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People go to die for fun? I understand your enthusiasm for this point, but it's just dumb....even back then. Would you go to war just for 'fun'...?
Instead of "fun", try "adventure". If you're a young man and your future is pretty much destined to be working on the same farm until you keel over, the idea of joining up, wearing a uniform, experiencing cameraderie, showing your mettle at arms and returning with stories to tell can certainly hold some attraction.
And the girls probably like it, always a decision factor at a certain stage in a young man's life.
No one knew what sort of war it was going to turn out to be - the precursor to WWI in terms of industrial-scale meatgrinder battles. The South had fallen into the trap of believing their own BS about their military strength and how dashing chivalry would win the day.
Instead of "fun", try "adventure". If you're a young man and your future is pretty much destined to be working on the same farm until you keel over, the idea of joining up, wearing a uniform, experiencing cameraderie, showing your mettle at arms and returning with stories to tell can certainly hold some attraction.
And the girls probably like it, always a decision factor at a certain stage in a young man's life.
No one knew what sort of war it was going to turn out to be - the precursor to WWI in terms of industrial-scale meatgrinder battles. The South had fallen into the trap of believing their own BS about their military strength and how dashing chivalry would win the day.
When I was younger, testosterone, ignorance, and misplaced self-confidence influenced a few errors in judgement. Experience is often necessary for making good decisions, just as often you get experience by making bad decisions.
I just returned from the Stones River Battlefield trail (a Civil War battle) and one of the story telling plaques contains quotes from Union soldiers complaining about doing the massive work to build Rosencrans Arsenal. The comments were "I joined for glory and to fight not to dig into the mud and rock."
So yes, there is that glory type enthusiasm to do your part, support your community/country, whatever. Sad reality is not so pretty though. this was a quote from a union soldier but I think it would apply to a confederate as well.
Instead of "fun", try "adventure". If you're a young man and your future is pretty much destined to be working on the same farm until you keel over, the idea of joining up, wearing a uniform, experiencing cameraderie, showing your mettle at arms and returning with stories to tell can certainly hold some attraction.
And the girls probably like it, always a decision factor at a certain stage in a young man's life.
No one knew what sort of war it was going to turn out to be - the precursor to WWI in terms of industrial-scale meatgrinder battles. The South had fallen into the trap of believing their own BS about their military strength and how dashing chivalry would win the day.
It's all fun and games until that cannonball lands next to ya, huh?
The south actually had a superior fighting forces and leaders for most of the war. They lost because of their lack of manufacturing power. No shoes, no guns, no bullets, no railroads, no food, will stop any army....
It's all fun and games until that cannonball lands next to ya, huh?
The south actually had a superior fighting forces and leaders for most of the war. They lost because of their lack of manufacturing power. No shoes, no guns, no bullets, no railroads, no food, will stop any army....
The South was not without manufacturing ability or facilities, just nothing close to what the North had a capacity to do. The major problem for the CSA was transport, they lacked the means to get the supplies where they were most needed.
The Confederates built the ironclad CSS Virginia in the Norfolk Naval Yard, but after that was lost, they still managed to build the CSS Arkansas, the CSS Albemarle, (built in a South Carolina cornfield) the CSS Tennessee, the CSS Chicora, the CSS Palmetto and the CSS Texas. All but the last saw action.
I wanted you to identify who these "actual historians" were behind "widely discrediting" Foote's trilogy. Since "actual historians" is a claim, not a source, of course you need to provide your sources.
Here's a few:
Annette Gordon-Reed - Harvard Law Professor and Historian
Essay written for American Homer Reflections On Shelby Foote And His Classic The Civil War: A Narrative
Chandra Manning - Harvard PHD Historian and professor at Georgetown.
Shelby Foote quotes a Con – federate saying that he was fighting simply because the Yankees had invaded the South. How does slavery function in that context?
Home and family is important, but it was never separate from the institution of slavery. One of the reasons I think that is because you see soldiers enlisting and fighting and talking about war long before there are Yankees anywhere near their homes. What they’re really afraid of is that Yankees will plant ideas about insurrection in slaves.
Foote wrote the trilogy with the grace and flow of a novelist, he didn't write a novel. If you have some challenge to the facts presented, please provide the specifics of your complaint.
It is a novel. It is most definitely not a historical text that can be held up to peer review.
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I might also ask...have you read the trilogy?
Yes. It is very well written. He was a talented writer. But he was no professional historian.
The source material you used mostly came from educated Confederates. What if it fails to capture the voice of the typical Southerner?
I specifically looked for soldiers who a) didn’t have an economic stake in slavery, and b) were as ordinary as I could possibly find. It’s a bit patronizing to assume that the only guys thinking or writing about what the war was about were the privileged. Everybody had to explain to somebody back home why this war continued to matter. The 20 percent who were illiterate are largely underrepresented, but some of them did dictate letters to messmates or friends. What they share regardless of education level, to a much greater degree than I thought, was the perception that there wouldn’t be a war that need to be fought if the institution of slavery wasn’t threatened.
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Shelby Foote quotes a Con – federate saying that he was fighting simply because the Yankees had invaded the South. How does slavery function in that context?
Home and family is important, but it was never separate from the institution of slavery. One of the reasons I think that is because you see soldiers enlisting and fighting and talking about war long before there are Yankees anywhere near their homes. What they’re really afraid of is that Yankees will plant ideas about insurrection in slaves.
Here's a few:
Annette Gordon-Reed - Harvard Law Professor and Historian
Essay written for American Homer Reflections On Shelby Foote And His Classic The Civil War: A Narrative
Chandra Manning - Harvard PHD Historian and professor at Georgetown.
Yes. It is very well written. He was a talented writer. But he was no professional historian.
Don't just post links and expect me to read through a ton of unrelated material looking for the supposed discrediting of Foote, produce the specific quotes. The one you have above is hardly "discrediting", it is just someone with a slightly different opinion about southern motivations for fighting. That is your notion of the entire trilogy being "widely discredited?" Wow.
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It is a novel. It is most definitely not a historical text that can be held up to peer review.
That is absurdly and obviously false. The inclusion of footnotes is not what makes a book a novel or non fiction, it actually being non fiction which excludes it from being a novel. I asked you for any specific factual errors you believe the text contains and you have not provided any.
Your "widely discredited" assertion is just not true. Every historian has critics, every historians suffers nit picking and complaints about what was included as opposed to what was omitted, but "widely discredited" is for the dudes like Erich von Daniken or Parson Weems, who were actually widely discredited.
I looked up criticism of Foote on my own and the chief complaints are as I describe above. This historian thiinks he didn't place enough emphasis on this, that historian thinks he over emphasized that, and one critic who claims Foote tried to excuse Forrest for the Fort Pillow massacre. I then went and read the section in the trilogy about the massacre and Foote reports that there is no evidence that Forrest ordered it, and there isn't, that he did try to stop it once it was underway, which he did, and that protestations that blacks were not deliberately targeted are negated by the casualty imbalance between the white and black defenders, which they are. Some tend to think that "bad history" is any history which does not agree with their take on a matter. That is quite different from being "widely discredited."
Last edited by Grandstander; 12-05-2019 at 03:22 PM..
Don't just post links and expect me to read through a ton of unrelated material looking for the supposed discrediting of Foote, produce the specific quotes. The one you have above is hardly "discrediting", it is just someone with a slightly different opinion about southern motivations for fighting. That is your notion of the entire trilogy being "widely discredited?" Wow.
Well, you didn't even bother to read anything. I'm not going to bother pulling quotes out just for you to ignore them.
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That is absurdly and obviously false. The inclusion of footnotes is not what makes a book a novel or non fiction, it actually being non fiction excludes it from being a novel. I asked you for any specific factual errors you believe the text contains and you have not provided any.
It is not false. It cannot withstand peer review. It was not written as a historical text. Foote himself called himself a "novelist historian".
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Your "widely discredited" assertion is just not true. Every historian has critics, every historians suffers nit picking and complaints about what was included as opposed to what was omitted, but "widely discredited" is for the dudes like Erich von Daniken or Parson Weems, who were actually widely discredited.
I disagree. To me, Foote is not a historian. Gifted historical writer? Sure. His books are in no way academic texts.
Last edited by Pyramidsurf; 12-05-2019 at 03:40 PM..
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