September 2011 Archives

The Library of America recently published a collection of the writings of Ambrose Bierce, arguably the most perceptive and incisive American writer of the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Bierce labored in the shadow of the more famous Mark Twain, perhaps because Bierce's finely honed cynicism and mordant sense of humor cut more deeply than that of his contemporary. In his review of this volume for The Atlantic Monthly, the literary critic Benjamin Schwarz contends that Bierce's cynicism gave the writer a clear-eyed view of human nature that most other writers fail to achieve. Mr. Schwarz, like many biographers and literary critics, traces that cynicism at least in part to Bierce's harrowing experiences as a Union volunteer in the Civil War. Bierce fought in several major battles, including Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Kennesaw Mountain, during the last of which he was severely wounded.

Mr. Schwarz sums up Bierce's opinion of the war in the following arresting passage:

Emerging from the charnel house, Bierce shunned any effort to invest the butchery with meaning - including the North's smug myth of a Battle Cry of Freedom (still cherished by many contemporary historians, as it flatters their sense of their own righteousness). For him the war was nothing more - could be nothing more - than a meaningless and murderous slaughter, devoid of virtue or purpose.

Mr. Schwarz appears to concur in Bierce's view, denigrating historians who write about the war's freedom struggles as self-aggrandizing elitists. His invocation of "the North's smug myth" is steeped in George Fredrickson's outdated, acid interpretation of the conflict. Many contemporary historians rightly acknowledge that millions of Americans, black and white, northern and southern, slave and free, struggled to turn that war into an instrument of freedom for over three million slaves. These struggles were not a smug myth to those who labored for freedom, nor were they the invention of supercilious historians employed to demonstrate an outsized sense of their righteousness. They represented the honest efforts of individuals who worked unceasingly to give direction and purpose (often multiple purposes) to the awful crisis that enveloped them.

Even Ambrose Bierce's photo will judge you

Beyond Mr. Schwarz's disdain for historians who trumpet the war as a "Battle Cry of Freedom," one wonders if we can simply conclude that Bierce simply believed that the war truly was "devoid of virtue and purpose." While a teenager Bierce lived for a time with his uncle, an avowed abolitionist who claimed to have furnished munitions to John Brown when the latter settled in Kansas. The youngster imbibed some of his uncle's idealism, and when President Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the insurrection in South Carolina in 1861, Bierce was one of the first in his county to enlist. Looking back as an adult on his youthful enthusiasm for the adventure of war, he wrote, "At one time in my green and salad days I was sufficiently zealous for Freedom to engage in a four years' battle for its promotion. There were other issues involved, but they did not count for much with me." Unsurprisingly, hard campaigns and terrible battles left him with a far more jaundiced view of the conflict upon its conclusion. Though Bierce disavowed the naïve idealism of his callow youth, I doubt very much that he would have preferred a quick end to the war if it meant leaving slavery intact and safeguarded in the South for generations to come. War might have been an awful instrument to end slavery, but once it commenced it was the only instrument available. And despite his embittered recollections of his service later in life, he remained committed to the goal of fighting for freedom, re-enlisting and serving for nearly the duration of the war (and re-enlisting in the army again in 1866, well after the conflict had concluded).

Yet, even if we accept the notion that Bierce had concluded that the war was nothing more than a remorseless, purposeless slaughter, how much credence should we give that assessment? A brilliant and witty writer, his acerbic social critiques at times verged on self-pitying complaints against an unfeeling and hypocritical society. He shared this point of view with another contemporary writer, Henry Adams, who spilled much ink upbraiding a society that had not allowed him to ride the coattails of his illustrious political family to a life of ease and high public esteem. It is Bierce's sharper wit that saves his writing from being insufferable in the vein of Adams' tendentious autobiography. Still, our appreciation for his intelligence and prose style should not lead us to adopt his social critiques, particularly in regard to the war, like unquestioning sycophants.

One of the interesting projects that have been inspired by the sesquicentennial of the Civil War is the effort to recover and refurbish the grave sites of veterans. Last year, for instance, we reported on the collaboration of volunteers, college students, and representatives of state government in Pennsylvania to identify, refurbish and decorate long-neglected graves of veterans of the United States Colored Troops. Today brought news of an effort by a local chapter of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War to supply headstones for the graves of 10 veterans at Fairplains Cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

At first blush, these and similar efforts across the country might seem like a macabre way of commemorating the conflict, but they do much more than that. They literally place long-dead soldiers back on our historical map, re-situating them not just in a particular locality, but in a community in a specific time and place. Rediscovering and marking their resting places can help historians and researchers who try to reconstruct the lives of these individuals, the communities they lived in, the social networks they were a part of, and the connections with fellow soldiers that they maintained or left behind after the war. Here's hoping that efforts like these continue throughout the sesquicentennial and beyond.

One of the interesting projects that have been inspired by the sesquicentennial of the Civil War is the effort to recover and refurbish the gravesites of veterans. Last year, for instance, we reported on the collaboration of volunteers, college students, and representatives of state government in Pennsylvania to identify, refurbish and decorate long-neglected graves of veterans of the United States Colored Troops. Today brought news of an effort by a local chapter of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War to supply headstones for the graves of 10 veterans at Fairplains Cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

At first blush, these and similar efforts across the country might seem like a macabre way of commemorating the conflict, but they do much more than that. They literally place long-dead soldiers back on our historical map, re-situating them not just in a particular locality, but in a community in a specific time and place. Rediscovering and marking their resting places can help historians and researchers who try to reconstruct the lives of these individuals, the communities they lived in, the social networks they were a part of, and the connections with fellow soldiers that they maintained or left behind after the war. Here's hoping that efforts like these continue throughout the sesquicentennial and beyond.

I was away from the blog again as I settled into my new position as the managing director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center here at Penn State. Between production of the center's Journal of the Civil War Era, preparing to oversee a new postdoc position at the center, and setting up professional development workshops for our graduate students, I haven't had much room to blog. Today, however, an interesting news item caught my eye. Beginning this Friday, the "unsurrendered" flag of the Beaufort (S.C.) Volunteer Artillery will be placed on display for the first time in 115 years at the Verdier House, headquarters of the Historic Beaufort Foundation. The display of the flag coincides not only with the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, but also the tricentennial of Beaufort's founding.

According to the article, at the close of the Civil War a member of the BVA wrapped himself in the unit's flag, rather than hand it over to the Union forces to whom his unit had surrendered. Thus, the legend of the "unsurrendered" flag began. Eventually (the article does not stipulate when) the phrase "An Unsurrendered Flag" was stitched onto the banner. As a symbol, the BVA flag raises a host of fascinating questions. Was this largely a symbol of South Carolinians' unconquerable spirit, or, more sinisterly, an angry rejection of the new civil and political order that followed in the wake of defeat? I am most curious to know when that defiant phrase was added to the flag. After all, if the soldiers of the BVA stitched those words onto their colors shortly after their surrender, we arguably could view it as an expression of their unit pride and as a stubborn insistence that they might have been bested but not beaten in this war. This would be a predictable response to defeat, an effort to palliate wounded pride and bitter disappointment at the end of Confederate independence.

An Unsurrendered Flag from a Surrendered Unit

If, however, the intractable words, "An Unsurrendered Flag" were added to the banner later, during Reconstruction or the so-called Redemption of the South, then it would seem to have an altogether different meaning. The flag could be read as an expression of increasing recalcitrance in the face of Republican Reconstruction government and resistance to the reality of black freedoms and political rights. Of course, no matter the intent with which the flag was altered by its "authors," it remains an endlessly intriguing symbol precisely because it likely expressed all of these meanings and still more to its myriad viewers over the last century and a half, leading one to wonder what symbolic meanings does the exhibition of this flag communicate today?