Is There Still Gatekeeping Among Civil War Military Historians?
I enjoyed watching the annual Fortenbaugh Lecture at Gettysburg College, which this year was organized as a roundtable discussion. Historians Drew Gilpin Faust, David Blight, and Stephanie McCurry joined moderators Jim Downs and Scott Hancock for a wide ranging conversation about public memory of the Civil War era, history education and the current state of the historical profession.
It’s worth watching, but I have to say that I was and remain utterly confused by one particular moment in the conversation when Jim Downs suggested that Civil War military historians “have cordoned off military history as separate from emancipation” and the larger story of Reconstruction. The result, he argues, is a history that “depopulates emancipation” from the overall narrative and “reifies tactics and strategy.”
Perhaps I am missing something, but this is certainly not what I am seeing in the scholarship these days. Quite the opposite.
First, do Civil War military historians, who still write traditional narratives focused on battles, leaders, tactics, and logistics exercise any influence over the field? I rarely see such book reviewed in the two academic journals devoted to the Civil War era and I don’t see much being published outside of the few niche publishers that concentrate on producing such books, most notably Savas-Beatie.
If Earl Hess were to suddenly stop writing, the production of new academic titles with a traditional military history bent would be cut in half. (That’s a joke.)
Many of us remember the controversy back in 2014 following the publication of essays expressing concern about the state of Civil War military history in The Journal of the Civil War Era and Civil War History. Historians Gary Gallagher, Kathryn Meier, and Earl Hess all worried about the state of the field of military history and War Studies. I suspect that all three would agree that the situation has not changed at all.
There appears to be very little room for academic studies focused on traditional military history as defined by Jim Downs. I am on the awards committee for a major book prize in the field of Civil War history and thus far only one title could be labeled as a traditional military history of the Civil War.
On the other hand, one of the most popular books to be published this past year was by Bennett Parten, whose Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation explores how the Union army set the stage for the ‘self-emancipation’ of thousands of enslaved in Georgia in 1864.
Sherman's March and Military Emancipation: A Conversation With Bennett Parten
Thanks to Dr. Bennett Parten for joining me to talk about his fantastic new book, Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation. The book offers a major reinterpretation of how the movement of Sherman’s army toward Savannah, in November 1864, resulted in the emancipation of roughly 20,000 enslaved men, women, …
Another popular book that reminds us that the Civil War and Reconstruction must be understood as one continuous story as opposed to two distinct chapters is Michael Vorenberg’s Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the Civil War.
When Did the Civil War End? A Conversation With Michael Vorenberg
I had a wonderful time talking with historian Michael Vorenberg about his new book, Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the Civil War. For many students of the Civil War era, the question of when the Civil War ended has an obvious answer: Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
I could easily rattle off a much longer list.
From where I stand, there really is very little traditional military history left to speak of at this point. Civil War military historians have fully embraced gender, racial, and cultural history as well as memory studies, all within a broader narrative that increasingly follows the nation west and beyond.
That’s how the state of the field looks from my perspective. What do you think?
As someone who just completed an MA in Military History I aspire to write academic military histories/war studies on the Civil War. However, while the Reconstruction is part and parcel of Civil War history it’s an area I’m less well versed in and will likely not, at least for now, write on it. Just a personal choice however, as I lean towards writing on battles, units and individuals. My first book project however, I believe will encompass traditional military history and elements of social history. So while I certainly believe there is still much to say in a military history of the war I agree that military history has been altered by an embrace of social history.
Of course there are military historians out there who think little of things social and political, just as there are social and political historians working in the Civil War period who don't know a brigade from a bucket. But it's my sense that the "cordoning off" is most aggressively done by academic historians who choose not to recognize the broadening scope of work done by many military historians of the period. Glenn Brasher, John Matsui, Zachery Fry, Ethan Rafuse, Jonathan Noyalas, and others (including myself) have devoted significant effort to understanding the nexus of freedom, politics, and the armies in the field. Meanwhile (as you point out, Kevin), traditional military history and battle narratives have disappeared from the catalogs of university and large commercial presses and instead are now the realm of specialty presses. And the output of those, excepting Savas Beatie, is a fraction of what it was in the 1990s.