Article: The Silent Spring of Walker Railey (D Magazine, October 1987) by Mike Shropshire

It seems like a good time for long articles to read while at home. One article I highly recommend is Mike Shropshire's article in the October 1987 D Magazine titled "The Silent Spring of Walker Railey" regarding the attack on Peggy Railey, wife of high-profile Methodist minister Walker Railey. I lived in Dallas at the time, working in an office that had a view of the SMU campus (a beautiful view across North Central Freeway). The attempted murder of Peggy Railey was a huge story at the time, but I'm not sure how widespread the story went outside of north Texas.
Unfortunately, the transition from the print article to online has many typos, but they're easy to decipher.

I can't imagine sitting across the table from Railey and interviewing him. What's most worrisome for me is not that Railey is a monster, although that would be part of the concern. It's more that he is an "everyman," a successful everyman, and we see part of ourselves when we look at him. How much of that monster is inside each of us? And what does it take for that part of us to surface?

As I said the event and story sent seismic waves through Dallas at the time. I don't see many thorough online articles regarding the story from the year of the attack, but that is probably due to few print publications from that period available online to us now. Another article that covers much of the same ground but adds an additional interview with Railey after the events is "The Sins of Walker Railey" by Lawrence Wright in the January 1988 edition of Texas Monthly. I admire Shropshire and Wright for the work they did given the disturbing nature of the story.

Railey's story takes many twisted turns regarding the minister and the Methodist church. I remember a friend working on his PhD in religion at SMU during this period who would stay overnight at our house during his visits. We would stay up late while he filled me in on issues that wouldn't become public for several months negatively impacting the church, its image, and more importantly its principles.

I link to these posts since they were published within a year of the story. Many good articles were published years later when Peggy Railey died almost 25 years after her attack, a timing that coincided with more news sources publishing online and when more information was available.

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963 TV movie)

Last week, TCM aired the 1963 TV documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment directed by Robert Drew. From the linked DrewAssociates link:

When Governor George Wallace literally stands in the schoolhouse door to block the admittance of two African-American students to the all-white University of Alabama in June 1963, President Kennedy is forced to decide whether to use the power of the presidency to back racial equality.

“Crisis” captures events from all sides, using the cinema verite techniques pioneered by Drew Associates. The cameras follow the President, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Wallace, and the two students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, as the crisis unfolds and up through its dramatic climax, including rare scenes of decision-making inside the Oval Office.

This TV movie is a good introduction to the segregation of the University of Alabama in June 1963. The main characters are Alabama Governor George Wallace, President John Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and students Vivian Malone and James Hood. The students are essentially pawns in a larger game of national vs. state policy and the carrying out of a court order for the University of Alabama to allow black students to enroll. Wallace campaigned on keeping the schools segregated and was upholding his promise—Alabama was the last state to have segregated public universities.

Despite Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach's desire not to make a stage production out of the confrontation, the actual moment was essentially theater intended for the public, everyone's part scripted to further their message. Wallace knew he was going to lose this confrontation, and Kennedy did his part to let Wallace save face in defeat. The tension came from neither side knowing exactly how the other would act. What helped was the desire of both sides to keep this peaceful, and to his credit, Wallace played a large part in that. Early in the movie he charges his staff to avoid violence, sealing off the university from outsiders in order to avoid violence like the previous year at the University of Mississippi. You'll notice a lack of crowds at Foster Auditorium other than state troopers, policemen, and the press. And later the nationalized Alabama National Guard.

Even with the softening of the setting, it doesn't lessen the tension, especially for Malone and Hood. Their grace under pressure is extraordinary. The brief interviews shown with them answering questions from the press and preparing for enrollment is a testament to their fortitude.

The two confrontations between Katzenbach and Wallace are shown, the second one resulting in Wallace backing down and allowing the court order to be fulfilled. With D.A. Pennebaker filming in Washington and Richard Leacock handling the camera in Alabama, we see what is happening simultaneously in both locations. This also gives rise to one moment of levity when Robert Kennedy puts his three-year-old daughter Kerry on the phone with Katzenbach. For a moment, the stress melts from Nick's face as he chats with the child.

After the resolution in Tuscaloosa, we see David McGlathery walking unaccompanied to register at the University of Alabama—Huntsville two days after Wallace's stand. I wish more had been said about McGlathery since he was the first black to attempt to integrate the University of Alabama system. To say the movie brought back a lot of memories for me is slightly misleading...I was only 1 year old when the events here unfolded. But the settings around Montgomery and Tuscaloosa are part of my youth, and Wallace was a dominant figure for decades. The adults showing their appreciation for Wallace were figuratively like many of my neighbors. I remember my fifth-grade teacher crying when the news broke that Wallace had been shot in 1972. Plus, I don't know how many times I've passed through those doors at Foster Auditorium while attending Alabama, but I remember the first time I did, looking around to compare with the pictures and footage I saw of these moments.

I say the movie is a good introduction because there is so much more to the story than just the lead-up to that one day. Wallace is a fascinating character and worth watching the higher-rated movies about him and reading about his personal and political lives. The Washington characters have plenty of coverage, although I will recommend finding out more on Nicholas Katzenbach and his career. And, at the center of the storm, the students deserve reading about for their role and how they played it. Very highly recommended.

The movie is currently available to Hulu Live subscribers (I don't know for how long), or for a fee at Amazon Prime or on YouTube. The movie is also one of the features in The Criterion Collection's The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates disc.

Excerpt from The Russian Job by Douglas Smith

Found at Air Mail, an excerpt/adaptation from The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Ruin, by Douglas Smith, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux today. An engrossing read (no pun intended).

The stories began to appear in the Soviet press in the autumn of 1921, each one more gruesome than the last. There was the woman who refused to let go of her dead husband’s body. “We won’t give him up,” she screamed when the authorities came to take it away. “We’ll eat him ourselves, he’s ours!” There was the cemetery where a gang of 12 ravenous men and women dug up the corpse of a recently deceased man and devoured his cold flesh on the spot. There was the man captured by the police after murdering his friend, chopping off his head, and selling the body at a street market to a local restaurant owner to be made into meatballs, cutlets, and hash. And then there was the desperate mother of four starving children, saved only by the death of their sister, aged 13, whom the woman cut up and fed to the family.

The stories seemed too horrific to believe. Few could imagine a hunger capable of driving people to such acts. One man went in search of the truth. Henry Wolfe, a high-school history teacher from Ohio, spent several weeks in the spring of 1922 traveling throughout Samara Province, in southeastern Russia, intent on finding physical evidence of cannibalism. In the district of Melekess, officials told him about a father who had killed and eaten his two little children. He confessed that their flesh had “tasted sweeter than pork.” Wolfe kept on searching, and eventually found the proof he had been looking for.

And:
Cynthia Haven has an article on PBS "American Experience" documentary The Great Famine (trailer can be found here), based on Stanford researcher Bertrand Patenaude's The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921.

God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves

God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves
Edited by Clifton H. Johnson, with a new introduction by Albert J. Rabateau
The William Bradford Collection from The Pilgrim Press, 1993 (2nd edition)
Paperback, 204 pages

The reissue of a rare volume of ex-slave narratives is as timely now as it was when it first appeared in a mass-produced paperback edition in 1969. These autobiographical memories and recollections of conversion experiences of elderly African Americans, born under slavery, were culled from interviews conducted during the years 1927 to 1929 by Andrew Polk Watson, a graduate student in anthropology at Fisk University. Originally issued in limited circulation at Social Science Source Documents No. 2 by Fisk in 1945 in tandem with another volume of ex-slave narratives, The Unwritten History of Slavery (Social Science Source Documents No. 1), the value of these texts becomes all the more apparent when we realize that they were recorded just as the opportunity to listen to the testimony of living former slaves was rapidly disappearing. Under the guidance of anthropologist Paul Radin, then serving as a research professor at Fisk, Watson conducted extended interviews with a hundred elderly black people, asking them to recall life during slavery and to describe their religious conversion experiences. "The autobiographical narratives were then culled from long and rambling accounts, but in most cases the conversion experiences were repeated several times as here recorded, with little or no variation from one telling to the next."
- Albert J. Rabateau (xix)

The central focus in this book is the religious conversion experience, the sudden, dramatic change in an individual when realizing acceptance into the Christian faith. The book contains an introductory essay by Andrew P. Watson on "Negro Primitive Religious Services," thirty-one conversion stories, and six autobiographical sketches. In this edition's Introduction by Rabateau, he notes

the vividness of the imagery and its similarity from one account to the next. A common store of biblical sources, especially the Book of Revelations, helps to explain the frequency with which the same images appear. These were common cultural images, heard over and over again in hymns, prayers, and expounded upon in sermon after sermon. The accounts also betray a common narrative pattern due to the regular recitation of conversion experiences at revivals and "experience meetings" by the converted who were expected to talk about the inner working of the Spirit upon their hearts. Individual and unique as these conversion experiences were, they shared the common narrative construction and group norms associated with the tradition. Thus conversion was both a profoundly personal experience and an experience defined and validated within a community of church folk.
(xxiii)

Despite having many stories echo each other, the former slaves' conversion stories are interesting to read, in part because of the details of their differences but mainly from the joy you can tell the interviewee has in telling it. Common themes include individual and group visits to the woods or a particular tree, hearing voices or seeing a "little man," and sickness or loss of appetite, all leading up to a "death" experiences from which God brings them back to life reborn in faith. Their descriptions of God (and the easterly direction where he resides) sound similar, as does the joy expressed through singing and dancing, all hinting at some sort of cultural synchronicity. Without a doubt, though, the bliss expressed by the slaves feels authentic. Here's a conversion story from the "To Hell with a Prayer in My Mouth" chapter that covers a few of the common attributes:

[The] Lord would begin to work with me, saying each time, "You got to die and can't live!" I hadn't yet learnt anything about a spiritual death, so I thought he meant I would have to die a natural death. My husband and neighbors thought I had lost my mind, so they sent for my mother. She came and told me to pray. At that ver minute I was praying on the inside, "Lord, lave mercy on me. Lord, have mercy on me." After she came I picked out a way a little way from the house, in a thicket, and then I went daily to pray. But it seemed like the more I prayed, the worse I got. I felt like I had the burden of the world on my shoulders.

Finally one night I went out to a spot much farther from the house and fell on my knees. A voice spoke and said, "Lo, here is the way." I heard a noise like a rising storm, but I stayed there, and when the voice spoke I stretched out flat on the ground. God spoke to me and again said, "My little one, you got to die and can't live." I jumped up and went to the house and found my husband and children asleep. I got in bed, my heart still praying, "Lord have mercy on my soul." The voice spoke again, "You got to die and can't live." I began to die right there and was dying all night. My husband called in five doctors to me, and they gave me up and said that I would not live until twelve o'clock the next day.

About nine or ten the next day I began to see the wondrous works of God. I saw myself on the very brink of hell. I was on a little something that was swinging back and forth, and it looked as if I must surely fall at any minute. My jaws were locked and my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, but on the inside I was still praying, "Lord have mercy! Lord, have mercy on my soul! If it be your will to send me to hell, send me with a prayer in my mouth." When I said this I took hope, for the Lord spoke to me and said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the very door to the Father. Follow me! Follow me!" (93-4)

This interviewee then tells of the wondrous things she sees, and also additional dreams/visions she has had. There are several preachers interviewed, too, and they share similar stories about how they rarely realize what they are saying during their sermon, the part that Watson calls "the coming of the spirit" in his essay. As I mentioned earlier, the repetitive nature can wear on the reader, but the differences, particularly their lives and circumstances, provide insight into the types of hardships slaves and former slaves had to deal with.

The most engaging sections of the book for me were the autobiographical chapters. Some of these are very short and don't supply more than sketches of what it was like to be a slave, but the few that are longer provide a more detailed picture on the lives of those former slaves. We see varied treatments of the slaves, from good and bad masters, and even from Union troops. There are dealings with paddy rollers, armed white patrollers making sure slaves don't escape. It's chilling to hear the former slaves recall being bought and sold, separated from family, and the decisions they had to make if they wanted to escape. These details help give the context needed to understand the joy they received from religion, one of the few areas where they had control, as well as giving them validation and acceptance. Despite some of the harrowing details, it's ultimately a book of joy and peace.

The final chapter, though, yields quite a different tone. The interviewee (apparently younger than others) says "they have not had all the varied experiences [regarding conversion] that most of the older people say they have had. ... I have seen nothing and heard nothing, but only feel the spirit in my soul, and I believe that will save me when I come to die." This is the one outlier in the interviews, and being younger than the others I have to wonder if that wasn't meant to signal a turning away from the evangelical tradition of conversion for later generations.

Because I liked the autobiographical chapters the most, I was interested in the mentioned The Unwritten History of Slavery, which I gather is sort of a "companion" to this book with oral histories of ex-slaves. While it was difficult to find at an affordable price (for me), I have placed an InterLibrary Loan on it and hope to post on it soon.

Links:

• Tina Cahalan Jones has done some remarkable research on one of the interviewees in the book, Louvenia Marshall Mayberry.


• If you're interested in other sources for slave narratives, see Jones' post on Slave Narratives. Be sure to read through her blog From Slaves to Soldiers and Beyond—Williamson County, Tennessee's African American History as she has done a lot of research on the topic.


• The Library of Congress has a collection titled Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938. It "contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA)."

Movie: Rosenwald (2015)

The documentary film Rosenwald tells the inspiring story of Julius Rosenwald, an immigrant’s son who became CEO of Sears, Roebuck & Company and used his wealth to support equal rights for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. His support of education, the arts, and housing for middle-class African Americans left a legacy that influenced the Civil Rights Movement and continues to resonate today. Rosenwald is told through archival film and photographs, feature film clips, and interviews with historians, museum curators, poets, Rosenwald family members, African American leaders, and Rosenwald school alumni.

- From the Rosenwald teaching guide

Rosenwald, by Aviva Kempner, is a documentary about how Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, the son of an immigrant peddler who rose to head Sears, partnered with Booker T. Washington to build 5,400 Southern schools in African American communities in the early 1900s during the Jim Crow era. Rosenwald also built YMCAs and housing for African Americans to address the pressing needs of the Great Migration. The Rosenwald Fund supported great artists like Marian Anderson, Woody Guthrie, Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks, and Jacob Lawrence. Among those interviewed are civil rights leaders Julian Bond, Ben Jealous and Congressman John Lewis, columnists Eugene Robinson and Clarence Page, Cokie Roberts, Rabbi David Saperstein, Rosenwald school alumni writer Maya Angelou and director George C. Wolfe and Rosenwald relatives.

- From the imdb.com page for Rosenwald

Growing up in the South I had heard the name of Julius Rosenwald and was familiar with some of his philanthropy, but never realized the scale of what he accomplished until I watched this documentary. The movie begins with Julius' life and how he rose from a clothier to an owner and officer of Sears, Roebuck & Company. Because of the company's meteoric growth, Rosenwald's wealth ballooned. Under the tutelage of Rabbi Emil Hirsch and later from the writings of Booker T. Washington, Rosenwald began to get involved in philanthropy, focusing largely on the lack of educational and social opportunities available to blacks. One area of focus was helping build YMCAs and YWCAs for blacks by donating a portion of the money needed. In order to build a sense of ownership and control for the communities, Rosenwald challenged those who it would benefit to raise the remainder of the funds.

This would be an approach he would use when Washington asked Rosenwald for help with Tuskegee Institute and other educational opportunities for blacks. For the schools, Rosenwald would contribute a percentage, usually a third of what was needed. Those that would benefit were asked to raise the rest as well as build and maintain the schools. I see numbers ranging from 5300 to 5500 schools built throughout the Southern U.S. on this Rosenwald model. Given the climate in the South at the time, the schools became targets for arson and vandalism, but the determination of the black community to provide educational opportunities not available in the alleged "separate but equal" framework insured most schools would succeed. At one point, it is estimated that one-third of black students in the South attended a Rosenwald school.

Rosenwald didn't limit his gifts only to schools. He commissioned and contributed to housing developments developed specifically for blacks and established the Rosenwald Fund. This fund awarded money to schools as well as setting up fellowships, grants, and other funding to blacks showing artistic promise. The Fund would benefit such recipients as Langston Hughs, James Baldwin, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, Marian Anderson, and many others. Needless to say, Rosewald's influence stretched very far.

One of my favorite quotes from Rosenwald had to do with the esteem given to those with wealth, highlighting his own self-deprecation:

"Most people are of the opinion that because a man has made a fortune, that his opinions on any subject are valuable. Don't be fooled by believing because a man is rich that he is necessarily smart. There is ample proof to the contrary."

Julius Rosenwald deserves to be featured and promoted, and I hope this movie goes a long way toward doing that. What he was able to achieve with the funding of his projects can still be seen and felt today.

If you are looking for the movie, be aware there are two versions and they may show differing dates of release. The initial release of Rosenwald was one disc, containing the movie and a few bonuses. A couple of years later a two-disc version was released, with the second disc containing commentary about and interviews with those associated with the movie or the fund/schools.

Rosenwald rambles at times, but still gets my highest recommendation.

Links:
The film's website and its teaching guide

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a searchable database of Rosenwald schools as well as a Preserving Rosenwald Schools booklet
"Of the 5,357 schools, shops, and teacher homes constructed between 1917 and 1932, only 10–12 percent are estimated to survive today."

Under the Kudzu is a movie that "traces the history of two Rosenwald schools in Pender County, NC. built during the segregation era. Alumni and former teachers share their experiences in this moving documentary about the African American sacrifice for education." I have not watched it yet, but plan to since it is currently streaming free for on Amazon Prime.

Alabama Heritage's article Rosenwald Schools: 100 Years of Pride, Progress, and Preservation goes into greater detail on the Rosenwald School program as well as restoration and preservation projects.

Movie: Sherman's March (1985)

In 1864 during the American Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman began his famous march to the sea. With an army of 60,000 men he swept into the South, destroying Atlanta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina, and dozens of smaller towns. His troops plundered homes, destroyed livestock, burned buildings, and left a path of destruction sixty miles wide and seven hundred miles long before finally forcing a Confederate surrender in North Carolina.

Sherman's campaign marked the first time in modern history that total warfare had been waged on a primarily civilian population, and traces of the scars he left on the South can still be found.

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Two years ago, I was about to begin shooting a documentary film of the lingering effects of Sherman's march on the South. I'm from the South, and all through my childhood I heard stories about how Sherman had devastated the South. My aunt even keeps a sofa in her attic which is punctured by swords-holes put there by Sherman's soldiers as they searched for hidden valuables. She said she'll never run out of the holes to be sewn up.

Anyway, I had just gotten a grant to make my film, and I stopped off in New York from Boston, where I live, to stay for a few days with the woman I had been seeing. But when I arrived, she told me she'd just decided to go back to her former boyfriend. We argued, and then I left and went to stay alone in a friend's studio loft, which happened to be vacant at the time.
- (Opening lines to Sherman's March: A Meditation on the Possibility Of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation )

A friend handed me a collection of Ross McElwee movies while I was recuperating from health issues this summer. I started with Sherman's March, the movie I had heard the most about from film friends, and was easily drawn in to McElwee's slow, deliberate patter. It seemed like a great premise: follow something from history and see how it impacted life today. But what the viewer quickly finds is that the movie is less about what happened from Sherman's march through the south and more about McElwee's life. It's not always a pleasant trade-off.

For a long time, the consensus among my family members was that what I really need to do is find what they call a nice Southern girl and things will be fine.

This is the central point of the movie. His family and friends constantly criticize him, pointing out that they way he dresses, his lifestyle, his grooming, etc. are holding him back, and if he would only act the way he does with a camera when he doesn't have one he would meet and get to know more girls. Time after time we get McElwee's declaration of feelings for someone, only to have things go awry. We do get the occasional comments and insights on General Sherman and visits to historical sights, but even those moments include more information on his feelings and failures at finding a girlfriend. Early in the movie he confides that the movie is really "a meditation on the possibility of romantic love in the South today."

One of the running jokes throughout the movie is the parallels McElwee has with Sherman, or at least he sees it. Both love the south, but feel alienated from it. Until the U.S. Civil War, Sherman was a failure, while until this movie...well, you get the idea. I vacillated between loving and hating the movie, suffering the tedious parts in order to find the gems. One such gem-like moment was his comments on finding Wini on an island off Savannah, Georgia. As they discuss referential opacity, counterpart theory, and other linguistic topics, Winni declares she loves linguistics and sex. To which McElwee deadpans, "My interest in linguistics continues to grow."

We meet blind dates set up for relationships and former girlfriends, only to watch none of them build to anything meaningful. Worse is when we meet Charlene, a former teacher who takes McElwee on as a project for matchmaking. It's funny when someone else is the project, but speaking from experience it's annoying as hell when you're the project, which is why I couldn't stand that part of the movie. Other themes in the movie have to do with his anxiety about nuclear war, his car constantly breaking down, and his so-called nemesis—Burt Reynolds. I guess it is some sort of irony that all of these anxieties are what seem to give meaning to his life.

I've come to the end of my journey with no car, no money, and only one roll of film. What's worse is that I don't seem to have a real life anymore. My real life has fallen in the crack of myself and my film.

McElwee returns to Boston, where he swears off dating and takes a course on music history. Of course he's attracted to the teacher, and the movie ends as he is asking her out on a date. While the movie was supposed to be a portrait of the south and Sherman's impact on it, it ends up being a portrait of the sad state of McElwee's life.

I'm not sure how to comment on the movie. I found it incredibly funny at parts, although I'm usually laughing *at* McElwee instead of with him. That's tempered by the obvious point that he knows that will be the viewer's reaction. My favorite parts are usually the comments from the women he is interviewing, often giving him clues/tips/pointers on what he needs to say to them in order to have a shot at a relationship with her. Which, of course, don't happen (or at least aren't shown in the movie). I recommend the movie as a look at McElwee's style, but I don't know that I can recommend watching all 2 ½ hours of it. You get the point early on in the movie, and it's driven home time and time again. Still, it has it's charm even if it wears thin. When the matchmaker berates him that "This isn't art, it's life!” you get the feeling that McElwee sees no difference between the two.

Having several other movies in the box set, I began watching the next movie and only made it 10 minutes in before quitting. I couldn't take his style any more. Maybe I was watching his movies too close together. Or maybe the quirkiness only goes so far. Your mileage may vary, so check it out if it feels like it might appeal to you. What works in Sherman's March is the timing and deadpan delivery of great lines in strange situations, but I found it wearing thin long before the end of the movie. It is one of those "I'm glad I saw it, but don't ever put me through that again" type of movies, if that's a category.

Links:
The director's page for the movie

The opening scene on YouTube

The Cold Blue (2019) tonight

My oldest expressed interest in seeing The Cold Blue tonight instead of waiting for it on HBO, and who was I to say no? So we're excited about going tonight for the movie and the extra "making of" short. Plus I'm happy to see the score is provided by Richard Thompson. A good article on the movie can be found at Popular Mechanics. I'll add a note after seeing it.

I've taken the whole family to see two extraordinary documentaries in the theater this year: They Shall Not Grow Old and Apollo 11. I don't know if this is a trend or just fortuitous timing on these projects, but I do hope this style of documentary catches on. As director Erik Nelson puts it about these movies, “All three of us were consciously thinking of theatrical big screens as a time-travel machine to immerse the viewer in the motion and events."

From the Fathom Events website:

The Cold Blue is a tribute to the men who won the ultimate victory - 75 years ago. Extraordinary, never before seen color footage shot by one of the world's greatest directors, William Wyler, puts you 30,000 feet over Nazi Germany, battling killer flak, enemy fighters and 60 below degree temperatures. All the odds were stacked against returning home alive - and men literally died to bring this harrowing footage into theaters today. Now, you can fly alongside the last surviving heroes who flew, who fought, who won - the men who just might have saved the world.

Multiple Academy Award® winning director William Wyler went to Europe in 1943 to document the Air War in progress. Wyler flew actual combat missions with B-17's - and one of his three cinematographers was killed during filming. Incredibly, all of the raw color footage Wyler shot for The Memphis Belle was recently discovered deep in the vaults of the National Archives, and a new film has been constructed out of the material.

Update: Definitely catch the movie when it's available on HBO. Director Erik Nelson has woven Wyler's footage to provide both an overview of the Eighth Air Force and specifics of their daily life and of their missions. Nine of the surviving veterans of the Eighth provide narration and interviews. The movie is a tremendous accomplishment that I highly recommend.

If you have seen William Wyler's 1944 movie The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, you will notice there is quite a bit of overlap in footage. Wyler's focus for the movie was The Memphis Belle's 25th bombing run, which did include quite a bit of other information and shots regarding the US 8th Air Force in its brief 44 minute length. While there is a lot of overlap of footage, the upgrade in film quality alone would make it worthwhile to watch The Cold Blue. Also, the addition of veterans "narrating" over the movie instead of a dedicated narrator also adds to my recommendation. While you're waiting for The Cold Blue to be aired on HBO, take a look at Wyler's released film The Memphis Belle, available right now on several subscription services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Alfred A. Knopf, 2018
Hardcover, 352 pages

Bad Blood, the true story of the rise and collapse of a medical device start-up in Silicon Valley that blew through $900 million dollars on a product that never worked, was on many "Best Of" book lists for 2018, and for good reason. Told by John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who broke the story of the company's fraud, has the makings of a great fictional thriller...except it really happened. To quote Bill Gates, “This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships and the demise of a company once valued at nearly $10 billion.” And it has more, including high-profile investors used to give the company legitimacy, dysfunctional people running a dysfunctional company, and scorched-earth tactics to block bad press.
The first two-thirds of the book covers the story of the meteoric growth of the start-up company Theranos and its young and charismatic CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Modeling herself after Steve Jobs, Homes sold a dream of quick, accurate blood tests from only a few drops of blood from the fingertip. She wrapped the dream in moving anecdotes, tapping into the desire to significantly improve health care.

There were many problems with her dream, though. Theranos didn't have any breakthrough technology. They were simply trying to miniaturize existing technology, significantly compromising analyses and results. Skirting normal clinical rigor, Holmes tried to bring the product (such as it existed) to market without proper regulatory oversight. Bringing in the shady and arrogant Sunny Balwani as president and COO of the company was a guarantee for disaster. Bullying anyone inside or outside the company that didn't believe in the smoke and mirrors provided by the company couldn't help, either.

The biggest problem of all was the dysfunctional corporate culture in which it [the product] was being developed. Elizabeth and Sunny regarded anyone who raised a concern or an objection as a cynic and a naysayer. Employees who persisted in doing so were usually marginalized or fired, while sycophants were promoted. (164)

Despite bringing in impressive talent, the company had to engage in deceptive practices at every step in order to give the appearance of progress on their blood-test machines. It was a case of everyone wanting to believe in something so much they became blind to what was actually going on. "Elizabeth told the gathered employees that she was building a religion. If there were any among them who didn't believe, they should leave. Sunny put it more bluntly: anyone not prepared to show complete devotion and unmitigated loyalty to the company should 'get the fuck out.'" (173) Having overpromised on results, Holmes had to cut corners and deceive when it was time to deliver.

The last third of the book details how the cracks in the Theranos story eventually brought in Carreyrou and his arduous task in bringing the deceptions to light. It took enormous courage displayed by a handful of people, at great personal and monetary cost, to reveal the danger of the company's product. If the story was fiction, it would almost read as a clichéd take on personal greed, revenge, evil intent, etc. from a thriller. What provides the force felt when reading the book, though, is knowing this actually happened. Regardless of any good intentions when starting the company, it quickly devolved into a nightmarish tale for many people.

Carreyrou does a good job of describing the problems faced in trying to provide tests from a few drops of blood that Theranos touted their device could provide. No wonder many in the industry doubted the veracity of their claims, but obviously it wasn't enough to deter investors, who were kept as marginalized in the overall picture as were the company's employees. Many notable people who should have known better end up looking worse for their part in corporate misgovernance.

Some of my experiences add to my enthusiasm for the book. One factor is that I work in Silicon Valley, so startup anecdotes are commonplace. It's amazing how small the valley can be at times. Another factor is that I worked in the medical device field for over a decade and experienced a concern for clinical results and regulatory compliance that was blithely ignored by Holmes and Theranos management. Also, having worked for startups in several phases of development, I understand that credulity provides a huge factor in funding and other aspects of these companies, but at some point reality has to be faced. Those people that decided to blow the whistle on a fraud of this magnitude despite the firepower Theranos could line up against them have my respect. It's difficult enough at times to leave employment at a company, whether it crosses ethical lines (sometimes blurred, sometimes clear) or not, but to knowingly set yourself up as a target for people that have the power and the motive to destroy you deserves special credit. Very highly recommended.

Update (2019 May 11):I just watched The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley and wanted to recommend it, too. To me, the movie complements the book well, with the added benefit of seeing and hearing the people involved in the company and stories. The book goes into more detail on the science behind blood analysis and how tests are done, which I think is an important part of understanding the overall story of Theranos. Carreyou's book also has more depth on how his story finally made it into print, highlighting additional people key in revealing the fraud. Even with those caveats, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is a very good introduction to this remarkable story.

Link:
Author Q&A at the publisher's site

Q: What does the Theranos saga say about Silicon Valley?
A: It tells us that, while there’s real innovation taking place in Silicon Valley, there’s also a huge amount of hubris and pretending going on there. The staggering amount of money that has poured into the Valley’s startup ecosystem over the past decade has given rise to arrogance, excess and outright fraud. Moreover, these companies are staying private much longer than they used to, which makes it harder to pierce their veils of secrecy and expose their problems. As a capitalistic society, we tend to lionize tech entrepreneurs. This tale is a reminder that the reality is often more complicated and less glossy than the myths we’re fed by Silicon Valley’s PR machine.

Andersonville

Last week I decided to take the long way back to Atlanta for my plane ride home. It turned out to be a meditative trip. Driving across the Florida panhandle, from the Alabama border to Tallahassee, allowed me to see some of the devastation from Hurricane Michael, which had hit the area a few weeks earlier. Entire groves of trees broken and twisted off at 15-20 feet above the ground, large signs strewn about like children's toys, hundred-year-old trees uprooted...demolition and spoliation I've seen before thanks to all the hurricanes and tornadoes while I was growing up in the south. Even so, each time is a reminder of the power of nature and a cause for marvel. Combine that with arriving home and having friends dealing with fires in northern and southern California and provides a check on thinking that Nature is always your friend.

The stop I wanted to highlight was my visit at the Andersonville National Historical Sight, near Andersonville, Georgia. Formerly known as Camp Sumter, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War, it operated for just over a year near the end of the war (1864-65). Approximately 45,000 Union soldiers were housed there during that period, with over 13,000 dying. The grounds have been left mostly undeveloped, with several memorials and recreations of one of the gates and corners of the compound, which I found...well, "refreshing" isn't quite the right word. But it did allow you to picture what this area would have looked like just over 150 years ago. National Park Services maps of the camp, cemetery, and surrounding area can be found here. From the park website:

Andersonville National Historic Site began as a stockade built about 18 months before the end of the U.S. Civil War to hold Union Army prisoners captured by Confederate soldiers. Located deep behind Confederate lines, the 26.5-acre Camp Sumter (named for the south Georgia county it occupied) was designed for a maximum of 10,000 prisoners. At its most crowded, it held more than 32,000 men, many of them wounded and starving, in horrific conditions with rampant disease, contaminated water, and only minimal shelter from the blazing sun and the chilling winter rain. In the prison's 14 months of existence, some 45,000 Union prisoners arrived here;of those, 12,920 died and were buried in a cemetery created just outside the prison walls.

In addition to the military prison area and the cemetery is the National Prisoner of War Museum memorial, another extremely moving exhibit. My visit there was too quick to give more than just an impression, but on my cursory walk-through I felt it well done and something necessary about an angle of war too often ignored. I'm sure it's difficult to please everyone with such an all-encompassing museum, but as I said I thought it well done. Hopefully it proves enlightening to those not growing up and hearing often about American POWs on the nightly news.

I wanted to highlight the sight since its location might be just enough out of the way of travelers). It's obviously not an uplifting place to visit, but one I think is important, which is why I'm publishing this post. I didn't take too many pictures, thinking I would rely on pictures posted online, but I didn't find that many I wanted to share. Here's one I took of the Providence Spring memorial, a shelter erected by Union veteran groups to commemorate a spring erupting from the ground, a godsend for parched prisoners. More on the spring and memorial with some additional pictures can be found here.

Right above the spring is a reconstruction of the North Gate (or rather one of the two North Gates), the entrance through which most of the prisoners would have passed through. I chose this picture to highlight the slope down to the creek that flowed through the camp. From the top of the hills on either side of the creek you have an encompassing view of the area.

The waist-high information sign on the right side gives you an idea of the scale of these imposing timbers. In the background to the left is the Ohio monument, one of several in the memorial area to the northwest of the prison site.

I loved the backroads I drove getting to the park and then heading to Atlanta. I know some of that was nostalgia, since I have lived in areas like these throughout the south. The overcast weather seemed to amplify the somberness I felt while there.

There are plenty of histories and webpages on Andersonville that are easily accessible, so I'll only link this one at History.com..

FDR, Jefferson, and...Spiderman?

"[G]reat power involves great responsibility."

Sounds like something from Spiderman, but it's part of a line from Franklin D. Roosevelt's undelivered Jefferson Day Speech. Coincidentally, Jefferson Day was officially recognized by FDR beginning in 1938. Anyway...the speech can be found at The American Presidency Project (for now—they note they are working on a new website). Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia the day before this speech was to be given, and it's an interesting read. Here's one part:

The once powerful, malignant Nazi state is crumbling. The Japanese war lords are receiving, in their own homeland, the retribution for which they asked when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough.

We must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible.

Thomas Jefferson, himself a distinguished scientist, once spoke of "the brotherly spirit of Science, which unites into one family all its votaries of whatever grade, and however widely dispersed throughout the different quarters of the globe."

Today, science has brought all the different quarters of the globe so close together that it is impossible to isolate them one from another.

While science was bringing everyone closer together, it was also working on the Manhattan Project at the time of the undelivered speech, further making isolation impossible.

It's always been easy for me to remember when FDR died since it was a day after my parents were married. Both of them were in the service at the time, but I never heard if it cast a pall on their short honeymoon (nor do I really want to know).

I found this speech thanks to a footnote in John Lewis Gaddis' book On Grand Strategy, which offers a peek into part of the Studies in Grand Strategy course.

A post..which will hopefully lead to more posts

I seem to be all over the place in reading lately, but with little time to post about it. I seem to focus on big-brush topics at times and while I always hope to post on them, it never seems to work. So I'm hoping with a little prodding on my own part, I'll follow up on my intent with actual posts. We'll see how this works...

There have been several topics I'm digging into of late. Sparta/Athens is a constant one. But lately I find I've been focusing on the American Revolution, but more so from the Tory side. I think it was the realization that this was our first civil war (hardly a new thought) that has drawn me into it a little more. As well as discovering some wonderful books. Naturally.

First a digression. Have you watched any of the AMC series Turn? I rarely get hooked on a TV series, and yet this one drew me in. I've read some of the books on Washington's spy ring and I realize the series takes a LOT of liberties with the known facts. And there are a lot more liberties taken in other areas. And yet the overall feel rings true. I think part of the appeal lies in the major figures—Washington, Arnold, etc.—playing pivotal roles, but the focus in on "supporting" figures. And if you've read any of the spy-ring books, you'll know that those involved in such activities left little to draw attention to their actions. Similar to what I mentioned about Dumas' treatment of historical fact and the introduction of conjecture in The Red Sphinx, there's a lot of room to insert what you want as long as you're consistent with the overall trajectory. The point I want to make is that the details of those involved at the grass-roots level is what drew me in to the series. You realize what they are risking, whether for England or America. And you also see that deciding which side you were on wasn't always a clear-cut decision on right and wrong.

Several years ago I read Maya Jasanoff's Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. I hope to resurrect my notes and post them here, because it was a wonderful book on what was at stake for those that chose to side with England during the war and how that played out after the Revolutionary War. All of which led me to other books. First there was Peter Oliver's Origin and Progress of the American Revolution: A Tory View, which is a marvelous first-person view of what happened in Massachusetts during the Revolution by the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the province. Needless to say, he has a favorable view of Thomas Hutchinson and isn't quite as friendly toward the Otises or Samuel Adams (and those that came under his sway, such as John Hancock). Again, I hope to post more on his book.

If you favor fiction, Kenneth Roberts' Oliver Wiswell (if I were a urologist, I'd change my name to this), is a great historical novel that looks at the revolution from various regions of the colonies. At times it's a no-holds-barred view of what a revolution entails, to which the American version was no exception to the usual incorporation of terror tactics. What doesn't make it into the text (because it wouldn't make sense) is the comparison of the American Revolution to other revolutions in a similar timeframe. The story offers great narrations on war and its costs. Like the other books, I hope to make more comments on this wonderful (out-of-print) book.

The last book I'll mention here is Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth by Holger Hoock, which has recently been released by Penguin Random House. I've just recently picked this up and hope to comment on it soon.

So much for this "good intentions" post. Feel free to comment on related books.

Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes by Ronni Lundy

Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes by Ronni Lundy
Photography by Johnny Autry
Penguin Random House, 2016
Hardcover, 320 pages

2016 seems to be be the year of the redneck, at least when it comes to books. Or is it the hillbilly? White trash? Given the news, literary and otherwise, it looks like I'm up for another award. Given my background, which I semi-apologize to the boys when I remind them they're half-redneck, I might need to make room on my trophy shelf for another award to sit beside my more general TIME Person of the Year achievements in 1966, 1969, 2006, and 2011.

For an alternative to other redneck-related books released this past year, let me offer Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes by Ronni Lundy. I prefer this book over other recent offerings on related subjects. Lundy traveled around the southern half of the Appalachian Mountains (and nearby ranges), following hints and vague directions to discover people behind continuing southern mountain food traditions. Equal parts travelogue, recipes, area history, and Lundy's family history, the book charms you just like visiting family or friends in that area does. It's a beautiful glimpse into a regional area, but even more into a mindset and a way of life I have yet to find anywhere else. I'll go in reverse order of the different parts I listed.

Lundy was born in Corbin, Kentucky. Although she moved to Louisville when young, she visited relatives in the mountain region as she grew up. Stories of her family, though very different from mine, sound familiar. It's that feeling I get when reading Rick Bragg's family stories and I realize, "I know these people." While it's not exactly my history, it captures the mindset and background of people I grew up with. Maybe that nostalgia influenced my judgment of the book, and I mean that in a good way.

The part I labeled area history would be better described as area food history. You're not going to find a full, documented history of the area here. Rather, the book's chapters reflect different ingredients or components of the area's availability: corn, beans, salt, apples, preserves, etc. Using this construct, Lundy goes back decades and centuries, highlighting not just historical info but some of the people carrying on these traditions today, detailing the work by specific people, locals and transplants. Sometimes it's resurrecting a family property. Other times it's someone preparing an old recipe and/or method shared with them. What makes it special is their desire to save something and share it with others.

The recipes are a fun read, full of techniques and details which can help with other dishes. Although I grew up further south than the mountainous region, I recognized many of the dishes I saw in my childhood (at least those experienced outside of bland and/or processed meals at covered-dish suppers). Some of the ingredients aren't available to me now that I live in a different part of the country, but Lundy provides substitutions at points where it makes sense. For others...well, I'm out of luck since they are ingredient specific. Some of these I can fix as they are, but many I'll have to adapt for dietary concerns. We'll see how that goes. Some ingredient considerations in the recipes are common for me, such as saving bacon grease for future use, but others may take some adaptation or planning. Like most cookbook recipes, your mileage will vary, but I think Lundy provides enough information to play with changes and adaptations for many dishes. There's some talk of 'sustainability' and other current buzzwords, but at one point even Lundy asks such a question while admitting she's not sure what it means.

The travelogue part of the book may have been the most fun for me, especially seeing it's been a few years since I've been in the area. I tend to tune out culinary trends and it surprised me to learn about some recent developments regarding the Appalachian region. Driving over four thousand miles in the area, zigzagging on what passes as roads, with directions like "Look for the Dr. Seuss tree" to guide her, Lundy captures the look and flavor of the area quite well, past as well as present. I think my favorite moment in the book is when Travis Milton (wearing a Piggly Wiggly t-shirt in his photo), shows Lundy around the area that used to be his family's apple orchard. The area has been overrun by kudzu and Russian olive brush, yet he spies an ancient apple tree hiding in a thicket. "Holy...I can't believe...I mean...this is my great-grandad's apple. Right here." (ellipses in original) This captures the book perfectly.

For me, cookbooks make the most personal of books. If they fail to connect, they will stay distant from the reader, browser, or cook. Rarely do they become an "I'll look at that later when I have time" type of book. That may be one of the reasons cookbooks haven't always been mostly recipes but also include personal journeys, historical treks, or some other approach. Some times the different approaches work well, some times they don't. I think Lundy has found a great blend in this case.

A quick word about the photography by Johnny Autry...there is some basic food photography, but also plenty of pictures of the people and places mentioned. I don't know how to describe it, but it's not always a flattering "here it is at its best" shot. Because of that, though, more of the personality seems to come through in the pictures, adding nicely to the book.

Keeping in mind the limitations I describe, highly recommended.

Additional Links:

If I somehow managed to be mentioned in a publication titled Gardens and Guns, I'd be thrilled. See the link for a nice excerpt on the history of salt in the area and some links to recipes.

Lundy's beautiful article http://www.oxfordamerican.org/item/953-a-recipe-for-memory demonstrates one way recipes were handed down.

Since I mention him by name, here's a fun article on Travis Milton and the role of music in his work (article from 2013). And here's a more recent article, as well as this one about him.

How to Catch a Russian Spy by Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican

How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent
by Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican
Scribner, 2015
Hardcover, 304 pages

I'm not sure where I heard about this book or what caused me to place a hold on it at the library, but it followed me home one day and I finally opened it the other evening. I'm glad I did—it was exactly what I needed at the moment: funny, engaging, and something I could fly through.

For three nerve-wracking years, Naveed Jamali spied on America for the Russians, trading thumb drives of sensitive technical data for envelopes of cash, selling out his own beloved country across noisy restaurant tables and in quiet parking lots. Or so the Russians believed. In fact, this young American civilian was a covert double agent working with the FBI. The Cold War wasn’t really over. It had just gone high-tech. How to Catch a Russian Spy is the one-of-a-kind story of how one young man’s post-college adventure became a real-life US counter-intelligence coup.
(From the publisher's page)

Naveed Jamali describes himself as a master of underachievement in his early years. Playing video games and hanging out with his friends took precedence over study and homework during student days. His parents left academia to start a research company, obtaining published reports for clients. One day a Soviet official from the United Nations appears at the company door with a list of publications he wished to obtain. His visit was immediately followed by a pair of FBI agents asking to be informed every time the Soviet (later Russian) official requested publications. This unique situation gave Naveed an opportunity to provide potentially sensitive documents to the Russians when he took the reins of his parents' company.

Naveed's double-agent life delivers plenty of humorous and quirky moments, such as the time an FBI agent's period almost wrecked his marriage. More interesting to me was listening to Naveed reveal the motivations behind his actions. In appearing to be a turncoat, Jamali knew his best bet to appear legitimate was to appear to be motivated by one or a combination of the usual reasons for betrayal: money, ideology, coercion, or ego. For his personal life, though, setting his sights on a particular girl (now his wife) and wanting a commission to be a reserve officer in navy intelligence propelled him to end his slacker ways and focus on what it would take to achieve those goals. For the latter goal, he saw his unique situation as an opportunity to make that happen.

There are many fun characters in addition to Naveed, including the FBI agents and the Russian official. How the sting progressed, the steps Naveed had to take, and the audibles he had to call makes for fun reading. The story is also about the fine lines the FBI had to walk in dealing with a civilian taking the initiative on catching spies. While giving support and guidance, the agents also had to keep Naveed in the dark about many areas. In order for the sting to be successful, many agency guidelines had to be followed while others seemed to be made up as they progressed. The support and encouragement of his wife was instrumental, too. But so much rested on Naveed's initiative and improvisation. His preparation included coaching and instructions by agents as well as watching a lot of movies and TV series to see what worked and what didn't in different situations. Imagine walking into a tacky chain restaurant to meet a Russian spy where the best guide you've seen in this situation came from Miami Vice and you get an idea of the humor in the book.

Watch the video on the linked publisher's page above to get a taste of Naveed's story as well as his personality, which shines through in the book. Recommended.




As an aside, I love it when I find a book that doubles down on typos. This book has a great example: "near Worchester, Massachusetts, about an hour east of Boston." Riiiiight.

Interview with Meg Groeling, author of The Aftermath of Battle

The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling
Emerging Civil War Series
Savas Beatie; Fall 2015
192 pp.; 211 images
ISBN: 978-1-61121-189-4

I first became aware of this book when our local bookstore was touting an upcoming talk by its author, Meg Groeling. I wasn't able to make that talk, but the topic interested me since I too would think, "What did they do with all the bodies?" when visiting a U.S. Civil War site. While reading the book I found many more questions being raised, something the Suggested Readings section helps address. When I found out Groeling lived close by, I figured why not ask her some of these questions? So what follows is the culmination of our e-mail chain. (I've cleaned up a few of my typos.)

Since some of my questions go beyond the scope of the book, I recommend you read this article on Groeling and the book by Liam McGurl and this interview with Groeling by the book's publisher first since they focus more on the book itself. My post on the book lists some of the topics included in the book.

Dwight: You mention several of the directives and orders released after the war started, such as Federal General Order Number 33 (page 15) on how to construct a burial trench. I'm curious as to what was in place at the start of the war.

Meg: Practically nothing was in place--mortuary science was not exactly a "thing" at that time, and it was mainly left to the winning army (determined by who had final control of the battleground) to deal with the dead & injured. Usually the dead were gathered up and buried in relatively shallow graves, with wooden markers. Dead Mexican soldiers in the Mexican War were not identified, but were interred. There was no "official" way to move a corpse, which was usually in the process of decomposing. Lead-lined caskets were used, but sometimes railroads refused to move smelly cargoes. There weren't even toe-tags, or ways to identify wounded as they were moved from hospital to hospital. It was barbaric, or so it seems to us now.

Dwight: With so many officers on both sides having attended military academies (West Point or VMI, for example), is it possible to know what they had studied regarding logistics in general and specifically handling the dead during their studies? (I don't know if it's possible to know what the West Point curriculum looked like in the 1840s and 1850s, but I thought I'd ask.)

Meg: I wondered myself--one thing that shows up again and again in the Civil War is the incredible inability of officers to write coherent orders. I am thinking "Writing Orders 101" was not a class at West Point! Mostly they studied math and engineering. Some French was offered, and Jomini was taught, with attention to Napoleonic tactics and things like interior & exterior lines, frontal assaults, flanking attacks, etc. Battles from the past were studied, but logistics was NOT given the emphasis we now know it needs. Experience in the field was supposed to supplement a lack of curriculum depth. One problem with this was that America had fought no large-scale engagements since the Mexican War, and there was no military retirement plan. Officers at the top just stayed until death, basically. This meant that very few positions of command opened up for younger officers, so guys like Lee and McDowell ended up staying captains forever, and many had never commanded large numbers of men by 1861. No one even talked about handling the dead. Frontier forts just buried soldiers in fort cemeteries, and then wrote letters back home.

Dwight: Burying the dead, as you mentioned in the book and your online interview, usually fell to the victor since they held the ground. But it seemed to fall to the locals if the ground wasn't really "held" in the usual sense, such as in Grant's Overland Campaign (constant engagement with Lee) or Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaigns (constant motion and harassment). From what you've described, though, they don’t seem to have really been able to handle the clean-up, especially near the end of the war, do they?

Meg: In a word, no. Technology had to catch up with reality very quickly. There wasn't even reliable embalming, much less reliable transportation for dead or injured. Many times the home folks came to the battlefield looking for loved ones and privately arranged for the returns. People scoured hospitals looking for loved ones as well. This really ticked [Dr. Jonathan] Letterman off. The soldiers got better treatment at a hospital than at home, and he knew many would not survive being moved any distance at all.

Dwight: The book covers a lot of wide-ranging topics, some of which I see are covered in books in the Suggested Reading section. I particularly liked the chapter on the horses and mules and the one on Dr. Jonathan Letterman. Was there a particular topic or subject you wanted to include in the book but weren't able to cover?

Meg: Oh yes!! I really wanted to do a chapter on haunted battlefields! Gettysburg is said to be one of the most haunted places in America. I know I could have handled the topic with some degree of taste (because ghosts care about that sort of thing, you know!) but I was voted down by my editors, big time. I guess the stories will have to wait--but it would have been fun!

Dwight: The detail you provide on many of the historic sites (National Parks and Cemeteries) seem to be from first-hand visits. Were you able to visit many of the sites you mention? And how hard is it to write about events that happened in Virginia (for example) when you live in California?

Meg: One of the truths about being any kind of historian is that you have to just have to suck it up and go where the history is. I have visited many historic sites and plan to continue to do so, although I am not a particularly good traveler. The Civil War Trust has excellent information about their sites, and it is hard to beat the National Park Service for the individual e-sites dedicated to battlefields and other historic places. I think the quality of the information improves as folks get used to manipulating the technology to five visitors a virtual experience. It makes it easier all around, for trip planning and for seeing what is there second-hand.

Dwight: I had wondered about the role of race when it came to the cemeteries, and Matt Atkinson provided a glimpse at this in his Appendix on the National Cemetery in Vicksburg. Was the racial segregation pretty standard for many of the cemeteries? I'm glad to see blacks at least included in Vicksburg's cemetery. For Confederate cemeteries, were slaves or freed blacks that died in battle on the South's side likewise included (like at Hollywood)? Or is Vicksburg pretty much an anomaly?

Meg: When the Union Army lost large numbers of men, like at Olustee, the Crater, or Ft. Wagner, the Confederates were anything but respectful of African-American corpses. Few were returned, and many were mutilated beyond belief. There were few black bodies to bury, or to rebury, for that matter. The Union bodies at Fort Wagner are famous for having been tossed into a shallow pit, white officers, black soldiers--no matter what--just all buried together. When the bodies were reinterred, some had been lost because of the ocean tides. But those left remained together, just as in life, so in death.

Dwight: I wondered if you'd like to say a few words about the Emerging Civil War Series? It seems like a great way to provide new details and research on the war by people with eclectic backgrounds but with an interest in the subject.

Meg: The Emerging Civil War series was originally created as a series of price point books that could be sold at the National Park sites, with an emphasis on a certain book being sold at a matching site. It turned out that the books were written very well, and as nicely illustrated as possible in black & white, and actually more than anyone thought they would be. The original price has been raised a little, the page count is now longer, and the subject matter is wider. Aftermath is one of the newer books, with more pages. Its topic is general, and includes several Civil War sites, making it suitable for sale at more than one venue. I know, however, that the idea to do a book on the topic, "What did they do with all the bodies?" has been part of the ECW idea from the beginning. I was asked to write it, and proud to do so.

My final question had to do with the book Meg is currently working on, which is about Elmer Ellsworth, considered the Civil War's first casualty. Since much of her reply seemed to be "off the record," I won't post her answer. I will update this post as more becomes available about its publication.

Many thanks to Meg for taking time to patiently answer my questions! Now...go check out her book...

The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling (Emerging Civil War Series)

The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling
Emerging Civil War Series
Savas Beatie; Fall 2015
192 pp.; 211 images
ISBN: 978-1-61121-189-4

“After the battle, what did they do with all the bodies?”
— common question from U.S. Civil War battlefield visitors

I recently stumbled across the Emerging Civil War Series, which provides "fresh perspective on America's defining event." To date, the series contains overviews and details on some of the battles as well as issues surrounding the war. One such issue has to do with what to do with all the casualties of a battle. When visiting a Civil War park, the opening question repeatedly gets asked once the magnitude of the carnage sinks in. Meg Groeling address this question and many more related to it in The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead.

The protocol of the time was the winner of a battle would take care of burying the dead since they held the ground. This meant their own fallen were usually taken of first and best, while the other side got whatever resources were left over. However, many situations proved difficult for even this simple procedure. The elements could make burials problematic. Oftentimes, both sides were immediately on the move after a battle, leaving little time to take care of the dead. In this case, locals were usually left with the challenge of burials. And too often the sheer numbers of dead men and animals was simply overwhelming.

Groeling's narrative begins with addressing what was done with the dead, but the book covers many more topics, such as:

• The origin of the bugle call "Taps" during the war.
• The invention of photojournalism, effectively starting with Matthew Brady's exhibition "The Dead of Antietam," showcasing stunning photography by Alexander Gardner.
• How the dead animals, particularly horses and mules, were handled. Their numbers are no less staggering than the human toll.
• The pioneering work in battlefield medicine by Dr. Jonathan Letterman. His plans (and the work of many) revolutionized what happened to those wounded in battle.
• The reforms started by Dr. William A. Hammond, the surgeon general of the U.S. Army.
• Improvements in embalming and coffin technology, for families that wanted to (and could afford to) have a fallen soldier buried at home.
• The development of national cemeteries, usually involving much effort to identify and reinter bodies.
• Not all bodies fell on land. Many seaman lost their lives, and Groeling goes into detail about the discovery of the Confederate submarine Hunley.
• Special attention is given to the difficulties in and around The Wilderness battle sites, where fires and inaccessibility of terrain made burials impossible.
• How Dorence Atwater, with Clara Barton's help, was able to document deaths at the infamous Andersonville Prison.
• Competing numbers and methodologies for calculating the Civil War battle deaths.

If that seems like a lot squeezed into the book, it is. Groeling goes into great detail in some areas, but others are necessarily higher level summaries. Fortunately there is an excellent "Suggested Readings" section at the end that covers any area raised in the book for a curious reader. As the back jacket notes, The Aftermath of Battle is an "easy-to-read overview that will complement any Civil War library...." The book also provides plenty of information about many Civil War parks, battlefields, and cemeteries as well as museums and other related sites that would be of interest.

For a morbid topic, Groeling's writing handles the subject matter with grace and taste. The suffering during and after the battles are presented, but it's the portraits of compassion by people wanting to help those in agony or wanting to honor those who fell that resonated the most with me. More information on the Emerging Civil War Series can be found here. The publisher, Savas Beatie, has done a good job with the books I've looked at in the series. There were a few typos in Aftermath (most notably mislabeling casualties as deaths in one place), but overall the layout, the content, and the flow of information was well done. I'm not a fan of the font used for chapter headings (the same as on the book cover), but that's a minor quibble. Highly recommended.

In a separate post, I'll have an interview with Meg Groeling.
Update: the interview is in this post.

Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S. C. Gwynne

Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S. C. Gwynne
ISBN: 978-1451673289
(Scribner, 2014, hardcover)

It is a matter of record that, a mere fourteen months earlier [than June 1862], the man everyone from Charlottesville to Washington was so breathlessly concerned about had been an obscure, eccentric, and unpopular college professor in a small town in rural Virginia. He had odd habits, a strangely silent manner, a host of health problems, and was thought by almost everyone who knew him to be lacking in even the most basic skills of leadership. To call him a failure is probably too harsh. He just wasn’t very good at anything; he was part of that great undifferentiated mass of second-rate humanity who weren’t going anywhere in life. And yet on that bright June [1862] day in Charlottesville the oddball science teacher had just completed a military campaign in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley that made him the most famous military figure in the Western world. In a matter of months he had undergone a transformation of such speed and magnitude that it stood out in a war that made a specialty of such changes. … In a war where the techniques of marching and fighting were being reinvented almost literally hour by hour, Jackson’s intelligence, speed, aggression, and pure arrogance were the wonders of North and South alike. They were the talk of salons in London and Paris. (6-7)

It's rare when a book sneaks up on me and take me by surprise (in a good way), but this one did. S. C. Gwynne is upfront about this book being a selective biography of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson. Admitting it is not a “full-scale, A-to-Z biography,” Gwynne chooses facts, stories, and analysis that best illuminates his subject instead of providing a comprehensive report. Gwynne focuses mostly on the two years of Jackson's operations in the U.S. Civil War, but he also flashes back to early events in Jackson's life in order to provide perspective and context. Rebel Yell reads like a tale told by a master story-teller…I can almost hear a southern drawl while I'm reading it.

So who was Stonewall Jackson? To say he was a host of contradictions would be an understatement. When the war started he was recognized as an incompetent science teacher at the Virginia Military Institute. Six years before the Civil War started the school’s alumni tried to have him fired. He was orphaned at age seven, raised by family members, and received a cursory childhood education. Through sheer luck and granite resolve, he was accepted into West Point at the bottom of his class. He was socially awkward, his attempts at public speaking usually painful to watch. He had a host of physical ailments that added to his awkwardness. He was deeply religious. He had trouble with authority, especially if it was critical of him. He rarely shared his thoughts or plans with anyone. Gwynne describes him as a “comfortable mediocrity.” When the Civil War started he was all but ignored by the Confederacy government. These popular descriptions of Jackson only tells part of his story, though.

Concealed behind this carefully constructed social front was a layered, highly complex, passionate, deeply sensitive man who loved deeply and grieved deeply. He had a poetic heart, and a nineteenth-century romantic’s embrace of beauty of nature. He loved Shakespeare and European architecture. He was self-taught and completely fluent in Spanish; he was a devoted and talented gardener; and he read widely in world history and military history and reveled in travel. He had an ecstatic, almost mystical sense of God. He loved walking in the country around Lexington, gloried in sunsets and mountain views and in the blooming Shenandoah spring. He was a man who could laugh uproariously, and roll around on the floor in play with a child, speaking Spanish baby talk, a man who kept close track of news and gossip inside his large, extended family. He was a doting, affectionate, and passionate husband who, behind closed doors, had an expansive and often joyous personality. (135)

Jackson served in the Mexican-American War, receiving praise from his commanding general. Like others who had experienced war he hoped to avoid secession and the conflict he knew would follow. The unconcern voiced by others when talking of wars pained him greatly. As Gwynne puts it, Jackson understood war “at some primal, visceral level that escaped almost everyone else.” (17) Jackson’s volatile mix of beliefs would ensure that he would give his unquestioning loyalty to the state of Virginia, willing to do whatever it took to defend it. His reasoning followed his religious outlook: outcomes rested in the hands of God and Jackson was one of God’s instruments in making what was going to happen happen.

Jackson understood from the beginning what it would take to win—total war, taking the fight directly to the Union. Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, believed that holding land and taking a defensive posture would be the key to outlasting the Union. Jackson was outstanding at the Battle of First Manassas (First Bull Run), receiving his nickname during the fight. Also noteworthy during the battle was the first rebel yell, which Jackson initiated by telling his men to scream like Furies.

Jackson was promoted and given command of the Shenandoah Valley district. It was here that Jackson earned his warrior reputation. He marched his men farther and faster than anyone expected. He successfully coordinated attacks. His tactics were aggressive and surprising. He inspired his men to do the impossible and instilled fear in his enemies. Undermanned and outnumbered, he delayed the Union's plans to attack Richmond.

I've always been fascinated by the military genius from apparent misfits like Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and William T. Sherman. Gwynne spends time examining why that was, in particular for Jackson. His brilliance wasn’t just in his ability to perceive what others couldn’t, although that definitely was part of it. He understood the need to wage a pitiless war in order to succeed and he was ready to take command to insure it happened. In contrast to other leaders during the war, Jackson excelled at making command decisions, willing to be held accountable for them. Combined with his daring, this meant that his badly outnumbered and ill-supplied troops would have their way against timid Union generals. Not that the opposing troops were reticent or fearful—far from it—but those men were ill-served by their early generals. Gwynne makes an excellent point on the difficulty in distinguishing between failure and success in Civil War battles before they were finished:

Though he [Union General Burnisde] has gone down in history as an incompetent field commander for his tactics at Fredericksburg, in fact there was often a fine line in the Civil War between tenacity and foolishness. At Gaines’s Mill, Lee spent more than five hours assaulting uphill against a phenomenally strong Federal position, and lost nearly 8,000 men in the process. Yet because his final charges, by Hood in particular, won the day, the battle is remembered as a glorious victory. Because Burnside sacrificed all those men in a losing cause, he is often seen as inept and mindlessly obstinate. (501-2)

This was not a war that was going to be won by conventional thinking and Jackson was gifted at being unconventional. He caused panic for Union generals, causing them to imagine phantom forces were constantly threatening them. While they weren't completely wrong, they were often mistaken about when, where, and how Jackson's forces would be deployed. After the Battle of Winchester in May 1862, Jackson’s reputation reached mythical proportions. He was a seemingly invincible warrior that the Confederacy desperately needed to sustain their dreams and support their cause.

Jackson’s contradictions seemed to grow with his fame. He tried to destroy men’s careers because of insubordination, yet he was willing to defy orders when he thought it best. If Jackson had to answer to himself he would have been court-martialed. After working independently in the Valley Campaign, Jackson was fortunate to have Robert E. Lee appointed as commanding general of the Confederacy. Despite many differences between the two men, they worked extremely well together. Jackson and his men were transferred from the Shenandoah Valley to assist in the defense of Richmond. Although he had a rough start, not seeming to live up to his reputation (and Gwynne does an excellent job of putting the disappointment of Jackson during the Seven Days Campaign into perspective), Jackson began to exceed the elevated expectations placed on him. As Gwynne puts it, when Jackson was moving from the Shenandoah Valley to Richmond’s defense in June 1862,

How could one dusty, disheveled major general and 18,500 ragged troops possibly live up to such outlandish expectations? That is one of the most intriguing questions of the war. Because Jackson, against all odds, did. He fulfilled all of his countrymen’s most wildly optimistic and absurdly unrealistic expectations of him, and he did it before summer’s end. It is a matter of record that, mainly on the strength of Lee’s daring and Jackson’s astounding maneuvers, within two months the capital being threatened was no longer Richmond but Washington, DC, a city into which the defeated Union army beat a humiliating retreat—the greatest military disaster of the war to date. (359-60)

After his mediocre showing during the Seven Days Campaigns, Jackson reeled off a string of brilliant successes at the Battles of Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Jackson accurately took the measure of the men he faced and took advantage of any timidity. Lee and Jackson's respectful relationship stood in stark contrast to the Union’s command marked by arrogance, jealousy, and hatred of each other. Gwynne examines the fame Jackson received because of his success. Although Jackson found the fame gratifying, he battled it “with a combination of flight and prayer.” (486) Gwynne also examines Jackson’s insistence on fostering religion in the Confederate army. Once again, though, this stands in stark contrast to other features of Jackson. I found this exchange after the Battle of Fredericksburg particularly chilling:

On the way back to headquarters Jackson, riding now with [surgeon Hunter] McGuire and [aide James Power] Smith, said nothing until they neared their camp, when he suddenly said, “How horrible is war.”

“Horrible, yes,” McGuire replied. “But we have been invaded. What can we do?”

“Kill them, sir,” Jackson said. “Kill every man.” (503)

All of Jackson’s accomplishments led up to the brilliant tactics at Chancellorsville drawn up with Lee (with Jackson calling an audible on major parts) that insured victory over the Union’s superior numbers and excellent defensive position. Jackson demonstrated how he had earned his reputation with his audacious and demanding tactics. Though he faced worthier Union generals now, his reputation reached almost mythical levels for several additional reasons.

Jackson by this point in his meteoric and still ascendant career cast a large shadow, far larger than the sum of his flesh-and-blood parts. There was something fateful about him, something fore-ordained, as though he had been born to occupy precisely this moment in time and space, as though his strange and mystical communion with God had granted him special power over both his own men and his enemies. His personal oddities now fueled the legend. Though James Longstreet was a good general and a resolute fighter, he was a prosaic and somewhat colorless human being. Jackson, by contrast—remote, silent, eccentric, and reserved, his hand raised in prayer in the heat of battle—suggested darkness and mystery and magic. Longstreet inspired respect; Jackson, fear and awe. (527)

Picture source

Some of Jackson’s traits would lead to his death, particularly his reticence at sharing information and his determination to press an advantage, often beyond logic. Shot by his own troops while examining their position in relation to the enemy, his left arm was amputated a week before he died (please check out the three-part story about Jackson’s arm at the Mysteries and Conundrums blog).

Gwynne spends some time explaining what I originally found a bold claim, that Jackson’s death “triggered the first national outpouring of grief for a fallen leader in the country’s history.” (556) I don’t know enough to accurately assess the claim, but Gwynne makes a compelling case.

I don’t believe you need to be extremely well versed in the U.S. Civil War history to fully appreciate and benefit from Gwynne’s book, although the more you know about it the better. For example, battles and events outside of Jackson's involvement (or indirectly affecting him) are only briefly mentioned. As I mentioned earlier, though, Gwynne makes it clear that the focus is on capturing the essence of Jackson, which means trying to understand the apparent transformation (or as he calls it in the title, the redemption) Jackson underwent. Even though I basically knew large parts of the relevant history, I still found myself enthralled, wanting to continue turning the pages to find out more about this fascinating character. Gwynne brings his subject to life and his battle descriptions are marvels of detail and action. Gwynne does a masterful job of exploring Jackson's many contradictions, objectively trying to understand both his successes and his failures. Very highly recommended.

Related posts:

• Stonewall Jackson in poetry, specifically in pieces by Stephen Vincent Benét, Herman Melville, and John Greenleaf Whittier
• “Stonewall Jackson’s Way”: a popular Civil War song
• My (selective) notes on the book

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If you aren’t planning on reading the book but are interested in the subject, see Gwynne’s interview with C-SPAN. In the thirty-three minute interview Gwynne covers many of the major points of the book. At the risk of repeating myself, here are a few of his talking points:

• Jackson excelled at maneuvering—getting his troops exactly where they needed to be exactly when they was needed. [Lee excelled at this, too, which made their pairing that much more remarkable.] Jackson also had the ability to get his troops to do remarkable things.
  
• You can’t understand Jackson without understanding the role of religion in his life.
  
“Command” is what transformed men during the war. Braggarts turn into cowards because they couldn’t command. Jackson and Grant became who they did because they could command. As Gwynne uses it, “command” means the ability to make a command decision and be willing to be held accountable about it. With this gift of command, Jackson didn’t have to be the most charismatic man or the most gifted speaker.

• Gwynne reinforces a comment from his book: “Jackson’s death was the first great outpouring of national grief for a fallen leader.” This demonstration was eclipsed two years later with death of Lincoln. Gwynne acknowledges its an unconventional view, but (in the book) he outlines his argument.
  
• Jackson is fascinating, but that doesn’t guarantee sustained interest. The interest in him survives because:
  - he was the ultimate underdog ,both the man and his side,
  - he had a brilliant military mind,
  - “flawed” geniuses make for engaging stories, and
  - his redemption (from the title): not just a religious meaning, but he overcame his many limitations.

Also, Gwynne has a fun piece at Biographile titled ‘Never Take Counsel of Fear’: Leadership Lessons from Stonewall Jackson.

Update (15 March 2015): Another clip of Gwynne talking about the book, also at C-Span's Book TV. "S.C. Gwynne, author of Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, talked about his book and responded to viewer questions and comments. He was interviewed at the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books, held on March 14-15 on the campus of the University of Arizona."