Battle Cry of Freedom: Attempting to Understand America's Civil War

Here we are, at book three of the summer reading challenge!

Battle Cry of Freedom is part of the Oxford History of the United States series. The book was originally published in 1988, and earned McPherson a Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times reviewer called it "...the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across." It continues to be used in classrooms today to teach the history of the Civil War across high school and college curriculums.

The book covers the background and history of the American Civil War, starting in the 1830s and tracing the evolution of the slavery issue and ending in the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination and disarray before the Reconstruction era began. McPherson does an excellent job of portraying both sides equally, without any particular bias - a difficult feat, especially in one of the most divisive subjects in American history. Much of his efforts go towards understanding what each side was fighting for. Both sides fought for freedom - but McPherson explains that they understood the idea of freedom very differently. This differentiation of each side, while showing their similarities, is what makes McPherson's book so succinct and understandable. He helps to make the war more understandable to the modern reader, separated as we are by a little over 150 years from the actual events.

I've been wanting to read this book since I finished my Civil War class in undergrad. Somehow, I've become even more interested in the war, especially in light of current events. I started this year out reading Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horowitz's study of Southern memory and the Civil War and the books I've chosen to read this summer include three more on the subject (Battle Cry included). Something about this war continues to draw me in and pique my curiosity. What I most enjoyed about McPherson's book was his readability. I've read other pieces of his writing before (his essay collection This Mighty Scourge; For Cause and Comrades, a book on the soldiers fighting in the war; and Tried by War, his biography of Abraham Lincoln as commander-in-chief) and greatly enjoyed their flow. What I appreciated most from this particular work was the snarky sense of humor that popped in occasionally. Peppered throughout the text, it made reading the book even more enjoyable. My only disappointment was that McPherson completely skipped Lincoln's assassination, instead mentioning Booth's comment about killing the President and then jumping directly into the aftermath.

I really enjoyed reading this. I think it's definitely the best summary of the war I've read - but it is rather long, and if I ever wind up using it as a reading for students, I might assign specific portions of the book rather than the entire thing. I do think it's an important piece of Civil War historiography, and I'm glad I took the time to pick it up and read it.

Overall rating: 9.5/10 stars

"Our revels now are ended:" Looking Back on the Semester

As the semester draws to a close, it only seems fitting to look back on what I've learned. And there is so much to cover.

At the beginning of the semester, I came into my historical methods class not knowing what to expect. And now, I've realized, that was probably a good thing, because no expectation could have been equal to what I learned.

We started out discussing historiography, and what makes a historian who they are. And suddenly, I was able to say with confidence, Yes, I know what I'm going to do when I receive my degree, I can say what a historian does (although there are still plenty of jokes about history majors and historians out there that still make me laugh and sigh in recognition).

Sadly, it does seem sometimes that I'm swimming in papers...

We discussed primary documents and secondary documents, and read Mickey Mouse History, which enlightened me as to the plight of history in America (circa 1995, of course). And then, after a brief dalliance with Turabian and learning citation format, we entered into paper writing.

I think, if there was anywhere this semester where I learned the most, it was during this phase. Once again, I have realized the benefit of taking carefully labelled notes, and taking them long before I start trying to write my rough draft. I also learned to skim my sources' bibliographies, looking for sources that come highly recommended or that are repeated (since they're typically the major sources on the topic). Most of all, I learned to do my best to avoid bias while writing, avoiding formulating my thesis until after my research is completed.

But I learned more than just the nuts and bolts of writing a paper. I also began to view the Lincoln assassination from another viewpoint - that of Mary Surratt. Previously, I had only seen it from the perspective of an outsider looking in. I had always looked at everything that happened as bad - that John Wilkes Booth was an evil mastermind, that Lincoln was a martyr, that Surratt, while most likely innocent, was guilty by association. And, by looking at the evidence again - by actually sitting down and sifting through it - my views have been reopened. While Booth might not be the evil mastermind I thought he was and Lincoln may not be a martyr, Surratt still remains somewhat of a conundrum for me. Her possible guilt/possible innocence has made me only that much more interested in the Lincoln assassination, and rekindled my love for the Civil War.

Finally, I couldn't have made it through the semester without the amazing support of my classmates. Everyone in the class was so helpful and supportive that it gave the class a welcoming atmosphere. Even on the days where I didn't feel like I could deal with dragging myself to classes, I was always excited to see my classmates, and they definitely made the class what it was.

If anything can be said for this semester, it can be said that it has reminded me why I'm doing what I'm doing, and confirmed that, if there was any doubt that I wanted to work in history, it is gone.

Thank you for a wonderful semester. I look forward to sharing the next semester, and the next, and the next.

"Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it shall inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep."

 - William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act IV, Scene I

Finding the Right Sources

Finding sources for Mary Surratt has been easy. Finding time to read through them this week, not so much.

This week has been one of the most stressful of my life. I have been working on the fall play (I was cast as Rosencrantz in the school production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), and the show has taken over my life. Finding time to sit down and read through my sources for this paper (or any of the papers that I'm supposed to be writing right now - I have five on the docket) has been nigh on impossible.

That being said, I have flipped through all my sources at least once, so I have a vague idea of what sources will be useful to me.

My idea of what I want to write on, at the moment, is this: Mary Surratt was innocent of plotting to kill Abraham Lincoln. While she might have known about the prior plot to kidnap the president and hold him for ransom, that has no bearing on what she was tried for. Therefore, I only wish to examine her innocence for the charges placed against her: conspiring to assassinate the President of the United States.

As far as primary documents go, the trial transcripts are my best source of information. However, all of the documents are kept on microfiche at the National Archives and are very difficult to obtain. Therefore, I am mostly able to find them through secondary sources, such as Theodore Roscoe's The Web of Conspiracy, which devotes multiple pages solely to reprinting the testimony of Surratt and other witnesses. The other primary sources that I think might be helpful are newspapers. James L. Swanson and Daniel R. Weinberg's Lincoln's Assassins is complete with full-color photographs of many of the primary documents of the time period, which I would not have been able to obtain otherwise.

As for secondary documents, the two that I think will end up being the most helpful to me are the two biographies of Surratt: Elizabeth Steger Trindall's Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy, and Kate Clifford Larson's The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln. Trindall argues for Surratt's innocence, while Larson argues for her guilt, so it will be interesting to see both sides of the argument. I also look forward to reading through Louis Weichmann's book on the trial and conspiracy, A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865. Because Weichmann was the leading witness against Surratt at her trial, it will be valuable to see his testimony as he has written it.

As I have suspected from day one, James L. Swanson's Manhunt has been an invaluable resource to me, providing me with one of the most well-organized bibliographies I have ever seen and helping me to organize my timeline of the assassination, arrests, and trial. I owe Swanson a great debt - not only for sparking my original interest in the assassination, but providing such a well-structured understanding of it as well.

I look forward to being able to interact more with my sources this week and next. The play is finally wrapping tomorrow night (I'm both sad and happy about this - as I am about most things coming to an end), but the good thing is that I will finally have time to get some hardcore research done!

Choosing and Researching: Beginning the Term Paper

Today in class, our professor told us to choose a topic for our term paper from any time period in American history, and then blog about our topic and research ideas for it.

That threw me for a loop.

If you've read my About Me, you know that most of the things that I tend to study and read about for fun in history are European history - in fact, at this same moment, I am researching and writing a term paper for a class on the French Revolution, which is what I would like to specialize in during graduate school. Choosing that particular topic was relatively easy - I was able to come up with a couple of topics and wound up choosing the political fashions of Marie Antoinette and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. They will probably turn up multiple times during my discussion of term paper research throughout the process, as I wind up doing research for both papers.

Lady Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire - Thomas Gainsborough

Because of my personal love of European history, focusing on a topic in American history is difficult. I enjoy studying the Civil War, so my first thought was perhaps studying the battles near my hometown, or the battle within my hometown. However, after thinking it over, I realized that not only is there way too much information on these battles, but that it would be difficult to get hold of in time for turning in my bibliography. My next thought was a president, or perhaps American spycraft. Spycraft seems to be a little too difficult to find sources on - while it is a fascinating topic, most of the spying that I am interested in is done within the context of European history. So that left a president.

My two all-time favorite presidents are Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. So, I quickly narrowed my possible topics down to the two of them. I asked myself what it was about the two of them that fascinated me so much - why Jefferson? Why Lincoln?

Thomas Jefferson - Third President of the United States and Most Adorable Nerd

What attracted me to Jefferson, I decided, was his ability to be an awkward nerd about life, and still be a genius. One of my favorite stories about him was that, as a student, he asked a girl out courting and, after she rejected him, suffered a headache for a day from embarrassment. I'm also fascinated by his wine collection and his time in France - why, out of all of the Founding Fathers, was it Jefferson who absorbed so much of French culture and characteristics? This seems especially interesting to me since his presidency is so intertwined with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, one of the most rough and tumble events in early America. I also love Monticello, Jefferson's house in Virginia - I've visited twice, and every time I enter I'm filled with greater respect for a man who was a genius ahead of his time, and yet also trapped within social conventions that he felt he could not escape.

Abraham Lincoln - The Glue that Held the Union Together

What I find most fascinating about Abraham Lincoln is his role in the Civil War. I suppose (if I'm being completely honest) what I'm really fascinated by is his assassination. I conveniently already have a source for a paper on the Lincoln assassination in my dorm room with me: James Swanson's Manhunt, a book that I found fascinating the first time I read it, and continue to find fascinating.

After a long train of thought, I decided that my topic would be the Lincoln assassination, the chase for the assassins, and their trials and executions - a topic that, if necessary, I shrink after talking with my professor.

Then it came time to look at what I needed to do for research. The previous semester, I wrote a term paper on the influence of the mistress on court life at Louis XIV's Versailles, so I am very familiar with our ILL (interlibrary loan) system. I decided that the best course of action would be to turn to Swanson and see what he had listed in his bibliography, and see how many of those books were available at Spring Hill. After that, I could start looking for ebooks through my public library back home, primary sources through the National Archives, and maybe even microfiche newspaper announcements in the archives at nearby universities. A biography of the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, might not be a bad place to start, in order to gain an understanding of his actions. This might be where I start this weekend. 

But first, I think I'll go back to the beginning - time to reread Manhunt. I'm looking forward to research!

Manhunt cover art - my first source for my paper! 

UPDATE: After discussion with my professor, I have narrowed my topic down to Mary Surratt, her involvement in the plot, and he subsequent trial. Surratt was the only woman tried among the conspirators, and was executed along with them for supposedly aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth in his plot to assassinate the president. I have never found the evidence against Surratt very convincing, however - in fact, I have always felt that the military tribunal that tried the conspirators was attempting to try Booth in absentia through the figures of the conspirators,  since Boston Corbett had killed Booth before he could be tried. I think of all the figures, Surratt's trial is the most fascinating, and I look forward eagerly to diving into my research!