If It Walks Like a Duck, or: Why Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Gettysburg Speech Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

Well, we can’t even get to the anniversary of the first shot that opened the Battle of Gettysburg before a controversy has already swept through the blogosphere and Civil War history community. 

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln) gave a keynote address last evening to kick off the commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg and, according to most accounts, regaled the crowd with touching tales of how she met her husband and all the fun she used to have working for LBJ.

Conspicuously absent? The Battle of Gettysburg and the men who fought it.

What listeners did get was a long-winded excursion into everything from women’s rights to the modern gay rights movement, interspersed with more wistful and self-promoting stories driving home the point that she’s pretty much one of the coolest people ever.

The hullabaloo began before her speech had even ended and here is a sampling of what folks are saying:

Tony Lee:  “As a historian chosen for the honor of keynoting the opening ceremonies for the solemn--and special--anniversary of the most important and famous battle fought in the Western Hemisphere, Kearns Goodwin had a duty to take up the task of Oliver Wendell Holmes and "bear the report  to those who come after." Instead, she slapped the faces of those in attendance by mistaking the occasion for an alumni weekend speech or a Georgetown cocktail party.” 

Kevin Levin: “At what point are we simply using the past to buttress our own personal political/ethical convictions rather than trying to frame it for the benefit of the nation as a whole or just the community that attended last night’s ceremony?”

Dmitri Rotov: “In terms of fee structure, DKG is now classed with "motivational speakers." At Gettysburg, you wonder whom she was motivating.”

One recurring theme in some of the angst-ridden comments was Goodwin's well-known plagiarism scandal (for the fullest treatment of this epic scandal and others like it, see Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud - American History from Bancroft and Parkmanto Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin by Peter Charles Hoffer.) I'd say that this is fair game, and why people still turn to her as a reliable source for understanding the American past is beyond me.

Mrs. Goodwin committed acts that would get any graduate student kicked out of their program and would get any run-of-the mill historian blacklisted for life. But, instead of being drummed out of camp, Goodwin has gone virtually consequence free and can still charge “$40,001 & up” for her speaking engagements...perhaps in an effort to recoup the money she lost when she paid off the people she plagiarized from. 

Compare this to the case of Dr. Thomas P. Lowry and the pursuant rush to judgment with the Lincoln document that he allegedly altered, and you will see the chasm that differentiates the “cool kids” like Goodwin from the unwashed masses. (NOTE: I am not commenting on the guilt or innocence of Dr. Lowry, just using his case as an example – nothing less, nothing more.)

All of this is to say that, with Goodwin, you know what you’re getting. She is what she is, and I’m OK with that (I thought Team of Rivals was a great book and, so far at least, it looks like it’s actually her work.) If the good folks up in Gettysburg truly thought that she was going to launch into an eloquent tribute to the men who fought and died at Gettysburg without taking some hard-to-follow detours, then the fault lies with them.

If you’re looking for someone to blame, how about the folks who chose her to speak in the first place?

New Look, New Direction, Same Blogger (and URL)

Welcome to Freedom by the Sword: A Historian’s Journey through the American Civil War Era!

I have been contemplating this change for a few months now, and the time has come for me to venture forth into the new course I've charted. I mean, what better time could there be than during the 150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Campaign, right? That being said, let me anticipate some of the questions that will inevitably arise from this shift and try to answer them.

So why the sudden change?

Well, while blogging about the service of U. S. Colored Troops has been a rewarding experience, my interest in the American Civil War goes far beyond this one subject. A blog solely dedicated to USCTs has its limits, and whenever I would intrude upon that subject matter with posts similar to the one I wrote on Chancellorsville a few weeks back, I would feel a nagging sense of impropriety about writing something that wasn't technically within the purview of the blog.

So I've decided to expand the horizons of the blog, not to neglect or turn away from the history of USCTs, but to provide a more spacious playing field in which to interact with Civil War history.

What’s with the name?

The name derives from the Butler Medal, which was issued to the United States Colored Troops who participated in the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, September 29-30, 1864. On one side of the medal was the Latin inscription Ferro iis libertas perveniet, which means “Freedom will be theirs by the Sword” (also the subtitle of my 2011 book on the Battle of New Market Heights.)

While paying homage to the original meaning behind the phrase, I also recognize that the word “freedom” had very different meanings, depending on which side you were fighting for.

What can we expect from here on out?

While I still plan to devote much of my attention to US Colored Troops, I now plan on offering posts on topics that I am currently working on or other things which have piqued my interest, such as:

Some general reflections on Robert E. Lee (having recently finished a one year tour at Arlington House: The Robert E. Lee Memorial, I've already got some posts in mind)

Issues surrounding the First Battle of Deep Bottom (which I am currently writing a book about)

Pretty much anything regarding the Confederacy or the Confederate army (pretty hard to blog about when your focus is USCTs!)

Various and sundry battles and battlefields that are close by (at least for me) but I've never really explored in  writing before, such as (in no particular order): Bristoe Station, the Wilderness, Mine Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Courthouse, North Anna, Antietam, and even…dare I say it?...Gettysburg!

While some of you are undoubtedly doing a facepalm right about now (especially at the mention of the G- word) I am certain that this new path will lead to more frequent posts and a chance to engage with a larger audience.

So sit back, relax, and get ready for a whole new blogging experience!

Picture of the Day

Not much commentary needed here...

The Beast

The Sesquicentennial and (Very) Current Perceptions of the Civil War

Is it me, or has the sesquicentennial been hit with some negative waves lately?

At the end of the day, is this all we're left with?

Last week I had a discussion with a co-worker who expressed great surprise after listening to Town Talk with Ted Schubel interview John Hennessy. What amazed this person was that Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park has not noticed an uptick in visitation to their battlefields due to the sesquicentennial. As anyone who was at Chancellorsville last month can attest, special events draw large crowds and generally do well, but the amount of foot traffic through the door on any given Monday has not noticeably increased.

A few days after this discussion, Tony Horwitz’s Atlantic piece “150 Years of Misunderstanding the Civil War” lit up the blogosphere with different folks parsing the notion of the Civil War as a “good war.” 

Horwitz observes:

Looking backwards, and hitting the pause button at the Gettysburg Address or the passage of the 13th amendment, we see a "good" and successful war for freedom. If we focus instead on the run-up to war, when Lincoln pledged to not interfere with slavery in the South, or pan out to include the 1870s, when the nation abandoned Reconstruction, the story of the Civil War isn't quite so uplifting.

It is interesting to note that this discussion is taking place alongside the new release of a popular history of what caused the war and a major motion picture – both of which portray the Civil War as a tragic and unjust affair.

Thomas Fleming’s A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War claims:

Northern hatred for Southerners long predated their objections to slavery. They were convinced that New England, whose spokesmen had begun the American Revolution, should have been the leader of the new nation. Instead, they had been displaced by Southern “slavocrats” like Thomas Jefferson. This malevolent envy exacerbated the South’s greatest fear: a race war. Jefferson’s cry, “We are truly to be pitied,” summed up their dread. For decades, extremists in both regions flung insults and threats, creating intractable enmities. By 1861, only a civil war that would kill a million men could save the Union.

Civil War buffs looking for “warm and fuzzies” should studiously avoid this one.

Also, this Friday Ron Maxwell’s Copperhead hits theaters. The plot description given on the film’s website says in part:

It is a film of the war at home – of a family ripped apart by war, of fathers set against sons and daughters, of a community driven to an appalling act of vengeance against a man who insists on exercising his right to free speech during wartime. A story of the violent passions and burning feuds that set ablaze the home front during the Civil War, Copperhead the Movie is also a timeless and deeply moving examination of the price of dissent, the place of the individual amidst the hysteria of wartime, and the terrible price of war – a cost measured not in dollars but in fractured families, broken loves, and men dead before their time.

Again, not much to feel good about there.

Please don’t hear me saying that new books and movies should give us something to feel good about (Stonewall Jackson got it right when he told Jed Hotchkiss that “War is the greatest of evils.”)

But I wonder if this might be effecting the commemoration.

Could it be that people will not join in commemorating something if they think it is was unpleasant in the first place? 

Time will tell.

What do Elizabeth Keckley, William Whedbee Kirkland, and Gypsy Rose Lee Have in Common?

William Alexander Kirkland

At the tail end of last year I wrote a series of posts that chronicled the enigmatic life of Elizabeth Keckley’s son George W. D. Kirkland (see here and here). As you’ll recall, when Ms. Keckley was a young woman she was relocated from Virginia to Hillsborough, NC where her owner “married” her to his neighbor Alexander McKenzie Kirkland.

Kirkland, a first generation American, belonged to a prominent Hillsborough family and was a graduate of Norwich University, class of 1828. He had made his money in the merchant trade, and used Keckley as a concubine. In her words, Kirkland “persecuted” her for four years, and the entire experience was “fraught with pain.” This abusive relationship resulted in a son being born, whom the father named George. This is the same George W. D. Kirkland whose life and service I wrote of earlier.

Alexander Kirkland died of cancer on May 4, 1843 when George W. D. Kirkland was only 18 months old, but as I learned in the course of my research, George was not the only son of Alexander Kirkland who would serve in the Civil War. Kirkland had a wife named Anna McKenzie Cameron, and this union also produced children.

Ayr Mount

Enter William “Red Bill” Kirkland, Rear Admiral, USN.

William Alexander Kirkland was born at Ayr Mount, the ancestral home of the Kirkland family, on July 3, 1836. He was the oldest of two boys who were the legitimate sons of Alexander Kirkland. His cousin, William Whedbee Kirkland, would rise to fame as the commander of one of the best brigades in the Army of Northern Virginia (the Pettigrew – Kirkland - MacRae Brigade).

It is likely that he never laid eyes on George Kirkland and, if he did, he probably would not have known the child to be his half-brother. When he was 14, Kirkland was appointed from North Carolina to attend the United States Naval Academy. After becoming a passed midshipman, he served on five different ships attached to the Brazil Squadron from 1856 -1863.

Life at sea, far away from the troubles that were brewing in his home state, must have squelched any desire to resign his commission and join the Confederate Navy. Kirkland did not even return to the US until 1864, when he received the command of the U.S.S. Owasco, part of David G. Farragut's Western Gulf Blockading Squadron. Kirkland later commanded the U.S.S. Winnebago, which was involved in the fighting around Mobile Bay during the last days of the war.

USS Winnebago

The Sixth Edition of The Records of Living Officers of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps (1898) chronicles the rest of his illustrious career:

Commanding steamer “Wasp," South Atlantic Squadron, 1866-70. Commissioned as Commander, 1869 ; commanding store-ship "Guard," special service, 1873; ordinance duty, 1874; commanding "Wasp," and South Atlantic Station, 1875-6; commanding "Frolic" (fourth-rate). South Atlantic Station, 1876-7; commanding "Supply" (fourth rate), special service, 1878; leave of absence, 1879-80; commanding "Shenandoah," South Atlantic Station, 1881-2. Promoted to Captain, April, 1880; Navy Yard, Norfolk, 1883 ; commanding receiving-ship "Colorado," 1883-4; Navy Yard, New York, 1885-6 (from October, ]884, to January, 1885, in command) ; commanding receiving-ship "Vermont," 1887-9; Supervisor of Harbor, New York, from October, 1889, to July, 1891 ; commandant Navy Yard, League Island, July, 1891. Commissioned Commodore, June 27, 1893. Commissioned Rear-Admiral, March 1, 1895.

In 1894, Kirkland was removed from the command of the South Atlantic Squadron after making controversial remarks related to American missionaries in Syria. From 1896 until his death on August 12, 1898, Kirkland commanded the Mare Island Navy Yard. He is buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery at Annapolis.

While William Kirkland’s connection to George W. D. Kirkland will no doubt fascinate Civil War buffs, fans of classic cinema will no doubt be interested to learn that Kirkland’s grandson was Hollywood actor Alexander Kirkland, who starred in such films as Black Beauty (1933) and Strange Interlude with Clark Gable.  Alexander Kirkland also had the distinction of being briefly married to Hollywood heart throb Gypsy Rose Lee.

Gypsy Rose Lee

As I have found to be the case over and over again with the Kirkland family, truth is stranger than fiction.

“Three Medals of Honor” by Don Troiani

Well, the Philadelphia Inquirer has finally given the world a glimpse of Don Troiani’s painting “Three Medals of Honor” which depicts the 6^th USCT at New Market Heights. 

Rather than go on at length about the painting itself, have a look for yourself.

Courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquirer

Here is a portion of the fact sheet that I wrote that will accompany the print once it’s for sale:

At first, the advance went well – the morning mist enshrouded the attacking column and enveloped them “like a mantle of death” as their brigade commander recalled. Soon enough, however, the Confederate pickets were alerted and the concentrated rifle and artillery fire of veteran southern troops devastated the soldiers who had become entangled in the obstacles that the defenders had left in their path. As was the case in innumerable fights throughout the entire Civil War, the color guard was especially hard hit. The 6th USCT carried into battle that day the national colors and a blue regimental flag that was given to them in Pennsylvania bearing the motto, “Freedom for All.” Both flags, and the men who proudly carried them into the fight, went down within minutes.  Seeing the desperate situation from different vantage points, three men saw the plight of the color guard and pushed forward to help. Risking life and limb for the honor of their unit, Lt. Nathan Edgerton, Sgt. Maj. Thomas R. Hawkins, and Sergeant Alexander Kelly slogged their way to the colors as best they could 

The painting shows the moment when Edgerton and Hawkins arrived to bear away the regimental flag. Edgerton had recovered the flag from the dead body of another white officer and picked it up only to notice that he could not move freely. As he recalled after the battle, he looked down to see that “my hand was covered in blood, and perfectly powerless, and the flag staff [was] lying in two pieces.” Sgt. Maj. Hawkins, who had already distinguished himself as a natural leader of men, came to Edgerton’s assistance and helped carry the colors off, receiving serious wounds in the arm, hip, and foot. Coming to the rescue of the national colors was First Sergeant Alexander Kelly.  He recalled that “after the color guard was all either killed or wounded …we got orders to retire.” Kelly weighed the risk and “seeing the flag was being left I seized them and carried them to rear where I rallied the few remaining men.”

I’m hopelessly biased on this matter, but I think it’s safe to say that this is now the standard by which all other artwork depicting USCTs in combat will be judged.

It was a huge honor to be a small part of the process of creating this masterwork. It is a fitting tribute to the brave souls who fought in the USCT.

The World Turned Upside Down: The Bureau of Colored Troops Established 150 Years Ago Today

A lot can happen in two years.

In 2011, we saw the tragedy in Tucson, a royal wedding, the death of Usama bin Laden, and the official end of the Iraq War. In the ensuing two years we have seen more tragic shootings, another terrorist attack on American soil, and we are watching several scandals unfold that are rocking the administration that was on top of the world after the impressive feat of taking out the world’s most infamous terrorist and ending a controversial war that had cost much blood and treasure.

Yes, a lot can happen in two years.

As we look back at the tumult of the American Civil War, we can see a far more revolutionary transformation that took place over a two-year span.

For the nation that went to war for union in 1861, turning down all offers of African American enlistment and vowing that slavery was not the main bone of contention, underwent a dramatic upheaval that led to emancipation and the event that we commemorate today – the creation of the Bureau of Colored Troops.

Established by General Orders No. 143, the bureau gave former slaves the opportunity to strike a blow for their own freedom. It gave free blacks the opportunity to display their manhood and prove that they were worthy of receiving the full benefits of citizenship. And it allowed white enlisted men the occasion to advance themselves by attending military schools that would make them officers if they could pass the rigorous examination.

Looking back on this chain of events, students of the Civil War can see the inevitability of such a transformation. But for those who lived through it, the world had been turned upside down.

After May 22, 1863, African American soldiers and the officers that led them formed the tip of the spear in the Northern effort to bring about the new birth of freedom by force.

They had moved from the periphery of the war to the very core of it – let us hope the same is true for the remaining months of the sesquicentennial commemoration.

Don Troiani’s New Market Heights Painting to be Unveiled June 24th

Greetings, everyone!

I apologize for the dearth of substantive posts lately, but I have been hard at work on an essay regarding that other conflict that I tend to write about (see here) for a publication edited by Edward G. Lengel that is set to come out in the next 6 months or so.

That being said, I received a very exciting e-mail last evening from Jim Paradis that had the invitation pictured below attached to it, and I wanted to help spread the word.

It seems that Don Troiani’s painting depicting the 6^th USCT at New Market Heights is finally going to be unveiled at the Union League of Philadelphia on Monday June 24th! As some of you know, I helped Don with some of the painting’s details and wrote the historical fact sheet that will accompany the print.

The work is entitled “Three Medals of Honor” and it illustrates the moment when Lt. Nathan Edgerton, and Sgts. Thomas Hawkins and Alexander Kelly all risked life and limb to rescue the national and regimental colors of the 6th during the last gasps of Duncan’s assault in the early morning hours of September 29, 1864.

Don was kind enough to e-mail me a picture of the painting, and it is truly stunning, capturing all of the chaos, horror, sorrow, determination, and bravery that was all too common at New Market Heights.

It was an honor to be a part of this process and I know that all of you will agree with my assessment of the painting when it is unveiled next month!

PRESS RELEASE: Richmond National Battlefield Commemorates Memorial Day at Ft. Harrison National Cemetery

Fort Harrison National Cemetery

RICHMOND, Va. - Richmond National Battlefield Park, in cooperation with the Department of Veterans Affairs, is sponsoring a Memorial Day program and wreath-laying to honor and remember those who have died in our nation’s service—especially those soldiers and sailors from the Civil War. This annual event is scheduled for Monday, May 27, at 12:00 p.m., at the Fort Harrison National Cemetery, on the Fort Harrison battlefield. The cemetery is located at 8620 Varina Road, two miles south of Route 5 and eight miles south of Richmond. More than 800 Civil War soldiers are buried at the Fort Harrison National Cemetery.

Jimmy Price, presently an adjunct professor of Civil War History at Germanna Community College, will speak at the cemetery. His talk is a part of the national park’s continuing commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in the Richmond area. Mr. Price is well known for his recent book The Battle of New Market Heights: Freedom Will Be Theirs by the Sword, which is the only full-length book on that Henrico County battle. He also maintains a weblog entitled: “The Sable Arm: A Blog Dedicated to the United States Colored Troops of the Civil War Era.”

The public is invited to attend this free event.

Richmond National Battlefield Park protects 13 Civil War sites around the city of Richmond, Virginia. Experiencing the park’s battlefield sites and visitor centers usually takes a full day. A driving tour of the battlefields is available at any of the park’s sites. The main park visitor center is located at Historic Tredegar (470 Tredegar Street in Richmond) and provides museum exhibits, audio-visual programs and orientation services to help plan a visit to the battlefields.

For additional information, contact Richmond National Battlefield Park at 804-226-1981, or via the internet at www.nps.gov/rich or www.Facebook.com/RichmondNPS.

Help Raise Funds for a USCT Memorial