Foundational History. Happy Saturday!

I could not be happier that I was wrong. The Chiefs are still alive and fighting hard. After defeating the Buffalo Bills this past weekend (sorry, Daz), they will go on to play the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship game. However, I am confident that if the Chiefs beat the Ravens, they will beat either San Francisco or Detroit in the Super Bowl. Although, if the Chiefs lose out, I will put on a Detroit Lions hat.

This past week, I was pulling books off my shelves to find some specific interpretation by an author. As I pulled these books, I thought about some of the first books I read on the Civil War and their authors. One of the first authors I came across in 2017 was Dr. Edward Bonekemper. His book, Grant and Lee, sat in a Barnes and Noble. I took the book and began reading it. I found a place to sit down until my girlfriend at the time (now my beautiful wife) told me to buy it because I was committing theft. I could not put down the book and spent so much time reviewing his casualty analysis in the Appendix. This event is representative of how foundational history begins. There are always a few books that a future historian cannot put down to solidify their knowledge on a given subject. They are obviously not an expert on the historiography of said subject, but it is a starting point. For many others I talk to about the Civil War, that author might be Douglas Southall Freeman, Bruce Catton, or Kenneth Williams. Unfortunately, some historians get “territorial” with their topic or work. Nevertheless, at one point or another, they are inspired or motivated by another work that brought them to write in the first place. Any amateur historian could tell you some of the first history books or articles they began reading. I picked up the American Civil War Handbook at a school book fair when I was nine. Each page talked about a different general and battle. This book had a couple of mistakes and inaccuracies, but as a child, I loved looking through books like it, and it only perpetuated my interest. All the books after are just scaffolding.

Finally, I am about to finish one of Dr. Steven Woodworth’s edited books, Civil War Generals in Defeat. Various authors analyze the decisions and mistakes of defeated generals. This includes Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph Hooker, John Pemberton, George McClellan, Joseph Johnston, and Confederate generals at Gettysburg. Its purpose is to take a second look at their generalship and why they failed on the battlefield. There is a great interest in carrying on myths such as Joseph Hooker losing his nerve at Chancellorsville or McClellan’s failure during the Peninsula Campaign. However, such common beliefs do not consider the context of their defeat and decision-making. Most readers will be surprised to learn that this context better explains their defeat than conventional wisdom.