Category Archives: Blog

How Cotton Remade the World

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As a historian, one of my favourite aspects of study is to see the ripples that one stone cast in the global pond can have.  This article is an excellent little summary of how the American Civil War – fought entirely in the US and by American participants – became a force for change in Britain, India, Egypt and elsewhere.

Yet given all that attention, it is surprising that we have spent considerably less effort on understanding the war’s global implications, especially given how far-reaching they were: The war can easily be seen as one of the great watersheds of 19th-century global history. American cotton, the central raw material for all European economies (and also those of the northern states of the Union), suddenly disappeared from global markets. By the end of the war, even more consequentially, the world’s most important cotton cultivators, the enslaved workers of the American South, had attained their freedom, undermining one of the pillars on which the global economy had rested: slavery. The war thus amounted to a full-fledged crisis of global capitalism—and its resolution pointed to a fundamental reorganization of the world economy.

How Cotton Remade the World – Sven Beckert – POLITICO Magazine.

Weekly Recap: Feb 10

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Here’s a recap of last week’s Civil War Podcast blog topics, and suggested readings for further study.

Post: The Hunley’s Hull Revealed
The legendary Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was the first successful underwater warship that is, the first to sink an enemy ship. As chronicled in Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine, the sub disappeared without a trace in 1864, crippled by a Union ship, and finding it became something of an obsession for many Americans until the vessel was finally brought to shore in 2000. Based on interviews with scientists and historians who studied the Hunley’s remains, Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier journalists Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf reconstruct the sub’s final voyage in this dramatic slice of Civil War history.

Post: Caroline County Events (Assassination Commemoration)
James L. Swanson’s Manhunt is a fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, this is history as you’ve never read it before.

Post: Musings on a photo found at Gettysburg
Images as vast and as haunting as their subjects comprise the bulk of this collection, which accompanies a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Moving in roughly chronological order through the Civil War years, Met photography curator Rosenheim attentively argues that the rise of popular photography coincided with the onset of the Civil War to signify the beginning of the modern era. Examining the use of war images in newspapers and political campaigns, the sentimental obsession over portraiture by soldiers and their families, and the national mourning enacted through mass images, Rosenheim weaves the rhetorical and material realities of the war years by attaching them to the photographic image. While his explanations of changes in photographic technology and methodology are of interest primarily to specialists, the majority of the text is gracefully directed toward the images themselves. Grandiose landscapes, macabre and sobering images of the wounded, portraits startlingly bare in their sentiment—the hundreds of images carry the heft of history. The Civil War has received plenty of attention in popular publications and, increasingly, in serious academic contexts; the bald reality captured in these diverse photographs, however, manages still to add an affecting contribution to the discussion.

Post: Mary Lincoln Play at Ford’s
Called “fascinating” by Ken Burns and “spirited and fast-paced” by the Boston Globe, Mrs. Lincoln is a meticulously researched and long overdue addition to the historical record. In the words of Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Joseph Ellis, Mrs. Lincoln “is distinctive for its abiding sanity, its deft and in-depth handling of the White House years, and for the consistent quality of its prose.”

Post: Tolstoy and Lincoln
This fascinating volume brings together leading historians from around the world to explore Lincoln’s international legacy. The authors examine the meaning and image of Lincoln in many places and across continents, ranging from Germany to Japan, India to Ireland, Africa and Asia to Argentina and the American South. The book reveals that at the heart of Lincoln’s global celebrity were his political principles, his record of successful executive leadership in wartime, his role as the “Great Emancipator,” and his resolute defense of popular government. Yet the “Global Lincoln” has been a malleable and protean figure, one who is forever being redefined to meet the needs of those who invoke him.

Post: Book Review: Marching Home
Using evidence from diaries, letters, pension records, regimental histories and other sources, [Jordan] constructs a far darker narrative of veterans profoundly and permanently alienated from a civilian public that neither understood nor properly acknowledged their wartime sacrifice… Marching Home also brings into sharp relief the gulf—present in every war—that developed between soldiers and people on the home front who did not experience, and thus could not grasp, the reality of military service… Readers will find in Marching Home a powerful exploration of how some Union veterans made the transition from military service to civilian life.

Post: Black Canadians who Fought
African Canadians who had fled from the United States had not forgotten their past and eagerly sought to do their part in securing rights and liberty for all. Leaving behind their freedom in Canada, many enlisted in the Union cause. Most served as soldiers or sailors while others became recruiters, surgeons, or regimental chaplains. Entire black communities were deeply affected by this war that profoundly and irrevocably changed North American history.

Black Canadians fought in the American Civil War

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Brief article (though supporting a much more indepth book) by a Canadian professor on the black Canadians who fought for the Union cause.  I’d been reading earlier this week about escaped slaves in Canada signing up for militia units to protect their new homes. This is an interesting counterpiece.

The black recruits who joined did so for many reasons. Anderson Abbott, the first Canadian-born black doctor, believed most fought to give “the world a higher conception of the value of human liberty.” Others were caught up in the excitement and adventure. Money also played a role, for by 1863 a knowledgeable recruit could earn hundreds of dollars in bounties or substitute fees.

Most of the African Canadians volunteering came from a hardscrabble working-class background and were supporting elderly parents, wives and children. The enlistment money allowed their dependants some financial security in their absence.

The timing of the black enlistment, however, suggests that one factor — fair treatment — was paramount. Some African Canadians volunteered as soon as black regiments began recruiting. Their numbers peaked in January 1864 and then slowed to a trickle by April, likely a result of Canadian black communities learning that some black regiments were being treated as second-class soldiers and assigned excessive fatigue duties and menial work. Canadian papers also carried reports of Confederate atrocities where black prisoners were cut down in cold blood.

via How black Canadians fought for liberty in the American Civil War.

Book review: Marching Home

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A new book deals with a subject I’ve been musing on lately: The effects of the war on the social life of postbellum America.  Millions of men coming home – some with severe physical and emotional scars – to a world that was profoundly changed.  This one sounds like a good read.

Jordan’s handling of civilian behavior toward Union veterans amounts to an unsparing indictment. Widespread callousness consigned former soldiers to “a living ‘republic of suffering.’ . . . Suspended between the dead and the living, the rest of their days were disturbed by memories of the war.” He allocates considerable attention to amputees and former prisoners of war. “Legions of men missing arms and legs,” he contends, posed a special problem for civilians because “throbbing stumps weeping a foul brew of pus and blood were hardly an advertisement for the kind of glorious, sanitized war the public wanted to remember.” Ex-prisoners suffered “enduring psychological injuries” and sought help from comrades who had shared their wartime nightmare. But “while ex-prisoner-of-war associations sustained prison survivors, they had scarcely moved the hearts and minds of the northern public. If anything, ex-prisoner meetings contributed to even greater public suspicion and scorn.” A reluctant nation did create a pension system (though many Americans came to view it “as a problem — not a paradigm”), and national and state soldiers’ homes assisted some of the poorest and least functional veterans.

Former soldiers offered one another empathy and help. They created the Grand Army of the Republic , the largest veterans’ organization and an increasingly powerful lobbying group, which Jordan describes as “one of the most significant social-welfare organizations of the nineteenth century.” They also wrote memoirs and unit histories, gathered at reunions, and erected monuments on battlefields and elsewhere — all to keep alive the memory of their sacrifice.

via Book review: Marching Home, by Brian Matthew Jordan – The Washington Post.

Leo Tolstoy’s Love Letter to Lincoln

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Following up on that ripples-in-the-pond thought, I’ve always found this one of the weirdest stories in the Lincoln realm: Tolstoy’s encounter with the chieftain of a remote Caucasus tribe who was obsessed with the Great Emancipator.

Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us. 

via Leo Tolstoy’s Love Letter to Lincoln – The Daily Beast.

‘The Widow Lincoln’ at Ford’s Theatre

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How is Ford’s Theatre marking the sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s assassination?  It’s staging a play about Mary Lincoln.  Hope the Secret Service are keeping the Obamas far, far away from this one.

The moment is just one of many pathos-crammed sequences in “The Widow Lincoln,” the doleful historical monument of a play at Ford’s Theatre. Written by James Still (“The Heavens Are Hung in Black”) and directed by Stephen Rayne, this world premiere broods knowledgeably over the plight of Mary Todd Lincoln after the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. While fever-dream design and dramaturgy evoke the first lady’s mental health problems, there’s an aching universality to the production’s portrait of grief and bewilderment in the face of loss.

via ‘The Widow Lincoln’ at Ford’s Theatre shows a first lady in mourning – The Washington Post.

Laird Hunt on a photo found at Gettysburg

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The Irish newspapers have had a few Civil War articles lately. This one is almost a tone poem; a meditation on photographs and the power they held for the soldiers who carried them.

When the guns at Gettysburg had stopped booming and the dust had settled, a photograph was plucked from the dirt. It had been trampled, its lovely grey and gilt frame had been crushed and dirtied, but the hand-tinted ambrotype it contained was still visible. It showed a woman with dark hair pulled neatly back from her brow holding a baby on her lap. Both the woman and the baby looked toward the camera. The baby’s arm and the woman’s hand were visible. One can easily imagine the soldier whose precious image of home this was gazing at that arm, at that hand, at that bared, beloved brow.

One can imagine him, as many might be moved to, before the three fateful days of battle, taking the photo out of his pack and peering at it. Maybe he sang as he peered. Sang to the child then spoke to the woman. Maybe his comrades sat close to him so he whispered to her, said things meant for her ears alone. Photos circulated widely in the decades before the war but were still mysterious, still seemed to speak to uncanny presence. Holding the photo aloft, or even just knowing it was in his pack or pocket, the man may have felt as if his wife and child were with him, physically present, that he was almost home. Probably death was on his mind. How could it not have been? A great fight was coming. Knowing that his wife and child were close by, even just as images, must have been a comfort.

via Laird Hunt: some thoughts on a photo found at Gettysburg.

Commemorative Events

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Readers in or near Caroline County, Virginia (or buffs who might want to make a trip out of it) should note this nifty little program, which features receptions, talks, bus tours, and even a dinner with an author, all on the subject of John Wilkes Booth’s flight, capture and death in Virginia.

Caroline County is getting ready to commemorate perhaps the county’s most historic event: the capture of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth…

The county will have events on April 24, 25 and 26 to remember the 150th anniversary of the capture and to honor Lincoln.

via Caroline will commemorate anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s capture – Fredericksburg.com: Caroline.

Hunley’s hull revealed

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The Hunley is slowly emerging from the century-old crust.  Kudos to the historians, researchers and conservators involved in this mammoth and painstaking project.  They are keeping history alive for us.

The Hunley was found off the South Carolina coast in 1995, raised in 2000 and brought to a conservation lab in North Charleston.

It was covered with a hardened gunk of encrusted sand, sediment and rust that scientists call concretion.

Last May, it was finally ready to be bathed in a solution of sodium hydroxide to loosen the encrustation. Then in August, scientists using small air-powered chisels and dental tools began the laborious job of removing the coating.

Now about 70 percent of the outside hull has been revealed.

Mardikian said the exposed hull indeed has revealed some things that may help solve the mystery of the sinking.

“I would have to lie to you if I said we had not, but it’s too early to talk about it yet,” he said. “We have a submarine that is encrypted. It’s like an Enigma machine.”

via Civil War rebel sub’s hull revealed | HeraldNet.com – Nation/World.

Weekly Recap: Feb 3

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Weekly Recap: Feb 3

Here’s a recap of last week’s Civil War Podcast blog topics, and suggested readings for further study.

Post: When the South Wasn’t a Fan of States’ Rights
In late 1860 and early 1861, state-appointed commissioners traveled the length and breadth of the slave South carrying a fervent message in pursuit of a clear goal: to persuade the political leadership and the citizenry of the uncommitted slave states to join in the effort to destroy the Union and forge a new Southern nation.
Directly refuting the neo-Confederate contention that slavery was neither the reason for secession nor the catalyst for the resulting onset of hostilities in 1861, Charles B. Dew finds in the commissioners’ brutally candid rhetoric a stark white supremacist ideology that proves the contrary.

Post: Newspaper Partisanship
A Press Divided provides new insights regarding the sharp political divisions that existed among the newspapers of the Civil War era. These newspapers were divided between North and South, and also divided within the North and South. These divisions reflected and exacerbated the conflicts in political thought that caused the Civil War and the political and ideological battles within the Union and the Confederacy about how to pursue the war.

Post: Lincolniana Auction
This informative Civil War collector’s guide will give you an idea of where to look, how much to pay, and how to keep mistakes to a minimum when collecting Civil War memorabilia. The author educates the reader on recognizing the value of items, emphasizes primary sources, and advises on collecting period representations. Additionally, strong focus is on the less obvious collectible with emphasis on detail and usage.

Post: Civil War Subs
Many people have heard of the Hunley, the experimental Confederate submarine that sank the USS Housatonic in a daring nighttime operation. Less well known, however, is that the Hunley was not alone under the waters of America during the Civil War. Both the Union and Confederacy built a wide and incredible array of vessels that could maneuver underwater, and many were put to use patrolling enemy waters. In Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, Mark Ragan, who spent years mining factory records and log books, brings this little-known history to the surface.The hardcover edition, Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, was published to wide acclaim in 1999. For this new paperback edition, Ragan has revised and updated the text to include the full story of the Hunley’s recovery and restoration.
Submarine Warfare in the Civil War

Post: Greatest Confederate General
The Civil War Generals offers an unvarnished and largely unknown window into what military generals wrote and said about each other during the Civil War era. Drawing on more than 170 sources—including the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the general officers of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as their staff officers and other prominent figures—Civil War historian Robert Girardi has compiled a valuable record of who these generals were and how they were perceived by their peers. The quotations within paint revealing pictures of the private subjects at hand and, just as often, the people writing about them—a fascinating look at the many diverse personalities of Civil War leadership.

Post: Godfor the Battlefield Vulture
The clash of armies in the American Civil War left hundreds of thousands of men dead, wounded, or permanently damaged. Skirmishes and battles could result in casualty numbers as low as one or two and as high as tens of thousands. The carnage of the battlefield left a lasting impression on those who experienced or viewed it, but in most cases the armies quickly moved on to meet again at another time and place. When the dust settled and the living armies moved on, what happened to the dead left behind?

Post: Dixie’s Loss, Montana’s Gain
In 1862, gold discoveries brought thousands of miners to camps along Grasshopper Creek. By 1864, the Federal government had carved the Montana Territory out of the existing Idaho and Dakota Territories. Gold from Montana Territory fueled the Union war effort, yet loyalties were mixed among the miners. In this compelling collection of stories, historian Ken Robison illustrates how Southern sympathizers and Union loyalists, deserters and veterans, freed slaves and former slaveholders living side by side made a volatile and vibrant mix that molded Montana.