the ANV - Freeman Challenge

“Shiloh Nick” over at Battlefield Wanderings says he’s going to take a crack at “ranking” the Army of Northern Virginia officers listed at the end of chapter 8, volume 1, of Lee’s Lieutenants. Here’s another link to the post if anyone else wants to give it a try: One for the ANV fans. (By the way, all of the officers not listed in Freeman’s actual text are listed via the footnotes. So I didn’t just pull the names out of thin air. )

If you attempt the task of ranking these 51 officers, let me know when you’re ready with your list by commenting on this post and I’ll send you my email address. I’ll publish any lists I get here. I’d be curious to see how much difference of opinion there is.

one for the ANV fans

Here’s one to ponder for those out there who consider themselves Army of Northern Virginia afficanados.

At the end of chapter 8 of volume one of Freeman’s classic Lee’s Lieutenants, Freeman speaks of the fates of the various officers at Manassas:

Ten held that rank [ general officer ] on the day of battle. One of them, Bee, was mortally wounded. Another, Bonham, resigned at the rank then held. A third, Johnston, already had the highest grade in the army. Of the others, Beauregard and Kirby Smith became Generals; Longstreet, Jackson, Holmes, and Ewell rose to be Lieutenant Generals, and D.R. Jones died as a Major General. Of the colonels at Manassas, A.P. Hill, Early and Hampton ended their service as Lieutenant Generals. Seven other Colonels were to be Major Generals and fourteen were to lead Brigades; one Major, Whiting, and two Lieutenants, became Generals of divisions, three lieutenant colonels, eight Captains, with one Lieutenant and three state milita officers, serving as aides, were to recieve the three stars and the wreath of Brigadeir General.

In short, to the nine general officers who survived Manassas, forty-two were to be added from men in the army along Bull Run that July day. Of the fifty-one, ten were doomed to lose their lives during the war. Eight, and no more than eight, were to prove plainly unqualified for the final grade they reached; nine were to show themselves of low capacity to command; seventeen could be regarded as average soldiers; the remaining seventeen were to be renowned.

The seven colonels who became major generals are Stuart, Elzey, Willliam Smith, Samuel Jones, Rodes, Kershaw, and Kemper. The fourteen to lead brigades were Micah Jenkins, Featherson, Garland, Corse, N.G. Evans, Harry Hays, Kirkland, Hunton, W.N. Pendelton, J.S. Preston, William Barksdale, J.C. Vaughn, P. St. George Cocke, and Thomas Jordan. The two lieutenants are Fitz Lee and Rosser; the three lieutenant colonels are T.T. Munford, George Steuart, and John Echols. James Dearing was the other Lieutenant; the state milita officers were States Rights Gist, Johnson Hagood, and Samuel McGowan. Finally, the eight captains were Williams C. Wickham, Porter Alexander, Imboden, Lindsay Walker, James Conner, W.H. Stevens, W.H. Terry, and G.M. Sorrel.

The ten who lost their lives (who you don’t otherwise elimenate by the way if you do the math) are obvious. The unlucky ten were A.P. Hill, Jackson, Jenkins, Barksdale, Rodes, Dearing, Stuart, D.R. Jones, Cocke, and Garland.

Here’s the task: categorize these 51 generals as Freeman would have. And then — do you agree? Who is “renowned”? Who is of “low capacity”? Who was plainly incompetent?

This task is actually a lot more difficult to do than appears at first glance. For one thing, you need to know a lot about the Army of Northern Virginia. But that alone won’t cut it, you also need to know a lot about several other theaters of operations too. Some of these officers, I dare say, are quite obscure.

A few are obvious. It’d be hard to argue that Longstreet and Jackson were not “renowned.” By the same token, I don’t think too many people would quibble with placing Lee’s magnificant failure of an artillery officer (Pendelton) in the ranks of those plainly unqualified.

But beyond that it gets tricky.

How do you place someone like Cocke who committed suicide soon after Manassas? Or Bonham who resigned soon thereafter? Does that make him “average”? Do you judge based on one performance? Do you categorize someone who was promoted beyond his capacity (for example, like many would argue Richard Ewell and A.P. Hill turned out to be) as of “low capacity” or as “average” when earlier in the War they won great renown and were probably amongst the best at the lower grade from which they were promoted? And what the heck do you do with someone like Johnston or Beauregard?

How about solid soldiers like Kershaw or McGowan — “average” or “renowned”? How do you compare someone who ended the War in command a brigade of cavalry (i.e. Wickham) to a corps artillery chief (i.e. Lindsay Walker) to a department head (Samuel Jones) to an army commander (Johnston or Beauregard)? What do you do with those killed early in battle (Garland) versus those killed late in the War in battle (Dearing)? How about those who only briefly wore the wreath around their stars (again, Dearing)? How about those who’s careers were interupted chronically by a series of wounds?

Are those who died gallantly in battle (Rodes, Garland, Barksdale, Gist) to be automatically ranked higher than a commander who did not suffer that misfortunate?

Give it a try.

the Gregg-McGowan Brigade & history musings

A visitor asked what my favorite brigade in the Light Division was. I hate to play favorites, because I am sure Hill would have been careful not to show favoritism (he was a very good officer that way), but my favorite brigade is the South Carolina brigade of Maxcy Gregg and Samuel McGowan.

Just the visual of Maxcy Gregg, wielding his Revolutionary War scimitar at Second Manassas, lopping the “heads” off of the daisies, urging his men with “let us die here, my men, let us die here!” — that’s what makes history exciting, at least for me. The images. Maybe that’s why I liked the movie Gettysburg so much.

For historiography class — I was a history major in college — I had to write a paper on an historian. I was hoping for Douglas Southall Freeman.⁰ Yes, I was even an A.P. Hill fan back then and I was enthralled by R.E. Lee and then by the three volumes that made up Lee’s Lieutenants. But I ended up assigned with Allan Nevins who I had never read.

So I broke out “Ordeal of the Union” — that was Nevins’ main multi-volume treatise on the War. While of course no Lee’s Lieutenants (nothing measured up at that time for me with Freeman), I appreciated Nevins style. He wrote well. Not all historians can write well. And reading Nevins — who thought a lot about historiography — was the first time I had ever thought about the study of history.¹

My favorite Nevins quote came out of an address to the American Historical Association entitled “Not Capulets, Not Montagus”² in which he described history as like a painting. Some imagination, Nevins pointed out in some of his other works, was necessary to mix with the paint.

Nevins was concerned very much with the general public remaining interested in the historical field. He railed against boring academics. Nevins thought there was a large segment of the population out there who were interested in history, but needed it presented in a digestible form. He’s probably right, though I don’t think he was for the “dumbing down” of history. Nevins thought that a good knowledge of history was necessary to a democratic republic and though he thought history should be presented in an accessible way, I think it was a big part of his historical philosophy that historians shouldn’t automatically assume the public was dumb.

I’m not an academic historian — far from it. I think I am probably more of your Nevins prototypical, educated democratic republican … Hey, I admit I like military history and biography and my eyes always sort of glazed over when too much “academic” stuff was presented. And Then A.P. Hill Came Up has plenty of primary source material that stands on its own, but the point never was to produce an academic work. The point was to get people interested in history. Especially kids. Because history is a fascinating topic.

If And Then A.P. Hill Came Up has interested one person in history, then all the hours hacking away at it were worthwhile.

Anyway, I always liked the painting quote …. History can never be a photograph of the past — well, it can be, obviously as we do have what are snapshots of the past (be they film or recorded) — but once interpretation mixes in, history becomes more art than science. No historian is without biases. Its just not possible. Or at least that’s how I have always seen it. My favorite authors have always been the ones who could paint. Its nice to have the primary sources, of course, but without interpretation, without the images, history would be (as its critics point out) boring.

Hopefully And then A.P. Hill Came Up isn’t boring and hopefully it has the right mix of “real” history sources and narrative history to make it accessible and appealing to the general public, yet also useful to a large segment of the public, maybe even to a more academic audience. But I don’t really know. The site is unique because it has stuff written from Jenny at the tender age of 17 (still in high school, in fact) all the way to 27 — and you better believe my views on things (generals, battles, history) have changed. I think that’s inevitable with experience and with age.

The site was built partly for me — I admit it. It exists partly to fulfill a selfish interest in the Civil War period that I had no outlet for — I had the itch to write and create and I still do. But its never been about making money and I’ve always kept the site as a free source … sort of an internet A.P. Hill library. Its my little contribution to the world. (I’m proud of it, but I don’t pretend its a real work of art, like a book.)

I should also say that maintaining a Civil War website has been nothing if not interesting. The nature of the medium, the ability to change things totally at will, to evolve, is something authors of books don’t get as much opportunity for. I mean, an author can always publish a new edition, but nowhere near as easily as I can change my website. If I want to add stuff, I add it. Whenever I want.

I also love being able to trade information. Through my site, I’ve met all sorts of cool and interesting people. Everyone from Civil War historians and authors to just regular people who enjoy history (a few have even contributed to the A.P. Hill site). There is no better way to be found today than to be out on the world wide web.

I also have to admit to loving the technical aspects and challenges of having a website. I actually enjoy writing CSS code and changing the design from time to time — and I am a self-taught website designer (even more so than a historian; at least there I was a history major in college as an undergrad). Being a Civil War webmaster has involved not only learning about history but it has also entailed a lot of work learning to code XHTML and CSS (I am proud to say I hand-coded my A.P. Hill website). A Civil War webmaster is part historian, part techie. He or she has to be. Its rather cool and very 21st century.³

If you managed to wade through this widely rambling post, I am deeply impressed.

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0. I need to spend more time surfing the Civil War blogsphere. Somehow I missed Richard Williams’ excellent Old Virginia Blog. There is an EXCELLENT piece right up front currently on Douglas Southall Freeman. Having browsed through Mr. Williams’ blog, I think its right up my alley — and probably the alley of you other A.P. Hill “fans” out there (c’mon I KNOW theres more than just me)

1. Speaking of blogging. As an aside: If you’re interested in historiography of the War Between the States, then you definitely need to start reading Dimitri’s blog, if its already not on your regular list. I don’t always agree with him (does anyone always agree with anyone, ever?), but Dimitri WILL make you think and I think that’s one of the highest compliments you can pay a blogger. And that’s why his blog has been in my blogroll for as long as I can remember. He is also delightfully opinionated — sometimes acerbically so.

2. You can read “Not Capulets, Not Montagus” online at the American Historical Association website.

3. For an excellent treatment of what its like on an ongoing basis to have a Civil War website project, I highly recommend Behind Antietam on the Web written by Brian Downey.