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Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War
Views from the Dark Side of American History
Throughout his long and influential career, Michael Fellman has explored the tragic side of American history. Incorporating essays written over the past thirty years--two of them previously unpublished, and the others not widely available--Views from the Dark Side of American History reveals some of the major personal and scholarly concerns of his career and illuminates his approach to history, research, applied theory, and analysis.
168 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2011
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April 26, 2012
Michel Fellman, who has professed history at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University, has explored the tragedies of US history throughout a long career. Views from the Dark Side of American History collects essays describing some of that career's professional and personal disputes.
Elsewhere, I've noted that not only do we filter current events through our histories but that we read history through the lens of current events. Through that lens, each of Fellman's essays take on significance beyond their expressed topics and can be read as more than disquisitions on professional practice, scholarly analysis and applied theory.
The history of New Left radicalism during the 1960s and early '70s is generally covered by either David Horowitz and other neo-Whittaker Chambers breast beating or “nyah, nyah, we were right all along” replies by the unreconstructed. Both shed far more heat than light on the subject and the smoke of both keeps us from building on the experience. By avoiding both extremes, Fellman's Madison Daze presents a truer picture of the phenomenon than either (and, sadly, by properly using agents provocateur gives pleasure to one oppressed by a Sister Mary Thistleblossom).
We have seen that the disputes between a set of 20-somethings still matter 40- and 50 years on. George W Bush predicated his re-election campaign on not having opposed Viet Nam, even though his opponent served in country and he himself got no closer to combat than the Gulf of Mexico while his vice president had other priorities at the time.
Fellman's Edge of Nihilism, written as a comparison of the German and American Civil Wars (the German otherwise known as the Thirty Years War), reminds us that in more than two centuries of counter-guerrilla warfare, the US Army has neither found a way to reconcile operational necessity with national ideals nor learned that those supposed operational necessities ultimately costs the war.
We can argue that the Army won the guerrilla war against the Native Americans. That we did so by committing genocide and totally devastating the economic base of the Plains tribes should be inarguable. When soldiers and Anglo gangs wiped out Native villages those were famous victories; when Natives killed small units of soldiers or Anglo mobs [I refuse to dignify many with the name militia], that was a massacre.
In the Philippines we essentially declared victory and brought the volunteers home. The Philippines Insurrection (by the army that thought we had come to liberate the archipelago from the Spanish but learned that they merely had traded colonial overlords) introduced water-boarding to US praxis.
Fellman reminds us that along the Missouri border (in particular) the Civil War began long before April 1861 and continued after April 9, 1865. John Brown and the pro-slavery Border Ruffians were early adopters, and the James gang were post-Appomattox continuers, of the guerrilla war that marked the War along the western border. In that reading, Northfield, Minn. rather than Five Forks, Va. marks a last military gasp of the War of Secession.
Again, along the western Missouri border both Confederate guerrillas and Federal counter-guerrillas committed atrocities against each other and against non-partisan civilians (Fellman does not triage the theater but Adams' description of the Revolutionary divides applies as well here). Each atrocity created partisans against those who committed it (see The Unforgiven as well as the Jesse James myth). The sack of Lawrence led directly to the Pottawatomie massacre led to Marais des Cynges and, via Harper's Ferry, to four years of main force clashes. And contrary to Jay Winik's assertion in April 1865(i) that Appomattox precluded a prolonged guerrilla war, not only did the James and Younger gangs continue to fight but the original iteration of the Ku Klux Klan terrorized blacks and Unionists throughout the former Confederacy until federal troops were withdrawn subsequent to the 1876 Presidential election.
Robert E Lee: Myth and Man
The point is less about the Marble Man myth (let alone Lee himself) and more about the uses made of that myth. A St Robert of Arlington House meant the War was about States' Rights rather than slavery; it certainly was not a clash of oligarchies.
In fact Col. Lee abjured the officer's oath prescribed by the First Congress ["I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States."(ii)], which not only he had by custom taken at least 10 times (at each promotion), but which has no expiry.
Prima facie, he had committed the only crime defined within the Constitution(iii). I daresay the Provost Marshal could have found two witnesses to any of Lee's overt acts between 1861 and 1865.
Specifically, Fellman argues, the St Robert myth allowed the southern aristocracy to distance its paternalistic “soft” racism from, and enforce it by means of, the lynchers and cross burners. The Bourbons and Redeemers' moderation was complemented by the night-riders extremism.
By omitting to note whether the Rev Dr Minnegerode actually administered the Eucharist to both men, the Communion rail story (which did not see print until 40 years after its presumed occurrence) can be read as St Robert promoting healing and accepting the results of the War rather than as a defeated oath breaker continuing the failed counter-revolution by non-military means.
Ninety years after St Robert's apotheosis, the White Citizens Councils were the visible arm of segregation. The Bourbons could use church-bombers to maintain the poll tax (which not only disenfranchised blacks but could be used to discipline uppity crackers). Resistance to the ancien regime could be painted as caused by outside troublemakers (seeking to enforce federal law).
By this analysis, Lyndon Johnson did not break the Bourbons' power by signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they continued to adopt other means to maintain themselves. A further 50 years on, the Tea Party has not taken over the Republican Party so much as it has been developed as a way to channel popular anger away from the Bourbons and their northern and western counterparts and into more 'profitable' channels.
By focusing on these three essays I do not mean to slight the others of the collection. Views from the Dark Side is a valuable counterpoint to the jingo and exceptionalism we usually read of American history.
i) Winik, Jay April 1865: The Month That Saved America 2001 Harper
ii) His abjuration, among others, caused Congress to revise the oath several times until it took its current form under USC 3331, Title 5: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
iii) Art III, Sec 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Elsewhere, I've noted that not only do we filter current events through our histories but that we read history through the lens of current events. Through that lens, each of Fellman's essays take on significance beyond their expressed topics and can be read as more than disquisitions on professional practice, scholarly analysis and applied theory.
The history of New Left radicalism during the 1960s and early '70s is generally covered by either David Horowitz and other neo-Whittaker Chambers breast beating or “nyah, nyah, we were right all along” replies by the unreconstructed. Both shed far more heat than light on the subject and the smoke of both keeps us from building on the experience. By avoiding both extremes, Fellman's Madison Daze presents a truer picture of the phenomenon than either (and, sadly, by properly using agents provocateur gives pleasure to one oppressed by a Sister Mary Thistleblossom).
We have seen that the disputes between a set of 20-somethings still matter 40- and 50 years on. George W Bush predicated his re-election campaign on not having opposed Viet Nam, even though his opponent served in country and he himself got no closer to combat than the Gulf of Mexico while his vice president had other priorities at the time.
Fellman's Edge of Nihilism, written as a comparison of the German and American Civil Wars (the German otherwise known as the Thirty Years War), reminds us that in more than two centuries of counter-guerrilla warfare, the US Army has neither found a way to reconcile operational necessity with national ideals nor learned that those supposed operational necessities ultimately costs the war.
We can argue that the Army won the guerrilla war against the Native Americans. That we did so by committing genocide and totally devastating the economic base of the Plains tribes should be inarguable. When soldiers and Anglo gangs wiped out Native villages those were famous victories; when Natives killed small units of soldiers or Anglo mobs [I refuse to dignify many with the name militia], that was a massacre.
In the Philippines we essentially declared victory and brought the volunteers home. The Philippines Insurrection (by the army that thought we had come to liberate the archipelago from the Spanish but learned that they merely had traded colonial overlords) introduced water-boarding to US praxis.
Fellman reminds us that along the Missouri border (in particular) the Civil War began long before April 1861 and continued after April 9, 1865. John Brown and the pro-slavery Border Ruffians were early adopters, and the James gang were post-Appomattox continuers, of the guerrilla war that marked the War along the western border. In that reading, Northfield, Minn. rather than Five Forks, Va. marks a last military gasp of the War of Secession.
Again, along the western Missouri border both Confederate guerrillas and Federal counter-guerrillas committed atrocities against each other and against non-partisan civilians (Fellman does not triage the theater but Adams' description of the Revolutionary divides applies as well here). Each atrocity created partisans against those who committed it (see The Unforgiven as well as the Jesse James myth). The sack of Lawrence led directly to the Pottawatomie massacre led to Marais des Cynges and, via Harper's Ferry, to four years of main force clashes. And contrary to Jay Winik's assertion in April 1865(i) that Appomattox precluded a prolonged guerrilla war, not only did the James and Younger gangs continue to fight but the original iteration of the Ku Klux Klan terrorized blacks and Unionists throughout the former Confederacy until federal troops were withdrawn subsequent to the 1876 Presidential election.
Robert E Lee: Myth and Man
The point is less about the Marble Man myth (let alone Lee himself) and more about the uses made of that myth. A St Robert of Arlington House meant the War was about States' Rights rather than slavery; it certainly was not a clash of oligarchies.
In fact Col. Lee abjured the officer's oath prescribed by the First Congress ["I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States."(ii)], which not only he had by custom taken at least 10 times (at each promotion), but which has no expiry.
Prima facie, he had committed the only crime defined within the Constitution(iii). I daresay the Provost Marshal could have found two witnesses to any of Lee's overt acts between 1861 and 1865.
Specifically, Fellman argues, the St Robert myth allowed the southern aristocracy to distance its paternalistic “soft” racism from, and enforce it by means of, the lynchers and cross burners. The Bourbons and Redeemers' moderation was complemented by the night-riders extremism.
By omitting to note whether the Rev Dr Minnegerode actually administered the Eucharist to both men, the Communion rail story (which did not see print until 40 years after its presumed occurrence) can be read as St Robert promoting healing and accepting the results of the War rather than as a defeated oath breaker continuing the failed counter-revolution by non-military means.
Ninety years after St Robert's apotheosis, the White Citizens Councils were the visible arm of segregation. The Bourbons could use church-bombers to maintain the poll tax (which not only disenfranchised blacks but could be used to discipline uppity crackers). Resistance to the ancien regime could be painted as caused by outside troublemakers (seeking to enforce federal law).
By this analysis, Lyndon Johnson did not break the Bourbons' power by signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they continued to adopt other means to maintain themselves. A further 50 years on, the Tea Party has not taken over the Republican Party so much as it has been developed as a way to channel popular anger away from the Bourbons and their northern and western counterparts and into more 'profitable' channels.
By focusing on these three essays I do not mean to slight the others of the collection. Views from the Dark Side is a valuable counterpoint to the jingo and exceptionalism we usually read of American history.
i) Winik, Jay April 1865: The Month That Saved America 2001 Harper
ii) His abjuration, among others, caused Congress to revise the oath several times until it took its current form under USC 3331, Title 5: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
iii) Art III, Sec 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
February 5, 2015
The late Michael Fellman wrote a fantastic book in "Inside War", but quite frankly this was a wasted read. It's nothing more than recollections of his scholarly works, engagements and colleagues that is slow, hard to read, and quite frankly, boring. Dark side of history? You won't find it here. If you consider speaking to a black audience about slavery a "dark side" then this might be for you, but seriously, there really is nothing to see here. I found a few of his positions related to historiography interesting, but once again, it's just rambling on about various topics from his liberal viewpoint (he makes it quite clear that is his perspective) which provides little information or enticement for anyone outside of that viewpoint. I suffered through 3/4 of the book and put it down.
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