Can we Still Write ‘Real History’?

History as a discipline is quite subjective. The practitioners of history commit to rigorous and relentless investigation as to how they conceptualize the subject matter of the past. But a historian, like every person, is a product of their experiences, biases, situations, and environment. As each historian approaches a source with a unique set of experiences and skills, they interpret the text differently.

Parthika Sharma and Aarushi Anand explain.

A painting of Marie Antoinette, 1783. By Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun.

“The study of the past with one eye, so to speak, upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history....”

- Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History

While there is no one right interpretation of historical events, if a source is not handled carefully, historical knowledge instead of getting constituted may get incoherently jumbled. The craft of historians lies in developing a grasp over subjects to abstract information and not everyone can achieve that. So is history real? How do we decide if an account is authentic? The answer lies in evaluating whether historical writing entails a deft handling of sources.

The official report of the Versailles Peace Conference after the First World War was written by the victors and thus it claimed that Germany and her allies planned the war from the outset. The documents published by Weimar Germany in the 1920s on the other hand centered on the aggression of the Serbian government. The arguments stated in either cannot be used as a window to see the past and attribute a single narrative to it. There is a need to interrogate the sources to determine their degree of consistency and inconsistency. Contemporariness of source (primary source) over later written documents (secondary source) neither makes it authentic nor unmediated by filters. They cannot be seen as inherently holding truth; rather, historians must retrieve truth.

Marie Antoinette

For example, the libelles of the 1700s dubbed Queen Marie Antoinette l’Autrichienne- ‘the Austrian bitch’, and portrayed her pornographically wrapped around lavishness, intrigue, infidelity, adultery, and sexually transmitted diseases. A primary source, however, should not be taken at face value. It is important to analyze the socio-political landscape of the French Revolution and the need to blame the monarchy for its downfall. It is important to consider the possibility that the public humiliation of the queen was to demonize the Old Regime and execute her for not fitting 18th-century gender roles. The later accounts like A Day with Marie Antoinette by Hélène Delalex demystifies her, unveiling the woman behind the queen, and the wife and mother behind the sovereign. Thus one needs to subject historical knowledge to debate. A rhetorical reading of the political libelles would enable one to put forth probing questions like "Who is the account directed to?", "what sparked the portrayal?", “what aspects of the record are reticent?” to get a deeper insight.

Through the process of deft source management, the work of Brittany A. McLaren- The Many Faces of Marie Antoinette proves to be objective and informative. The trial of Marie Antoinette, the political pornography of the Enlightenment underground, and Madame Campan's memoirs, Antoinette's First Lady in Waiting, are the three primary texts she examines. She concludes that since each source is skewed by the author's own beliefs, none of them portrays the "true" Marie Antoinette. While Robespierre tried and assassinate Marie Antoinette because she did not conform to 18th-century gender standards, political pornography condemned her to defame the entire Old Regime. Finally, Campan shows her allegiance to the revived Bourbon monarchy by using Marie Antoinette as a foil for herself. Thus, it is less important who Marie Antoinette was, and more important to understand what it is she came to symbolize. By juxtaposing it with other historical information, the actual account of what happened can be determined. 

Thus in the process of subjecting sources to critical analysis, we get to know the reasoning/conceptual framework behind the production of a record. All information of a given historical circumstance must be mobilized to create the setting(socio-ecological political construction) ) and context (space-time) in which the source is generated. This exercise would even involve using our textbook information and gauging vantage viewpoints, for example, women's voices which were previously dismissed.

Ethnocentrism

A great deal of new research is not about looking for sources in variety but approaching well-known content with fresh eyes and questions. Ethnocentrism emerges from a “we-they” view of the world, in which one identifies with a specific group—usually a nation or a religion. This viewpoint is prevalent in the writings of nationalist historians. To give an example, in contemporary politics, historical research is contested as a version of “my religion vs yours.” For example, Indian nationalist writers attempted to portray "Muslim rule" as a dark period, but in doing so, they legitimized the colonial view that the British freed India from this period of darkness.

However, in this type of reading, the past is not studied in itself but to validate a person’s current position. It leads to the bias that one's current way of living should be used to judge the past, which is contrary to the historical perspective because praising modern values while condemning and belittling the rest is not a historical view. The focus shifts to “what was not” there in the past rather than what was. A careful reading of sources would tell us that before engaging with non-Muslim subjects, the dominant emperor would engage with dominant shades of Muslim opinions and practices. Foremost, Islamic emperors, this stride was between Shias and Sunnis.

A historian’s nature of inquiry would depend upon his approach towards the source. According to John Tosh, sources are neither neutral reservoirs of knowledge nor transparent records of the past. They are, rather, small children from the past who do not speak to strangers. Unless we know how to question them and listen, the sources, just like the children, tell nothing. Hence handling sources entails a constant interaction between the historian and her sources to arrive at a complex and richer understanding of the past.

Historian’s role

The past cannot be discovered, but it can be imagined as truthfully as possible. It is quite true that these biases are sometimes unconscious, and it's not always easy to isolate the past from the present, as historical inquiry often stems from present needs. However, it is essential to avoid studying history from these viewpoints; a historical perspective necessitates an understanding of the past without admiring or rejecting it. The purpose of history is to comprehend the past as a whole, not as a less developed predecessor to the present. The emphasis should be on understanding rather than condemning the past.

Even if complete impartiality is impossible to achieve, the historian's role does not have to suffer. They shall employ the concept of 'reciprocal action' on 'the historian and his facts'. The historian's responsibility to his facts involves ensuring that facts are accurate and include all known or knowable facts pertinent to the topic on which he is working and to the interpretation proposed. The historian is to mold his data to his interpretation and his interpretation to his facts without giving one precedence over the other.

What do you think of the authors’ views? Let us know below.

Now read the authors’ article on the 3 key reasons for European Empires here.

Bibliography

●      Jordonova, Ludmilla. (2000). History in Practice, London/New York: Arnold and  Oxford University Press Inc ., pp.27-57, 92-112 and 184-193 (Ch.2, "Mapping the  Discipline of History", Ch.4, "The Status of Historical Knowledge", and Ch.7,  "Historians' Skills").

●      Daniels, R. V. (1981). Studying History: How and Why. Third edition. Englewood  Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp.76-97 and 104-110.

●      Tosh, J. (2002). In Pursuit of History. Revised third edition. London, N.Y ., New Delhi:  Longman (Ch.4, "Using the Sources").

●       Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources; Karen Rosenburg

●      Marvick, Arthur. The nature of history. N.p.: Macmillan, 1985. (Ch.1 “The Past, History, Sources and Myths”

●      .Hobsbawn, Eric. On History. New Press, 1998 (Ch.3 “What Can History Tell Us About Contemporary Society”)

The Story of Napoleonic Duels

In the wake of the much anticipated November 2023 release of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, this year is the 45th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s debut 1977 film, The Duellists. The Duellists was Scott’s first on-screen project capturing French military life during the Napoleonic Wars.

Michael Thomas Leibrandt looks at The Duellists.

François Fournier-Sarlovèze

The Duellists captures this era perfectly with gorgeous cinematic filming locations in the lush countryside of France as well as placing the viewer directly into French military traditions during the height of Napoleon Bonaparte’s time as Emperor of France.

Ridley Scott’s 45-year film career has been significant. With 41 Academy Award nominations and 9 wins, Scott also has an extensive television career, amassing ten primetime Emmy Awards. Scott’s most notable films include Alien, Thelma & Louise, and Gladiator.

Background

The basis for the film is a 1908 short story by Joseph Conrad entitled The Duel. It is believed that the basis for the Conrad piece was a 1858 account that was published in Harper’s Magazine. It is also very possible that Conrad was inspired by another Harper’s Magazine published account of a true story about a series of Napoleonic-era duels between two real life French officers, Pierre Dupont de l’Étang and François Louis Fournier-Sarlovèze.

Duels of honor date back to the time of antiquity. In France, duels were recorded many, many centuries back. The duel between Fournier-Sarloveze and Dupont de l’Etang lasted thirty years and according to legend ended with a showdown with pistols at the conclusion of which Fournier-Sarloveze had to promise to never again engage his nemesis.

Winner at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, The Duellists is an epic tale of the military interpretation of upholding one’s honor while navigating the regulations around being a soldier during wartime. 

The story of these two rivals begins at the beginning of Emperor Napoleon’s rise to power around 1800 and extends until after his exile in. The cinematic tale takes the journey of Armand d’Hubert (3rd Hussars) and Gabriel Feraud (7th Hussars) as they endure Emperor Napoleon’s campaigns, military life in the French Army, as well as their contempt for each other.

Contrast

With both characters being different of temperament and background, D’Hubert is of noble birth and Feraud is not, adding to the intrigue of their parallel climb through the ranks of the French Army. During the nearly fifteen-year clash between the two rivals, Feraud and D’Hubert duel in the beautiful countryside of Augsburg, on horseback in the early morning midst of Lubeck, and even a confrontation during the French retreat from Moscow in 1812. As you might predict, it even ends with a climatic showdown.

Ridley Scott’s The Duellists is not only a visual marvel and a historical account of life in the French Hussars during Napoleon’s campaigns but also an exploration into two men’s interpretation of both the military and civilian code of honor.

Whether for its epic storyline, incredible scenery, or perfectly choreographed action scenes, The Duellists is worth seeing.

Especially if you find yourself in anticipation of Scott’s November release of Napoleon.

Now read about the three times Russia was invaded in history here.

Michael Thomas Leibrandt lives and works in Abington, Pennsylvania.

The Similarities Between the World War One and the U.S. Civil War

Picture trenches. Miles of trenches with knee-deep mud. Pulverized trees and rusty barbed wire. These are just a few images that bring World War One or the Great War to mind. Others show endlessly firing machine guns, mowing down soldiers as they charge toward their opponents.

However, the Great War was foreshadowed by the U.S. Civil War. Matt Whittaker explains.

A German trench occupied by British soldiers in World War One at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The men came from A Company, 11th Battalion, in the Cheshire Regiment.

Sadly, many of these battles started this way. Troops went “over the top,” using mass infantry tactics, and suffered. An often-cited example is the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Between all the machine gun fire and more, some 19,000 British soldiers died on the first day. Technology simply moved faster than tactics had evolved.

Yet, some fifty years before the American Civil War provided a glimpse of what would come. In that war, new thinking was required, too.

But in this solely American war, what prompted such a change? There wasn’t just one reason but a combination of technology, tactics, a shift to total war, and perhaps the biggest foretelling – trench warfare.

The American Civil War began after much complex political, economic, and social issues boiled over in April 1861. With the bombing of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, the war started.

Trench warfare

Though a significant point, trench warfare occurred later in the Civil War. The first similarity was industrialized warfare. America’s industrial industry capacity built up faster than most countries, Britain aside.

How is this important? Such capability allowed rapid technological advancements like railroads, ironclads, and repeating weapons.

Both sides in the war would depend on railroads for supplies and movement. With good rail lines, troops could be moved quicker and in more significant numbers with their stores. The North used its great network to move troops swiftly for battles or offensive build-ups.

In 1914, the French used trains to rush troops to stop the German Army at the Battle of the Marne. Like this, the 1862 First Battle of Bull Run demonstrated what rail lines and a clever commander could do.

Confederate General Beauregard's 20,000 troops faced a Union army of 35,000. Beauregard utilized cavalry to screen a second Union force to his west, allowing trains to hurry 11,000 soldiers east and attack almost immediately. The Union troops, surprised, fled after a sharp battle with these unexpected reinforcements.

Gatling gun

A more ominous omen came with the Gatling gun, a six-barreled hand-cranked precursor to the machine gun like the Maxim or Hotchkiss. Patented in 1862, the Gatling was not a common sight. In 1865, Union commander General Butler purchased twelve to defend positions during the siege of Petersburg.

Any movie aficionado knows that movies about the Great War show troops getting mowed down by machine guns. Like the new Gatling, using the rifled musket and repeating rifles ended the smooth-bore, single-shot musket era. Their greater range or sustained fire proved to be game changers.

The dated tactic of double infantry rows formed up to blast away at their opponents ended. Soldiers got wounded or killed by their foes before being in effective range. Beyond sixty yards, musket balls simply were not accurate. The new Minie ball used with a rifled musket could be effective out to 500 yards, though either side rarely took advantage of this.

Besides rifled muskets, the Civil War pioneered repeating arms like the seven-shot Spencer or fifteen-shot Henry rifle. Soldiers no longer had to halt, pull out powder to pour down the barrel, followed by a slug. The next step meant ramming all down the barrel. The soldier put a percussion cap to ignite the black powder.

At best, a soldier could fire three or four times during the Civil War. During the Great War, the Royal Army trained their regulars to fire a brisk fifteen rounds per minute. Now, that means quite a lot of lead going out. Ouch.

Charges

In another ill-omened battle for the future, repeating arms demonstrated what Great War soldiers would face. At the 1863 Battle of Hoover's Gap in Tennessee, the famed Lightning Brigade squared off against five Confederate brigades.

The Southerners charged against the Brigade’s defenses, only to be cut down by the constant stream of gunfire. They bravely charged into a hail of lead using the same bad tactics. The Confederate colonel leading this attack thought he was outnumbered 5 to 1. A flanking attack on both sides met the same, losing 250 men in the first five minutes. The retreat became a rout, and Chattanooga rejoined the Union.

Beyond all these battles, the nature of this war changed and continued with the Great War. The philosophy of "hard war” was termed. Similar to total war, the concept is the same. In April 1863, President Lincoln decided on total war to shorten the conflict.

Like Imperial Germany decades later, the Confederates reeled under its impact. Lincoln instructed his commanders like Grant and Sherman to “do what was necessary.” Like the Royal Navy’s four-year blockade crippling the German economy, the South’s economy withered.

In a tough march, Sherman’s 1864 March to the Sea campaign cut a sixty-mile-wide path from Atlanta to the sea. He directed his men to burn, loot, destroy whatever they could, and live off the land. Germany, too, by 1918, became an economic mess, suffering from food shortages, astronomical inflation, and political turmoil.

Sadly, total war worked, wreaking havoc on the defeated that would take years to recover.

Trenches

The last Civil War peak into the World War One future was the most terrible – the trenches. The Civil War trench war began at Petersburgh, Virginia, in 1864. Generals Grant and Lee battled constantly around Richmond, the Confederate’s capital.

Despite Grant’s great numbers and big guns, each fight ended in a deadlock. In a switch, Grant made a go for Petersburg – a critical regional supply hub. However, Lee fought the North to a standstill. Let the siege begin!

Most of the fighting around Petersburg ended in stalemates, with no room to maneuver. More than forty miles of trenches appeared, the most of any Civil War campaign. Grant’s best option was to batter his way in to capture this vital hub. Terrible fighting, like the Battle of the Crater, resulted in much death.

Attempting to end the stalemate, the Union detonated explosives under a big trench redoubt, leaving a massive crater and stunning the defenders. Northerners rushed into cavity, attempting to climb into the trenches, followed by the city. The Confederates rallied and bloodily pushed back the invaders, leaving the status quo of back and forth intact.

Like all trenches in World War One, the Petersburg ones became filthy pits filled with muddy water, empty ammunition boxes, and trash. Diseases followed next, making both sides miserable. Eventually, the Union Army forced Lee to give up the city, ending the siege and losing the war. All told, the trench warfare around Petersburg killed or wounded 70,000 men.

The American Civil eerily predicted much of the despair that ensued during the Great War. Whether death tolls from obsolete infantry tactics to the wholesale change to “total war,” few predicted this in their rush to win.

What do you think of the similarities between World War One and the U.S. Civil War? Let us know below.

The Logistical Challenges of the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War

Much of what happened on Civil War battlefields was determined by the economic and logistical foundations of the societies the armies represented. The military that a country puts on the battlefield is not a generic collection of soldiers but rather a direct reflection of the culture that creates it. War can be compared to an iceberg: the armies and battles are its visible and graphic “tip”, but what actually decides the outcome of the battles are the money and resources available to acquire the weapons and equipment needed to wage war effectively. The procurement and transportation of clothing, food and supplies were the decisive factors, but are typically relegated to footnotes, remaining submerged and invisible.

Here, Lloyd W Klein looks at the logistical challenges in the Confederacy through the Confederate Quartermaster and the Subsistence Corps.

Colonel Abraham Myers.

The Logistics Problems of the Confederacy

The Confederate government faced myriad interconnected problems that hindered its ability to adequately plan for and address the logistical challenges during the American Civil War. The combination of the Union blockade, limited industrial capacity, transportation issues, financial strain, diplomatic challenges, and internal divisions contributed to the Confederate government's difficulties in acquiring and sustaining critical resources during the Civil War. The combination of resource limitations, economic constraints, political factors, and the nature of the conflict itself made it difficult for the Confederate government to plan and address the logistical challenges in a comprehensive manner (see below).

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Origins of the Logistics Issues Faced by the Confederacy

Blockade: The Union Navy imposed a blockade on Southern ports, severely restricting the Confederacy's access to foreign trade and essential supplies. This blockade made it challenging for the Confederacy to import much-needed goods and resources.

Insufficient Industrial Capacity: The Confederate states had a smaller industrial base compared to the more industrialized Northern states. They relied heavily on agriculture, and their limited industrial capacity hindered their ability to produce weapons, ammunition, and other crucial supplies necessary for war.

Poor Rail. Transportation: The war disrupted transportation networks, making it difficult to move resources efficiently within the Confederate states and further complicated efforts to acquire and distribute resources efficiently.

Political Conflict between states and national government: The Confederate states prioritized their individual interests over the collective needs of the Confederacy, leading to internal divisions and challenges in coordinating resource allocation.

The Confederacy had fewer resources and a smaller industrial base compared to the Union. They struggled to match the Union's manufacturing capabilities and lacked the infrastructure to support large-scale production and transportation of weapons and supplies. Moreover, the Confederate government faced economic difficulties throughout the war, including inflation and a strained financial system. These constraints made it challenging to allocate sufficient funds for logistics, transportation infrastructure, and the procurement of necessary resources. The Union blockade severely restricted the Confederacy's ability to import weapons, ammunition, and other supplies from foreign sources. This created a significant reliance on domestic production, which was insufficient to meet the demands of the war.

The Confederate government was structured in its Constitution to be a federation of states without a strong national government, consistent with its founding philosophy based on states’ rights. It was comprised of individual states with varying priorities and interests. Coordination and cooperation among these states in terms of logistics and supply chain management were challenging. Additionally, disagreements and competing interests among political leaders impacted efficient planning and execution of logistics.

Impact of military strategy. The Confederate military leadership, including General Robert E. Lee, opted for offensive strategies and focused on battlefield victories. This emphasis on aggressive tactics sometimes overshadowed the need for comprehensive logistical planning, leading to inadequate preparations for sustaining operations. As an insurgency, a better strategy might have been to defend critical territories and cities, hoping to withstand a Union invasion. But a short war was envisioned and this was not politically a choice Jefferson Davis thought was feasible at the time.

Limited industrial and manufacturing sector. The new Confederate nation possessed insufficient production capacity for the trial ahead. The Confederacy had fewer factories, foundries, and manufacturing facilities compared to the industrialized North. Consequently, the Confederacy struggled to meet the demands for weapons, ammunition, uniforms, and other essential supplies. This scarcity hindered their ability to adequately equip and sustain their troops in the field.

The Confederacy relied heavily on imports to compensate for their domestic manufacturing limitations. However, the Union blockade disrupted their ability to import goods and materials, including weapons and vital supplies. The inability to access foreign sources of production and technology exacerbated the supply shortages faced by the Confederacy.

The limited industrial sector also affected the development of transportation infrastructure. The Confederacy had fewer railways, fewer navigable waterways, and fewer well-maintained roads compared to the Union. The lack of robust transportation systems made it challenging to move goods, weapons, and supplies efficiently to the front lines, resulting in delays and logistical difficulties.

The limited industrial and manufacturing sectors of the Confederacy meant there was a scarcity of raw materials, such as iron, coal, and other critical resources needed for production. This scarcity affected the ability to produce and maintain weapons, ammunition, and other necessary supplies, further straining logistical operations.

The Confederacy's industrial base was heavily agricultural, with limited diversification into other industries. This lack of diversification made it difficult to develop a robust manufacturing sector capable of meeting the varied demands of the war effort. The limited range of industrial capabilities constrained their ability to produce a wide array of equipment and supplies needed for the military.

Overall, the limited industrial and manufacturing sectors of the Confederacy had a profound impact on logistical operations. Supplying and equipping Confederate forces during the war was a serious problem for the entire 4 years but became worse as time wore on and critical ports and geographic areas came under Union control.

Scarcities of various essential war resources. The Confederacy struggled to produce enough firearms and ammunition to adequately equip its troops. Rifles, muskets, and other weapons were in high demand, but the limited manufacturing capabilities meant that many soldiers had to rely on outdated or inferior weapons. Ammunition shortages also occurred, limiting the firepower of Confederate forces.

The production of uniforms and clothing was insufficient to meet the needs of the Confederate Army. Soldiers often faced shortages of proper uniforms, resulting in a mix of civilian clothing, captured Union uniforms, and makeshift garments. This not only affected morale but also impacted the identification of friendly troops on the battlefield.

Adequate footwear was scarce among Confederate soldiers. Leather shortages and limited production capabilities led to soldiers marching and fighting with inadequate or worn-out shoes. This created significant discomfort, increased the risk of foot-related health issues, and impacted mobility on the battlefield.

The production of blankets and tents fell short of demand. Confederate soldiers often lacked sufficient protection from the elements, especially during harsh winter conditions. This further contributed to the hardships endured by troops in the field.

The Confederacy faced difficulties in procuring and producing medical supplies needed to treat wounded soldiers and to treat communicable diseases. Scarcities included items such as bandages, medicines, surgical instruments, and anesthetics. Medical personnel often had to improvise and rely on limited resources, resulting in compromised healthcare for the wounded.

The limited industrial capacity of the Confederacy affected the production of essential machinery and equipment needed for various sectors, such as manufacturing, mining, and transportation. This hindered the development and expansion of critical industries and further impacted the overall war effort.

The Sustainment Bureaucracy

Expecting only a brief war and anticipating merely a perfunctory Northern response, secessionist leaders had quietly planned to construct a sufficient military force for that limited mission. After preparing a political ideology that succeeded in establish secession, they planned for a single battle that would decide the question. They had amassed abundant weapons through subterfuge and capturing supplies at federal forts to last them for a year or two. In retrospect, it is apparent that the Confederate leaders had not expected to fight a long war and had not made contingency plans until secession actually forced a serious consideration.  The creation of military sustainment departments began on February 26, 1861, even before the authorization of an army on March 6 (1,2). A Bureau of Ordnance was created on April.27. The leaders of the Quartermaster, Subsistence and Ordinance Departments, Colonel Abraham Myers, Lieutenant-Colonel Lucius Northrop, and Major Josiah Gorgas had considerable influence on logistics organizations and operations for the Confederate armies. These three men were charged with the responsibility of harnessing the Southern economy to support the armies.

The Confederacy was a newly formed nation with a limited institutional framework and experience in managing large-scale logistics and warfare. The absence of a well-established bureaucracy and logistics system further hampered their ability to plan and execute effective supply chains. After Manassas, it became clear that food, additional armaments and clothes would be needed to carry on the war effort.  Financial means and mechanisms for their procurement became critical facets of war planning. As the duration of the war lengthened, inherent weaknesses in the Confederate economy began to show. The political and military leaders expected their land mass to be their defense, never thinking that the Union could build bridges and roads and repair railroads as fast as its cavalry could burn them. They expected cotton to be their financial strength, but never considered where armaments and supplies would come from or paid for, and never planned on the expense of a naval presence to counter a blockade of its ports.

The Quartermaster Department

The Confederate Congress created the position of Quartermaster-General on February 26, 1861. The Secretary of War was allowed to appoint one colonel and six majors to serve as Quartermasters (3, 4).  Abraham Myers served as the first Quartermaster General for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Myers was responsible for managing and supplying the Confederate Army with various provisions, including food, clothing, and equipment. The role of the Quartermaster General was crucial in maintaining the logistics and efficiency of the Confederate military operations. Myers played a significant part in ensuring that the Confederate forces were adequately equipped and provisioned throughout the war.

The Confederate Quartermaster Department was responsible for procuring, transporting, and distributing essential supplies to the troops, including food, clothing, equipment, and ammunition.

Overseeing the supply of an army is a complicated job: besides weapons and armaments procurement, the responsibilities also included uniforms, horses, wagons, and railroad cars; and finding the money and resources to acquire these supplies.  It also entails transportation of the materials to the location of the army, constructing supply depots near enough the front to be effective but not where it could be captured, and coordinating production with need. The quartermaster department is responsible for creating a supply network for the army; in particular, the procurement, maintenance, and transportation of military materiel, facilities, and personnel. It is the functional bridge between economics and tactical operations. To operate optimally, the logistical network must connect the combat forces with the strengths and capabilities of the society it defends. It does not simply create itself and it is not merely an administrative task; it is an enterprise in itself that requires using technological and economic resources to overcome an enemy and sustains the military forces by supporting its warfighting readiness (5).

Myers had a very difficult if not impossible situation to accomplish these goals. The Confederacy faced severe resource limitations, including shortages of essential supplies such as food, clothing, and equipment. Additionally, the Union blockade hindered the Confederacy's ability to import necessary goods from overseas.

His pre-war experience in southern forts and his contacts in those positions were especially valuable in getting started. Myers sent agents into the domestic market, contracting with local manufacturers and paying competitive rates. The department bought cotton, woolen cloth, and leather goods.  He also established shops for making clothing, shoes, tents, wagons, and other equipment, and purchased livestock at market prices for as long as possible.  During the first few months the South had sufficient supplies to cobble together a supply chain (6,7).

But the South lacked the manufacturing infrastructure required to produce and build the required huge quantities of food, equipment, shoes, and clothing.  Settling in for what would be a long war they had not planned for, the supply deficits developed into a crisis as the financial weakness of the country led to runaway inflation. The CSA government had to create a supply chain that would bring its armies the supplies needed to allow it to continue the war. Creating a new country with a new financial system, revamping its rail system, and developing its industrial capacity would have posed inconceivable and perhaps impossible problems for a state government dominated system in peacetime. Trying to accomplish these tasks while being invaded by a much larger, more resource rich country bordering its most critical strategic areas was likely beyond anyone’s capacity.

Myers was a highly experienced quartermaster officer who was widely admired for competence, integrity and efficiency (8). Myers' efforts to fulfill the needs of the armies brought praise from some and condemnation from others. He immediately began advertising for tents and other camp equipment from southern vendors (9).  As president of the military board, Myers helped design the first Confederate Army uniform. (10) Blankets, shoes and wool remained scarce. Quartermaster depots were created around the South in large cities (11). Supplying uniforms in bulk in 1861 was a huge problem (12). He estimated in 1861 that he needed 1,600,000 pairs of shoes for the first year, but he could only locate 300,000 (13). He also estimated that he would need hundreds of thousands of blankets, socks, and shirts, and almost no industry was present in the South to procure them. They would have to be imported from Europe and brought through the blockade.

It was not enough to purchase these items; they had to be transported to the armies. He devised a system of supply depots; Richmond and Nashville would be the main depots for the two armies, with multiple satellite storage areas closer to the front (14). The railroads were the primary means of transporting these items, as there was minimal merchant marine activity with the blockade and overland wagon routes were slow and subject to military attack.

Despite a very large service, he was restricted by a lack of funds, inflation, and poor railroads, over which he had no control. His department was criticized among its generals because the South could not obtain supplies to outfit the Army. His inability to provide shoes and uniforms was an especially serious problem.  He set goals and controls on southern manufacturing throughout the war. By commandeering more than half the South's produced goods for the military, the quartermaster general, in a counterintuitive drift toward socialism, appropriated hundreds of mills and controlled the flow of southern factory commodities, especially salt (15).

Some criticisms of Myers and the Confederate quartermaster department include inefficiency, inadequate coordination, and difficulties in providing timely and sufficient supplies to the army. These issues were partially attributed to the limited resources and the overall logistical challenges faced by the Confederacy. The CSA lacked nearly all manufactured products and had little capacity to make them. The Quartermaster Department proved to be unable to properly equip and clothe the Confederate soldiers. Myers consistently failed to anticipate the operational requirements of the army (16). As a result, Lee was often at a logistical disadvantage. The significant constraints and limitations that Myers and the Confederate quartermaster department operated under made the task of supplying the Confederate army extremely challenging. Despite these challenges, Myers and his department managed to provide some level of support to the Confederate forces throughout the conflict. Overall, assessing Myers' performance as a quartermaster general requires considering the extraordinary circumstances of the Confederacy during the war.

Subsistence Department

Lt Col Isaac M. St. John Northrop served as the Commissary General and Subsistence Director of the Confederate States Army. He was responsible for procurement and transportation of food to soldiers in the field. Northrop's tenure as Subsistence Director was marked by significant challenges due to resource shortages, logistical difficulties, and the impact of the Union blockade on the Confederate food supply. These challenges resulted in widespread food shortages and inadequate rations for Confederate soldiers throughout the war.

Critics of Northrop argue that he was inefficient, lacked effective management skills, and failed to adequately address the logistical and supply issues facing the Confederate army. There were allegations of corruption, favoritism, and mismanagement within the commissary department, which contributed to the inadequate provisioning of soldiers. Moreover, Northrop had a frustrating tendency to deny support by creating unnecessary administrative hurdles and red tape (17).

His performance in a capacity for which he was completely unprepared was abysmal.  The supply of food, shoes, clothing, and other materials has been termed inexcusably inadequate (18) Confederate soldiers were frequently obliged to make do inadequate rations, and to forage amongst their own countrymen. While the stuff of legend and a sign of intrepidness, it’s no way to fight a war – on one’s own territory. It is incomprehensible that commissaries in Vicksburg and Virginia were unable to stockpile provisions in military zones located in friendly territory (19).

Ordinance

In contrast, Josiah Gorgas served with distinction as the Chief of Ordnance for the Confederate States Army. He was responsible for overseeing the procurement, production, and distribution of weapons, ammunition, and other military supplies for the Confederate forces. Gorgas is generally regarded as a highly competent and effective ordnance officer. Under his leadership, the Confederate Ordnance Department faced numerous challenges, including limited resources, inadequate industrial infrastructure, and the Union blockade. Despite these challenges, Gorgas worked to establish and expand Confederate arms factories, streamline production processes, and improve the efficiency of supply chains.

His primary function was to create an armaments supply system: the acquisition and distribution of armaments and ammunition in the Confederate army. The new country possessed almost no industry capable of providing arms and ammunition: ante bellum ordnance-making factories were mostly located in the North. Furthermore, existing supplies of weapons had been seized by Confederate state militias, and their state governments resisted sharing them. Gorgas recognized that only a limited amount of money was available to spend on arms and ammunition.

The limited production capacity due to the absence of manufacturing industries constrained the ability to mass-produce firearms. The scarcity of raw materials, particularly iron and steel, also posed a significant challenge for firearm production. The Confederacy lacked the technological expertise and infrastructure necessary for the efficient production of advanced firearms. They lagged behind the North in terms of machinery, precision manufacturing techniques, and skilled labor. This limited their ability to produce modern and sophisticated firearms.

Consequently, the Confederacy relied on imports to supplement their domestic firearm production. The Confederacy faced difficulties in accessing these resources from abroad due to the Union blockade. As the war progressed, the Union blockade efficacy increased, disrupting the ability to import finished firearms or components from abroad.

To compensate for these limitations, the Confederacy resorted to various measures. They converted existing weapons, such as hunting rifles or smoothbore muskets, into serviceable firearms. They also sought to repair and reuse captured Union weapons. Additionally, they established government-owned and private armories to manufacture firearms, although these facilities were often limited in output and faced resource shortages.

Gorgas implemented measures to increase domestic production of firearms, ammunition, and artillery, making the Confederacy less reliant on imported arms. He also made efforts to repair and refurbish captured Union weapons to supplement Confederate armament. Gorgas emphasized the importance of quality control and strived to ensure that Confederate forces were supplied with functional and reliable weapons.

Gorgas constructed systems to scavenge arms from battlefields, import arms and essential manufacturing supplies from Europe, and build an industrial complex to manufacture what the army required. He was responsible for ensuring that artillery tubes and rifles were delivered through the blockade. He established armories to store the materials so when needed, they could be transported easily to the front lines (20,21). Gorgas created a system that supplied all the powder and artillery for the Confederacy, despite labor shortages. (22) Although the Confederate armies often lacked basic food and clothing, they were rarely without necessary ammunition.

Faced with the problem that the Confederacy had few facilities for weapons manufacture and no plants to produce gunpowder, Gorgas demonstrated brilliant administrative skill in building these capabilities. Gorgas, as Chief of Ordnance for the Confederate States Army, implemented several measures regarding weapon procurement during the American Civil War. Gorgas recognized the need to increase weapon production to meet the demands of the war. He established new armories and expanded existing ones to boost manufacturing capacity. He sought assistance from private companies to fulfill the Confederacy's weapon needs. He entered into contracts with private arms manufacturers to produce firearms, artillery, and other military equipment. He recognized the necessity of captured Union weapons and directed efforts to refurbish and reuse them. This practice helped supplement the Confederate Army's weapon inventory. Since the Confederacy had limited domestic manufacturing capabilities, Gorgas focused on importing weapons from abroad. He coordinated efforts to procure arms from Europe, primarily from countries such as Britain and France.

Gorgas and his team faced immense logistical challenges in transporting weapons.
Gorgas prioritized the allocation of available resources to meet the most pressing weapon needs. He assessed the demands of various theaters of war and distributed weapons accordingly, based on strategic requirements. He relied heavily on the existing railway networks to transport weapons and ammunition. Railways were crucial in moving large quantities of arms from manufacturing centers to distribution points closer to the front lines.

Other methods of transporting arms were necessary given the state of the railroads in the South. When feasible, Gorgas utilized rivers for transportation. Riverboats and steamers were employed to move weapons and supplies along navigable waterways, providing an alternative to overland transportation. Overland transportation via wagon trains played a significant role in moving weapons and supplies to the front lines. Wagons, pulled by horses or mules, were used to transport arms overland from distribution depots to the troops in the field.

By 1863, the South had several factories producing modern weapons. Despite the inferior southern rail system and southern governors who hoarded supplies in their own states, Gorgas almost single-handedly assured that the troops on the front line had sufficient weapons and ammunition to carry on. Gorgas performed an outstanding service in developing businesses to produce weaponry and transporting it to the front. Rifles and ammunition continued to be in abundance even when supplies of food and other materials had vanished (23,24).

Logistics Network

The procurement and transport of military materiel into the Confederacy was a dismal logistical failure. At first, it was borderline in its efficacy; but as ports were closed, key mining and farming territories lost, and supply depots captured, the network became increasingly unable to supply the needs of its armies in the field.

Cost of Supply

The Confederate government faced severe financial constraints throughout the war. The limited funds available hindered the procurement and distribution of supplies, and often resulted in inadequate provisioning for the troops.

Inefficiencies and corruption. The Confederate quartermaster department encountered issues with inefficiencies, mismanagement, and corruption. Supply routes were not always optimized, and there were instances of fraud and misappropriation of resources, leading to further logistical challenges. Perhaps even more problematic than limited resources was the “pervasive ineffectiveness that characterized every aspect of Confederate administrative life, especially its logistical and supply arrangements” (25).

Inflationary spiral. Understanding the problems that confronted these officers requires a comprehension of the costs of Confederate supply and how the Confederate inflationary spiral altered the war. As a comparison, the US dollar has experienced on average a 2.18% inflation rate per year since 1860. Hence, $1 in 1860 is roughly equivalent to $32.43 in 2023 dollars. (26). The inflationary spiral of the Confederate dollar during the four years of the war increased its costs exponentially: every 6 months, the value of the Confederate dollar decreased in value so much that costs were almost incomparable to the previous time frame. The total expenditures of the CSA government, nearly all of which were for the War Department, increased from $70 million in November 1861 to $329 million in August 1862. That is a dizzying figure to contemplate in retrospect, and impossible to imagine what it was like for Myers, whose job it was to administrate and develop budgets for his department a year in advance.  One example is that the $199 million allocated for the war budget for 1862 had run out by September (27). It’s impossible to operate a functional war machine with inflation at that unsustainable rate. 

A significant escalation of the problem can be ascribed to a single event of marked importance. On April 29, 1862, Commander David Farragut captured the South’s largest port city, New Orleans. (28)  The fall of New Orleans was a powerful financial disadvantage. For a nation composed of rebellious states to wage war, it must have capital with which to pay for war supplies: weapons, armaments, horses, food, clothing, soldiers’ salaries, etc.

Impact on Subsistence Administration. The resulting budgetary pressure had consequences all along the administrative path. In 1862, Myers saw his estimated budget cut from roughly $27 million/month to $19 million.  He informed the cabinet that at that time, the current actual expenditure was $24.5 million/month, and with inflation would clearly become much higher. Myers lobbied the Congress for more appropriations to keep the war effort on track. The CSA Congress then passed a supplementary expenditure of $127 million to pay for just the 3 months of December 1862 to February 1863 (29).

In response to these absurd cost rises, even more Treasury notes were issued on March 3,1863. In total over $517 million in notes were issued that year alone, reflecting the tripling of costs in just one year.  These would further worsen the inflationary spiral.

Centralization of Manufacturing

With the onset of the war, the Confederate War Department centralized control over the nation’s industries. This was surprising given that the CSA was designed as a state-controlled government with limited federal powers. The Quartermaster and Ordnance Bureaus organized the production and distribution of war materiel.  In time, many of the Confederacy’s large-scale manufacturers – textile mills, foundries, and machine shops – worked under contract with the Ordnance and Quartermaster Bureaus. The salt industry was entirely operated by the CSA government in what has been termed “salt socialism” (30). A government formed on the principles of state primacy and not a central government was finding it necessary to institute federal control of industry.

Moreover, by 1862 shortages of supplies and equipment, in addition to inflated prices in the domestic markets, led to the conferring of impressment powers on Myers in addition to the Commissary Department (31). While this somewhat alleviated the supply issues, it became demoralizing for the public.  The central government was now empowered to seize the products of its citizens and pay them what it could, not what it was worth.

Cost of Transportation. The transportation of supplies at a cost-efficient price was one of the Confederacies biggest difficulties. The southern railroad system failed to transmit sufficient supplies to the armies, and many supplies were kept in storage because they couldn’t get to the soldiers. By February 1862, horses and men were not receiving sufficient rations. The Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac RR was not carrying food and forage because the prices able to be charged for these items were small and there was no centralized control. Eastern North Carolina had abundant stores of corn, bacon and grain but the route necessary to carry these items to the front was byzantine: The Wilmington and Weldon RR was a single-track road, connecting with the Richmond line, but this connection was in terrible condition and there was no cooperation between the lines. In a confederation system without centralized government authority, private ownership of railroads continued to run on profit not patriotism. Despite these inefficiencies, Myers opposed central government control or the building of its own trains, believing that would only increase the inefficiencies. Later in 1863, he worked with Secretary of War Seddon and President Davis to put pressure on the rail owners to expedite shipments despite lower profit margins (32).

And in 1862, the level of rail efficiency was at its peak: it declined from there. As the war continued, the rail system became even less adequate. The tracks began to deteriorate. The metal composition of the Southern rails was of relatively soft iron, frequently fractured or wear after continued use, requiring high maintenance. In the mid- 19thcentury, Northern foundries began to produce more durable iron products such as steel but the southern foundries did not switch to the more difficult to manufacture material. Steel must be smelted from iron ore, in which impurities (e.g., carbon, nitrogen silicon) are removed and alloying elements (e.g., manganese, nickel, chromium) are added. Consequently, the infrastructure of southern track crumbled throughout the war, with limited resources for their repair. Myers complained that the locomotives were breaking down and had no replacement parts. (33)

Conclusion

The skills of a society to identify, purchase and convey the goods and supplies necessary to maintain an army in working order is a window into the health of that society and transcends mere administrative planning.  How the needs of the Confederate armies in the field were determined, acquired, transported and distributed is a central but often overlooked piece of the Civil War narrative. How they fared is a vital part of the story of the Confederacy.

What do you think of the Confederacy’s logistical challenges during the U.S. Civil War? Let us know below.

Now, read Lloyd’s article on the Battle of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the U.S. Civil War here.

References

1.     Woodruff JD. The Impact of Logistics on General Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg. Accessed at https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1083715.pdf 6/23/23.

2.     Goff, Richard D. Confederate Supply. Pranava Books.1969, pages 6-7.

3.     Wilson HS. Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War. University Press of Mississippi, 2002, pages 15-25. https://epdf.pub/confederate-industry-manufacturers-and-quartermasters-in-the-civil-war.html  

4.     The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. I, 495. (Hereafter: OR). https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/001/0495

5.     Wissler, John E. Logistics: The Lifeblood of Military Power. Heritage.org. https://www.heritage.org/military-strength-topical-essays/2019-essays/logistics-the-lifeblood-military-power

6.     Goff op cit pages 15-

7.     The Twiggs-Myers Family. Fix Bayonets Blog. (hereafter: Fix) https://fixbayonetsusmc.blog/2019/03/29/the-twiggs-myers-family-part-iii/

8.     Goff op cit pages 33-35.

9.     Goff op cit pages 15-16.

10.  Goff op cit page 16

11.  Goff op cit page 16

12.  Goff op cit page 33

13.  Goff op cit page 34

14.  Goff op cit page 35

15.  Lonn, Ella. Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy. New York, W. Neale, 1933 and

Davis, William C. Look Away: A History of Confederate States of America. The Free Press, New York, 2002, Chapter 10.

16.  Wilson op cit page 4

17.  Vandiver F. Ploughshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1952, 165.

18.  Wiley, Bell I. (1968). The Road to Appomattox. New York City: Atheneum Books. 31.

19.  Hess, Earl J. Civil War Supply and Strategy. Louisiana State University Press, 2020. Page 84

20.  McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom.  Oxford University Press, 2003. page 318.

21.  Klein LW. How the Confederacy got their Weapons – Fueling the Confederate War Machine. The Civil War Center. Accessed 6/23/23. https://thecivilwarcenter.wpcomstaging.com/2022/06/06/how-the-confederacy-got-their-weapons-fueling-the-confederate-war-machine/

22.  Goff op cit 246

23.  Klein LW. How did the Confederacy Fund its War Effort in the U.S. Civil War? History is Now Magazine.http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2023/6/5/how-did-the-confederacy-fund-its-war-effort-in-the-us-civil-war Accessed 6/23/23.

24.  Josiah Gorgas. https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/josiah-gorgas  Accessed 6/23/23.

25.  Hess op cit 361.

26.  Consumer Price Index Calculator. https://www.in2013dollars.com/

27.  Goff op cit page 90

28.  Ferguson, Niall. The Ascent Of Money. A Financial History of the World. 10th Anniversary Edition. Penguin, New York, 2009. And Edwin C Bearrs. The Seizure of the Forts and Public Property in Louisiana.  Louisiana History (2:401‑409, Autumn 1961) 

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Louisiana/_Texts/LH/2/4/Seizure_of_the_Forts*.html

29.  Goff op cit pages 90-91 & 47-49

30.  Davis op cit chapter 10

31.  Goff op cit pages 41-2

32.  Goff op cit pages 107 & 40

33.  Davis op cit 307

A Great Boat Tragedy in New York: General Slocum Disaster

As soon as the fire became visible beyond the ship, bystanders from nearby boats and on shore rushed to aid the stricken steamer. One rescuer story that got extensive newspaper coverage was that of teenager Mary McCann, a recent immigrant from Ireland who was recuperating from an illness at the isolation hospital on North Brother Island. Mary ran to the shore and swam out time after time to pull as many children as she could to safety. Reports of the number she saved range from six to twenty depending on the newspaper account.

Here, Richard Bluttal looks at the June 1904 General Slocum disaster in New York City in which over 1,000 people died.

A picture of the General Slocum.

The New York Times wrote about the staff at the North Brother Island hospital, who immediately rushed to aid the beached ship. They not only pulled people from the water using ladders and human chains, but also resuscitated victims and provided medical care. The New-York Tribune described a story similar to Mary’s, in which a hospital employee named Pauline Puetz swam out multiple times to pull victims ashore, even rescuing a child who had been caught in the ship’s paddlewheel.

The New York Evening World wrote about 12-year-old Louise Galing, who jumped into the water with the toddler she was babysitting and managed to keep ahold of the child until they were pulled from the water. The World also recounted that when young Ida Wousky would have fainted, 13-year-old John Tishner kicked his friend in the shins to wake her up. John then managed to find a life preserver and put it on Ida, pushing her into the water when she wouldn’t jump. He held onto her by her n hair until they were rescued by a boat. 

It was, by all accounts, a glorious Wednesday morning on June 15, 1904, and the men of Kleindeutschland—Little Germany, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side–were on their way to work. Just after 9 o’clock, a group from St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on 6th Street, mostly women and children, boarded the General Slocum for their annual end-of-school outing. Bounding aboard what was billed as the “largest and most splendid excursion steamer in New York,” the children, dressed in their Sunday school outfits, shouted and waved flags as the adults followed, carrying picnic baskets for what was to be a long day away.

A German band played on deck while the children romped and the adults sang along, waiting to depart. Just before 10 o’clock, the lines were cast off, a bell rang in the engine room, and a deck hand reported to Captain William Van Schaick that nearly a thousand tickets had been collected at the plank. That number didn’t include the 300 children under the age of 10, who didn’t require tickets. Including crew and catering staff, there were about 1,350 aboard the General Slocum as it steamed up the East River at 15 knots toward Long Island Sound, headed for Locust Grove, a picnic ground on Long Island’s North Shore, about two hours away. The Slocum headed out from its berth at 3rd Street on the East River at about 9:30 am with a band playing and the passengers joyously celebrating the smooth ride and beautiful weather. The excursion vessel had been chartered to take the group—almost all of them women and children—from Manhattan to picnic grounds on Long Island.

The Fire

As the ship reached 97th Street, some of the crew on the lower deck saw puffs of smoke rising through the wooden floorboards and ran below to the second cabin. But the men had never conducted any fire drills, and when they turned the ship’s fire hoses onto the flames, the rotten hoses burst. Rushing back above deck, they told Captain Van Schaick that they had encountered a “blaze that could not be conquered.” It was “like trying to put out hell itself.”  A fire began in the forward cabin, the steamboat General Slocum caught fire in the East River of New York City, including many children. In the course of 20 minutes an estimated 1,021 people died, mostly women and children.

In the neighborhood of Little Germany families were decimated, many losing a mother and two or more children. In some cases entire families were killed. At the Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, over 900 victims were buried, including 61 in a mass grave for the unidentified.

Addressing the disaster

Onlookers in Manhattan, seeing the flames, shouted for the captain to dock immediately. Instead, Van Schaick, fearing the steering gear would break down in the strong currents and leave the Slocum helpless in midriver, plowed full speed ahead. He aimed for a pier at 134th Street, but a tugboat captain warned him off, fearing the burning ship would ignite lumber stored there. Van Shaick made a run for North Brother Island, a mile away, hoping to beach the Slocum sideways so everyone would have a chance to get off. The ship’s speed, coupled with a fresh north wind, fanned the flames. Mothers began screaming for their children as passengers panicked on deck. As fire enveloped the Slocum, hundreds of passengers hurled themselves overboard, even though many could not swim.

The crew distributed life jackets, but they too were rotten. Boats sped to the scene and pulled a few passengers to safety, but mostly they encountered children’s corpses bobbing in the currents along the tidal strait known as Hell Gate. One newspaper described it as “a spectacle of horror beyond words to express—a great vessel all in flames, sweeping forward in the sunlight, within sight of the crowded city, while her helpless, screaming hundreds were roasted alive or swallowed up in waves.”  Although the captain was ultimately responsible for the safety of passengers, the owners had made no effort to maintain or replace the ship's safety equipment. The main deck was equipped with a standpipe connected to a steam pump, but the fire hose attached to the forward end of the standpipe, a 100 ft (30 m) length of "cheap unlined linen", had been allowed to rot and burst in several places. When the crew tried to put out the fire; they were unable to attach a rubber hose because the coupling of the linen hose remained attached to the standpipe. The ship was also equipped with hand pumps and buckets, but they were not used during the disaster; the crew gave up firefighting efforts after failing to attach the rubber hose.   The crew had not practiced a fire drill that year, and the lifeboats were tied up and inaccessible. (Some claim they were wired and painted in place.) 

Survivors reported that the life preservers were useless and fell apart in their hands, while desperate mothers placed life jackets on their children and tossed them into the water, only to watch in horror as their children sank instead of floating. Most of those on board were women and children who, like most Americans of the time, could not swim; victims found that their heavy wool clothing absorbed water and weighed them down in the river.

Passengers trampled children in their rush to the Slocum‘s stern. One man, engulfed in flames, leaped over the port side and shrieked as the giant paddle wheel swallowed him. Others blindly followed him to a similar fate. A 12 year-old boy shimmied up the ship’s flagstaff at the bow and hung there until the heat became too great and he dropped into the flames. Hundreds massed together, only to bake to death. The middle deck soon gave way with a terrific crash, and passengers along the outside rails were jolted overboard. Women and children dropped into the choppy waters in clusters. In the mayhem, a woman gave birth—and when she hurled herself overboard, her newborn in her arms, they both perished.

The captain beached the burning vessel on North Brother Island, but the stern of the ship, where most of the passengers had been forced by the fire, was left in ten to thirty feet  of water. Though there were life preservers  and lifeboats aboard, poor maintenance and neglect had made many of them useless. 

Unlike the Titanic which sank eight years later, where the crew was organized and disciplined in evacuating the ship, most of the Slocum crew of thirty six men pushed passengers out of the way and abandoned ship. The crew had never been trained in a fire drill and the few lifeboats on board were never lowered – they were wired down.

The panicked passengers were left to fend for themselves. The life preservers were strapped to the ceiling of the ship’s deck and were out of reach of many of the women and children. Those who could grab a life preserver had a nasty surprise waiting for them.

The Slocum and its life preservers had “passed inspection” only weeks before, without ever actually being checked. In reality the life preservers were rotten – filled with dried, pulverized cork.

When some passengers tried putting them on, they disintegrated in their hands. Others  who managed to jump into the water wearing the “good” life preservers, sank like a boulder was weighted around them.

Not only was the pulverized cork filling of the life preservers waterlogged without an iota of buoyancy, it seems some of the life preservers had metal weights added to them to bring their weight specifications up to standards. Fire hoses of the cheapest kind were also rotten from age and neglect, ruptured when activated and were rendered useless.

Women who strapped life preservers onto their children and tossed their small, loved ones overboard, watched in horror as they disappeared without ever coming back to the surface.

Weighed down by their heavy clothing and struggling against a strong tide, 400-600 passengers drowned after the ship was beached. Though estimates vary, a government report commission  into the disaster reported 955 passenger deaths—or about 70 percent.

Van Shaick was believed to be the last person off the Slocum when he jumped into the water and swam for shore, blinded and crippled. He would face criminal charges for his ship’s unpreparedness and be sentenced to 10 years in prison; he served four when he was pardoned by President William Howard Taft on Christmas Day, 1912.

Aftermath

 Within an hour, 150 bodies were stretched out on blankets covering the lawn and sands of North Brother Island. Most of them were women. One was still clutching her lifeless baby, who was “tenderly taken out of her arms and laid on the grass beside her.” Rescued orphans of 3, 4 and 5 years old milled about the beach, dazed. Hours would pass before they could leave the island, many taken to Bellevue Hospital to treat wounds and await the arrival of grief-stricken relatives.

At Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, where patients with typhoid and other contagious diseases had been quarantined, staff spotted the burning vessel approaching and quickly prepared the hospital’s engines and hoses to pump water, hoping to douse the flames. The island’s fire whistle blew and dozens of rescuers moved to the shore. Captain Van Schaick, his feet blistering from the heat below, managed to ground the Slocum sideways about 25 feet from shore. Rescuers swam to the ship and pulled survivors to safety. Nurses threw debris for passengers to cling to while others tossed ropes and life preservers. Some nurses dove into the water themselves and pulled badly burned passengers to safety. Still, the heat from the flames made it impossible to get close enough as the Slocum became engulfed from stem to stem.

Since there was no manifest of passengers the final death toll will never be exact, but it was probably more than 1021.  The official police report put the number at 1031 and The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper listed 1204 as dead or missing.

In the neighborhood of Little Germany families were decimated, many losing a mother and two or more children. In some cases entire families were killed. At the Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, over 900 victims were buried, including 61 in a mass grave for the unidentified.

The owners of the General Slocum, The Knickerbocker Steamboat Company escaped jail time for negligence. Knickerbocker President Frank Barnaby was indignant at people wanting to sue him or his company. Knickerbocker filed suit that a limit be fixed to their liability claimed by the plaintiffs as the number of suits grew for loss, damage and injury.The liability limit they wanted was not to exceed the value of the boat. That is the value of the boat after the fire and beaching and termination of the excursion should not exceed the sum of  for all the victims collectively — $5,000. That would amount to less than $5 paid per fatality and injured.

The owners then had the gall to claim that under maritime law that sum should be subject to the fees of the salvage and wreckage services performed. Essentially, they were claiming they should be limited to the current value of their wrecked boat which would be close to nothing. Sure enough, besides a fine they had to pay, Knickerbocker ended up paying nothing to the survivors or the victims’ families.

Ship safety inspectors Henry Lundberg and John Fleming who had passed the General Slocum despite numerous violations were indicted. Lundberg was tried three separate times for manslaughter but was never convicted.

Eight people were indicted by a federal grand jury after the disaster: the captain, two inspectors, and the president, secretary, treasurer, and commodore of the Knickerbocker Steamship Company.

Most boatmen felt that Van Schaick "was unjustly made a scapegoat for the resulting tragedy, instead of the owners of the steamer or the effectiveness of the life saving and fire fighting equipment then required — and the inspections of it by government inspectors". He was the only person convicted. He was found guilty on one of three charges: criminal negligence, for failing to maintain proper fire drills and fire extinguishers. The jury could not reach a verdict on the other two counts of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He spent three years and six months at Sing Sing prison before he was paroled. President Theodore Roosevelt declined to pardon Van Schaick. Van Schaick was finally released when the federal parole board under the William Howard Taft administration voted to free him on August 26, 1911. He was pardoned by President Taft on December 19, 1912; the pardon became effective on Christmas Day. After his death in 1927, Schaick was buried in Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York).

The neighborhood of Little Germany, which had been in decline for some time before the disaster as residents moved uptown,  almost disappeared afterward. With the trauma and arguments that followed the tragedy and the loss of many prominent settlers, most of the Lutheran Germans remaining in the Lower East Side eventually moved uptown. The church whose congregation chartered the ship for the fateful voyage was converted to a synagogue in 1940 after the area was settled by Jewish residents.

What do you think of the General Slocum Disaster? Let us know below.

Now read Richard’s article on the role of baseball in the US Civil War here.

A Brief History of Russian Museums - From Stalin to Putin

Russia has a very rich cultural history, and its museums have played an important role in the country. Here, Tim Brinkhof considers how Russia’s museums helped bring down one dictatorship only to build up another.

Soviet troops by the portico of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) during the Siege of Leningrad in 1943.

One of the most shocking museum exhibits to ever take place in Russia was about…underwear. “Memory of the Body: Underwear of the Soviet Era” opened at the City History Museum in St. Petersburg in 2000, offering an intimate look at life under communism by way of bras and boxers. Protests from embarrassed officials reinforced the curators’ message: that socialist prudishness survived the fall of the USSR itself.

There is more to museum exhibits than meets the eye. This is true everywhere, but especially in countries obsessed with (or haunted by) their own history. They not only preserve cultural memories from the past, but also reveal how that culture wishes to be perceived in the present. A change in exhibits, writes German historian Karl Schlögel in his newly translated book The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World, means “an alteration has taken place, a revision, a revaluation or a change in perspective.” Numerous revaluations happened inside Russia’s museums over the past century, and – when viewed in succession – they mirror the transformations of Russian society at large.

Bolsheviks

When the Bolsheviks took charge in 1917, they didn’t know what do with museums. According to his wife, Vladimir Lenin “was no great lover” of them, seeing them for what they arguably were at that point: trophy rooms of the fallen elite. Instead of disbanding museums, however, the revolutionaries opted to organize exhibits of their own.

For better or worse, Russia’s museum culture was reimagined along socialist lines. For better, because the Communist Party took collections from Saint Petersburg and Moscow and redistributed them across the countryside in an effort to decentralize cultural goods. (“This,” Schlögel writes, “is how masterpieces by Boris Kustodiev or Kazimir Malevich can still be found in remote locations where no one would ever expect to find them.”) For worse, because museums became places not of learning, but indoctrination. There were exhibits about atheism, railways, the Great Patriotic War, but not the Terror or the Holodomor. These topics were removed from museums, just as they were removed from schools.

Where Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Joseph Stalin permitted criticism of Stalinism in particular, Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika policies of the mid-1980s normalized criticism of the Soviet system in general. A “Ten Years Khrushchev” exhibit in Moscow’s Komsomol'skiy Prospekt confronted visitors with their own, uncensored past, from daily life inside the kommunalka or communal apartments, to the return of inmates from Stalin’s gulags. Many exhibits from this period featured objects from mass graves which were, at long last, allowed to be opened up.

Post-Soviet era

Of all chapters in the history of Russian museums, the one situated between the USSR’s collapse and the country’s return to contentious order under the Russian Federation is the foggiest. Dwindling political and financial security led to a boom in antiques smuggling, just as it had in 1917. Many museums were closed, while others issued massive layoffs. As Christianity returned to Russia, so did calls to convert locations like Petersburg’s St. Isaac’s Cathedral (turned into a museum by Bolsheviks) back into churches. On the other side of the spectrum was the progressive “Memory of the Body” exhibit, which had visitors giggling at how uncomfortable and unsexy their state-issued undergarments used to be.

Museums in Vladimir Putin’s Russia heavily resemble their Soviet counterparts. Not just in their choice of subject – exhibits applaud military campaigns in Afghanistan and Chechnya while museums dedicated to LGBTQ history are closed – but also in their approach. Rather than letting visitors loose and allowing them to draw their own conclusions from the exhibits, as they are in western countries, Russian museums have – as Schlögel’s puts it – “an order of their own, much like that of old-time school textbooks, so that whoever follows the narrative line cannot really go astray. They follow the red threat and at the end of the trail, having successfully negotiated all the vicissitudes and dangers, arrive at an end point, which is indispensable in any historical narrative.”

Under the Communist Party, this narrative was Marxism: the preordained process of dialectic materialism that guided humanity from prehistory to feudalism to capitalism and finally, following the USSR’s example, towards communism. Under Putin, Marxism has been replaced by a new narrative of Russian exceptionalism, in which the proudly illiberal country – a civilization onto its own – is destined to become the world’s one and only superpower. It is, as historian Ian Garner shows in his new book Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia's Fascist Youth, a narrative full of inconsistences and contradictions, but which – thanks to state-owned television, social media, and museums – is accepted by a frightening number of Russian citizens.

What do you think of Russian museum culture? Let us know below.

Can Neville Chamberlain’s Career be Defined his Failed Appeasement Policy?

Neville Chamberlain will without a doubt continue to be a controversial figure in British history. His tenure as a British Prime Minister will be always overshadowed by his last seven months in that position as German forces swept across France and Belgium forcing the British and French evacuation from Dunkirk. His appeasement policy has been portrayed as a weak and ineffective Prime Minister who sold out to Hitler. This perspective has been allowed to stand as the defining feature of his career but there was more to Chamberlain than his appeasement policy and the disaster that ensued.

Steve Prout looks at Neville Chamberlain’s career.

Neville Chamberlain holding the signed Munich Agreement in 1938 after meeting Hitler. The agreement committed to peaceful methods.

Lloyd George and the First World War

Chamberlain first started out in life as a successful businessperson before serving as the Lord Mayor of Birmingham between 1914-16. Afterwards he took the post as Director-General of National Service during the First World War under David Lloyd George. It would not be a successful start in his political career because he was often at odds with Lloyd George who was particularly critical of Chamberlains’ techniques. Chamberlains and his supporters would argue that he frequently lacked the support and clarity needed from Lloyd George to be successful in that role.

Both would harbour mutual dislike of each other that would continue up to Chamberlains death. Lloyd George would state that Chamberlain was “not one of my most successful selections” and in later added, ‘When I saw that pinhead, I said to myself, he won’t be of any use.’ Chamberlain in return referred to Lloyd George as "that dirty little Welsh Attorney.” Suffice to say it was a relationship that would never repair and resurface much later at when Chamberlain was at his most vulnerable.

Not all of Chamberlain’s peers agreed with Lloyd George’s comments. John Dillon, an Irish Nationalist MP, stated in a rather flowery fashion that "if Mr. Chamberlain were an archangel, or if he were Hindenburg and Bismarck and all the great men of the world rolled into one, his task would be wholly beyond his powers".  Bonar Law in a more succinct manner called Chamberlain’s role an "absolutely impossible task" and would later rescue Chamberlain’s career. Meanwhile Chamberlain's successor Auckland Geddes received more favor and support than Chamberlain ever received.

In 1918 when Chamberlain became a Member of Parliament he refused to serve under Lloyd George and in 1920 he refused a junior appointment offered by Andrew Bonar Law in the Ministry of Health. In October 1922, the situation changed when Lloyd George’s Coalition Government collapsed and presented Chamberlain new opportunities and a succession of top-level posts would follow.

Despite Lloyd George’s disparaging comments Bonar-Law was impressed with Chamberlain’s administerial abilities and appointed him as Postmaster-General. A promotion to Minister of Health in March 1923 soon followed and his advancement would continue. In August 1923 Bonar Law was forced to resign due to his ill health and Stanley Baldwin who took over as Prime Minister appointed Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

His ascent to the top levels of government was as fast as it was brief. Within five months Baldwins Conservative government was defeated in the December 1923 general election and the first Labour government took power in January 1924. Chamberlain’s contribution almost went unnoticed, but renowned historian AJP Taylor said of Chamberlain “nearly all of the domestic achievements of Conservative governments between the wars stand to his credit.”  The work he did in the interwar years was considerable.

Domestic affairs – politics in the interwar period

Neville Chamberlain was highly active in all the offices he held. He possessed a drive to reform and promote efficiency. By 1929 he had presented twenty-five bills to Parliament of which twenty-one of this number had become enacted into law and practice. Despite this Opinion remains divided concerning Chamberlains effectiveness as politician and Prime Minister. His achievements were numerous.

The introduction of the Local Government Act of 1929 abolished and reformed the obsolete poor laws in Britain that were not fit for purpose. The administration of poverty relief was placed in the hands of local authorities. One aspect of this act made medical treatment of the infirmaries free to those who could not afford it. In a pre-1945 Welfare State Britain this was a forward-thinking piece of legislation.

The Housing Act in 1922 addressed another set of issues. The necessity for this piece of legislation arose due to the shortfall in housing created by the previous Liberal Government, who under Christopher Addison had promised “homes fit for heroes” for the returning soldiers but the reality was that this promise had not delivered upon. Chamberlain was tasked to address this shortfall. He was of the belief that Government high subsides were the reason building costs were remaining too high and so stunted progress. Being a former businessperson and quintessential conservative, he believed the private building sector would perform the task more efficiently and so reduced these subsides. He was not entirely wrong because by 1929 438,000 houses were built. This was in the words chosen by AJP Taylor’s “the one solid work of this (Baldwins) dull government.” But critics viewed the Housing Act as only helping the lower middle classes and not the industrial workers giving the impression that he was the “enemy of the poor”. This perception would contribute to losing the Conservatives a substantial number of votes.

The introduction of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act 1925 lowered the age for entitlement to receive the old age state pension from 70 to 65 (there has been little change since until the twenty first century), and it allowed provisions for dependents of deceased workers. Although it was met with criticism for not extending far enough it was still nevertheless a progressive step forward for pre-welfare state Britain. Chamberlain’s justification to his critics was that the act was not intended to replace private thrift and that the sum was the” maximum financially feasible” within budgetary means.

The Factory Act of 1937 was another successful and progressive piece of legislation for the time. Whether the motive out of altruistic reasons or due to a growing, effective opposition from the Labour Party and the unions it still was particularly far reaching. This Act set various standards factory working condition which addressed working hours, sanitation, lighting, and ventilation. This had significantly improved working conditions set by an earlier Act in 1901. The official wording by the Home Office, signed by Samuel Hoare was that the act presented an “important milestone on the road to safety, health and welfare in Industry.” The Holiday Pay Act of 1938 would follow which allowed workers one full week’s holiday pay. By modern times this seems paltry, but in the context of the time it was a significant move forward for the working population.

Chamberlain had his supporters although much of this support came posthumously. AJP Taylor said that “Chamberlain did more to improve local government while serving as Health Minister than did anyone else in the 20th century” and from an American perspective, according to Bentley Gilbert, Chamberlain was "the most successful social reformer in the seventeen years between 1922 and 1939… after 1922 no one else is really of any significance."

Dutton considers, later in 2001, that Chamberlain's accomplishments at the Ministry of Health were "considerable achievements by any standards" and of Chamberlain himself “a man who was throughout his life on the progressive left of the Conservative Party, a committed believer in social progress and in the power of government at both the national and local level, to do good” - but the war clouds that were gathering above Europe and his domestic achievements would be forgotten.

Munich, Churchill, and the road to war

In his last few months as Prime Minister Chamberlain and his appeasement policy was attacked from his own party and opposition parties with accusations of being blinkered, narrow and supporters of appeasement were now labelled cowards whereas before they were saviours for averting war. This is not entirely fair as for Chamberlain’s government these were not normal times and the problems placed before his government left his few alternatives that sat comfortable or palatable with little or no alternative but to acquiesce to Hitler’s demands.

Chamberlain’s bellicose opponents were either suffering from a delusion that Britain could face the many growing threats abroad alone. There were no suitable allies to form effective alliances with, the USSR was as untrustworthy as Germany, and therefore any containment from the east for the time being was unlikely. There were other threats outside of Europe such as Japan which threatened Britain in the Asia. The USA, a power in the Pacific, was following an isolationist policy. Adding to this were Italian aspirations for empire building in North Africa, and there Britain needed a cautious approach.

Churchill would ignore all of this, re-write history, and instead portray Chamberlain in a poor light whilst at the same flattering his own place in history. On the one hand he said “I have received a great deal of help from Chamberlain. His kindness and courtesy to me in our new relations have touched me. I have joined hands with him and must act with perfect loyalty.”  Then on the other hand he said "Poor Neville will come badly out of history. I know, I will write that history" and he ensured that this happened in his memoirs, The Gathering Storm, in 1948 by referring to Chamberlain as “an upright, competent, well-meaning man fatally handicapped by a deluded self-confidence which compounded an already debilitating lack of both vision and diplomatic experience”.

For many years, his version of events remained unchallenged, but we wonder how much of this can be taken as a gospel of those times. We forget that whereas Chamberlain sought to work with Hitler and was later reviled for doing so, Churchill had no qualms with working with other dictators as we would see for example with Stalin in 1941 and in the 1930s his praise of Mussolini. Stalin’s relationship with the democracies would prove equally toxic. After the war Eastern Europe would be subjected to further totalitarian rule which would last longer than Hitler’s domination of Europe.

Chamberlain was not fooled by the outcome of Munich affair, and he knew by that point in time that Hitler could not be contained nor trusted. He immediately started in earnest an ambitious rearmament programme. This programme was on no small scale and challenges the accusations of complacency that history critics accuse him of. In May 1938 after four months elapsing since Munich agreement, Chamberlain told the annual Conservative Women’s Conference that “we have to make ourselves so strong that it will not be worthwhile for anyone to attempt to attack us”.

Rearmament

Chamberlain began a vast expansion in Britain’s armed services. Whilst doing so he was attacked by the Labour Party for ‘scaremongering, disgraceful in a responsible politician’ because of his support of expansion of Britain’s military capacity. By April 1939, rearmament was swallowing 21.4 per cent of Britain’s Gross National Product, a figure that reached 51.7 per cent by 1940. War was delayed but it was to no avail to “a man of no luck.” The failure of the Norwegian campaign and the subsequent invasion of the Ardennes quickly changed the political landscape for Chamberlain, eroded the support of his own party and of the majority of as in May 1940 British troops were being evacuated off Dunkirk.

The results of Chamberlain’s rearmament programme were not immediately appreciated but the advances made in Air Power and Sonar were vital for the Battle of Britain. The British Spitfire for instance was one of the most up to date fighter planes of the time. The British expeditionary force at the time of its mobilisation was one of the most modern and mechanised armies in the world. Within the disaster of the Norway there was one redeeming feature - that naval battles crippled the German Navy so much it could not be relied upon by Hitler in his plans to invade Britain. All these subtle factors brought Britain a chance, albeit a hairs breadth, of resisting an invasion if nothing more. The realists also knew there was little chance of an offensive and Britain could only consider her meagre defensive options.

Although Chamberlain was assigned the blame for the failure to hold Norway he was not the architect of the plan. This plan was in fact devised and supported by Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty who made many unpunished errors in the matter. He had the diminished confidence of his Conservative peers owing to his costly actions in The First World War and India. Some feared that Norway would be a repeat of Gallipoli. In the debate in The House of Commons in May 1940 when questioned about the campaign Churchill said “I take complete responsibility for everything that has been done by the Admiralty, and I take my full share of the burden” only to be rebuffed by Lloyd George who vented his criticism out on Chamberlain whose fate was already sealed.

Chamberlain was not alone in his naivety that Germany was economically stretched and that a simple naval blockade would deprive her of her natural resources. Churchill even displayed lack of foresight over Germany’s strategic position when the Soviet Union invaded Poland when he immediately proclaimed, “Hitler’s Gateway the East was closed.” Under the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union was providing vast quantities of war materials to Germany. It was a spoken folly equal to “Hitler has missed the bus.”

The war materials the Soviet Union provided to Germany throughout the early years of the war were enough to render any Allied blockade ineffective. Whether Churchill knew the quantities and the extent is not known but it is likely that this would have been available via the British intelligence services. The true extent of the aid the Soviets gave was over 820,000 metric tons (900,000 short tons; 810,000 long tons) of oil, 1,500,000 metric tons (1,700,000 short tons; 1,500,000 long tons) of grain and 130,000 metric tons (140,000 short tons; 130,000 long tons) of manganese ore. This considerable amount of material excludes rubber and other industrial outputs that enabled Germany’s war machine. If Chamberlains political judgements were flawed then equally so were Churchills, but he was not in the Premier’s seat and so escaped much of the fallout.

Critics

Old adversaries and new would be particularly visceral in the debates that followed in parliament. It is interesting how some of Chamberlain’s most vocal and loudest critics were also the most hypocritical. Leo Amery famously quoted “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!". Leo Amery was a supporter in the 1930s of Italian aggression in Abyssinia and Japanese ambitions in Manchuria. Lloyd George, who held a deep dislike of Chamberlain, also could not resist but he also conveniently forgot his courting of Hitler in September 1936 and his praising of a “pro-English Hitler”. Chamberlain’s premiership ended but he continued to serve in the higher levels of government until his death.

Chamberlain’s political career continued long after Munich and it was not yet over. He still served cordially under Churchill in the war cabinet. Despite the war controversy Chamberlain, in Churchill’s absence due to Prime Ministerial duties, still deputised and chaired the war cabinet meetings until cancer finally forced him to resign in 1940.

Chamberlain spoke of Churchill, “Winston has behaved with the most unimpeachable loyalty. Our relations are excellent, and I know he finds my help of terrific value to him.” Churchill reciprocated: “I have received a great deal of help from Chamberlain. His kindness and courtesy to me in our new relations have touched me. I have joined hands with him and must act with perfect loyalty.” And upon Chamberlains death he said. “What shall I do without poor Neville?,” as Churchill admitted that he “was relying on him (Chamberlain) to look after the Home Front.” Chamberlain had remarkable administrative skills Churchill recognised and still was of value to Britain’s war effort. Churchill himself admitted that the two men could work respectfully and professionally with each other.

In a eulogy in the House of Commons Churchill spoke highly in praise “He had a precision of mind and an aptitude for business which raised him far above the ordinary levels of our generation. He had a firmness of spirit which was not often elated by success, seldom downcast by failure and never swayed by panic…He met the approach of death with a steady eye. If he grieved at all, it was that he could not be a spectator to our victory, but he died with the comfort of knowing that his country had, at least, turned the corner.”

Churchill would conveniently forget this in the post war period and be one of many to blight Chamberlain's career and reputation. Dr Adam Timmins, reviewing the book Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie sees that too much emphasis was put on one event and one person and no other factors that guided that decision which at the time appeared the only sensible option only hindsight offers other alternatives. Without the benefit of hindsight, the phenomena of Hitler were something that had never been witness or confronted before, and with that it is of no surprise that the states people of the 1930s failed to accurately judge him.

Conclusion

Neville Chamberlain’s presence in British history will always be overshadowed by Munich and the road to war. This will always continue to be enforced by surviving accounts such as Michael Foot’s Guilty Men or Churchill’s post war memoirs, which places the failure to contain Hitler together with the early misfortunes unfairly on his shoulders.

When we remove all of this from the emotional equation Neville Chamberlain has been unjustly criticised and maligned by political opportunists of the time who failed to understand the limitations Britain faced. Chamberlain was proof of the adage that “history is written by victors”, a phrase invented by Churchill who did just that when writing about Chamberlain. He conveniently chose to omit his own failures and ill judgement in the early days of the war. It is that context that the Director of Military Operations, Major-General J.N. Kennedy, remarked on later during the campaign in North Africa. "He (Churchill) has a very keen eye to the records of this war”, Kennedy wrote in his diary, “and perhaps unconsciously he puts himself and his actions in the most favourable light.” Churchill’s contradictions and self-aggrandization are unhelpful and misleading.

Chamberlain was the unfortunate victim of circumstances. AJP Taylor terms him a man of no luck whom the cards always ran against. He had a shaky start against Lloyd George and his humiliation at Hitler’s hands bookended his political career. The tide of the war would turn against Hitler and deliver Churchill two titanic allies with immense resources, the USA and T=the USSR, to form a formidable alliance. It was a matter of fortunate timing that Chamberlain would be denied and that Churchill would enjoy.

Chamberlain’s other work, which brought about significant and successful social reform, went unnoticed. At the outbreak of war, he said in Parliament "Everything I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins." Chamberlain’s legacy would be marred by his unwavering desire to avoid war that was further tainted and twisted by the hypocrisy of his critics. Neville Chamberlain will always be a subject of polemical debate and his reputation will continue to be blighted.

When do you think of Neville Chamberlain’s career? Let us know below.

Now read about Britain’s relationship with the European dictators during the inter-war years here.

References

Stuart Ball - Professor of Modern British History at the University of Leicester. Portrait of a Party: The Conservative Party in Britain, 1918–1945 (Oxford, 2013).

Leo McKinstry - In Defence of Neville Chamberlain – Article the Spectator Nov 2020

David Dutton – Reputations – Neville Chamberlain – May 2001 – Bloomsbury Academic

AJP Taylor English History 1914-45 and Origins of The Second World War

Graham Hughes, history graduate (BA) from St David’s University, Anglo-Nazi Alliance Debate

Ulysses Grant versus Robert Lee: US Civil War Generals

On April 6, 1865 Union forces managed to capture a considerable chunk of Lee’s army at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek. And by April 8, Union cavalry had cut off Lee’s further retreat to the west. Grant wrote Lee with a summons to surrender. The Confederate general demurred for as long as there seemed a chance to break out and continue the retreat. But when one key subordinate assured him that the situation was hopeless, Lee said sadly, “Then there is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

Richard Bluttal tells us about the US Civil War generals.

A reproduction of a Thomas Nast painting showing the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865.

On that day in April 1865, Lee arrived at the McLean house about one o'clock and took a seat in the parlor. A half hour later, the sound of horses on the stage road signaled the approach of General Grant. Entering the house Grant greeted Lee  in the center of the room. The generals presented a contrasting appearance, Lee in a new uniform and Grant in his mud-spattered field uniform. Grant, who remembered meeting Lee once during the Mexican War, asked the Confederate general if he recalled their meeting. Lee replied that he did, and the two conversed in a very cordial manner, for approximately 25 minutes. The subject had not yet gotten around to surrender until finally Lee, feeling the anguish of defeat, brought Grant's attention to it. Grant, who later confessed to being embarrassed at having to ask for the surrender from Lee, said simply that the terms would be just as he had outlined them in a previous letter. Aside from Grant and Lee, only Lt. Colonel Marshall and perhaps a half dozen of Grant’s staff officers were present for most of the meeting. Approximately a dozen other Union officers entered the room.

briefly, including Captain Robert Todd Lincoln. Few besides Grant left detailed accounts of what transpired and while some accounts disagree on the details, there are many key consistencies.

Terms

The heart of the terms was that Confederates would be paroled after surrendering their weapons and other military property. If surrendered soldiers did not take up arms again, the United States government would not prosecute them. Grant also allowed Confederate officers to keep their mounts and side arms. Although Lee agreed to the terms, he asked if his men could keep their horses and mules in the

cavalry and artillery. The Confederate army provided weapons and military property, but the men provided their own mounts. Grant indicated he would not amend the terms but would issue a separate order allowing that to happen. Lee said he thought that would have a happy effect on his men. By 3:00p.m., the formal copies of the letters indicating the terms and acceptance of the surrender were signed and exchanged, and General Lee left the McLean House to return to his camp. Horace Porter, one of Grant’s staff officers recorded that Lee paused at the top of the stairs and energetically “smote” his hands together three times. Grant and his staff followed him and removed their hats as a respectful, farewell gesture which Lee returned in kind before riding down the stage road.

The Start

This war opened with a clash between half-armed farmers and half-trained soldiers. From the beginning materials and industry were complete in  the North and throughout the war were lacking in the South. The South did not have the type of industrial advancement as the North. If was lacking in methods of transportation such as railroads. The Northern soldier was compelled to fight in his enemy’s country, but he was compelled to devastate it as well as conquer it.

The story of Grant and Lee is a very complex one. You are talking about two of the greatest generals in our history who had so much in common as education and training but there were differences in terms of character and military tactician.  

The author Bruce Caton explains it best in his article Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts. “The most obvious difference was in terms of early childhood. Lee was tidewater Virginia, and in his background were family, culture, and tradition. . . the age of chivalry transplanted to a New World which was making its own legends and its own myths. He embodied a way of life that had come down through the age of knighthood and the English country squire. Lee stood for the feeling that it was somehow of advantage to human society to have a pronounced inequality in the social structure. There should be a leisure class, backed by ownership of land; in turn, society itself should be keyed to the land as the chief source of wealth and influence. It would bring forth (according to this ideal) a class of men with a strong sense of obligation to the community; men who lived not to gain advantage for themselves, but to meet the solemn obligations which had been laid on them by the very fact that they were privileged. He was Virginian all the way.

Grant, the son of a tanner on the Western frontier, was everything Lee was not. He had come up the hard way and embodied nothing in particular except the eternal toughness and sinewy fiber of the men who grew up beyond the mountains. He was one of a body of men who owed reverence and obeisance to no one, who were self-reliant to a fault, who cared hardly anything for the past but who had a sharp eye for the future.

Contrast

And that, perhaps, is where the contrast between Grant and Lee becomes most striking. The Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region. He lived in a static society which could endure almost anything except change. Instinctively, his first loyalty would go to the locality in which that society existed. He would fight to the limit of endurance to defend it, because in defending it he was defending everything that gave his own life its deepest meaning. The Westerner, on the other hand, would fight with an equal tenacity for the broader concept of society. He fought so because everything he lived by was tied to growth, expansion, and a constantly widening horizon. What he lived by would survive or fall with the nation itself. He could not possibly stand by unmoved in the face of an attempt to destroy the Union. He would combat it with everything he had, because he could only see it as an effort to cut the ground out from under his feet.”

They both graduated from West Point, Lee earlier due to age. At the age of 18, Robert leaves for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which had earned one demerit. Robert E. Lee graduates second in his class from West Point. While at the military academy, Lee is one of six students in his graduating class to never receive a demerit. His classmates note his drive for perfection and focused, secluded personality with the nickname "Marble Model." As one of the top cadets, Lee is able to choose the branch of service for his first assignment and elects to work for the Army’s Engineer Corps. Lee, second in his West Point class, an engineering officer, a career military officer, truly was a great general. As a tactician, he was head and shoulders above Grant.  Good defensively, Lee was even better on the offensive. He was bold and decisive, a calculating gambler. Can anyone who has studied the Battle of Chancellorsville deny it? Splitting his army on several occasions, he surprised his opponents and won the day. Lee was a master of the holding attack; a tactic George Marshall would later instill as the only tactic taught at the Army War College prior to World War II. Lee  fought in the Mexican American War (1846-1848) as one of General Winfield Scott’s chief aides. He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer, which allowed him to discover routes that the Mexicans hadn’t defended because they thought it was impossible to pass through the terrain.General Scott later wrote that Lee was “the very best soldier I ever saw in the field”.

In 1839, seventeen-year-old Hiram Ulysses Grant received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. It changed the course of his life—and his name. Grant always disliked his first name and was commonly known by his middle name. He wanted to swap his first and middle names when he entered the Academy. However, Congressman Thomas Hamer had submitted Grant’s application to West Point under the name “Ulysses S. Grant.” Hamer knew the boy as Ulysses and, at a loss for his middle name, chose “S” because Grant’s mother’s maiden name was Simpson. Later on, as result of military victors in the West, the USG becomes unconditional surrender Grant.

West Point

Grant’s experiences at West Point and as a young officer provided both formal and incidental preparation for his later career and gave him insights into future Civil War comrades and foes. Grant, for his part, was a keen observer of human nature who believed that attending West Point at “the right time”—he encountered more than 50 future Civil War generals there—together with his experiences in Mexico, proved “of great advantage.” In addition to teaching “practical lessons,” the Mexican War introduced him to “older officers, who became conspicuous in the rebellion.” More important and what developed into a major military strategy was his proficiency in being a quartermaster, one whose prime responsibility is managing supply trains and transportation  in a hostile environment, this became essential during the Civil War.

Surviving drawings and paintings from Grant’s West Point years show early signs of what the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz called a “special gift” common to successful painters and generals alike: namely, a remarkable visual memory. After Grant studied a map, his staff officer Horace Porter recalled, “it seemed to become photographed indelibly upon his brain.” Besides having an incredible gift of memory, he also excelled in horsemanship. Grant experienced combat for the first time on May 8, 1846, at the Battle of Palto Alto during the Mexican American War. Grant served as regimental quartermaster, but yearned for a combat role; when finally allowed, he led a charge at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. . He demonstrated his equestrian ability at the Battle of Monterrey  by volunteering to carry a dispatch past snipers, where he hung off the side of his horse, keeping the animal between him and the enemy. 

Historians increasingly have pointed to the importance of Grant's experience as an assistant quartermaster during the war. Although he was initially averse to the position, it prepared Grant in understanding military supply routes, transportation systems, and logistics, particularly with regard to "provisioning a large, mobile army operating in hostile territory," according to biographer Ronald White. Grant came to recognize how wars could be won or lost by crucial factors that lay beyond the tactical battlefield. Serving as assistant quartermaster made Grant a complete soldier, and learning how to supply an entire army gave Grant the training to sustain large armies. This experience as a quartermaster will later benefit him In the Civil War.

After his victory at Donelson, Grant never failed to base his strategy upon supply, more than often than not the latter strategy upon supplies Lee based his upon search, after supplies and consequently suffered chronically from a shortage of supplies and a dispersion of forces. In the object of the campaign Grant eclipsed Lee, not only because his army was stronger, but because it was better organized and supplied.

From his training and time spent at West Point a number of  characteristics were greatly enforced such the ability to develop lucid orders, even in the heat of battle.  General Meade’s chief of staff commented that “there is one striking feature of Grant’s orders; no matter how hurriedly he may write them on the field, no one ever has the slightest doubt as to their meaning or even has to read them over a second time to understand them.” His study of maps and creating artwork at West Point was extremely useful. James McPherson attributes to Grant a “topographical memory.” He “could remember every feature of the terrain over which he traveled and find his way over it again; he could also look at a map and visualize the features of terrain he had never seen. . . . Grant could see in his mind the disposition of troops over thousands of square miles, visualize their relationship to roads and terrain, and know how and where to move them to take advantage of topography.” His perseverance was that of history, in 1864–65, Grant demonstrated his perseverance as he carried out his campaign of adhesion against Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, achieving all his goals within a year.  Grant was a simple man who dealt with the facts as he found them. While his contemporaries saw the war in all its complexities and too often took counsel of their fears, from Belmont to Appomattox Grant saw the main chance, stuck to it, and thus led his armies to victory.” When President Lincoln brought Grant east from his triumphs at Vicksburg and Chattanooga to confront Lee, Grant refused to back off, waging a bloody war of attrition which last exactly a year. His focus, early in the war was to defeat, capture or destroy opposing armies, not simply occupying geographic positions, was critical to his success.

War tactics

Grant had no fear of using all the resources that were available to him. Remember the North always enjoyed a substantial edge in manpower and almost every manufacturing category, He recognition and deployment of these resources stands as one of his achievements. Grant was decisive. Colonel James F. Rusling of the quartermaster general’s staff recalled that in the winter of 1863–64, a quartermaster officer approached Grant for approval of millions of dollars of expenditures for the coming Atlanta campaign, and Grant approved the expenditure after briefly examining the papers involved. Questioning Grant’s swift decision, the officer asked him if he was sure he was right. Grant replied, “No, I am not, but in war, anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong, we shall soon find out and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.”

Grant has gone down to history as a bludgeon general, a general who eschewed maneuver and who with head down, seeing red, charged his enemy again and again like a bull: indeed an extraordinary conclusion, for no general, not excepting Lee, and few generals in any other war, made greater use of maneuver in the winning of his campaigns, if not of his battles. Without fear of contradiction, it may be said that Grant’s object was consistent; strategically it was to threaten his enemy’s base of operations.’ Lee acted on the spur of the moment and never once brought fruition, because he acted so impulsively as to  be unprepared to take full advantage of them.  The Seven Days campaign ended in the disaster of Malvern Hill, the Second Manassas campaign in that of Antietam and the Chancellorsville campaign led to Gettysburg.

War was very simple to him, you have a job to do, you go out and do it to your fullest. One of his biographers said of him “His success was the success of sheer common sense-----which is almost the same thing as generalship—and of American Democracy. “  Here is a man who is not only capable but self-reliant, and  its self-reliance which nearly always wins over a superior, because it relieves him of onus of a work which he himself can not control.  His honesty and modesty towards himself endowed him with wisdom; he could discover his own mistakes and was never stampeded by his success. Grant’s outlook was simpler and consequently more all-embracing. He sees the war as a whole far more completely than so than even Lee saw it.  He is the preeminent grant-strategist, while Lee is the preeminently the field strategical. His orders are simple , direct and unmistakable. Lee’s more often than not are vague and frequently verbal.

He relied on his staff for detail not ideas, which was his job. He was able to bear in mind a clear picture of the topography of the country he operated in. This would enable him to work out a strategic problem mentally with more certainty than could one who does not have this ability.  When others were at their wits ends Grant was perfectly calm and collected.  With the Vicksburg campaign, in the time that a plan was essential General McPherson offered him a glass of liquor, Grants response. “Mac, you know your whiskey won’t help me to think; give me a dozen of the best cigars  you can find…. I think by the time I have finished them I shall have this job pretty nearly planned. “

As  Bruce Catton later goes on saying, “Each man had, to begin with, the great virtue of utter tenacity and fidelity. Grant fought his way down the Mississippi Valley in spite of acute personal discouragement and profound military handicaps. Lee hung on in the trenches at Petersburg after hoping itself had died. In each man there was an indomitable quality. . . . the born fighter's refusal to give up as long as he can still remain on his feet and lift his two fists. Daring and resourcefulness they had, too, the ability to think faster and move faster than the enemy. These were the qualities which gave Lee the dazzling campaigns of Second Manassas and Chancellorsville and won Vicksburg for Grant.”

Grant was a mass of contradictions: loved order and yet could find no place in an orderly world. He hated war, and yet found his place there above all his fellows. He went to West Point not to be a soldier but because he was determined to escape the life of a tanner, and West Point did that for him. He never failed to look at every problem from the simplest point of view, and to answer it in the simplest possible manner. He has said he watched the progress of the Army of the Potomac ever since it was organized and has been greatly interested in reading the accounts of the splendid fighting it has done. This is very illuminating for a few generals who had to face his problems would have troubled to find the time to examine those of others hundreds of miles away.  

Flaws

Grant also had his flaws. As a tactician, he was horrible. He seemed to know only one tactic – the frontal assault. Time and time again, he threw troops at entrenched positions, only to suffer incredible casualties. At Vicksburg, he attacked strong fortifications and suffered accordingly. Did he learn to try other methods? No. At Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor he did it again on an even grander scale, suffering even grander casualties. Grant seems to be one of those Civil War generals, of whom there are quite a few, who did not understand the changes the rifled musket forced on tactics. Frontal assaults no longer worked, but many a general seemed to think if only another division were thrown in, the result would be different. 

Grant’s modesty, lucid orders, topographical memory, full use of his staff, perseverance, full use of Union resources, minimizing support personnel, full use of assigned generals, decisiveness, moral courage, political common sense, focus on enemy armies, maneuverability, and intelligent aggressiveness all combined to make him the best general of the Civil War and to demolish the myth of “Grant the Butcher.” Grant was one of the greatest generals in American history.

Lee

On April 18, 1861, as rising star in the U.S. Military, Lee is called to a meeting with Francis Blair, a close associate of Abraham Lincoln. Blair offers Lee command of the Union Army, but Lee declines the offer, unwilling to fight against his home state of Virginia. Lee next seeks the advice of his former commander and Director of the War Department, Winfield Scott. Lee explains his divided loyalties to Scott, but his superior refuses to allow him to "sit out" the war.  On  April 20, 1861 After days of deliberation, Lee resigns from the United States Army. He states in a letter to his Union-supporting sister, Anne Marshall, that "with all of my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizens, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home." Just two days later, the governor of Virginia assigns Lee to command the Virginia forces for the Confederate Army.  This is perhaps where the contrast between Lee and Grant is so striking. As historian Bruce Catton says, “the Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region. His first loyalty would go to the locality in which that society existed. On other hand the Westerner would fight with an equal tenacity for the broader concept of society, “ or for his country. Lee was a Virginian first and a Confederate second. This trait was harmful, even though he was not the commander-in-chief, due to his crucial role as Jefferson Davis’s primary military advisor throughout the war.

As Catton states, “So Grant and Lee were in complete contrast, representing two diametrically opposed elements in American life. Grant was the modern man emerging; beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden down from the old age of chivalry, lance in hand, silken banner fluttering over his head. Each man was the perfect champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths and his weaknesses from the people he led. Yet it was not all contrast, after all. Different as they were--in background, in personality, in underlying aspiration--these two great soldiers had much in common. Under everything else, they were marvelous fighters. Furthermore, their fighting qualities were really very much alike.” Despite his lack of manpower and material, Lee’s military genius was the principal factor in keeping the Confederacy alive. He was a legend in his own lifetime. In May 1862 Stonewall Jackson wrote, “Lee is the only man I know whom I would follow blindfold. “ His soldiers, to whom he was either ‘Uncle Robert’ or ‘Marse Robert’ idolized him.

For another difference, Lee was not a good quartermaster. The Army of Northern Virginia was always poorly equipped. Much of its equipment and supplies were taken from the Army of the Potomac after their numerous victories, but there was never enough. Not all of this blame can be laid at the feet of Lee, though. The Confederacy was woefully short of the industry needed to supply its armies, and the Northern blockade prevented adequate supplies from being imported as the war dragged on. Some may lay additional fault on the South’s lack of railroads to deliver supplies. Virginia, however, did not suffer from this lack. Finally, northern Virginia was fought over so much that it simply could not feed the army. Lee was also determined to include Europe in his war with the North. On April 7, 1865 he said to General Pendleton; “ I have never believed we could, against the gigantic combination   of our subjugation, make good in the long run our independence unless foreign powers should directly or indirectly, assist us.”

Strategist?

Another major difference, was Lee as a strategist. In a word, he was not. His concern was northern Virginia and nothing else. Throughout the war, he resisted attempts by Jefferson Davis to draw forces from the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce the western armies. Lee was obsessed with the operations in Virginia and urged that additional reinforcements be brought to the Old Dominion from the West, where Confederates defended ten times the area in which Lee operated.  Only once did it happen, when Longstreet went west and fought at Chattanooga, but not without Lee’s efforts to stop it. He also opposed attempts to make him commander in chief of Southern forces until it was too late for it to be of any benefit. Lee’s Civil War strategy concentrated all the resources he could obtain and retain almost exclusively in the eastern theater of operations. His approach overlooked the strength of the Confederacy in its size and lack of communications, which required the Union to conquer and occupy it. He often refused requests by President Jefferson Davis to comply with requests to send critical reinforcements to the West. Lee was obsessed with Virginia and the moral aspects of the war. His one and only grand strategy was to terrify Washington. This would have been a perfectly sound object had his army been well trained and provided with a grand siege train, which was greatly limited in materials and funding.  Only once did Lee agree to send a portion of his army west. He delayed for two weeks from Virginia which caused many of them to arrive only after the Battle of Chickamauga and without their artillery.

Additionally, and most importantly, Lee failed to realize that the Confederacy’s best hope of survival was to hold out. Since the South had a lack of fighting men compared to the North, its best hope was to keep casualties to a minimum, to live to fight another day. Lee’s offensive tactics ensured the Army of Northern Virginia sustained greater casualties than it could afford. Had he fought defensively most of the time, Lee would have saved soldiers who could fight again, perhaps outlasting the North’s will to win. That Lee though loyal to Virginia, was at heart disloyal to the Confederacy is absurd. To him the base of the Confederacy was but the base of Virginia because the only form of attack he really understood was the moral offensive, and Virginia enabled him to carry this out.

While the North was compelled through force of circumstances to develop its resources the South, relaying on Europe for its munitions of war, failed to do so, with the result, that more and more did Southern policy develop into a political game of chance.

Conclusion of the war

Lee was successful only at winning battles. He never had a conception of how to take battlefield victories and turn them into victory in war, unlike U.S. Grant and W. T. Sherman, who both came to realize that individual battles were themselves meaningless — what mattered was winning the war. In this area Grant, in particular, completely out-classed Lee. Sherman proved better at achieving goals without the waste of battle — but battle was what graduates of the U.S. Military Academy had been trained to think was how wars were won.

Lee ceased being “successful” (except at not-losing) when Grant was put in charge of all Union armies because Grant, unlike Lee, had a conceptual strategy and (some) subordinates he could trust to execute it out of his sight. But the decisive theatre of war was not Virginia, even though this is where nearly all the focus of study on the U.S. Civil War stands. The Western Theatre contributed far more to the collapse of the Confederacy first by splitting the Confederacy in two, logistically and economically, and then destroying Southern morale via Sherman’s destruction of the Confederate back yard — all of it effectively unopposed, because Sherman was a master of achieving his ends without uselessly killing his men in meaningless battles.

In the words of the General who defeated him, the legend of Lee as a “great general”, is much overrated and a product of the lovers of the “lost cause”. His use of Napoleonic tactics caused Lee to lose more men than all of his other generals combined. Lee himself said that even in victory that he never did anything that would “last longer than the battle that occurred that day.” His blunders at Gettysburg cost him that battle and was the beginning of the end for his army of northern Virginia. “It is all my fault”, Lee said to the men of what was left of Pickett’s division after he sent them to their slaughter.

Lee rejoins his family in Richmond, where Mary has been living since 1861. That summer they will move to the country in Derwent, Virginia.In a letter to Jefferson Davis, Lee blames the loss of the war on the moral condition of his men. He believes that the troops had been getting letters from home indicating that they no longer supported the war, leading the soldiers to lack aggressiveness and the grit necessary to win battles.

The Lee family moves to Lexington, Virginia, where Lee assumes the role of President of Washington College. Lee overhauls the curriculum, requires weekly progress reports for all of the students, and encourages the females in his family to attend church services in the hopes that "if the ladies would patronize it that the students would be more interested in going." The college has since changed its name to Washington and Lee University. 
Lee assembles notes, letters and data in an effort to defend his actions and his Army of Northern Virginia, but never writes. Lee discusses the failures of Gettysburg in conversations with his peers at Washington College, attributing the loss to his commanders J.E.B. Stuart and Richard Ewell.
Lee is summoned to give testimony to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. In his testimony, Lee expresses his concern over the social and political structure of the country and his doubts that African Americans should have civil rights. Above all, he expresses a desire to be left alone.

After suffering a severe stroke on October 12, 1870 Lee dies in the company of his family. Lee's coffin is paraded through the small town of Lexington, Virginia. The procession, filled with former Confederate soldiers, Washington College students and state politicians, makes its way past the Virginia Military Institute for a small service.

Grant became a national hero, and the Republicans nominated him for president in 1868. A primary focus of Grant’s administration was Reconstruction, and he worked to reconcile the North and South while also attempting to protect the civil rights of newly freed black slaves. While Grant was personally honest, some of his associates were corrupt and his administration was tarnished by various scandals. After retiring, Grant invested in a brokerage firm that went bankrupt, costing him his life savings. He spent his final days penning his memoir which was published the year he died and proved a critical and financial success.

What do you think of Grant and Lee? Let us know below.

Now read Richard’s article on the role of baseball in the US Civil War here.

Paraguay’s 1936 February Revolution and its Lessons for the Paraguayan Left

Like most of Latin America, Paraguay is a nation whose history has been sadly tarnished by social inequities, reactionary politics and civil war, but also one where exceptional circumstances have resulted in the emergence of leaders with bold programmes of reform and the drive to carry them through to the bitter end. One such event was the February Revolution of 1936, which led to the coming to power of a reformer by the name of Rafael Franco.

Vittorio Trevitt explains.

Rafael Franco

This 1936 February Revolution, which saw the old establishment being overthrown and replaced by a military leader, was the culmination of a series of unfortunate events. From the time of its independence from Spain in 1811 Paraguay had been led by a mixture of dictators and civilian leaders who presided over a nation often racked by injustice and instability. In 1883, a law was passed under which land that had previously been universally accessible was enclosed and transformed into large private estates, with peasants, as noted by historian Peter Calvert, “either forced to leave or to work for a pittance.” A bloody war involving Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina lasting from 1864 to 1870 proved a traumatic one, with Paraguay losing an estimated 50% of its people not just through fighting, but also as a consequence of famine and disease. Nor would this usher in a brighter age. In the five decades following the war’s end 32 presidents assumed and were deposed from office in a series of revolts and coups, while the two parties that came to dominate politics for most of that period, the Colorados and Liberals, had little to distinguish themselves in their management of the country.

In 1932 a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia erupted owing to a dispute over territory that ended in 1935 after much suffering. Criticism was levelled against the government for its handling of the war, with José Félix Estigarribia, a noted hero of that conflict, claiming that at the war’s first major battle his men fought without adequate arms, food, medical supplies or ammo. The authorities had aroused the ire of the army by refusing to provide pensions to disabled war veterans, with the country’s legislature (dominated by the Liberals, one of the main parties that had led Paraguay since independence) rejecting this proposed measure in a 1935 vote, “pleading an exhausted treasury,” as noted by one study. Economic difficulties led to thousands of troops being demobilized; a decision that resulted in many unemployed and disaffected former soldiers wandering aimlessly around the capital. The seeds of revolution were therefore sown long before Franco’s ascension.

The end

The end of the old establishment came in February 1936 when a coup (an event that became known as the February Revolution) brought to power a nationalist coalition. Rafael Franco, the man who headed this alliance, was a war hero and officer of the Chaco War whose fair treatment of soldiers had earned him their support. The social measures rolled out by the new administration seemed to indicate a clear break from the past. A public health ministry was inaugurated, along with the first labor code in Paraguayan history. A National Labor Department was set up to handle matters such as the regulation of women’s employment, and new labor rights were rolled out including a day off on Sundays, an 8-hour workday, bonuses and paid holidays.

Other spheres of life fell under the umbrella of the government’s radical agenda. Public works were introduced, together with a National Patronage of Indigenous People to improve conditions for the nation’s aborigines. To widen land tenure in a nation where only 5% of the people owned land, a law was passed under which the government was given authority to expropriate up to five million acres of uncultivated land and divide it into plots of 25 to 250 acres to sell on favourable terms to farmers without land. By December 1936, over 200,000 acres of land had been expropriated; benefitting thousands of families. Perhaps affirming the faith Franco’s men had in him during his time as a soldier, the revolutionary government devoted much of its time to helping former combatants. Pensions were awarded to Chaco War veterans unable to work due to service-related illness and injury, while those who were crippled were entitled to necessary orthopaedic parts. For a population long accustomed to war and injustice, Franco’s presidency appeared to mark a turning point for the better.

The Franco administration’s tenure was not an isolated incident. Instead, it was part of a trend in Latin America at that time that saw the coming to power of radical reformers committed to policies geared towards the masses instead of the elites. In Colombia, an election in 1930 saw a conservative party being voted out after 70 years in power and the election of a liberal administration that over the course of a decade would roll out a social and economic reform programme akin to the American New Deal. In neighbouring Chile, a similar agenda was pursued by a reform-minded Popular Front following elections in that country in 1938. Further north in Mexico, a populist socialist came to power in 1934 by the name of Lázaro Cárdenas, whose tenure would become legendary amongst the Mexican Left with his radical reforms in areas like land distribution that won the hearts and minds of many.

Short-lived

The administration Franco led, however, did not last as long as the aforementioned governments, with certain actions contributing to its downfall. The administration lacked, for instance, a commitment to democratic values, as demonstrated by decisions made to abolish all political parties and implement press censorship. Also, while the revolutionary period brought tangible gains to workers, the functioning of labor organizations was prohibited at the same time. Nor was the government an ideologically homogeneous one, with socialists, fascists, and individuals harbouring Nazi sympathies amongst its ranks; an attempt on Franco’s part to bring together the different factions within the revolution under one umbrella. This turbulent situation allowed a successful coup to take place in August 1937, one that enabled the Liberals to return to office once more.

Although the return of Paraguay’s traditional hegemonic party seemed to spell the end of a dream for a fairer Paraguay, Franco’s revolution had, in the words of historian Paul H. Lewis, “unleashed expectations of change that couldn’t be ignored.” Traditional Liberals were put to one side and in 1939 a former hero of the Chaco War, José Félix Estigarribia, assumed office. Reflecting the reform impulses of a generation of “New Liberals,” positive measures reminiscent of the Franco era such as agrarian reform were pursued. At the same time however, Esitgarribia responded to unrest (such as conspiracies among some military cliques) following his restoration of political freedoms by suppressing opposition after he declared himself a temporary dictator. Following his death and that of his wife in an airplane crash, his successor Higinio Morínigo clamped down on civil liberties while relying on the army to rule. Pressure from the United States to democratise Paraguay’s political system, however, resulted in Morínigo putting together a new cabinet including the Febreristas (followers of Franco), who during the Forties succeeded in accumulating a support base amongst labor unionists and students. It seemed that the Febreristas had an opportunity to replicate the social justice ethos of the Franco years, but this wasn’t to be. Protests against the president, combined with conflict between backers of the 3 main parties in the cabinet (the Colorados, Liberals and Febreristas), led to Morínigo removing the Febreristas from their posts and allying himself alone with the Colorados. Partly due to violence conducted by a Colorado group who sought to use force to return their party to power, numerous opposition groups rallied to support Franco, who instigated a revolt backed by the overwhelming majority of Paraguay’s army officers and enlisted men. The Colorados, however, mobilised a force strong enough to beat Franco, whose revolt ended in August 1947. In an ironic case of political intrigue, Morínigo would still end up being forced from office. Despite joining the Colorados and endorsing its victorious candidate in elections held the following year, Colorado-leaning officers uncertain of promises made by Morínigo giving up the presidency forced him to leave Paraguay. For the next 6 decades, Paraguay would know the rule of no party other than that of the Colorados.

Lugo

Paraguay would not again see a Franco-esque reformer come to power until 2008 when that year a priest by the name of Fernando Lugo, who headed a broad-based left-right alliance that included the Febreristas won the presidency; marking the end of Colorado hegemony. Despite divisions in his alliance (with echoes of Franco’s), Lugo was able to initiate bold reforms like free dental care, pensions for elderly persons on low incomes, and school snacks. His alliance however, lacked a majority in the legislature, plaguing Lugo’s ability to advance much in the way of meaningful reform. He was also plagued by scandals over paternity claims from his time as a bishop, and was eventually impeached in 2012 on numerous grounds, such as failure to tackle increased insecurity. Much controversy surrounded Lugo’s impeachment, but this failed to generate enough support for a leftist alternative to win the next election, which instead saw the return of the Colorados, who have remained in power to this day.

The Franco interlude provides two worthwhile lessons. The first is that when elites fail to meet the needs and aspirations of its citizenry certain individuals will take drastic measures such as attaining power by force. The second is that acquiring power in this way is doomed to failure, as authoritarian administrations are prone to corruption and, in the case of Franco’s government, badly divided. Achieving a peaceful revolution through the ballot box, with a leadership united with clear goals and progressive values, is the best chance Paraguay has of a brighter future.

What do you think of Paraguay’s 1936 February Revolution? Let us know below.

War Photography Through the Ages

War photography and Photojournalism are an essential part of war reporting and have been in every conflict since the art of photo-taking was invented. As Susan Sontag notes in her seminal work Regarding The Pain of Others, ‘war-making and picture-making are congruent activities.’ But why do we have such a fascination with photos and footage of war? What is Photojournalism? And how has Photojournalism changed over the years? Let us first put photojournalism into context.

Chris Fray explains.

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal.

A photojournalist is a reporter who uses photos or film to tell a news story. Every war since the first photographed conflict - the Mexican-American War (1846-48) - has been photographed and recorded by images.(1) Images can have a decisive effect on public opinion and perceptions of war. A photograph is a snapshot of a memory, frozen in time, allowing those un-connected to the situation to view the conflict up close and personal.

I would like to take you on a journey spanning over a century, detailing the way in which Photojournalism has progressed and what this means for war photography and for us, the public. I will touch on photography in the major conflicts of the 20th and 21st Centuries, beginning with the First World War (1914-18). We will then explore the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the Second World War (1939-45), Vietnam (1959-75), the Gulf War (1990-91) and finally the use of photojournalism is our own time using the devastating examples of the ongoing Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts.

First World War

At the start of the 20th Century, cameras were large and cumbersome. Immobility was an issue and the heavy camera required tripods. The fragile glass negative plates were easily broken and darkroom chemicals were required by the photographer to be immediately on hand in order to develop the negative quickly after exposure.(2) Obviously, this did not lend itself to conflict photography.

By the start of the First World War, however, handheld cameras such as the Vest Pocket Kodak were being produced, a favourite of soldiers in the First World War.(3) The quality of the images produced was poor and the camera was prone to blurring, but the negatives had much quicker exposure times than before and most importantly it was small enough to carry in an army pack. War photography was progressing at a fast pace yet the command structures of both sides of the conflict were suspicious of the technological progress.

Almost as soon as war was announced, both the Allies and Germany set hardline policies in place to limit photographer’s abilities to publish images related to conflict and access conflict zones. Each side were deeply concerned with the effect that photography could have on spy-work and espionage as well as domestic morale. Professional photographers were restricted from war zones and could only gain access with written and signed agreements of the war council although censorship was lightened later into the war. The images which were taken have had a lasting impact on the memory of the war and shows the value of photography as a means of mass communication- elements of which have been replicated in every conflict since.(4)

Servicemen were banned from owning or using cameras. But as we know, as soon as rules are made, there are those who are willing to break them. The pictures taken by servicemen on the front lines, in the trenches make up some of the most haunting and evocative photos of the First World War. Many photos show the horror of war in the trenches, soldiers staring up at the camera amongst the mud and barbed wire. Some pictures on the other hand depict daily life- soldiers making tea and playing cards showing that life went on as well, even under the rattle of machine gun and crack of artillery shells.

Spanish Civil War

It was only in the 1920s following the invention of small portable 35mm cameras such as the Leica and Ermanox that war photography fully developed (no pun intended). These cameras were faster and more compact, permitting exposure without a flash which allowed for night time and indoor photos to be taken.(5) With the technological developments of photographic equipment, quick, fast-paced snapshots of battle became possible, revolutionising photography. As a result, audiences were able to experience the heat of battle in their own living rooms.(6) Wireless transmissions of photos and the introduction of affordable, high quality printing paper also allowed photojournalists to have their work published in a matter of days. This quick turnaround was essential to the public relations effort for both sides.(7)

The Spanish Civil war, therefore took place at a turning point for modern photography. The impact of ‘in conflict’ photos on the audiences in Britain, France and the United States should not be understated. Action shots of war had rarely been seen and certainly not on a scale such as this. ‘Photographs of Spain became images not just of conflict but in conflict.’ This was a shocking statement and certainly caught the attention of the world.(8) The war also came at the height of the picture magazines of the 1930s, such as Vu, Life, Picture Post, Regards and Match. These magazines focused mainly on images and adverts. These magazines had an exceptionally far-reaching readership and all of them featured the civil war to some extent, making the Spanish Civil War the first war to be covered and photographed for a mass audience.(9)

Left leaning photojournalists such as Robert Capa, David Seymour and Augusti Centelles began to use their platforms as photographers in the picture magazines to influence readers in the UK, France and the USA to contribute to the Republican war effort. Photographs were becoming weapons of influence. A number of photographs taken during the Civil War have taken on iconic roles in representations of the fight against fascism. Possibly the most famous is Robert Capa’s ‘Fallen Soldier.’ It depicts a Republican soldier at the instant of death, as a bullet hits him in the head, knocking him backwards. It is a tragic depiction of the brutality of war, so close you can almost hear the fatal shot. By the end of the Civil War, war photography was firmly established and exceptionally popular. Due to the way in which Nationalism was progressing in Europe, however, many Europeans were to themselves face conflict, not only through the pages of a magazine but at their own front doors.

Second World War

Many of the Civil War photographers who had cut their teeth in the 1930s were seasoned photojournalists by the start of the Second World War in 1939, with strong links to well-read magazines. However now the scene of conflict was not just a single country, but now spanned across the whole world as photographers from Europe to Africa, Russia to Asia were capturing unbelievable pictures of worldwide conflict. With more people shifting between countries than ever before, war was now a global affair, and therefore so to was photography.

The Spanish Civil War photographers were taking photos and sharing with audiences as a call to action. Now war was first and foremost in the public mind. Western photographers were using their skills in support of the Allied mission against the evil Nazi threat. This was a war in which both sides would employ photography effectively as a propaganda tool; as General Dwight Eisenhower wrote, ‘Correspondents have a job in war as essential as the military personnel.’ Media and reporting had an enormous effect of public opinion, and ‘public opinion win wars.’

Censorship of photography was considered highly important and only certain photos were published in the press. Photos such as dead or dying Allied soldiers were considered bad for moral and suppressed for the majority of the war. It was only towards the end of the conflict that President Roosevelt, faced with strikes and opposition to Americans fighting and dying in Europe, decided to allow a clearer and more violent image of the war to be published. Real images of dead and wounded soldiers were shown to the public which roused US citizens to overwhelming support of the war.

In the 1940s, along with the advancement of weapon technology came the improvement of photographic technology. Long-range cargo planes could transport thousands of rolls of films and negatives between Europe and America, allowing the pictures to be shown in papers and magazines within days. Cameras in the 1930s which took 4 X 5 inch negatives were superseded by smaller and faster 35mm, 2 ¼ X 2 ¼ Rolleiflex, Contax rangefinder and Leica cameras. Not only this, but they could be fitted with telescopic lenses, allowing for close-up and zoom shots. More photographers than ever before were braving the battlefield to capture battlefield heroics. As Robert Capa famously remarked, “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

Perhaps some of the most moving photos from the Second World war are those of Robert Capa’s landing on Omaha Beach in the first wave of troops. As the only photographer to land on the beach, we have direct and close-up documentation of the landings. The pictures are blurry, as Capa himself admits, because his hands were trembling so much with fear on the mortared beach.

Vietnam

At the end of the Second World War in 1946, around 8,000 American households owned a television set. By 1960, just under 45 million households had a television.(10) The war which raged in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos captured the public and was beamed to millions of households all over the world, giving the Vietnam war the epithet, ‘the living room war.’ The prominence of television had started to push the press photographers from their prime reporting position. Viewers were now able to see much more than a snapshot of conflict. They were able to see the true horror of the uncompromising cruelty of war, frame by frame in video.

As images of US soldiers fighting for freedom in the previous war had mustered public support, their portrayal in Vietnam had an entirely opposing effect. An American public, expecting images of democratic US Marines fighting Communists were faced with a continuous tirade of film and images showing the mud, squalor and death their sons and fathers encountered, every day on the news. Photographers and journalists were given such freedom in Vietnam never seen before, or since. There was little to no censorship. Instead, the US army command intended to recruit the press into sharing their own perspective of the war. However, as the war developed into the 1960s, more US servicemen were losing their lives in a decade long conflict which many at home found hard to relate to. A cultural and moral revolution in the USA swung much of the public towards peace and as the US high command rapidly lost control of the situation in Vietnam, conditions in the army worsened, professionalism laxed and this was all captured on camera.

Many have claimed that the media were responsible in some part for the defeat of the Vietnam war. One of the key photos in this debate is the Saigon street execution, taken by Eddie Adams in 1968. It shows a prisoner seconds away from a shot to the head, at point blank range. It sums up the lawless and brutal nature of the conflict, even away from the battlefield.

It was in the Vietnam conflict that the idea that war photography could have a harmful impact on the perceptions of war at home. The more advanced technology became and the more skilled the photographers became in depicting horror- the more the public came to view war as a sickness. In essence, war reporting moved too far for the public. It presented the tragic truth of conflict.

Falklands & The Gulf War

If Vietnam was over-reported, sickening the public with gore and grit and eventually ending in defeat, conflicts in the subsequent decades were decidedly, and intentionally, under-reported. As a leading member of Britain’s Ministry of Defence asked rhetorically on the announcement of the Falklands War, “are we going to let the television cameras loose on the battlefield?”(11) The Falklands war took place in the 10 weeks between April and June, 1982 in response to the invasion and occupation of the British islands in the South Atlantic by Argentinian forces.

The British Ministry of Defence exercised extreme control over coverage from the conflict. In polar opposition to Vietnam, the images and footage of the conflict hardly featured in British newspapers and only two of the 29 accredited media professionals were photographers. Governments were clearly learning lessons from Vietnam. By the time the conflict was over, only three batches of film had been returned to London.(12) Although by the 1980s, technology had dramatically improved, the press were unable to use it. In a 10-week conflict in which 255 Britons were killed, 777 wounded and an estimated 2,000 Argentine casualties, no images were released. This only fuelled the public’s suspicion of the Ministry of Defence.(13)

In a very similar vein and probably still scarred by the public reaction to the media surrounding Vietnam, when the Gulf War began in 1990, the utmost care was taken in photographic and film representations of the conflict. Subsequently to the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, the US led a 42 Nation coalition intervention against Iraq. In the 1990s, photographic technology was incredibly advanced. The coverage of the war however was heavily sedated. Press focus was made on the mechanised technology of war, the enormous guns and steel cannisters, firing bullets and shells from slick fighter jets. Yet there was no indication of what damage these bullets and shells were doing upon impact. It was presented to the public as a ‘painless war of precision.’(14) For the first time a conflict was being told from the perspective not of soldiers, but of weapons.(15)

Reports and briefings from the war council were kept secret from reporters and although there were around 1,600 Western photographers and reporters in the area, they were all isolated from the conflict and supervised by public-affairs managers who made sure they saw only a sanitised view of the conflict. The pictures presented a white-washed version of war which distracted from the real brutalism involved in conflict. Removing the people from the pictures also removed the empathy for the casualties.

There is a belief that over saturating the public with images of death and destruction will ultimately dull society into accepting these images as the norm, gradually shocking less and less until they are ignored altogether. However as Torie Rose DeGhett says, never showing these images at all absolutely guarantees that understanding of the images will never develop. (16)

Syria & Ukraine

So where does this leave us now? Are we able to trust the photographs we see of conflict? With the invention in the past 20 years of social media and camera phones in every pocket, it could easily be argued that each person recording and sharing material could be considered a photojournalist. The process of free un-filtered, un-sanitised and un-censored material being captured by millions per day in various perspectives, angles and mediums provides an overwhelming change to what was previously considered photojournalism. Of course, photojournalists still exist and provide the world with moving images of conflict and pain all around the world. However, the range of material is so large now, that photojournalists are a tiny proportion of those on the ground, experiencing war.

When the Syrian conflict began in March 2011 and turned into a full blown Civil War in 2012 to 2013, foreign photographers and journalists were banned from entering the country. The danger was exceedingly high following the deaths of several foreign reporters including Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times and so the images and footage which was released was shot by local people. Amateur photographers and the average person- anyone with a camera-phone, expressing themselves through photography and film and appealing to the wider world for help. This produced a revolution in photojournalism, with minute by minute live-reporting of conflict via Facebook and Twitter. This is something which was never before possible.

Is this a positive outcome for war journalism? We might be tempted to say, yes. The wider the audience, the more likely the world is to see and connect with the pain of those living through war. However as Swiss photographer, Mattias Bruggmann has said, lack of journalists and increased use of public media opened the floodgates to propagandism from every side in Syria. “Every opposition group and every rebel battalion set up its own unit to produce photographs and videos.”(17)

The most recent and equally harrowing world conflict, the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in February 2022 has also produced a tidal wave of images and videos. Again, as technology improves, so does the capacity for ordinary people and individual soldiers on the ground to document their own personal perspective of the conflict. Courageous acts of covert filming of Russian soldiers and troop movements by occupied Ukrainians are being used by the Ukrainian military in some cases and shared on social media, giving the conflict the epitaph, ‘the first tik-tok war.’

The nature of this is certainly not as fun as it sounds. Given the brutalness of this current invasion and the overwhelming number of alleged war crimes committed, organisations such as the United Nations are already compiling photographs by renowned photographers, military footage, local amateur photographers and footage from social media to be used as evidence for prosecuting these crimes in the future.

Throughout its history, war photography has contributed to a truly humanitarian mission. Photographs stand as a testament to conflict. A snapshot of History which says, “this happened,” and “this cannot be forgotten.” It holds those in the wrong, accountable and has always provided a voice to those who are unable to provide their testament. It is the hope of many organisations that these photos will result one day in the prosecution of the perpetrators of war crimes, providing justice for those who were at the receiving end and for the families of those who died. Photos are therefore an essential element, not just to war reporting but to justice and humanity.

What do you think of war photography in different periods? Let us know below.

References

1 Payne, Carol and Brandon, Laura. Guest Editors’ Introduction: Photography at War. P.1.

2 Griffin, Michael. ‘The Great War Photographers: Constructing Myths of History and Photojournalism.’ P.135.

3 https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/the-vest-pocket-kodak-was-the-soldiers-camera/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20first%20and,years%20ago%2C%20in%20April%201912.&text=The%20Vest%20Pocket%20Kodak%20camera,model%20was%20discontinued%20in%201926.

4 https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/photography

5 Brothers, Caroline. War Photography: A Cultural History. P.6

6 Payne, Carol and Brandon, Laura. P.3.

7 Faber, Sebastiaan. Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, and Photography. (2018). p.16-17.

8 Brothers. p.2.

9 Brothers, Caroline. p.2.

10 https://www.elon.edu/u/imagining/time-capsule/150-years/back-1920-1960/#:~:text=Approximately%208%2C000%20U.S.%20households%20had,million%20had%20them%20by%201960.

11 Brothers, p.205

12 Brothers, p.206

13 Brothers, p.209

14 Brothers. p.211

15 Bruce. H. Franklin, ‘From Realism to Virtual Reality.’ P.110

16 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the-war-photo-no-one-would-publish/375762/

17 https://newlinesmag.com/photo-essays/shooting-the-war-in-syria/