In case you missed it, the New York Times had a good article this weekend about the challenge of representing slavery in museums in South Carolina. Very appropriate given our conversations last week about Rally on the High Ground!

I will admit Rally on the High Ground left me feeling a bit confused as to what was really happening between Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and the National Park Service, and how the speeches of the historians in the “online book” were related.  Rally which from just a reading of its original text seems to have the opinions of several prominent historians on a somewhat universal theme, “an authentic context,” for the battlefield interpretations provided by the NPS as Jaclyn points out. The forward to the book states this as a summation of the reasoning:

“In the 2000 Department of the Interior appropriations bill, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. inserted the language that brings us together. The language is brief and, I think, suggestive of possibilities. It simply says that Civil War battle sites are, ‘often not placed in the proper historical context.’ With that language, Congress directed the National Park Service to compile a report on the status of our interpretation of battlefield sites throughout the system. Then the language directed me, the Secretary, ‘to encourage Civil War battle sites to recognize and include in all of their public displays and multimedia educational presentations the unique role that the institution of slavery played in causing the Civil War.’” (Rally, Forward)

The forward goes on to speak about the current work of the NPS, the new sites under its control, as well as reassuring the reader/audience that the new mandate would not interfere with the overall mission of the NPS. Yet, for an “online book” formed as a response to a call for authentic context, Rally is greatly lacking in providing a context for its content.  Being interested enough I decided to investigate.

Rally according to external sources was, “a book based on a National Park Service symposium on the Civil War, held May 8 & 9, 2000 at Ford’s Theatre.” (Amazon)  Here some of the pieces come together, as we know understand that each of the historian contributors were, in fact, participants in this symposium which explains the common theme, why the book is a collection of speeches instead of written articles, and the question and answer sections.  However, I was still left wondering as to the motivations and need for Congressman Jackson to have inserted the directions into the appropriations bill.  While Jackson explains that he had visited over 20 battlefields and was dismayed at the neglect of context at each of the sites, the question I then wondered was why did Jackson mandate change in such a manner and how does this relate to our understanding of the history of each of those battlefields involved? To this I rely on context and intuition.

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is as his name suggests the son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. a well known civil rights and political activist.  So, with this history of race awareness, Congressman Jackson’s actions to push for the inclusion of the Civil War seems to be a logical carry over.   While this proposal was not originally welcomed by the NPS, it did provide them with the opportunity to not only reconsider the messages of all of their battlefield interpretations but allow for the historical reinterpretation process to take place to meet the needs of the day, in this case racial awareness and sensitivity to the diverse groups of people visiting battlefields each year.

In this way, the symposium and following book represent an interesting moment in historical production.  Not only does this event allow for an opportunity to see how even in our modern historical understanding, “power,” in this case the power of Congress can dictate the importance of certain narratives.  Still, by drawing in the experts of the NPS and academic historians, this moment of historical reinterpretation opened the doors for discussion and the saving of “forgotten” or “silenced” histories often neglected by the usual NPS interpretation. So, by opening the way for the production of a new narrative, Jackson allowed for, Edward Linenthal cites from Carl Becker, “history is an unstable pattern of remembered things.” (Linenthal) This unstable pattern allows us to look at questions such as the role of slavery in Civil War Battles and come to new conclusions on how they should be interpreted.  As James Oliver Horton explains,

“Today, we talk about revisionist history as if it were a new and dangerous thing. In reality, every generation revises its history. We should feel no more threatened by revisionist history than we would by revisionist medicine. (…) The fact is that revising history is what historians are supposed to do. Historians who are not constantly trying to revise history are not doing their jobs, and can be replaced by a simple tape recorder.” (Horton)

Overall, I was a bit disappointed by the presentations of the authors.  Each of them attacks a different issue related to why slavery is important in the overall interpretation of the Civil War and why any narrative on the Civil War should by necessity include a recognition of slavery as a cause for the Civil War (Jackson), as an important story of both violence and heroics in our nation’s history (Berlin),  as a suppressed triumph in the reconciliation period (Blight), a means of enriching contributions to cultural engagement with the Civil War (Linenthal), a motivation to fight (McPherson), an important labor system and cause of the war (Horton), and as a defining moment in the nation’s understanding of freedom (Foner).  Yet, none of the historians fully provides an example of how this learning and reasons for inclusion can be actually incorporated into the interpretation given by the NPS.  While it is very possible that the NPS requested this, it instead makes the “experts” seem foolish and shortsighted in their ability to provide useful and applicable discussion in the reinterpretive symposium that could be immediately applied in the field. I found this a glaring omission considering the context and purpose of the symposium, however, that does not diminish the importance of the arguments presented and their ability to reinterpret history to emphasize the role of slaves so that all might be aware of their involvement and so that the NPS an fully provide for the historical and citizenship learning of their visitors.

From this article and revisionist movement, I suggest that we carefully examine the building of our own Dick Dowling exhibit and make sure to be careful to provide context, but also to be sure to be very clear as the importance of each essay/piece in the collection and how it influences understanding of the subject.

Throughout my reading of Rally on the High Ground, I could not help but think back to a question  provoked by Trouillot in the first week: who is responsible for the telling of history? While Silencing the Past offers an inclusive answer that incorporates much more than the specialized historian, there is no doubt that the professionals do have at least somewhat of a unique duty to justly interpret the past for the less-informed masses (as we have seen, however, the definition of “justly” can be manipulated by each individual to fit their own agenda). Regardless, while the National Park Service may not claim superiority over the general public, it does have a responsibility to present the past in an authentic context.

This seems to be what the five historians, from Blight to Foner, are attempting to do with their speeches, each as fluent and articulate as the next. Instead of streamlining into my praises, I’m hesitant to extol the reading while my qualms with David Blight linger beneath the surface. Even without the introduction, one can easily conclude that the first speech is Blight’s. I simply could not read over his claims of sectional reconciliation without thinking of what Neff and Brundage would say (or rather already have said) that contradicts it. As always, he is correct in that the race problem seemed to fade from the foreground of the national consciousness, yet his classic slip into the adorable blue-grey reunions of “harmonious forgetfullness” cannot be considered without Neff and Brundage’s formidable counterarguments in mind. I am also skeptical of any teleological argument such as Blight’s response in the Q&A that had Lincoln not been assassinated, not much would have changed in the long run. Such a question is obviously counterfactual and proposed just for the challenge, but it seems impudently daring to make such a claim.

Having now vented my initial reaction to Blight, I did enjoy his reference to John Townbridge, the early battlefield tourist, who called for the need to bridge the gap between the graves on the battlefields and their meaning.  This was obviously resemblant of Neff, who so heavily emphasized the role of the burial of soldiers in the process of interpreting the war. Interesting enough, the Neff and Blight ultimately disagree on the issue of sectional reconciliation.

Linenthal also drew parallels with Brundage and Neff with the issue of the policing of space. While Neff focused on cemeteries and Brundage on greater civic events, Linenthal spoke in this vein, affirming that national parks are civic venues for ideological persuasion. Such a claim suggests the idea that civil war battlefields are still very much battlefields in the sense that different groups are competing to stake a claim on the space with their interpretation of its history.

Foner seems to conclude on this theme of competing ideologies, except he adds the idea of constant changeability. With all groups vying to put forth their definition of “liberty” and “citizenship,” Foner hails the Civil War as a crucial moment in the ongoing saga of freedom, in which the definition is always changing.

All in all, the most intriguing aspect of the speeches was this idea of motivation for fighting. Why were soldiers, both Confederate and Union, white and black, slave-holding and non-slaveholding, fighting in this war? I like McPherson’s argument that soldiers very much were conscious of the ideological cause of the uniform they wore, and that cause being the institution of slavery. While group cohesion most certainly played a role, it was ideological conviction that sustained that camaraderie motivation. What is so interesting about McPherson’s point is that if soldiers truly were aware and motivated by ideology, Blight’s ultimate sectional reunion seems unlikely. As if time could wash away the blood stained convictions of the blue and the grey. A fascinating thought seeing that both men are speaking on behalf of the National Parks.

Ending on a light but momentous note, Horton’s bit of humor in his Q&A session was both funny and convincing. Addressing all those skeptics seeking to hide slavery from the foreground the Civil War, Horton says:

If you remove the South’s perceived need to protect slavery from this equation you don’t have a Civil War at this point. I cannot imagine people saying well, I think I’ll just get up and take up arms against my country because of some vague economic abstraction like the tariff.

It seems that sometimes the simplest answer is most appropriate for the most controversial questions. Commenting on ideology, motivation and the greater cause of the war, Horton issued a powerful statement, and one that he feels the National Parks have a duty to protect.

Given the unique discussions posed by each speech, I find it difficult to find much of a unifying theme beyond what Jaclyn already discussed and the fact that they are all–obviously–about the Civil War, so I will instead briefly discuss some aspects of the speeches I found particularly striking.

I am in absolute agreement with Jaclyn that one of the most important points of Rally on the High Ground is providing a complete context in which to understand these battlefields. The first thing that struck me in the series of speeches was Jackson’s note that most Americans do not visit National Park Civil War sites and that, even when they do, few will visit more than one. This further contributes to the issue of fragmentation of Civil War memory, and shows how influential a single historical site can be. After all, as Jackson alludes to in his speech, most people visiting a Civil War site will go to one, read about it, and then decide that they have learned enough about it and move on. This speaks directly to our obligation as historians to remember that, if someone does take the time to read the work we do on Dowling, for most of them, this could be one of the few things they learn about the Civil War. For this reason, it is critical that we provide a complete context that addresses all of the issues, otherwise we risk misleading our viewers.

Of all the speeches in Rally on the High Ground, though, the one that stuck with me the most was Eric Froner’s on the changing definition of freedom. The most important point to me in that speech was the idea that most of the major changes in perception and understanding that have come about in American society have been the result of war. It is easy to get bogged down in the causes of the Civil War, or debates over the legacy it leaves behind, and forget about the dramatic and immediate impact it had on Americans. When you think about the Civil War, it is truly remarkable how, in less than five years, a country went from being overwhelmingly divided and, for the most part, in staunch support of slavery, to reunited–so reunited that slavery and race issues were sacrificed to propagate a reconciliationist dialogue–and slave-free. As we have learned, the answer can be far more complicated than what I am about to say, but, at some basic level, the sheer shock and trauma of war dramatically changed people’s opinions, as war has done repeatedly in American history. It is fascinating to see how the Civil War was what sparked discussions over the iconically American concept of freedom.

A recurring theme throughout this collection of speeches–and all of the books we have read so far–is that the Civil War continues to affect contemporary history. Freedom is a concept that is frequently evoked today in the name of a variety of disparate causes, much as freedom was both the reason the Union and the Confederacy went to war in 1861. At the same time, Froner argues that, in the wake of the Civil War, freedom–the shining beacon for which both the victors and the losers fought–was subordinated to other more pressing values of reconciliation and moving forward. Froner states that freedom is invoked by many groups today in support of many different causes. But, if the legacy of the Civil War is any indication, once these groups have succeeded in their aims, will freedom continue to be their first priority or will this be cast aside in favor of other issues, much like freedom and rights for blacks was sacrificed for nearly a century to promote societal healing.

[Note: I pasted the text into a word document for better readability; page numbers indicated refer to the page of my word document. My apologies for any inconvenience or confusion this may cause. I have included the speaker’s last name in an effort to increase clarity.]

The format of “Rally on the High Ground” lent itself beautifully to the task it sets out to achieve. A collection of speeches from a number of academic historians and a politician, almost in conversation with the National Park Service, gives the reader a number of different perspectives and makes clear the important, and incredibly tenuous, situation facing the organization: contextualizing the country’s Civil War battlefields, and why it matters today.

I was unaware of the legislation calling for this task and having the opportunity to read Congressman Jackson’s lecture explaining his intent clarified a number of structural elements of the present-day importance of public memory about the Civil War. Jackson introduces a theme he will touch on throughout his speech, which is the liberal-conservative-moderate paradigm that has influenced American public policy since the war (Jackson 17). For Jackson, we cannot say the end of the crisis of the Civil War has been realized until “every American is provided with economic security—employment, health care, education and housing” (15).

Jackson’s discussions on education, and his belief that it is a fundamental right, were particularly illuminating. He voiced something that, as a nation, we are seeing unfolding in many states right now: when education cuts are proposed, many turn to an “every man for himself” strategy. The budget proposed by Governor Perry for 2011-2012 calls for a 20 percent cut in education spending; families whose children will not be affected by this, or who are excelling intellectually, can easily turn a blind eye to those who will suffer most. Similarly, Jackson argues that the reason most presidents do not call for education as a fundamental right is that their experience has not been one “of being denied … an education” (16). He discusses the loophole-strategy conservatives across the South used to bypass the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954—private schools that couldn’t be touched by demands for integration. He offers race as a lens through which we can attempt to understand the legacy of the war (Jackson 14). Similarly, Ira Berlin notes that the issue of race today is directly linked to the issue of slavery in the past (Berlin 28).

Berlin also raises an interesting point that I found particularly salient while in Germany—the difference between guilt and accountability. He says, “We meet to prepare our children for the burden they must bear as the descendants of a slave society” (28). The question is not whether visiting a battlefield should make a southerner feel guilty and personally responsible for the suffering of slaves, but what knowledge is taken away from that battlefield visit and how does it inform that visitor’s worldview or manifest itself in that person’s goals and hopes for American society?

Berlin and David Blight both bring up an issue we have been discussing since reading Trouillot: language, and the control thereof. Whether it is the language we use today to  discuss slavery (or “servitude” or “enslaved circumstance” (Berlin 28)) or the language that was used at the time to discuss the reasons the Union was (on paper) going to war and what “liberty” meant, written and spoken communication plays a large role in crafting perception of/and reality.

A huge, irreversible paradigm shift occurred as a result of the war—the transition to a powerful federal government imbued with the power to enforce rather than the prevention of enacting laws (McPherson 61). This is a paradigm, much like the liberal-moderate-conservative one described by Congressman Jackson, that still affects us today.

One aspect of McPherson’s argument I found particularly convincing was his inclusion of “cause” with “comrades” for reasons why soldiers fought (62). In our reading of Blight, we gained deep insights on the mutuality of sacrifice of both sides—a narrative that played a significant role in bringing about the reconciliation of the sections (to the detriment of racial reconciliation). The “for comrades” motivator played out not only on the battlefield, but also on the home front, giving civilians something to celebrate about the heroism of their men in uniform. But I think the crucial piece McPherson sheds well-researched light on is the “for cause” aspect. In diaries, letters and other means of highly literate communication, he discovers clear articulation of reasons soldiers were fighting: “…from simple but heartfelt vows of patriotism” to Constitutional issues like states’ rights, the definition of liberty, and slavery (McPherson 66). I chuckled to myself when James Horton retold John Singleton Mosby’s candid quip: “Don’t you think South Caroline ought to know why it went to war?” (Horton 81). The sentence immediately preceding that rhetorical device pins slavery as the reason the South went to war.

I also thought Horton’s discussions about the rationality of citing states’ rights as the chief catalyst were interesting. He notes that one reason South Carolina seceded was because the federal government was not enforcing federal law, the Fugitive Slave Law, against individual state laws, called personal liberty laws (Horton 78). This makes a cry for states’ rights from South Carolina seem much weaker. Additionally, he notes that in the nullification crisis of 1832, no other states followed South Carolina’s threats of secession over the issue of states’ rights, and yet in 1860, they did. Was it states’ rights three decades later, or fear of losing the institution of slavery?

The task of contextualizing something that will be seen and visited by numerous and various people is incredibly relevant for our goal as HIST 300 participants. It is not our job to make understanding the monument, the reasons it was erected, the politics of the time—all other aspects of explanation we hope to achieve—easier and more pleasant to stomach. It is not our job to be politically correct. It is, however, our job to be historically truthful and contextually honest. We, like the members of the NPS at the turn of the century, must provide information that will widen the scope of understanding and link the monument to the broader narrative running before the monument was conceived, during its planning and construction phases, through its tumultuous decades to the present, and into an uncertain future.

First and foremost: congratulations, Dr. McDaniel! We’re so excited about your son!

Somehow the day got away from me and it is now past midnight, so I hope you’ll all forgive the less-than-eloquent format of this recap of our meeting this morning.

Without further ado:

We all agreed that Brundage gives a comprehensive analysis of struggles for memory construction in the south. Based on this reading, we wondered if Blight wasn’t simplifying this tenuous reality for the sake of the reconciliationist narrative. We also wondered if Neff placed too much emphasis on commemoration, at the expense of other narratives, like the development (and relative autonomy of) segregated black schools, as Brundage illuminates.

We liked Brundage’s use of anecdotes, and found the way he wove the snapshots of the chapters together convincing.

The section on Hayti in particular, and the creation of bulldozer ghettos in general, perplexed us. Jocelyn began to wonder about eminent domain. Ryan and Kat were sad to see the destruction of historical black architecture, as rendered through the photographs Brundage included. I asked the group if they thought developers actually believed they were improving these neighborhoods they were bulldozing, with the intent of returning blacks to their newly rejuvenated community, or if there were malicious intents at the outset. We were divided on the issue, but all agreed what eventually happened to these once-vibrant black neighborhoods was heartbreaking and a shame.

We were all particularly interested in Negro History Week (as a precursor to Black History Month, as Kat pointed out) and especially its eventual inclusion into most integrated schools. This surprised us, even if we could imagine a lot of it being token acknowledgment rather than authentic celebration.

Brundage brings up the ever-salient question of connotations of Confederate symbols. Are all Confederate symbols necessarily racist? We struggled over how to answer this question, and ended up leaving it somewhat up in the air. Kat pointed to the difference between “The South will Rise Again” and remembering an ancestor who fought on the Confederate side. Ryan said because things like the Confederate flag are still such flashpoint issues, maybe we can’t answer the question yet.

Please feel free to add more from today’s discussion in the comments section.

Bonus: We’ve decided that if the Battle of Sabine Pass gets to be the Confederacy’s Thermopylae, then our independent study gets to be Rice’s Thermopylae, and thus, we accept Thermopylae as our collective name. Talk about constructing public memory…