What Modern Academics Really Think of Primary Sources

(February 27, 2018) When a new Civil War history book is published that does not conform to currently dominant interpretations of the era, most modern academics and their students seek a reason to condemn it. One popular ploy is dismiss it for containing too many secondary sources.

But if the facts cited by such sources are valid the merit of the book should be judged on the value of its analysis, and not the nature of the citations. Facts, after all, are facts. Unfortunately, today’s typical historians will concede the point only when the applicable book upholds their anti-Southern interpretations.

One example is Alan Nolan’s Lee Considered, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1991. Nolan’s purpose was to deflate Lee’s long-standing reputation, especially as the best general of the Civil War. It is one of two books over the past forty years that has, in fact, triggered a decline of Lee’s reputation among today’s dominant historians. Yet its sources are overwhelmingly secondary ones.

Nonetheless, Nolan’s reliance on such sources fails to prevent academics from praising Lee Considered. One example is Drew Gilpin Faust. She is currently the President of Harvard University but was a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania when she reviewed the book for the New York Times in 1991.

She wrote, “Lee Considered calls for a wholesale revision in our national image of Robert E. Lee.” Even though admitting that the book contains “no new facts” she praises Nolan’s criticisms of Lee as “persuasive.” One such critique is that Lee’s “offensive military patterns . . . caused a defeat that was far from inevitable, while his military persistence in the face of certain defeat . . . [was] . . . murderous folly rather than heroism.” She also supports Nolan’s belief that “Lee’s supposed magnanimity toward the enemy, and his long-admired role as postwar conciliator . . . is unsubstantiated.”

Faust next segues to an endorsement of Pious Cause Mythology* by explaining that Nolan’s larger purpose transcends the “century-old fascination with Lee.”

The Lee tradition constitutes the parable of the war. Just as we have distorted the figure of Lee, so we have remembered the Civil War not as history but as legend. The trauma and pain connected with the experience led Americans to convert the tragedy into a Victorian melodrama, a mawkish romance. The representation of a Christlike Lee . . . provided a myth around which Americans could unite. This in turn . . . led Americans to embrace a racist view of the war . . . and “deprived . . . the nation . . . of any high purpose for the war.”

So long as we as a nation insist on explaining away the Civil War by reassuring ourselves that both sides were right, we cannot overcome the legacy of slavery.

Even though Nolan’s book is based chiefly on secondary sources, Ms. Faust could hardly have provided a more ringing endorsement.

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*Pious Cause Mythology is the myth that Northerners chose to fight the Civil War to end slavery. That they had no economic motives. That the South is kind of an evil twin to the North that is responsible for American racism and the slow adoption of progressive policies.

Arrant Pedantry and Shelby Foote

(February 23, 2018) Although Shelby Foote died a dozen years ago, he remains one of the most popular Civil War authors ever. Yet some modern historians and their students delight in trumpeting errors—no matter how inconsequential—that they discover in his three-volume narrative. Among the most vicious are those that attempt to discredit Foote because he was not a “trained historian” and was merely a novelist. (They say “novelist” like Mozart might have said “disco.”) But as Winston Churchill replied when told it was grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition: “That opinion is arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put!”

Provided below are examples of two technical errors by Foote that don’t invalidate his fundamental points, although some critics imagine that they do.

First, Foote mistakenly writes that General John Buford’s Union cavalry division that met the initial Confederate advance on Gettysburg was armed with repeating carbines. It was instead armed with various models of breech-loading carbines that were loaded one cartridge at a time. But Foote’s point—that the Federals were armed with faster firing shoulder arms than the approaching Rebel infantry—is valid.

As a result, Buford’s Division was more powerful than a single Confederate division from a firing rate perspective. Whereas a Spencer repeater’s firing rate was twice that of a breech-loading carbine, the breech-loader was still three times faster than the Confederate muzzle-loaders.[1]

Second, when explaining the value of speed in the design of ram warships to be used at the Naval battle in the Mississippi River near Memphis, Foote jumbles the applicable physics equations. He mistakenly writes that the force of the ram is equal to the ram’s mass multiplied by the square of its velocity. The correct equation matches the kinetic energy of the ram with its destructive power as follows:

Kinetic Energy = (½) x (mass) x (velocity)^2

Thus, Foote’s basic point is correct. Doubling the mass of a ram merely doubles its destructive power. But doubling the speed of a ram quadruples its destructive power.[2]

While I have observed online discussions involving both of the above examples that included participants who portrayed themselves as  “trained historians” they failed to grasp, or concede, Foote’s significant points. Although they readily disparaged him for wrongly writing that Buford’s men had repeating carbines, they failed to admit that Buford’s breech-loaders still gave the Federal division a big man-for-man firepower advantage. Similarly, none seemed to understand why the velocity of a ram warship is a more important variable than the mass of the same ship in terms of its destructive power.

[1] Source 1; Source 2; Source 3

[2] That’s because two-squared equals four.

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Wrong Man for the West

(February 19, 2018) Two days after he replaced a passive George Randolph as the Confederate secretary of war on November 22, 1862, James Seddon took a decisive step — one that, had it played out the way he wanted, could have changed the outcome of the war. Above the two generals currently leading independent armies in the Western Theater, he placed a single commander, Joseph E. Johnston.

Confederate War Secretary James Seddon

Despite being a Virginian, Seddon was among the first in Richmond to recognize that if Gen. Robert E. Lee failed to win the war in the East, the Confederacy could lose it in the West. Eventually, that’s what happened. Lee did not win a second bid for victory at Gettysburg, but thereafter stalemated Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia. Meanwhile, though, the Union’s successive victories in the West, culminating in Gen. William T. Sherman’s campaign through Georgia and the Carolinas, sealed the Confederacy’s fate. As the historian Albert Castel put it, the Confederacy “needed two Lees. It had but one.”

For a while, though, Seddon hoped that Johnston could fill that role. His selection wasn’t unanimously supported; President Jefferson Davis had misgivings about Johnston, but favored him over Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, Seddon’s likely second choice.

continue reading my NY Times article here.

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Colonel Wilder’s Lightning Brigade

(February 16, 2018) Newly promoted rebel brigadier general John Hunt Morgan set out on a cavalry raid into Kentucky on Dec. 22, 1862. His objective: the railroad between Nashville and Cincinnati, the primary supply line for Gen. William Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland. Rosecrans was getting ready to move his 44,000 men against the 38,000 soldiers under Gen. Braxton Bragg, based in Murfreesboro, just 26 miles from Nashville. The Federal general didn’t have enough cavalry to simultaneously support a movement on Bragg and a hunt for Morgan’s 3,000 raiders, but he could ill afford to let supply disruptions threaten his attack plans: President Lincoln was growing impatient for results.

The same day Morgan’s troops were breaking camp, the Union colonel John T. Wilder arrived in Gallatin, Tenn. to assume command of an infantry brigade. Within days his was one of two infantry units Rosecrans dispatched to catch Morgan’s cavalry. Without horses, it was an unrealistic expectation, and Wilder was completely unsuccessful — an experience that left him seething with anger.

to read the rest of my NY Times article click here.

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Doubting The Obvious

(February 15, 2018) In 1996 I was a stockbroker helping the executives of public companies sell their stock on the open market under legal exemptions to Securities Act registration.

Only a year earlier, a trailblazing Internet company named Netscape first offered stock to the public. Twenty years before that I worked on Wall Street as a stock analyst when I learned about the computer network managed by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Termed DARPA-Net, it was actually the predecessor to the Internet. In 1996 none of the stock analysts at my firm covered Internet stocks. Therefore, I asked the research department director, Bruce*, if he would assign me as the “Internet Analyst” to cover socks like Netscape.

When I met with Bruce he said,  “You know, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Internet myself at home in the evenings. It’s pretty fascinating. But . . . what stocks would you cover? There aren’t many.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” I answered. “But take a look at this magazine.” I handed him a Red Herring. Look at all the companies that are presently private but also backed by leading venture firms.”

I gave Bruce time to thumb through Red Herring. “Yeah. I guess a lot of these companies are candidates for public offerings . . . But I want you to talk to John. Work-up a written proposal and I’ll send it to John.”*

John was Bruce’s boss. He was responsible for investment banking, stock research, and institutional stock sales. We met a few days later.

“Well, what do you think, John?”

“It’s interesting. But what stocks do you think you could cover?

Nodding as a way of signifying that he was asking a good question I said, “That seems to be changing weekly. But some ideas include Netscape, Netcom, America Online and Yahoo! . . . Did you see the Red Herring magazine that I included along with the proposal packet?”

“Yeah.” John took a breath, opened the magazine and looked it over for a few moments. “This magazine is a hell of a prospect list for investment bankers. But the companies are all privately owned.” That meant that they were not suitable for stock analyst coverage, because there was no stock owned by the public.

“True,” I answered, “but don’t you think that some of them will go public pretty quickly, considering the venture capital involvement?”

“Yeah, it sure looks that way,” said John.

“I’m especially intrigued by Amazon.com. I’ve bought books from them. I’m impressed with the broad selection, good pricing and prompt delivery.”

“I like them too,” replied John. “They could be pioneering an entirely new paradigm of retailing. They could be really big.”

In December 1996 America Online changed their Internet access pricing from metered rates to a flat monthly fee. Soon tens of millions of people were getting online. It was then obvious that the Internet was going to become a big business. I was appointed as our firm’s Internet stock analyst sometime before the summer of 1997. Amazon.com sold stock to the public in May 1997. I bought shares on the first day, although I had to pay a premium in the “aftermarket” because I was prohibited to buy stock on the original issue. Nonetheless, I sold the stock after it doubled in price.

Then I began to doubt the obvious. My firm engaged a prominent business school professor to conduct a full day seminar designed to help stock analysts pick winning companies. His chief message was that we should hunt for companies that enjoyed substantial competitive “barriers to entry.”

During one Q & A session another analyst asked, “What about a stock like Amazon.com?”

Before answering the PhD stepped away from the podium, walked in a little circle and then returned to the microphone. He answered with a rhetorical question. “What are the entry barriers in that business?”

Nobody answered.

The professor continued, “What is to prevent other, much larger, already existing terrestrial competitors from getting into their business? How will they survive once that happens?”

Again nobody answered. Finally, I said, “Online retailing is a new environment and requires a different DNA. Much like the leading vacuum tube companies such as RCA and GE got displaced by Intel and Texas Instruments after electronics components shifted from tubes to sold state devices.”

The professor nodded politely, but said nothing and there were no more pertinent questions.

But the damage was done. By the year 2000 many investors doubted Amazon’s viability. Even though Kleiner-Perkins was an early Amazon investor, Tom Perkins had turned pessimistic about the company’s future.

In contrast, Amazon presently appears to be invincible. It’s wrecking traditional retailing, instead of the other way around. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to first impressions. In retrospect, Amazon’s success seemed as certain as fleas on a yard dog. Perhaps first impressions represent—in a flash—the accumulated wisdom of our lifetimes. Conversely, doubtful second thoughts might be nothing more than rationalizations that pander to our worst fears.

An aged Mark Twain revealed a similar wisdom when he said, “During my lifetime I have suffered a great many calamities, most of which never happened.”

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*Bruce and John are pseudonyms.