Mac Wycoff on Richard Kirkland

August 27, 2010 By Kevin Levin 12 Comments

[Part 1, Part 2, and John Hennessy's assessment of the evidence]

Not too long ago I featured a guest post by Michael Schaffner on the subject of Richard Kirkland.  Mr. Schaffner did extensive research on Online sources related to the Kirkland story which left him with a number of questions re: the veracity of the story. I thought it was well documented so I decided to feature it on Civil War Memory.  I’ve also written a bit about our fascination with the Kirkland story.  In the end, while I’ve expressed skepticism about the story based on the available evidence I am much more interested in our continued attraction to this particular story.  It’s a wonderful case study for understanding how we, as a nation, have chosen to remember our Civil War.

Former National Park Service historian, Mac Wycoff, has done extensive research on the story and has written up his findings for a series of posts at Mysteries and Conundrums.  This is a must read for those of you who are interested in this story.  I suggest that if you have comments that you leave them with Mac’s post so that he can address them directly.  Finally, let me just reiterate that my goal in writing about Kirkland has never been to “debunk” or use the story to “attack” the South.  Such a suggestion is silly and not really worth acknowledging.  I use this site to ask questions.  If you are uncomfortable with the questions that I ask than you really need to find yourself another blog.

Filed Under: Civil War Historians, Memory, Public History Tagged With: ,

The National Park Service’s Black Confederates

August 26, 2010 By Kevin Levin 36 Comments

[Hat-tip to Keith Muchowski]

Update #2: The information sheet has been removed.

Update: I just got off the phone with an NPS employee at Governors Island.  It turns out that the document was published just this month and was written by an undergraduate at Columbia University.  The woman I talked to was very nice and encouraged me to contact the individual in question as well as her supervisor.  It looks like the student used titles by Barrow and Rollins and other books that you can find on SCV websites.  In fact, I stated specifically that if I did not know anything about the document’s origin, I would have guessed that it was written by the SCV.  I will keep you updated.  This is a perfect example of why I am so focused on this subject.

Many of you know that I am a big supporter of the National Park Service and their commitment to battlefield preservation and interpretation/education.  Unfortunately, it appears that the quality of historical scholarship that exists at many sites is not uniform throughout.  At least that is the feeling I am left with after reading the following handout from Governors Island in New York City.  I am going to quote the document in its entirety, which includes a section, titled, “Black Confederates”:

Some black Americans in the South left to fight for the Union army, but 65,000 black men served as Confederate soldiers.  The Confederate States Colored Troops were officially organized in 1865, just months before the war ended.  However, many officers ignored rules banning black soldiers and allowed blacks to fight in biracial units.  Other black soldiers fought in state militias.  Free black soldiers were generally paid equally to white soldiers, unlike the disparate pay rates received by white and black soldiers in the North.  Eligibility for pensions differed by state, but black soldiers often did not receive pensions or received pensions much later than white soldiers.  In South Carolina, for example, black soldiers were considered ineligible for old age pensions until 1923. Black men also built entrenchments and fortifications and served as cooks and teamsters.  People fulfilling these jobs for the Army today would be considered soldiers, but at the time these sorts of tasks were not considered real soldiering.  This contributed to the perceptions of many white Southerners that blacks in the Army were more like servants than soldiers.

Black Southerners had many reasons for fighting for the Confederacy.  Like white Southerners, many held strong loyalties to the particular states in which they resided.  Some slaves were offered freedom for serving in the Confederate Army, while other slaves were required to fight or serve in support roles.  Many black Southerners desired the pay offered by the Confederate Army, as well as the new experiences, adventure, and pride that being a soldier entailed.  Other black Confederates were defending their homes from invading Northern troops, who would sometimes capture large groups of slaves to punish white secessionists, as well as rape black women.

I don’t really know where to begin in critiquing this narrative.  I have no idea how they arrived at a number of 65,000.  The author apparently missed the fact that in South Carolina the pensions were given to former slaves and not to black Confederate soldiers.  There are no documented biracial units in the Confederate army that I know about.  At times there is a failure to clearly distinguish between soldiers and slaves.  In addition, it is news to me that a significant number of white Southerners were confused about the status of the presence of black men with the Confederate army.  I am going to try to find out more about this through some friends in the NPS.  Unfortunately, this is as bad as anything you will find on the Internet.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Public History, Slavery Tagged With: ,

“Ground Zero,” Civil War Memory, and Contested Landscapes

August 23, 2010 By Kevin Levin 25 Comments

Like many of you I’ve been closely following the heated controversy surrounding the plans to locate the Cordoba Institute within a few blocks of “Ground Zero” in Manhattan.  While I have an opinion about this I’ve tried my best to maintain a safe distance from the debate in order to take in the broader picture.  Admittedly, such a step is difficult for me to maintain since I lost my cousin on 9-11.  Alisha Levin was 34 yrs. old and worked as a Human Resources manager for Fuji Bank in the South Tower.  She left a message on her parent’s answering machine to say that she was safe just after the first tower was hit.

For those of us interested in the emotion that often accompanies questions about how to commemorate historical landscapes this recent debate is instructive.  The lines between different historical memories are already well entrenched.  The many interest groups who lay claim to the site of 9-11 are also easily delineated.  Various stakeholders in this contest have already voiced positions on the architecture of the proposed new complex as well as a planned memorial for the site.  That an Islamic Center located 2-blocks from Ground Zer0 – as opposed to the schlock that has been sold on the actual site for some time – can generate such a response is also instructive.  It should come as no surprise that the debate has been defined by such passion given the nature of the attack, the scale of the destruction, and the death toll.  In my view every American has a stake in how the landscape is shaped in the coming years regardless of the legal and constitutional questions involved.

At the same time it is clear that the strong passions of those who claim ownership of this site are a function of different factors.  The families are moved by the memories and loss of loved ones; others are clearly using this issue for political purposes; and, a third group is driven as much by fear of Islam as they are by a sense of national loss and a desire to assign blame.  Of course, the spectrum of interested parties is much broader.  How our collective memory of this site will shift in the coming decades is anyone’s guess.  After all, it was probably difficult to imagine reunions between Japanese and American veterans of Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The passage of time shifts our focus as subsequent generations become more removed from the emotions of those who lived through the event.  With time we are able to explore aspects of a remembered past in a way that cushions still latent emotions.  At some point those emotions are more a result of choice than a direct connection to the generation that directly experienced some aspect of the event.  Even for those who experienced the event itself or as an extension of one of the victims the passage of time leaves the rememberer in a very different place.

This controversy has also reinforced my own understanding of the way in which certain people lay claim to our Civil War past.  You don’t have to look far for the passions that stir our personal and intellectual connections to the Civil War in reference to a public space or document.  I experience it first hand on this blog in the form of comments and private emails that express bitterness over something I’ve written.  Of course, I do my best to parse out the content from the emotion, and while I am interested in both I give much more attention to the former.  It would be a mistake to judge the emotion as right or wrong, but I do question its legitimacy.  I don’t believe that the emotion attached to people’s Civil War memory today ought to be understood as a moral claim on the historical event in the way that competing memories of 9-11 continue to do so.  The difference for me is the relative remoteness of the rememberer.  I find it difficult to pinpoint the psychological difference between the two examples, but I have a sense of what is going on here.  On the one hand the events of 9-11 are part of our lived history.  It’s a history that for many of us has left a void in the structure of our immediate families; even for those removed from the personal tragedy of the story it continues to give meaning to our lives and to the way we view the nation and rest of the world.  I simply fail to see how such a dynamic holds for descendants of Civil War soldiers (Union and Confederate) and the rest of the general population.  We may feel connected to some aspect of the war, but the overly moralistic tone and claims to an exclusive ownership of the past or even some aspect of the past is in my view completely unjustified. It’s what I understand when I hear: “Get over it.”  Perhaps a better way of putting it is: “Get over yourself.”

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Current Affairs, Memory, Public History

Digging for the Truth

August 22, 2010 By Kevin Levin 17 Comments

Update: Here is Hennessy’s concluding post on Jackson’s arm.

Just returned from an overnight trip with Michaela to Fredericksburg, where we dined with very good friends, who I consider to be the town’s power couple in the local history profession.  On our way back we stopped at Elliewood to check out the improvements to the house.  Michaela caught me digging up…umm…I mean tending to the ground around the spot that supposedly contains Jackson’s arm.  All kidding aside, check out John Hennessy’s two-part post [Part 1 and Part 2] on the history of this particular site.  The final installment may include the final word as to whether the arm is actually there.

I also recommend checking out the view from Hazel Grove to the Chancellor House.  The NPS has recently cut the trees around Fairview, which offers visitors a much better view of what the battlefield would have looked like in 1863.  That area offers the best opportunity to interpret the battle in a way that moves beyond the traditional climax of the story which is centered on Jackson’s wounding.  I also noticed that the trees around Salem Church have been cut down along Rt. 3.

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Public History Tagged With:

SCV Not Happy With North Carolina Sesquicentennial Website

August 19, 2010 By Kevin Levin 74 Comments

If the SCV really wants to be taken seriously during the upcoming Civil War Sesquicentennial than they are going to have to do better than what Walter L. Adams Jr. offers as a critique of North Carolina’s sesquicentennial website.  Adams is the heritage defense officer for Pettigrew’s Partisans, Camp 2110 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  That’s right, he is the heritage defense officer.   First, check out the website, which I think is an incredible resource and reflects a strong commitment on the part of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to commemorate the war in an inclusive and educational manner.  What’s he upset about?

  • The views of conservative columnist such as Walter Williams, economist Thomas J. DiLorenzo, and Professor Ludwell H. Johnson have been left out.
  • “The National Park Service deliberately ignores other factors such as high tariffs, adherence to constitutional principles, or fears of political and economic domination by the North that make for a considerably more complex situation.”
  • “No mention is made of the fact that before the war, Abraham Lincoln supported the original 13th Amendment that would have barred the federal government from ever interfering with that institution.”  — Not sure what this has to do with North Carolina.
  • “No mention was made of so-called Black Codes that Northern and Midwestern states adopted to discriminate against blacks before such codes were adopted in the South.”  — Not sure what this has to do with North Carolina.
  • “The role of black North Carolinians and other black Southerners who wore the gray was completely ignored.” And, of course they are upset that no mention is made of the “estimated 19,000 African-Americans…who bore arms in the Confederate armed forces.”

How can I become a heritage defense minister?

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Civil War Sesquicentennial, Public History Tagged With: ,

Remembering Glory

August 14, 2010 By Kevin Levin 4 Comments

One of the highlights of my time in Boston was meeting 54th Massachusetts reenactor, Gerard Grimes. The monument to the 54th by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is by far my favorite Civil War monument and no trip to Boston can conclude without a quick stop.  The site is a wonderful case study of just how far removed the memory of black Union soldiers is from our national memory of the war.  On the one hand, the monument is in the most prominent location, just across from the state house, but for many people it seems to have little significance beyond a bus stop. Michaela and I chatted with Mr. Grimes for quite some time. He’s been reenacting for a number of years and spends his summers camped out in front of the monument to talk with visitors. During the rest of the year, Mr. Grimes works as a grade school teacher. Not surprisingly, Mr. Grimes knew nothing about this monument as a child growing up in the Boston area. In fact, he chuckled when suggesting the number of times he must have walked by it without understanding its significance.

Mr. Grimes clearly feels a moral obligation to educate the public about what is still a little known topic in American history.  And the best part is watching his face light up when discussing the history or perhaps I should say his history.

Filed Under: Memory, Public History Tagged With:

The Future of Petersburg National Battlefield

August 1, 2010 By Kevin Levin 4 Comments

As I make my way through my manuscript on historical memory one last time before sending it in, I am reminded of the dramatic changes that have taken place in the way we remember and commemorate the battle of the Crater.  Much of that change has taken place over the past forty years as a result of the Civil Rights Movement.  Before 1970 you would be hard pressed to find references to the story of USCTs in both written accounts and in the way the battlefield itself was interpreted.  My manuscript ends with a few reflections about the Civil War Sesquicentennial, but when I peer into the future it is this image that I see.  This is a photograph of Emmanuel Dabney, who works as a park ranger at the Petersburg National Battlefield.  He is a native of Dinwiddie County and has fully embraced its rich history.  Emmanuel has a degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Mary Washington and recently completed an advanced degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  If Emmanuel has his way he will spend his career educating the public at PNB.

In many ways, Emmanuel is a big part of the story that I tell about the Crater.  On the one hand, the fact that he is African American situates him at a crucial moment in the overall life of the battlefield and our broader understanding of the Civil War.  At the same time Emmanuel has been a huge help to me throughout the research and writing process.  Even this past weekend he helped to track down information about one of the Crater’s wayside markers.  One of the joys of working on this project has been the opportunity to meet people, like Emmanuel, who share my passion for history and education.

[Photograph from Petersburg Progress-Index]

Filed Under: Civil War Culture, Public History, Teaching, William Mahone/Crater Tagged With: ,
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