Author Archives: Eireann

Civil War fathers’ trauma was passed on to sons

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A strange study by UCLA. I’m not much of a scientist, but it feels as though their Civil War related findings are a bit slim. Meanwhile, the nutritional health of the mother played a huge role in the longevity of their children, but that part gets shunted to later in the end of the summary.

The study examined the records of 2,342 children of 732 POWs during the no-exchange period, 2,416 children of 715 POWs from the period when exchanges were common, and 15,145 children of 4,920 non-POW veterans. All of the children were born after 1866 and survived to at least age 45.

One of the most interesting findings was that sons born during the later months of the year to men who were POWs during the decline in conditions of Confederate camps fared better than sons who were born earlier in the year. Costa said that’s most likely because the mothers of the later time of year births had better access to nutrition during their pregnancies.

Among sons born in the fourth quarter to mothers with adequate nutrition during their pregnancies, there was no difference in the eventual death rates between sons of POWs and sons of non-POWS. In contrast, among sons born in the second quarter, when maternal nutrition was inadequate, the sons of ex-POWs who experienced severe hardship during captivity were 1.2 times more likely to die than the sons of ex-POWs who fared better in captivity and non-POWs.

Source: Civil War data reveals that fathers’ trauma can be passed on to sons | UCLA

How Cinco de Mayo Helped Prevent a Confederate Victory

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A look at Cinco de Mayo, and the effect it had on the war raging in the USA.

Hayes Bautista says California Latinos were ardent Union supporters. When their home countries won independence from Spain, they had unilaterally abolished slavery and established citizenship for non-whites. Now living in California, a free state, they saw the pro-slavery Confederacy as an existential threat. When reports reached Los Angeles of Zaragoza’s victory against the French, Latinos made the Civil War connection immediately.

“In 1862, things weren’t going well for the Union in the Civil War, but here in Puebla was a clear-cut victory that completely threw the French timetable off,” says Hayes-Bautista. “The news reports just electrified Latinos and jolted them to a whole new level of organization and activity.”

Source: How Cinco de Mayo Helped Prevent a Confederate Victory in the Civil War

Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary

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This article by Smithsonian mag reached me at a very opportune time. I am a huge fan of Ken Burns’ documentary series, and had it running in the background for the umpteenth time last weekend as I worked. For some reason, after dozens of viewings, this was the first time that I really noticed the documentary’s conciliatory and controversial nature. In the 30 years since it was released, a lot more scholarship has been conducted, the Lost Cause myths have finally been seriously questioned, and society at large has started to push back against the traditional Southern narratives. I still love the series for its emotional core and excellent production values, but I agree with this author that we’re due for an updated look at the war and its aftermath.

By focusing on a type of military history wherein all sides can be seen as—in some way—heroic, “The Civil War” allows us, as white Americans, to forget about the reasons why we were fighting in the first place. It allows us to focus only on an antiseptic form of history that makes us feel good, on a narrative that emotionally relieves us of sins that should not be relieved. It allows us to convince ourselves that the dishonorable were in some way honorable; it reassures our sense of selves as inculpable white Americans; it allows us a psychological pass for the sins of our forefathers.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-we-need-new-civil-war-documentary-180971996/#oEY3EIpx2iTag2py.99
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Nat Turner’s slave rebellion ruins are disappearing in Virginia

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An interesting push by a county in Virginia to preserve and present historical artifacts and sites where Nat Turner’s rebellion took place. As the last quote in the article states, “Just because something bad may have happened at a place, or something that was distasteful, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be kept.”

Until recently, the all-white county historical society was uncertain how to handle its macabre legacy. Within the past 10 years, though, as popular interest in Turner’s story has grown — including through the controversial 2016 film “Birth of a Nation” — attitudes have loosened.

Work is underway to establish slave-insurrection-history trails: a walking route in Courtland and a driving tour through the southwest corner of the county where the rebellion took place.

Source: Nat Turner’s slave rebellion ruins are disappearing in Virginia – The Washington Post

What Ulysses S. Grant would tell Trump about Robert E. Lee

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Another look at the current magnifying glass on Lee, this one citing the quote I most often go to when discussing the topic.

I do have one bone to pick with the author, though – Grant’s actions do indicate that he had an abolitionist streak. His father in law was a wealthy slaveowner, and gifted Grant and Julia a slave when they married. At his lowest point, when he was broke and unable to make ends meet, he manumitted the slave, when an adult male would have brought in enough money on the open market to make Grant’s money woes disappear. Yet another facet with which to compare and contrast Lee’s mistreatment of Arlington’s slave population!

We already have a better way to look at Robert E. Lee. Not an angry way, but a just one.

In his memoir, Ulysses S. Grant, a general greater than Lee, described his feelings upon meeting Lee in April 1865 at Appomattox, as Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia. Grant wrote, “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

In one sentence, Grant manages to distinguish between Lee’s qualities as a general and the terrible cause — the destruction of the United States for the benefit of slavery — to which Lee put his talents.

Source: What Ulysses S. Grant would tell Trump about Robert E. Lee – The Washington Post

Questioning Lee’s Legacy

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Trump’s blundering into the Confederate statues debate has unleashed quite a backlash against Lost Cause history. I am all for reversing the yellow history, but I’m not sure swinging the pendulum entirely the other way is going to accomplish much. Did Lee make mistakes? Without question, especially at Gettysburg. But to suggest that he was utterly without merit as a commander is as questionable as revering the Marble Model.

To Edward Bonekemper III, the author of “How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War” and several other books on the war, Lee is not the humble, proud battlefield loser presented by documentarian Ken Burns and other popular works of history, but a bumbling strategist and the central character in “the most successful propaganda campaign in American history.”

Source: Trump said Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was a ‘great general.’ Truth is, he wasn’t. – The Washington Post

Ben Butler Play

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Milwaukee residents, take note! There’s a play running through April 28th about the wily Benjamin F Butler, Union general and all-around rapscallion.

What if General Butler was a bundle of contradictions: a military commander with no real experience, a brash and bellowing man who was also plagued with self-doubt and a lack of confidence? What if Butler’s decision to grant runaway slaves asylum was influenced heavily by conversations with one of the black petitioners, who was secretly taught to read and had an uncanny grasp on legal issues? What if the landmark decision to define slaves as contraband – property seized from the enemy during wartime – wasn’t the calculated wranglings of an experienced trial lawyer, but instead an accidental discovery in the midst of a heated argument? What if General Butler had serious misgivings about the impact his decision would have on his own military and political career, not to mention the rest of the war effort? What if Butler’s acts were heroic, in spite of himself?

Far from a Wikipedia entry bogged down with facts, and very far from a historical recreation of the moment, “Ben Butler” takes these questions and turns the story into a farce, pumping up the ridiculous personalities and foibles of all the participants, who are accidentally involved in an enormously important historical moment. The result is a sitcom in period costumes, re-imagining characters with exaggerated mannerisms but with dilemmas and speech patterns that sound very contemporary.

https://onmilwaukee.com/ent/articles/ben-butler-review.html

Walt Whitman Exhibit

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The University of Virginia is marking Walt Whitman’s bicentennial with a new exhibit. If you’re in the area, it’s ongoing to July 29th.

This year, the University of Virginia celebrates the bicentennial of his birth with an exhibition, “Encompassing Multitudes: The Song of Walt Whitman.” The exhibit showcases various editions of his best-known volume, “Leaves of Grass,” and handwritten versions of these and other poems, as well as other writings, including essays against slavery and about Abraham Lincoln, and letters and notes detailing his time working as a nurse during the Civil War.

https://www.library.virginia.edu/exhibitions/whitman/

Our Native Daughters

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I noticed this story on the Smithsonian page today, and clicked kind of idly. A few seconds into the first linked video, I was hooked. Rhiannon Giddens and some of her fellow black women banjo players have created a moving and haunting CD of music inspired by and based on slave tunes.  It really is astonishing and worth a click. I encourage you to take a listen!

Giddens—a native of North Carolina and the lead singer and a founding member of the GRAMMY award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops—researched the songs and haunting narratives of enslaved Africans. Native Daughters is a collaboration with three other African-American songwriters whose work interrogates history and, as Giddens writes in the album notes, shines “new light” on stories of “struggle, resistence and hope.”

“Rhiannon had brought in this handwritten music from the 1700s, the first slave melody ever annotated in the New World, and we started working on it, adding chords to it,” Powell says. “She was very close to the mic, and her voice was so unselfconscious and unassuming, her intention so pure, and things got very intense emotionally. We just had to keep it.”

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-these-four-banjo-playing-women-resurrected-songs-enslaved-180971926/#AqgmK8RqpepqSiVE.99

Civil War Museum Opening

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The Civil War Museum at Richmond’s old Tredegar complex is reopening with a splash, and some seriously high-brow fare! I don’t know when I’ll next go “On to Richmond!” but I can’t wait to visit once I’m there. The museum didn’t exist when last I was in the capital.

The glass-walled lobby incorporates the enclosed ruins of the old Tredegar Ironworks, which date to the 1800s. The ironworks produced iron for the railroad industry, as well as cannonballs and munitions for the Civil War.

The museum near the James River in downtown Richmond has been under construction since 2017, combining the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar and the Museum of the Confederacy into one new museum that aims to tell the stories of the Union and the Confederacy, as well as African-Americans, Native Americans, women, children and immigrant communities.