely part of the soldier’s life and such claims are not supported by the massive evidence of dying soldier’s last statements, last words, statements of surviving comrades etc., regardless of Faust’s 50 pages of endnotes.
“Tell my father I died with my face to the enemy!” “Tell my mother I died doing my duty!” Such statements are common. “Tell my mother I was a good soldier and sure ’nuff I can now get into heaven!” are far rarer. The soldiers of North and South, completely supported by their respective societies all fully engaged in the war effort were far more concerned with assuring family and friends of duty well done, bravery, the avoidance of cowardice, and the comfort that death had come swift and with little pain. These are universal communications from soldiers throughout history dying in battle. The universal truth of the loneliness of death far from home certainly trumps any academic’s concept of responsibility to some nebulous false tradition and “art” of dying.
“Americans thus sought to manage battlefield deaths in a way that mitigated separation from kin and offered a substitute for the traditional stylized deathbed performance.” This abysmal characterization of death as some kind of culturally pre-ordained requirement is both disturbing and confused. The exigencies of the battlefield could not possibly allow for “substitution” of a traditional death and its “performances”. Faust’s confusions about universal truths of soldiers, battles, sacrifice, and death is truly astounding especially in such a book written by the president of America’s supposed eminent institution of higher learning. “Soldiers, chaplains, military nurses, and doctors conspired to provide the dying man and his family with as many of the elements of the conventional Good Death as possible, struggling even in the chaos of war to make it possible for men—and their loved ones—to believe they had died well.” As before, the dying men of battlefields all died “well”, though some died better than others, certainly. There are no performances at death. This suggestion that the dying understood what they were “supposed to do” is a complete misunderstanding of how men fight wars, how and why they die, and the universal sorrow felt by those left behind. There certainly was an inevitability that a book on Civil War death should appear, but how unfortunate that it should be this one.
“These were condolence letters intended to offer the comfort implicit in the narratives of the ars moriendi that most contained. News of the Good Death constituted the ultimate solace—the consoling promise of life everlasting.” Faust is onto something here, but not at all what she supposes. The literature of the War, the letters, diaries, first hand accounts all tend to support a conclusion quite the opposite from Faust’s. Almost everything coming from the front, officially and from friends, as correspondence from or about those who are dying serve a very specific universal purpose of comforting those who love them.
Those involved in this savage war lived in a world of death and violence, sacrifice and loss. Faust includes quotes from participants, but misunderstands and mischaracterizes them so that they fit her empty theories. Union Colonel Luther Bradley writes, ” Of all the horrors the horrors of the battlefield are the worst and yet when you are in the midst of them they don’t appall one as is it would seem they ought. You are engrossed with the struggle…” Soldiers in the war are in a world of death, killing and being killed. Concerns typical of their previous civilian non-combat lives are rapidly overturned and subsumed. Death is part of the reality of soldiers in war. On the firing line or in a charge or receiving a charge or under an artillery bombardment one is as (likely) to get wounded or killed as another. In the midst of the struggle, as Colonel Bradley says, it’s all killing and all being killed—there is an acceptance of this truth by everyone involved.
Faust extensively quotes her sources. But it’s all for naught. There is only one quote that she prefaces with the honorific “perceptive”. This quote is a fairly pedestrian one by an academic about the frustration of those looking for news of the missing. “A professor at Gettysburg College who aided many civilians searching for kin after the battle there perceptively described ‘aching hearts in which the dread void of uncertainty still remained unsatisfied by positive knowledge.’” There seems nothing particularly “perceptive” in this comment (except) perhaps that it was made by an academic. Can this be more perceptive than Colonel Bradley’s comments above, or any of the hundreds that are quoted elsewhere in Faust’s book? No. This is a paean to a fellow academic long dead, and betrays a bias fundamental to the failure of this abysmal history.
Agenda-driven history can have unfortunate consequences. In describing the aftermath of Gettysburg, Faust falls, and falls hard. “By July 4, an estimated six million pounds of human and animal carcasses lay strewn across the field in the summer heat.” She kindly further provides the horrified reader with descriptions of the “stench” from the thousands of unburied bodies, and what the locals did to counteract it. I have personally read hundreds of books on this subject, and have never before read such a revolting and de-humanizing description of Civil War dead. Faust merits some compliment amidst the revulsion that this statement caused for me. It takes quite a bit for me to be revolted by anything in this subject area and, having no recollection of ever having had this response, even from reading first hand accounts of battles, horrible wounds and the mounds of dead at Franklin in particular, Faust has succeeded where so many others have failed. This disgusting characterization of our Civil War dead in pounds is simply vile.
Now that we have crossed the line to “war porn” which is exactly what this description of Faust’s is, what is to be done? How can we politely dismiss this obviously well-researched but utterly mistaken muddle? The Civil War was fought between two Christian countries having very similar societies, cultures, and understanding of God and man. The relationship between God and man is at the center of Faust’s concept of the “Good Death”. But like Christians today, believers then accepted their fate and placed no blame upon God. They continued to believe and understood their role in the God/Human dichotomy as one of endless mystery with sufficient answers never arriving. This is faith. “War weary Americans invoked the trials and patience of Job, reminded themselves that the Lord ‘doeth all things well,’ and dutifully and almost ritually affirmed, ‘Thou he slay me, yet I will trust in him.’” This understanding of the limitation of people to understand the will of God has long been the foundation of American religious life. Despite the hundreds of thousands of deaths and bloody high cost of the War, it continued—each side seeing God with them and the results in God’s hands. Faust kindly supplies instructive quotes and source material that undermine her thesis, and put the lie to her theories. Our American war dead ought not to be described as meat measured in “pounds”.
An essential truth of war is death. Even after the shock of Bull Run, the horror of Shiloh and the brutality of Gettysburg and beyond both sides did not flinch. Two societies engaged in warfare to the end - to the death- is the ugly simple truth of our Civil War and its horrific casualty rates.
There is no “Good Death”. Faust’s “Good Death” is the tradition of pre-war America, the tradition of stability and comprehensible deaths, funerals, sad partings, and profound last words. The War shattered these pre-War concepts and substituted military necessity in their place so that burial of war dead became exigent upon “practicalities” – the dead would be buried and identified if the course of battle allowed for it. As the armies moved, fought battles and moved on, the focus continued on only one thing and little else- winning battles and the War. A nation in civil war with both sides dedicated to total victory and nothing else had little time for the polite, staid death and dying traditions of the pre-war era. The course of the war alone would dictate funeral practice and set new traditions most formally the hallowed day “Memorial Day”.
Faust’s over-analysis is typical of current academic historiography. Building a book upon a false premise, filling the thing with page after page of endnotes does not a convincing argument make. President of Harvard or not, historians must submit their work to the vigorous review of others well-versed in the subject. Was that done in this case? Where were the editors who should have removed the “war porn”? Silent, and overwhelmed by the duty of editing the president of a prestigious institution? We shall never know, and the issue itself is of little moment. Faust’s work must stand on its own or fall.
Ambrose Bierce the great American writer, veteran of many Civil War battles, was shattered by his war experiences. Faust supplies his words but misconstrues their meaning and import. “‘Death was a thing to be hated.’ Bierce wrote…’It was not picturesque, it had no tender and solemn side—a dismal thing, hideous in all its manifestations and suggestions.’” Civil War death was ugly, disgusting and shocking just as war death in every war in every country for time immemorial has always been. The only “Good Death” was dying with one’s face to the enemy doing one’s duty, and perhaps more. This however is not Faust’s understanding of it. Bravery, courage, heroism—all of these things that presaged death added more prestige to the dying man and made him more the hero at home. Civil War death perhaps merits a book, but not this one. This unsatisfactory academic romp through, as Faust puts it so eloquently, “the warp and woof” of Civil War death is unfortunate at best. But, as death is one of the central themes of the War—at least in its literal aftermath for the participants—it was inevitable that such a book should be written.
The actualities of Civil War death would be unlikely to promote the production of an academic history such as this one though a false premise vigorously foot-noted could. The reliance on false premise, empty theories, and the proving of same is a fundamental flaw in the academic approach to history. But, could there be a book on this subject founded upon specious academic theory and mistaken readings of primary sources, produced by anyone less than the president of America’s foremost academic institution? Could such a book have passed a vigorous edit cycle and peer review? Had this book been produced by anyone less than the august personage who wrote it it would have likely been quickly forgotten and largely ignored.
Fundamentally, the concept of death for most Americans before, during, and after the Civil War was about life after death. This a foundational concept for any Christian-based religion. This has always been the case. Faust seems not to understand this. It is a surprising error in such a book that deconstructs religious and cultural traditions. The promise of Christianity to believers is that they will go to heaven and live an eternal life after death. This is the reward of Christianity. Faust states that death was a “cultural preoccupation” during the Civil War. “Redefined as eternal life”, she continues, “death was celebrated in mid-nineteenth century America.” No. Death in America for Christians had always been about eternal life. This is the fundamental promise of Christianity and has been for at least two thousand years. There was never a redefinition of it.
It is important to pay attention where attention is merited. A letter from Sergeant James Williams , Company A, Sixteenth South Carolina is illustrative of the truth, not oft shown by Faust. In a letter many years after the War he describes his comrades from the battle of Franklin and their understanding of what it “all” meant. “As has been said so many times in so many ways, man finally learns how to live, only when it is time to die… The earth would not soon see the like of these men again. . . it had been a time to walk with the giants.” Another story from the “Military Annals of Tennessee” is equally instructive, and perhaps more so.
The story of George Darden is not widely known, but illustrates the ugly truth of Civil War death . There is no “Good Death” certainly not in the Faustian sense. In a world of battle and war everyone is as likely to die as the next and all, for the most part, are prepared. Killing or killed—the world of the Civil War soldier is one of death—everyone is involved in it, everyone accepts the likely outcome, which is their own demise.
During the siege of Atlanta, in a charge near the location and on the same day that Union General McPherson was killed, late July, 1864, George Darden of Company G, 6th Tennessee was mortally wounded.
“He was a brave and eccentric man…His eccentricity and reckless nerve did not forsake him as he lay dying on that field of blood. Near him was a terribly wounded Federal, whose cries were heart-rending. The cries greatly disturbed Darden, who had composed himself to die, as he said, in peace. He appealed to the wounded Federal to keep quiet and die like a man. He said: ‘You disturb me very much. I am wounded unto death as well as you. An hour at most and both of us will have passed away, and for the sake of a common manhood let us die calmly and like men of courage.’ But the wails and groans of the desperately wounded Federal in nowise abated. Darden, with a great effort, dragged himself to the wounded Federal, and after examining his wounds carefully, said: ‘Friend, you can’t live long; your sufferings are great, and you will not let me die peacefully. Hence, for the sake of both of us, I will end your agonies.’ And with these words he raised himself as well as he could, placed a loaded rifle to the Federal soldier’s breast and fired. The soldier died without struggle, and Darden layed (sic) himself calmly by his side, pillowed his head against a stump, and remarking, ‘Now I can die in peace,’ passed away without a sound or struggle, or a prayer that any one ever heard. All this was observed and heard by wounded men of the regiment who lay near the scene. The impression on their minds was deep, and the story is repeated at every gathering of the survivors of that terrible battle to this day.”
Death in war is an ugly business. Confederates and Federals knew after the first battles, after the first horrors, after the first bodies were returned home what it was all about and what would further be required of them. The two countries were fully united in the idea of war ‘till the end. It was victory or nothing, and the men in the ranks paid the price for society’s wants with their blood as soldiers in war always have done and always will do. These are universal truths. There are no “Good Deaths”. The pre-war way of death was abandoned very soon after the Civil War because circumstances involving massive armies, high casualties and ongoing military operations made the previous traditions based upon stability and nearness of family to the dying simply impossible.
And there is the crux, again: it is a simple ugly matter and a dark business. Civil War soldiers considered a “Good Death” one in which they died doing their duty, being brave and courageous, with their face to the enemy and in the heat of battle defending the “right” as they saw it. Faust’s over-analysis of this simple yet painful truth is disturbing. A thoughtful, comprehensive book on this topic might be of some moment, but this is not the one.
The Civil War was America’s conflagration of unity. There are no more Confederates and Federals we are all one people. The Union government and the southern states after the war did the best they could to bury the dead, commemorate their sacrifices, and save the battlegrounds so that future Americans might learn and be inspired by the bravery and courage displayed on those fields at such a high price. Success in these endeavors was not universal.
Clara Barton, the great Civil War nurse, described a failure of her own in lectures that she gave across the country after the war, as quoted by Faust. “Clara Barton described her crisis of conscience when a young man on the verge of death mistook her for his sister Mary. Unable to bring herself actually to address him as ‘brother’, she nevertheless kissed his forehead so that, as she explained, ‘the act had done the falsehood the lips refused to speak.’”
In comparison to all the good work that she did for so many wounded and dying Civil War soldiers, this event is a small one but not perhaps for the man in question. Addressing the poor dying man as her brother could only be seen as a kind, compassionate gesture—except apparently by Barton. Why she could not or would not do this simple kindness is a false conundrum much like the bulk of Faust’s “This Republic of Suffering”.
Built upon misconceptions and the fundamentally false premise of the “Good Death” Faust “soldiers on” with “proof” upon “proof” and “source” after “source” to lay a foundation underneath a falsehood. This is a book of cold analysis where the soldiers dead on the battlefield are measured in pounds to illustrate most inappropriately the difficulty that locals had in removing them. There was no constraint upon Barton except her own to bid the dying soldier “Farewell, dear brother!” “The Republic of Suffering” may be most memorable for its confusions and misunderstandings than for any valuable additions to Civil War study. There were no constraints upon president Faust to tell a truthful simple story. But if these self-evident stories were told could she fill a book with such stories, and would there be academic fame and respect resulting? Is history now in academia deemed of moment only if theories are proposed and explanations given even if they are wrong?
The soldiers of the Civil War have told their stories in thousands of memoirs and books, the families have done the same. Only in the academic world it seems does an analysis that ignores so fundamentally the participants and relies so heavily on theorizing and abstractions carry such weight. Those who read the diaries, letters, reports, etc., of the men on the firing lines know the truth. The truth is that the “Good Death” is a myth constructed solely for the benefit of this book. For the men and women of the Civil War there were no “Good Deaths” only those that involved sacrifice, pain, loss, heartache and tragedy. Look to Ambrose Bierce and the other survivors who were scarred and shattered yet did their duty and held in high accord those who also did theirs but paid the ultimate price. Soldiers in every conflict everywhere want the enemy soldiers to “die for their country”. But if they had to die Civil War soldiers like soldiers in every war preferred to die “well” if they are forced to die; and, even more so if the unenviable result of death were to occur to them they preferred better than “well” – to die with bravery, courage, and heroism. Where is the value in over-complicating a matter as simple, and as deep as this one? There is little to recommend this book as it is so very frustrating, and so very unpleasant to digest. Dr. Faust’s “The Republic of Suffering” is neither instructive nor enlightening, but casts a dark pall across the very subject it purports to lighten. Death in battle is an abysmal, ugly thing, but without those brave men (and now, women) prepared to face it we are all truly lost.
The Workings of a Kind Providence in Life
by Daniel Mallock
Today I was laid off.
This is not particularly extraordinary. I am a Systems Analyst and IT fellow-I’ve been through this before. The most astounding thing happened 10 minutes after I left my company and ventured forth into the unknown.
I’d like to share it with you.
It was a lovely day in Franklin, Tennessee today. Puffy, scattered clouds all about the sky and a favorable breeze blowing at 64 degrees. Perfect weather for early March in the Mid-South.
I stopped at a local gas station several miles from my now former company to throw a few dollars in the tank. As I walked into the station, I saw an older fellow sitting on a beautiful new motorcycle. This brought to mind my frustration that I was driving my car rather than my own motorcycle.
I got to chatting with this fellow and found out he was from near my home town in New England. We talked of bikes, Franklin, etc. I told him about my own bike and my little misadventure in Maine some years ago on a Yamaha. Recently retired, and a long time resident of Franklin I asked him if he was interested in local history.
“Are you interested in the Battle of Franklin?” I asked him.
“No, I was never interested in the Civil War, but I can see that you are,” he said pointing to my Battle of Franklin/Carter House bumper sticker.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been a student of this battle for many years - since I was a child, actually.”
And then something amazing happened.
He said, “I have some maps that a friend gave me many years ago of the Battle of Franklin. I would like you to have them. Follow me on my bike and I will give them to you.”
We traveled to his house nearby he leading the way on his motorcycle, me following in my 4-wheel ride.
The maps he gave me are unpublished. They are produced by a local historian in impeccable detail showing most particularly the locations of Confederate artillery batteries during the battle. These maps are the finest and most detailed maps of the Battle of Franklin I have ever seen. They are a treasure, a miracle to me. They open a new world of study for me in my pursuit of knowledge on this very savage and brutal battle of November, 1864. In addition, they confirm my researches regarding the bitter fighting over captured Union artillery pieces at the Carter House and Cotton Gin early in the battle.
Needless to say I was humbled and astounded at this turn of events. My new friend said then, “I see you like the maps. Let’s go over to the house of the fellow who drew them.”
Again, I followed him through the back streets of Franklin. We arrived at the historian’s house completely unannounced. My friend hadn’t seen him in over 5 years, though they live only 2 miles from one another. The two were old friends separated by loss, illness and the passing of time as it moves so swiftly forward.
I was introduced very kindly, and thanked the historian for his hospitality. I complimented him on his maps and told him how very happy I was to have them. I told him that these are the finest maps of the battle I have ever seen, and told him I would send him my writings on the subject. The historian is old and in ill health but met me, a complete stranger, as a new and welcome friend.
What a pleasure to meet two people so thoughtful and friendly and kind. Who can know how or why these things occur? The fact that they do occur makes life so very special and continues to reinforce my belief that a kind Providence sometimes takes a moment to guide me on a path that can bring me to more knowledge of history, of myself, and of the kindness and deep caring of others - otherwise strangers now friends.
One might suggest that a lay off is extraordinary. It is. But I’ve seen this before. Sometimes it’s an ugly business, business. But we always move forward as best we can, with a good and positive attitude that the right will find its course, or we will be led upon it. There is little so stable in life as change. But beyond this matter of business and career the matter of scholarship, of new friendship and most importantly of the entirely selfless kindness of others is what is so extraordinary.
Senseless Violence Across the Land Exposes Moral Relativism
by Daniel Mallock
The senseless murder of innocents always shakes our moral foundations. School shootings in particular are shocking and deeply painful. There has been a spate of school murders, mall murders, and of course the ever-present domestic murders where a child kills the parents and siblings, or a parent murders the entire family. These are ugly, senseless, horrible crimes for which there never appears to be any explanation. The killers kill themselves and we as a culture are left with little to learn from these events.
These events undermine our trust in society, in places we had always thought were safe havens-like schools, and builds suspicion where before there may have been a neutrality of feeling.
Most recently Northern Illinois University is the scene. Before that was the massacre at Virginia Tech and the mall shootings in Salt Lake City, and Omaha, Nebraska. Anything can happen in our society now, there are no safe havens - not at study and not in the marketplace.
This most recent horror at NIU involved a young man who has been described by colleagues and teachers as “revered”. Everyone exclaimed shock and bewilderment that the killer could have done such an appalling crime. For them, it seemed to have come from the clear blue sky, without any warnings. In the days following his vicious cowardly attack we learn that this man had a history of mental illness, was given an early discharge from the military for reasons that are still not divulged, refused to take his medication, had been institutionalized for self-destructive behavior (cutting himself), etc. Until recently his facade of normalcy that allowed him to have a long-term relationship, gather awards and respect from his peers, and be seen as a fine student and teacher and functional/normal human was fairly stable so that everyone was fooled.
But there were warning signs. According to CNN the “27-year-old shooter had a history of mental illness and stopped taking antidepressants three weeks ago, making him ‘erratic,’ according to authorities. In the months leading up to the surprise attack, he started covering his body in bizarre tattoos and stockpiling guns.” (CNN, posted 2/19/08) Perhaps we will never know what actions those around him may have taken in the days and weeks prior to the murders to prevent the soon-to-be mass murderer from a total meltdown.
The killer’s girlfriend of two years, now in the national spotlight - has made her choice to talk to the press. Her comments are illustrative of much more than her state of mind in the wake of her boyfriend’s cruelty and violence. They are indicative of a more thorough and widespread moral confusion that seems to permeate our entire culture.
“He wasn’t erratic. He wasn’t delusional. He was Steve; he was normal,” said Baty. She added, “I still love him.”
Can someone “love” someone who has just viciously murdered 5 people? Can someone “love” someone who is a destroyer of life, a berserker? Is Steve worthy of such feelings after his killing spree? Might she have said more accurately, I still love what I thought Steve was? or, I still love the person who I knew as Steve before he did this awful horror, or, I still love the man I thought I knew but never really did. Why couldn’t she have said, “I cannot love someone who did such an appalling thing.” Aren’t there crimes and actions that are unforgivable? I think there are, and this mass murder of innocents at NIU (or VT, or at a mall, etc.) is one of them.
Is this a misconception of what “love” is? Do we need a new definition of “love” to teach our children? Or could this just be some blind loyalty on her part? Does “love” now make us live in a vacuum utterly separated from moral obligation, compassion for others and duty to the wider society?
She clearly struggled with the situation.
“I was with him all the time,” she said. “How could I not have seen this coming? I feel partially responsible because maybe I should have seen something.” The distraught Baty also said her boyfriend was a victim as well on Valentine’s Day. “I feel so bad for the victims. I can’t tell them how sorry I am,” she said.
But then, in just the next breath, it all falls apart.
“But he was a victim too. I know they probably won’t want to hear that, but he was.”
This moral relativity that allows Ms. Baty to compare in her mind the killer with the victims in a way that puts them in the same category seems a complete confusion of priorities and proportion. Feeling bad for the victims ought to have precluded her from describing both the victims and the murderer as victims. It seems a callous, callow, and hollow thing to say. I think that she is correct when she says that the victims and their families “won’t want to hear that.”
“The person I knew was not the one who went into Cole Hall and did that,” Baty told CNN. “He was anything but a monster. He was probably the … nicest, (most) caring person ever.” (CBS News, 2/19/09)
No. It seems that Ms. Baty did not know her boyfriend at all. He was not all “nice” nor “caring”. He was utterly false, evil. The depths of anger and hatred that some people harbor and hide remain a mystery to us all, almost without context or precedent until they lash out and collapse into depravity and violence. There was a time when such actions would earn nothing but condemnation. Can there be sympathy for such a monster? His false persona is gone, and a re-assessment of him and his life required. We often do not know one another, and with disastrous consequences.
In a related situation a youth pastor in Houston, Texas surrendered himself to authorities for a murder that he committed in 1994. The congregants of his church have forgiven him both for the murder and for his falseness, apparently. His church of almost 1000 people praised the murderer/youth pastor for “taking responsibility” and turning himself in. There didn’t seem to be any discussion of why it took him 14 years to do so. But there is more.
Several congregants are quoted by CNN as describing the pastor/murderer as a “hero”.
“‘He’s a hero, really,’ said Kelley Graham, 24. ‘I don’t know how many people would do what he did.’” (CNN, 02/18). Another impressed church member was even stronger in his appreciations, “I am thrilled my son has a role model to accept responsibility the way Calvin (the murderer) has,” Thac said. “There are way too many men who don’t accept responsibility.”
Acceptance of responsibility has only recently been seen as something heroic. Previously, such admirable conduct was considered a fundamental aspect of maturity, of good citizenship, of respectability.
In time of war, as our soldiers fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and war clouds gather on the horizon at other hotspots around the world, can the “acceptance of responsibility” truly be considered “heroic”? Where is the heroism in the admittance to a crime of violence and cowardice? Is this pastor/murderer as heroic, say, as a soldier who dives on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades in Baghdad? Isn’t the police officer who rushes into a house to save the lives of innocent hostages and dies in the attempt a hero? How can we compare an admitted murderer who finally after 14 years admits his guilt to such people who sacrifice themselves for others? The concept of heroism elevates the hero who has surpassed the requirements of responsibility. Taking out the trash is a responsibility, accepting great risk to help others is heroic.
Do we as a culture no longer know who to raise up in honor, and who to abjure and condemn?
A culture of moral confusion must find it difficult if not impossible to sustain itself when in mortal conflict with an ideology of reactionary absolutism like Islamism so contrary to our own understanding of what is good and evil.
When we have so lost our way so as to be unable to identify evil when it confronts us, (or even shares our homes or classrooms with us), and so clearly identifies itself as such by its actions; when we as a culture can not agree fundamentally that certain crimes and behaviors are utterly unforgivable, and that those who commit such horrors like the massacres at VT and NIU, etc. should be roundly condemned, disdained, and reviled - can we effectively confront a violent ideology whose goal is our destruction?
After the school shootings and mall shootings and shattering intra-family murders of recent years, we are left with little learned and little to learn from. The killers who harbor hatred and nihilism and believe that their greatest aspiration is to destroy innocence have nothing to teach us. They kill themselves or are killed, and we are left with questions having no answers. In response, we install improved security systems and processes, and debate gun ownership rights and gun control as we should.
But there is an emptiness of sorrow and moral confusion that these events leave behind. When someone commits an atrocity like the one at NIU or Virginia Tech how can it be that those close to him, who thought they knew him but did not, in the aftermath say that they continue to love him? Isn’t it so that they continue to love the person they thought they had known, a facade that was fronting the hatred and ugliness underneath rather than the cruel anti-person who committed the crime?
Is it time for a re-examination of “love” and the concept of “hero” in our culture? It would appear that the answer is yes. Can we “love” those who commit horrible crimes against us? We need a better, deeper understanding of how we, each one of us, relate to everyone else in our country. We need to have our standards returned to us, we need our heroes again. We need to rescue them from our past, and elevate them when they appear in our daily lives. These are the men and women who inspire us with their courage, bravery, self-sacrifice, and character. And we need to be able to condemn, without doubt and with compassion, those whose abominable actions put them beyond the pale and outside the family of humanity.
Little Friend, Little Friend - Jarrell’s Powerful, Quiet, Short Homage to America’s War
Introduction by Daniel Mallock
A great poem ought to be huge - grand in scope, but not necessarily excessive in length. Great poetry should tell massive stories with multiple layers concisely and artfully. One doesn’t need obscure references, convoluted language, nor self-congratulatory internal winkings. Poetry is supposed to be honest. A great poem should pack a serious punch of power and style and insight.
It’s a complicated world and life is complex, confusing, and manifestly difficult to fathom. Poetry is at its does best when it illustrates and even explains something of life and humanity in a form that is reachable and readily understood, entertaining and impressive. Overly complex poetry tends to be more a demonstration of the art and poet rather than anything that might tend to educate, enlighten, or entertain the reader.
I’ve heaped praise and criticism on the Nashville Fugitives on these pages already. I believe the finest Civil War poem of the 20th century is by one of them - “Lee in the Mountains”, by Donald Davidson. Conversely, the worst Civil War poem of the last century was perpetrated by Allen Tate another Fugitive. His poem “Ode to the Confederate Dead” is something of a crime; a criminal cruelty dumped upon an entire country by an otherwise credible poet. Tate’s poem has long been considered a classic, a suitable tribute to the Confederate dead - the truth is that both assertions are false.
Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead” is a brilliant poem conceived by another writer associated with the Fugitives (Lowell studied under John Crowe Ransom at Kenyon College). These three poems represent the finest and the worst 20th century poetic treatments of the Civil War. So, it is somewhat ironic that one of the finest poets of WW2 should also be a student of Ransom, and a colleague of Robert Lowell at Kenyon - another Fugitive associate and Nashvillian. Let’s now complete the Nashville connection…
Perhaps the greatest American poet of WW2 is Randall Jarrell. This poet who would write of bombing raids and dying ball-turret gunners, who would bring the reality of the war into his poetry so powerfully, so lyrically, and so successfully - was born in Nashville and would later teach at Vanderbilt, the very home of the Fugitives.
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) could embed the nitty gritty of war into his work - the machinery, the oil, the gunmetal, the equipment of death and destruction. He would populate his poems with people who de-populated cities, the air crews of the Eighth Air Force, for example. Jarrell brought the casualties, the blood, the losses, the mechanics of war together in such a way as to bring the war home to the reader - Jarrell’s poems make World War Two real; every casualty is strongly felt.
As with most survivors of war, Jarrell was deeply affected if not scarred by his war experiences. Jarrell served in the Army Air Corps (precursor to the US Air Force) working in a control tower. He had enlisted to fly aircraft but failed to qualify. Jarrell went on to a very successful academic and writing career after the war becoming a noted critic and poet. He died in 1965 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in a traffic accident. It is not known if Jarrell’s death was a suicide or an accident, but his bouts with depression and the intense emotional depth of his poetry give one pause. Robert Lowell referred to his old Kenyon colleague as one of the “best lyric poets of the past”.
Jarrell’s war poems are jarring, and very real. He brings the experience home and slams it down on the page so that the reader must deal with it, somehow. As with so many of Jarrell’s WW2 poems reading “Little Friend, Little Friend” is an emotional experience, a jarring slap on the side of the head with the truth and ugly reality of war. The ugliness and horror of war can be shared via the beauty of poetry, with the obvious irony there for all to see.
One of Jarrell’s greatest poems is but a fragment and challenges the definition of poetry itself. It is very short, and very powerful. It seems to embrace the men and machines of the war, and put them back in the air where Jarrell always knew them to be - doing their terrible damage and raining death down upon the cities and one another.
David Perkins wrote, “They are vivid and moving incidents of combat, told with an exceptionally sensitive psychological insight and moral perplexity.” (A History of Modern Poetry: Modernism and After (Cambridge, MA, 1987), 393.) Jarrell tells his stories in beautiful language, with little fanfare, and intense emotional power. His poems are novels on a page, huge stories of massive events and shattered people and cities all scrunched up on the page like a crashed bomber - and rebuilt in poetry by way of explanation.
“Little Friend, Little Friend” is a radio transmission/poem between a bomber pilot and a fighter pilot flying in hostile skies. They are there for each other to a certain extent, always just out of range. They do what they can for each other. And in these few lines is a very powerful, very simplified view of the comradery, ugliness, bravery, and extremes of fighting wars in the air. Jarrell is one of America’s most brilliant poets. It is a privilege to present this brilliant fragment/poem of Jarrell on my blog.
“Little Friend, Little Friend”
by Randall Jarrell, 1945
. . . . Then I heard the bomber call me in:
“Little Friend, Little Friend, I got two
engines on fire. Can you see me, Little
Friend?”
I said “I’m crossing right over you.
Let’s go home.”
