Recent reevaluation has shown that McClellan was outnumbed at the Seven Days, by about 110,000 to 100,000, albeit not by the 2:1 ratio McClellan believed.

I'm going to have to see some sort of citation for that.

Pretty fair general in overseeing Reconstruction, as it turned out.

Doesn't shock me, really -- his skills were political rather than military, after all.

Also, anyone who wants to read about Gettysburg should read The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command by Edwin Coddington.

Lost Cause though they are, R.E. Lee and Lee's Lieutenants should be must-reading for any Civil War student. Just keep them in proper context.

Oh I agree. The commentary on McClellan even in this thread often turns to damning him as a person as a coward; that's not correct, in my view, and it worries me when people take caution about sacrificing lives as a sign of moral failing. In his case it's a professional failing, and a huge one. He had enough other personal failings.

Concur. He wasn't a coward of any stripe, just a damn bad general who always took counsel of his fears.

Ugh, I really can't stand Douglas Southall Freeman. Now there is the historian that people accuse Foote of being.

That said, his research into Lee's command style and relationships with his subordinates is invaluable and largely unimproved upon.

It is interesting to see the interaction in the way generals operated during and after the war. Despite Sickles background as a Democrat, and his initial desire to appease the ex-Confederates, he became increasingly exasperated and aggressive over the course of Reconstruction. Sheridan was always a bull in a china shop after Reconstruction (in the service of what we would now see as a greater good.) Grant always loved him despite Grant's undeserved reputation for conservatism. Pope was also an asskicker as he had been in the war, and with a similar disregard for civilians' feelings in the South but then was at times surprisingly sensitive about the Indians when out on the Plains--he could be brutal in wars but thought the white settlers were to blame for almost all the problems on the Plains. Sherman was kept out of the South but was obviously the extreme case of an aggressive general who wanted a passive post-surrender policy. Thomas was cautious and sensible but wanted to keep as far away from it as he could. Hancock was Sheridan's opposite, a bull in service to ideas we would no longer find so amenable. Meade was a strange case as he was by nature conservative but also very responsive to changes on the ground and so could vary between a near Shermanesque resignation to the situation on the ground in the South and a sudden determination to make those Southerners obey him. He listened to his subordinates; he had no interest in listening to politicians. Lots of generals were skeptical of black suffrage but even more resistant to white violence and disorder; the longer they stayed in the South the more radicalized they became.

Concur. He wasn't a coward of any stripe, just a damn bad general who always took counsel of his fears.

He also hauled ass out of the combat zone during the last few days of the Seven Days and was out of touch. At the Battle of Glendale, where the Army of the Potomac faced possible destruction, George McClellan was on the gunboat Galena, completely out of touch with the battle. He left no officer in command in his absence. He should have been cashiered for that act alone.

GregD --

What would you recommend as the best work to pick up on Reconstruction, specifically the political aspects and the roles of the ex-Union generals in administering it?

where the Army of the Potomac faced possible destruction

My biggest complaint about Civil War commentary is this invoking of "army could have been destroyed"

Civil War armies were damned hard to destroy. Nashville is about as comprehensive a victory as you can imagine and the army wasn't "destroyed". Likewise Chattanooga. As long as a hard core of the army remained it was just plain difficult to organize the kind of pursuit that turns defeat into destruction.

Esoteric--
On Reconstruction generally Foner's big volume (not the short version) is clearly still the work even 25 years after.
But military doesn't matter much to him.

On military and Reconstruction:
James Sefton US Army and Reconstruction--great if dry
Some good state studies--Mark Bradley on North Carolina and Joseph Dawson on Louisiana
Brooks Simpson's books on Grant have good stuff on the Army and the South and are unimpeachable as scholarship
None of them is biographical in a way that a non-specialist might want (except that Simpson is biographical on Grant.)
You'll have to make some of the connections between their CW experiences and their Reconstruction experiences but you'll be able to, it sounds like.


Sefton is about 45 years old at this point but the field turned away from military stuff toward labor/emancipation/enfranchisement in the 70s. I think it is changing again; Mark Grimsley is doing good stuff, and some other people are at work, and I imagine that the field will look quite different in 4-5 years if those books come to fruition.

There also is a good book to be written on the relationship between generals' experiences in the South and out in the West after the war but that isn't really happening now, as far as I know.

My biggest complaint about Civil War commentary is this invoking of "army could have been destroyed"

Civil War armies were damned hard to destroy. Nashville is about as comprehensive a victory as you can imagine and the army wasn't "destroyed". Likewise Chattanooga. As long as a hard core of the army remained it was just plain difficult to organize the kind of pursuit that turns defeat into destruction.

The combination of the terrain in the war theatres, and the underdeveloped cavalry on both sides made pursuit quite difficult, as compared to 19th c. European wars.

I'm a HUGE military history buff, but I just can't get into the Civil War. It's like WWI (before 1918), unrelenting slaughter with barely a hint of interesting strategy or tactics.

Your take on WWI is likely influenced by the popular historical tradition that focuses on the Western Front to the exclusion of just about everything else and treats the whole war as a long, boring slog. That's far from the truth. In fact, I think strategically and tactically World War One may even be more interesting than World War Two. There was an amazing amount going on, and the Western Front from 1915-1917 forms only a small part. A short recommended reading list to broaden your horizons:

Peter Hopkirk: Like Hidden Fire. First part discusses German intrigue and military efforts in Persia and Afghanistan. Second half covers British troops fighting the Turks in front of Baku.

Mark Thompson: The White War. Covers the Italian front, combining military and social history. A fascinating account of fighting in difficult terrain, but the narrative is far from a slog.

Hew Strachan: The First World War in Africa. Read about interesting campaigns like the German soldiers fighting in Libya a generation before Rommel's Afrika Korps.

Norman Stone: The Eastern Front 1914-1917 The definitive account of World War I in the East.

Terence Zuber The Battle of the Frontiers: Ardennes 1914 Have only dipped into this but it looks very good. A nice detailed tactical discussion of the opening weeks of the war in the west.

There's been a lot of recent literature on tactical development on the Western Front 1914-1918 that overturns a lot of popular conceptions of that part of the war, but that's another topic. A good place to start would be:

Robin Prior: Command on the Western Front: The Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson 1914-1918

I also like:

Robert Asprey: The German High Command at War: Hindenberg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I

Recent reevaluation has shown that McClellan was outnumbed at the Seven Days, by about 110,000 to 100,000, albeit not by the 2:1 ratio McClellan believed.

I'm going to have to see some sort of citation for that.

The best numbers one can find come from an unpublished MA thesis by Leon Walter Tenney, "Seven Days In 1862: numbers in Union and Confederate Armies before Richmond." George Mason University, 1992. Considered to be the most definitive source for troop numbers, though hard to get a copy of. Although an MA thesis, it is 300 pages, extremely well sourced, and goes down to regimental level.

You can also look at Thomas Livermore's book "Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America 1861-1865", page 86. He gives 91,169 Union effectives v. 95,481 Confederate for the Seven Days as a whole. Livermore is also an excellent source.

The difference between the two is that Tenney is counting men Present for Duty (less those sick) and Livermore counts forces actually in combat.

P.S. Note Livermore also counts 51,000 Confederates at Antietam, considerably more than older sources that painted Lee as terribly outnumbered (that includes 8,000 cavalry which did not participate much in the battle).

Hey, I try to find a WW2 or other military history book for my dad every year at Christmas. If anyone has a great list like Slivers of Maranville (SdeB) did in for WW2 or the Civil War I'd appreciate it. I'd prefer a better story than a academic type of book. I got him "Unbroken" last year, which he really enjoyed.

I've read quite a bit of WWII history, mostly Pacific (ex-Marine bias, I guess). What would you guys suggest as 2-4 books that might constitute a "Civil War 101" for someone interested but new to the subject?

no one has noted that it began with a piece written by Sickels (though, really, I'm not sure he has a leg to stand on)

Legitimate LOL there.

I've read quite a bit of WWII history, mostly Pacific (ex-Marine bias, I guess). What would you guys suggest as 2-4 books that might constitute a "Civil War 101" for someone interested but new to the subject?

Depending on your tolerance for epic length, I still prefer Foote's trilogy. But it's a long haul. I'd say the best single place to start is still James McPherson's Battle Cry Of Freedom. Bruce Catton's This Hallowed Ground is another fantastic one to begin with.

Thank you. I will pass these on to my kids as X-Mas approaches:-)

Legitimate LOL there.

We are such history nerds here at Primer.

Since this is a Civil War thread, what do you guys think of Phil Kearny as a commander? He was one of my favorites as a kid, but I'd be interested to hear a more sophisticated take from people who know more than I do.

#51 I'm still going to go with Livermore (Numbers and Losses) as the default unless somebody can provide really good evidence that Livermore missed something. I mean he's not infallible, but he did put in an awful lot of work.

DSM (#65),

I started with the Catton centennial trilogy -- "Coming Fury," "Terrible Swift Sword," "Never Call Retreat" -- and it worked for me.

Catton's is a very literal, basic history, oriented to the who-what-where of events/battles.

The only drawback with Livermore is that his work is done top-down so it's not easy to check his work as he goes; you have to trust in his professionalism. Tenney's work, posted above, is bottom-up, working from the regimental numbers.

The Brooks Simpson bio of Grant is really excellent. I've been keeping my eye open for the second volume for quite some time.

Grant is one of the great misunderstood geniuses of the Civil War, to my mind. Part of that is that he seems so prosaic and commonsensical that you lose track of he chances he's taking and the success he's having. Then, too, most of his flashy successes came in the West.

Analysing generalship in the East is hard to do, because the geography was not suited to the kind of manouvering warfare that people versed in Napoleonic generalship were expecting (including the generals). Almost all of the fighting was within a heavily wooded, geographically confined region with several rivers. The objectives were fixed well ahead of time, and well known to all participants. It just wasn't the sort of war that could be won by outsmarting the other man.

#70 Not enough to go on really. That said, I think it likely that he'd have been comparable to Hood as a division commander. He had the same insane courage. His troop loved him and responded well to him. Basically I think it likely that he'd have commanded a division sized force that would have been comparable to the Iron Brigade (before it was all used up) in impact. But it was highly likely that he'd have stopped a bullet sooner or later (probably sooner)

No idea how well he'd have done at the corps level (and if he survived a promotion would be almost inevitable). Courage and charisma aren't precisely the most important aspect at that level. Many of the best divisional commanders were undistinguished corps commanders.

Actually the record of Civil War corps commanders is not great. Jackson is the clear best for detached command. Longstreet for tactical command under a commanding general (his record in independent command was poor and that's a potential problem given his seniority). After that I don't know. Hancock and Hardee I guess. Many divisional commanders with outstanding records at that level and no higher.

BMTHOAG mentioned Phil Kearney. Lost an arm in the Plains, I think. On the Peninsula Oliver O. Howard also lost an arm. Kearney went to visit. Howard had his only know witticism. He said, "Well, Kearney, now we can buy our gloves together."

It just wasn't the sort of war that could be won by outsmarting the other man.

And yet Lee outsmarted Grant on several occasions, as Grant himself admits. And I think it's wrong to claim that Grant was some uber-pragmatist. His famous saying was "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." It did take all summer. And the autumn. And the winter. And the following spring. It's pretty clear that Grant felt that taking Richmond would be a relatively easy job, but it proved to be much, much tougher than he planned.

Your take on WWI is likely influenced by the popular historical tradition that focuses on the Western Front to the exclusion of just about everything else and treats the whole war as a long, boring slog. That's far from the truth. In fact, I think strategically and tactically World War One may even be more interesting than World War Two. There was an amazing amount going on, and the Western Front from 1915-1917 forms only a small part. A short recommended reading list to broaden your horizons:

I've read extensively on WW1. It just doesn't grab me like other conflicts.

If you like obscure theatres, you should read "The Germans that Never Lost", Edwin Hoyt, about German East Africa, the cruiser Koenigsberg, and Gen von Lettow-Vorbeck.

I don't think it's still in print, but you can get it used on Amazon for $28.

And yet Lee outsmarted Grant on several occasions, as Grant himself admits.

That sort of makes my point, because outsmarting Grant didn't lead to victory. The way the geography was set up, it was impossible to force victory by seizing a center of gravity or achieving strategic checkmate. Instead, the army itself had to be beaten, either by fighting or by outright encirclement. And, as #59 points out, armies of that era were extremely hard to destroy.

Hey, I try to find a WW2 or other military history book for my dad every year at Christmas. If anyone has a great list like Slivers of Maranville (SdeB) did in for WW2 or the Civil War I'd appreciate it. I'd prefer a better story than a academic type of book. I got him "Unbroken" last year, which he really enjoyed.

John Keegan is always a good choice. His the "Second World War", "6 Armies in Normandy", or "Faces of Battle" are all excellent. Has he read Cornelius Ryan? "The Longest Day" and "A Bridge too Far" are great. Panzer Battles by von Mellenthin is an excellent book from the German perspective.

Also, anything by Sir Basil Liddel Hart: "History of the Second World War", "Strategy", "German Generals Talk".

I've read quite a bit of WWII history, mostly Pacific (ex-Marine bias, I guess). What would you guys suggest as 2-4 books that might constitute a "Civil War 101" for someone interested but new to the subject?

No such thing as an ex-Marine ;-)

But, seriously, you've got to read "The Last Stand of Fox Company". It's about the Chosin Resevoir campaign, and a stand by a single company of Marines against 5,000+ Chinese, that saved the whole 1st Marine Div from being encircled.

The Brooks Simpson bio of Grant is really excellent. I've been keeping my eye open for the second volume for quite some time.

Did you read Let Us Have Peace:Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868? It overlaps with Triumph over Adversity but also extends beyond it.

Joan Waugh's recent book on Grant is partly about the shifts in the public memory of Grant but also has good stuff on Grant himself.

McFeely's won the Pulitzer but is light on military stuff.

Haven't read Brand's but Simpson's blog makes it sound like a disaster.

I recommend Gordon Rhea's books on the Overland Campaign. It is clear that Grant and Lee each caught the other in mistakes. By the way, Grant did not fight it out on that line all summer. He was constantly moving.

Thanks Snapper! I read the description of "the last stand" and I think he would like that one too.

Charles Royster's Destructive War is a good one that combines biography and military issues, though it is not a comprehensive study.

"Masters of the Air" by Donald L. Miller gives wonderful description of what it was like to be in a bomber crew. Some discussion about strategy and tactics but more focused on the lives of the guys.

"Flag of our Fathers" by James Bradley is the story of the 4 guys who were photographed** raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Good battlefield descriptions as well as the personal stories of the guys and their families.

** They were not the first guys to raise the flag on Mt. Suribachi.

"American Caesar" covers the full life of Douglas McArthur, from growing up in forts in the West to advising Johnson on VietNam, so it's not just a WWII book. I'm hard pressed to think of a more complex character in American history than McArthur.

Incidentally, I too saw Lincoln and was thoroughly impressed. Not just by Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, but also by David Strathairn's performance as William Seward,

Geez. I'm not sure I knew this movie existed (I never go to the cinema, & the only thing I really pay any sort of attention to is horror, anyway), but Strathairn is my favorite actor -- I'll definitely keep an eye out for this on Netflix.

Speaking of the Civil War, was visiting the Shreveport area over the weekend & found myself yesterday with a first cousin in an old rural cemetery taking photos of the gravestone of an ancestor who fought for the 15th Alabama Infantry, Company D. If the larger headstone by the small CSA stone is for the same guy (same initials & surname, no death date on either one), he would've enlisted at age 16 or so. I gather he was discharged with a wound or something in that vein on July 1, 1862, so he missed Gettysburg & other conflicts of note that his company subsequently fought in.

(Otherwise, I suppose I might not be here. I don't have a family tree at this writing, but I'm pretty sure he was my great-grandfather, though my cousin wasn't sure if he fathered our grandfather or our grandmother [they were first cousins]. Since this wasn't the future West Virginia, I at least feel fairly comfortable in asserting that he didn't father both.)

Haven't read Brand's but Simpson's blog makes it sound like a disaster.

I liked Brooks Simpson's Grant bio, but from reading his blog he strikes me as being more than little insufferable in that territorial academic way. I don't really get the point of his constant attacks on the lame Southern Revanchist pseudo-historians like DiLorenzo, et al. (or, even worse, the stupid Facebook fringe "League of the South" morons). Those guys are jokes, unworthy of his time or anyone's serious engagement. If anything, he elevates them to a stature they don't deserve by fixating on their idiocy. Just seems like a waste of time.

[double post]

Geez. I'm not sure I knew this movie existed (I never go to the cinema, & the only thing I really pay any sort of attention to is horror, anyway), but Straithairn is my favorite actor -- I'll definitely keep an eye out for this on Netflix.

You'll be waiting awhile, as it's still in theaters. Can't say enough good things about Strathairn's performance as Seward, though -- it is every bit the equal of Day Lewis's Lincoln, and that is no small praise. James Spader is also really fantastic as the affably sleazy political fixer Seward hires to purchase Democratic votes in the House of Representatives for the 13th Amendment.

Really, there isn't a bad performance in the whole film.

You're almost tempting me to venture out to a theatre, Eso.

Assuming, of course, that it's even playing locally. I am sitting here in the First Capital of the Confederacy, after all.

"American Caesar" covers the full life of Douglas McArthur, from growing up in forts in the West to advising Johnson on VietNam, so it's not just a WWII book. I'm hard pressed to think of a more complex character in American history than McArthur.

I go along with this assessment of both MacArthur and of Manchester's biography. It's a great biography of distinguished military man who only knew how conduct himself by skirting the edge--at at least in his relationships with his superior--and of course the problem is one of character: he brooked no equals even when he was in a subordinate position. Manchester's first two volumes of The Last Lion, on Churchill, are perhaps even greater achievements, especially as Churchill the character gives him more scope (MacArthur the man seems to have had no interior life).

This has been a real fun thread. I initially felt a spasm of guilt for intentionally sending it veering off-topic, but we've gotten so much quality discussion out of it. Somebody make sure that Szym doesn't find out.

Totally agree. Best OT thread in years, and I say that as someone that generally enjoys the other sports, music and some political threads.

I don't have much to add, other than I am currently reading Foote's Narrative, so was excited to see some discussion of it. And the rest of the thread is great, too.

Really, there isn't a bad performance in the whole film.

I'd say DDL pulls off being Lincoln about 90% of the time.

I'd say Sally Field pulls off not being Sally Field about 10% of the time.

Derek Jeter is General Hooker

I don't have much to add, other than I am currently reading Foote's Narrative, so was excited to see some discussion of it. And the rest of the thread is great, too.

The middle book of the trilogy really is just incomparably entertaining. It's a function of the war's history, of course. Volume 1 has 1st & 2nd Bull Run, Shiloh, Ft. Donelson, New Orleans, the Peninsular Campaign, and climaxes with Antietam, so you can't really say it lacks for drama. (Shiloh is the clear highlight for me -- Foote wrote a historical novel about it before undertaking the Narrative, and it shines through in his effortless mastery, organization, and presentation of the material.) Volume 3 actually feels like a bit of a slog for me -- which I suppose accurately reflects the long, grinding, brutal denouement of the war -- but his account of Grant's maneuvers through the Wilderness and Spotsylvania are still quite exciting.

But nothing compares to Volume 2, which begins with a double bang at Frederickburg and Murfreesboro and follows thereupon with one ridiculously dramatic high-stakes battle after another: Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, the Tullahoma campaign, Chickamauga, and finally Chattanooga. I think Foote's account of the almost unbelievable Union uphill assault (and by "uphill" I mean practically up the side of a mountain) on Missionary Ridge is perhaps the literary high point of the entire three volume work. It remains one of my fondest history-reading memories of all time, that's for sure: when I first read these books, in high school, I didn't actually know what was going to happen. Sure, I knew how all the famous East Coast battles turned out (I was born on the anniversary of Antietam and live with two hours of every single major battlefield in PA, MD or VA), but the Western theater was as much a mystery to me as I suspect it remains to most Americans, even reasonably historically informed ones.

That is another positive aspect of Foote, by the way: he was one of the first major chroniclers (especially from a Southern perspective where, due to the influence of Freeman, it was All Lee All The Time) to truly give equal time to all the engagements in the Western Theater, and not just treat them as some kind of minor prelude to the career of Ulysses S. Grant. With the exception of Gettysburg (naturally), I find the major engagements and campaigns in the West to be vastly more interesting, both in terms of the personalities involved and the battlefield tactics.

I always thought McClellan's story would make a great movie. Act III begins with McClellan triumpantly taking over the AoP for the second time, the "three cigars" but ends bitter sweet with the tactical draw at Antetam, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

On books...

I am a fan of David Glantz for WW2 Eastern Front stuff, but it's real operational study, not a novel. I second BH Liddel Hart but his "Strategy" book reads like a freshman composition essay (shockingly, every battle ever supports his hypothesis either directly or indirectly)

One great fictionalish book on WW2 I liked was "Europe Central".

All the performances in "Lincoln" are good to excellent. It's worth seeing on the big screen even if it is 99% talk and political horse trading. Some quibbles but they are so minor as to be unworthy of mention. I fully believe Spielberg captured the essence of the time and the man.

The American Heritage Pictorial History of the Civil War is great for kids, as is the companion book to the Burns series. Big pictures and maps. Loads of fun. But I would say the seminal works to introduce a "virgin" to the American Civil War are This Hallowed Ground by Bruce Catton, The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (historical fiction), and the oft-mentioned Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. The latter is particularly good for its treatment of the causes of the war. For a one-author treatment of the battles I prefer Foote, but Catton's works are great and there is a treasure trove of newer scholarship available on the individual battles. Stephen Sears, Harry Pfanz and Noah Andre Trudeau are all excellent. Coddington's book on Gettysburg, mentioned above, is dry as toast, but the battlefield docents at Gettysburg are basically required to memorize it. Springing for a guided tour of the battlefield is one of the great bargains on earth.

A couple of notes on reading the thread. Foote's "waif" comment may seem a little paternalistic and a tinge racist but it is in no way, I believe, meant to denigrate blacks as being incapable of citizenship as opposed to ignorant and unprepared. Foote's point is that emancipation without appropriate reconstruction (including protection) was a sin. He was right. He goes on to point out what a better reconstruction would have looked like. You can moan and groan about Southern Democrats stopping reconstruction, but the Republicans had huge majorities and had all kinds of trouble getting spending bills to help blacks passed. And the Army was pulled out of the South with agreement of the GOP for the expedient of the deciding votes in the 1876 presidential election. The political will for a reconstruction that protected blacks did not exist in the North. Foote did not say he would "still" fight for the Confederacy, he said he would have fought for it if he had been a southerner in the 1860s. Most southerners were not slave owners. They were largely pro-slavery and certainly what we would call rascist today. And as such they were no different than huge segments of the north. Lincoln himself had serious doubts about whether blacks would ever truly "fit in" or whatever term you want to use. He fiddled around with returning them to Africa as a "humane" policy option. Reconstruction was a disaster and Foote rightly says so. Lincoln was the only Republican who could have held the wings of the party together to work a reconstruction that would have protected and empowered the Freedmen without Stalinizing the South (what the Radical Republicans wanted). Without Lincoln the radicals tried to impose their will and they couldn't do it, no more so than the rebels could save the slave power.

McClellan was an excellent quartermaster and drill sergeant. As a commanding general he was utterly lost. The Peninsula campaign has been aptly commented on. He had Lee's whole plan for the Maryland campaign, took three days longer than necessary to get to Antietam, sat there staring at Lee for a day, apparently praying he would skedaddle back across the Potomac. He then undertook a piecemeal attack which was virtually assured to do nothing but kill and maim a lot of boys while permitting Lee to use his interior lines to transfer men back and forth. He let a third of his army sit idle and watch. When AP Hill showed up to save Lee's bacon, (8000 men also included in Livermore's number; at the beginning of the battle McClellan had 85,000 infantry and Lee had 33,000) McClellan did not put his idle corps into action. He sat the next day and stared at Lee again, again apparently praying he would go away which he finally did. All when a resounding victory in the east (if not the "destruction" of Lee's army) would have put enormous pressure on the rebels to quit. They were losing everything in the west, the blockade was starting to have a real effect, the manpower reserves were already running short, the economy was a wreck, and in October of 1862 they still could have negotiated a peace that would let slavery die out over time rather than by legislative fiat. But McClellan couldn't go for it, so he gave us the bloodiest day in American history to absolutley no strategic or tactical end. Politically it was victory enough for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation. A real victory might have ended the war but prolonged slavery. Who knows which would have been worse for African Americans over time.

Foote did not say he would "still" fight for the Confederacy, he said he would have fought for it if he had been a southerner in the 1860s.

On the one hand, this shouldn't be a difficult sentiment to understand and forgive, unless one is utterly incapable of understanding people in their historical context, as opposed to judging retrospectively. It's altogether too easy to forget that the Civil War was fought in an era where one's state and/or regional ties were still far more determinative in defining one's allegiances than any sense of national, federative identity.

On the other hand, it should make us that much more impressed by (and grateful to) those who rejected such siren songs to fight for the Union. I'm thinking particularly of George Thomas (Virginia) and David Farragut (Tennessee-born, married to two Southern women and living in Norfolk at the time of secession). Thomas was actually disowned by his family for choosing to remain faithful to his country rather than his state; if I recall correctly, they literally never spoke to him again.

Springing for a guided tour of the battlefield is one of the great bargains on earth.

I've done this three times, once with my dad when I was younger, once in my college years, and once in the past four years. It's fresh every single time.

For my money, the best "battlefield tour" experiences are Gettysburg, Antietam and Shiloh. It's a shame that many of the battlefields in the Western theater haven't been as well-preserved as the Eastern ones (Shiloh is the major exception).