**Once Again On The Massachusetts 54th Regiment In The American Civil War- Better Get Back Down To South Carolina-Again!

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Regiment.

DVD Review

The Massachusetts 54th, staring the heroic black fighters of the volunteer Massachusetts 54th Regiment, narrated by Morgan Freeman, PBS American Experience Series, 2005

I have reviewed a number of materials, mainly film documentaries, about the heroic all black ranks (and white-officered) 54th Massachusetts Regiment who proved their valor in front of Fort Wagner down in South Carolina in 1863 (and did hard fight service thereafter until they marched into heart of Confederacy Charleston in 1865 singing, fittingly, John Brown’s Body). Every time I do such a review I like to preface my remarks with this comment which places the now “discovered” regiment in proper historical perspective, and says as much about official history as anything. As a student in the 1960s I passed the now famous Saint Gaudens relief sculpture of the Colonel Robert Gould Shaw-led 54th every day (then in bad condition, by the way) and yet never knew about that regiment, its history and its importance in the struggle to end slavery until later, much later when I emerged myself in the history of black struggles. Moreover, no history course, and I was a fanatic about history even then, mentioned the tremendous efforts, probably decisive efforts, that arming black soldiers to fight in their own emancipation struggle provided for the Union side. So much for history being written by the victors, at least on this issue.

Fortunately, now young budding historians and blacks looking to their roots have several sources to choice from on this regiment. The commercial film Glory, starring Denzel Washington, set a certain dramatic tension, especially around racism, the struggle for equal pay, the question of black officers, and the capacity of blacks to fight “like white men.” I think this PBS effort, as a documentary, however covers the bases better as a historical inquiry into the subject. Here is why. The various issues just mentioned are laid out, including the incipient racism faced by blacks in Boston even before Governor Andrews authorized the creation of the regiment. Moreover, as an added benefit the producers have brought in not only the normal “talking heads” scholars that one expects of a PBS effort but also descendants of some of the surviving 54th soldiers to tell grandpa’s story (or what he told them). Of course the plethora of photographs and other visuals keep this one hour production moving right along, as does the always calm narration by Morgan Freeman as he lays out the story line.

Note: Much is made in this documentary of the question, as it was at the time of the Civil War, of whether blacks, so seemingly servile and simple, could be trained to fight, arms in hand. Of course 200,000 strong black arms and their infusion at the decisive point when Union efforts were flagging put paid to that notion. That certainly was the importance of Fort Wagner as a test of black valor, although that effort was a defeat. The South never forgave or forgot that armed black mass in front of them. But that notion of blacks was wrong as those Southerners later found out. If the cause is right, or even if the cause is wrong, there will be men and women ready to fight, and fight valiantly, under their chosen banner. Those who do not understand this have poor military sense. The real question for us is whether we have enough fighters on the “side of the angels” when the cause is righteous.

In the Time of the Second American Revolution

In the Time of the Second American Revolution

February is Black History Month

Book Review

The Era of Reconstruction, Kenneth Stampp, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975

Back in the days of my‘pre-history’ the Reconstruction period directly after the American Civil War ended in 1865 was cast as the time of the scalawags, carpetbaggers, Black Codes and ultimately after a determined fight by the ‘right’ people in the South‘redemption’. In short a time of shame in the American experience. Well so much for that nonsense. There was plenty that went wrong during radical reconstruction the South but the conventional high school history textbooks never got into the whole story. The whole story is that until fairly recently this reconstruction period was the most democratic period in the South in American history, for white and black alike. The book under review, or rather some essays done by Professor Stampp on this subject, went a long way toward a better understanding of the period.

Professor Stamp, as he must, starts off his book by describing the political problems associated with most of the earlier studies of Reconstruction done by those influenced by Professor Dunning in the early 20^th century. That picture presented, as I described in my opening sentence, the familiar corrupt and scandalous activities associated with this period. Needless to say this position dovetailed very nicely with the rationale for Jim Crow in the pre-1960’s South. Moreover, in the hands of its northern liberal devotees nicely covered up the burgeoning corruption of the northern based ‘robber barons’. There is an old adage that history is written by the victors. Whatever the truth to that assertion Reconstruction history was written by the victors’ once removed.

The Reconstruction era was dominated by three basic plans that Professor Stampp describes in some detail; the Lincoln ‘soft’ union indivisible efforts; the Johnson ‘soft’ redemption plans; and, the radical Republican ‘scorched earth’ policy. In the end none of these plans was pursued strongly enough to insure that enhanced black rights would lead to enlightened citizenship. Stampp presents detailed critiques of all these plans and some insight about the country at the time that does not make for pretty reading.

The professor goes on to try to demystify what the radical reconstruction governments did and did not do. That there were scandalous activities and more than enough corrupt politicians to go around goes without saying. However like most myths there is a snowball effect about how bad things really were that obliterate the very real advances for black (and some poor whites) like public education, improved roads and increased state facilities that were anathema to the planting class that formerly ruled the South. The last part of the book deals with the conservative counter-revolution to overthrow the radical governments culminating the well-known Compromise of 1877 (the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from South basically). The actions of that rabble is certainly not pretty reading. Moreover it took about a century and a ‘cold’ civil war during the 1960’s (and that battle continues today) to even minimally right that situation. For those who need an in depth, definite study of this subject you must turn to the master Eric Foner and his book, Reconstruction. However, if you want an earlier, shorter but nevertheless informative overview of Reconstruction this is your first stop.

*On The 150th Anniversary of South Carolina’s Secession Jubilee- Send In The Massachusetts 54th Black Volunteer Infantry Regiment- Again

Click on the headline to link to an Associated Press online article about the preparations for "celebration" of the 150th anniversary of secession.

Markin comment:

No question that on most occasions the victors in war, like everything else, get to write the narrative of that victory. The exceptions, however, in some cases prove the rule. In this case the exception is the very, very checkered bourgeois historical interpretation of the American Civil War. In the immediate aftermath of the Union victories the narrative ran something like Sherman’s “scorched earth” policy in the war itself. In the aftermath of the defeat of Reconstruction, especially it more radical phases in the late 1860’s and early 1870s though, and for an absurdly long time afterward the South, and Southern historians (like those of the U.B. Phillips school), chipped away at that clear-cut victory for union and abolition of slavery. The black-led Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and early 1960s, as a by-product, produced some much needed historical correctives to that distorted Jim Crow narrative.

Know this, however, there always has been, and is, an undertow reaction to their fate in the Civil War by many descendants on the Southern side of that war. From the more recent controversies over the using the Confederate flag as all, or part, of various state flags (South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) to the place of various generals, like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, in American military history the conflict has never died for them, or for us. For the pro-unionist, pro-abolitionist side there has been a certain laxness in appreciation that for many down there (yes, down there) the Civil War never ended. And for once they are right, it hasn’t. Those social and economic tasks around the race question, around the black question as those of us on the left have termed it, from education to housing to jobs still confront us.

Now comes word that South Carolina, the heart and brains of the Confederacy, has planned a celebration, a jubilee if you will, around the 150th anniversary of the signing of the articles of secession by their forbears in December 1860. Every red-blooded leftist, every ardent slavery abolitionist, every admirer of Captain John Brown of Harpers Ferry should burn with rage over this affront to history and protest this event as the NAACP has called to do.

Except, unlike the NAACP, an organization that has historically seen only the need for some “tweaking” of the American capitalist system to bring justice we cry out- Finish The Civil War!. Come to think of it, in addition to that slogan, we should also call for the heroic Massachusetts 54th Black Volunteer Infantry Regiment, or its righteous political descendants, to go down to Charleston and straighten these fools out- again. And, like in 1865, do it while singing John Brown’s Body through the streets of Charleston.

*The Modern Southern Literary View Of The American Civil War Period- William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the American novelist, William Faulkner.

Book Review

Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner, The Modern Library, New York, 1936

I am here to tell you that not every great book that describes the human struggle as we emerged from the mud has to be written from a leftist progressive political perspective, although usually it helps. The novelist, self-proclaimed white racial purist, and Mississippi partisan, William Faulkner, with this very complicated and somewhat rambling novel placed himself front and center in the pantheon of American literary figures who have tried to confront the daunting task of making great literature out of the slavery-driven plantation society of the ante bellum South and of that same locale in the period of defeat after the Civil War. One does not have to sign up for membership in the William Faulkner political fan club to realize that he has created something that speaks to that very contradictory, and at times incomprehensible, human drive to succeed as it has evolved thus far. He does not pull his punches or hold back on the grizzly picture that he paints.

Let me explain that last sentence. I was put on the trail of Faulkner this time, having previously reviewed his “Sanctuary” in this space, by reading and reviewing a book titled “The Unwritten War” by Daniel Aaron. Aaron’s major thesis is that the social, political and military dimensions of the American Civil experience, for both sides, were so traumatic and overwhelming that it took a figure removed in time, like Faulkner, to have a realistic shot at writing the “great American Civil War novel”. Aaron runs through the litany of great American literary figures that did, or did not, try to create such a work in the immediate post-war period and came up dry until the emergence of Faulkner (and, possibly, the “Agrarians” like Robert Penn Warren). One can agree or disagree with Professor Aaron's thesis but it hard to argue, at an artistic level, that Faulkner’s work here, especially the portrait of the central character, Thomas Sutpen, as he emerges from the descriptions of several fellow townspeople, including characters from other Faulkner novels, of the mythical Jefferson, Mississippi is not a serious candidate for that honor.

And what do we have here in the four hundred or so pages of this novel. A description of the intricate web of the roots of one branch of the slavery economy in the French West Indies as it connects to the then (1830’s) virgin Mississippi lands suitable for plantation creation. The trials and tribulations of two varieties of “poor white trash” (Sutpen, and later his overseer). The Civil War as refracted though small town Southern life. Miscegenation. Lust. Incest. Murder, Almost murder. Wannabe murder. Abortion. Southern gentility. Not so gentile Southern life. Ghosts, real and imagined. Fear of going forward. Fear of going back. Hatred of the North. Hatred of the South. Carpetbaggers. Scalawags. Almost every social and human experience, except any serious description of the hated n----r in post-Civil War society, and except as monsters. And that is only a start. So here is the “real deal”. Goddam, William Faulkner can write a hell of a novel. Nevertheless, after reading this novel, I will stick with the lyrics in Nina Simone’s old 1960’s Civil Rights-inspired song- “Mississippi, Goddam"


"Mississippi Goddam"- Nina Simone- 1963

The name of this tune is Mississippi goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabamas gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about mississippi goddam

Alabamas gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about mississippi goddam

Cant you see it
Cant you feel it
Its all in the air
I cant stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabamas gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about mississippi goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasnt been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every days gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I dont belong here
I dont belong there
Ive even stopped believing in prayer

Dont tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
Ive been there so I know
They keep on saying go slow!

But thats just the trouble
Do it slow
Washing the windows
Do it slow
Picking the cotton
Do it slow
Youre just plain rotten
Do it slow
Youre too damn lazy
Do it slow
The thinkings crazy
Do it slow
Where am I going
What am I doing
I dont know
I dont know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about mississippi goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin didnt we

Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say its a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And youd stop calling me sister sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
Youre all gonna die and die like flies
I dont trust you any more
You keep on saying go slow!
Go slow!

But thats just the trouble
Do it slow
Desegregation
Do it slow
Mass participation
Do it slow
Reunification
Do it slow
Do things gradually
Do it slow
But bring more tragedy
Do it slow
Why dont you see it
Why dont you feel it
I dont know
I dont know

You dont have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about mississippi
Everybody knows about alabama
Everybody knows about mississippi goddam

Thats it!

Post-Civil War Reconstructon-Professor John Hope Franklin's View

Book Review

February is Black History Month


Reconstruction After The Civil War, John Hope Franklin, The University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1961

The Reconstruction period directly after the American Civil War ended in 1865 was cast as the time of the ‘scalawags’, ‘carpetbaggers’, Black Codes and ultimately after a determined and ugly political and military fight by the ‘right’ people, the so-called natural rulers in the South, ‘redemption’. In short, a least for any radical, a time of shame in the American experience and, at least implicitly, a racist slap at blacks and their supporters for attempting to upset the traditional social order.

There certainly was plenty that went wrong during Radical Reconstruction (there were, as Professor Franklin points out several phases of Reconstruction, not all of them radical) in the South but the conventional high school history textbooks never got into the whole story. Nor did they want to. The whole story is that until fairly recently this Radical Reconstruction period was the most democratic period in the South in American history, for white and black alike. The book under review that reflects the earlier 'revisionist' efforts as well as the likes of Professor Kenneth Stamp (whose book of essays on Reconstruction I have previously reviewed in this space) goes a long way toward a better understanding of the period than those old high school textbooks.

Professor Franklin, as he must, starts off his narrative history by describing the political problems associated with most of the earlier studies of Reconstruction done by those influenced by Professor Dunning and his school in the early 20th century (Franklin provides a very useful “Suggested Reading” section at the end the book which details his sources for those who want to look at the state of scholarship on the subject in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s). That picture presented, as I described above, the familiar corrupt and scandalous activities associated with this period. Needless to say this position dovetailed very nicely with the rationale for Jim Crow in the pre-1960’s South. Moreover, in the hands of its northern liberal devotees it nicely covered up the burgeoning corruption of the northern- based ‘robber barons’. There is an old adage that history is written by the victors. Whatever the truth to that assertion might be early Reconstruction history was written by the losers, or rather their apologists once removed.

The Reconstruction era was dominated by three basic plans that Professor Franklin describes in some detail; the aborted Lincoln ‘soft’ union indivisible efforts; the Johnson ‘soft’ redemption plans; and, the radical Republican ‘scorched earth’ policy. In the end none of these plans was pursued strongly enough to insure that enhanced black rights gained through legislation would lead to enlightened citizenship. Franklin, following Stampp, presents detailed critiques of all these plans and some insights about the social and cultural mores of the country at the time that do not make for pretty reading.

The professor then goes on to try to demystify what the radical reconstruction governments did and did not do. That there were scandalous activities and more than enough corrupt politicians to go around goes without saying. However like most myths there is a snowball effect about how bad things really were that obliterates the very real advances for black (and some poor whites) like public education, improved roads and increased state facilities that were anathema to the planting class that formerly ruled the South.

The last part of the book deals with the conservative counter-revolution to overthrow the radical governments culminating in the well-known Compromise of 1877. The actions of that rabble, rich and poor whites alike formed in militias and other para-military operations like the Klan, is certainly not pretty reading. Moreover it took about a century and a ‘cold’ civil war during the 1960’s (a battle that continues today) to even minimally right that situation. For those that need an in- depth, definitive study of this subject you must turn to the master, Eric Foner, and his monumental “Reconstruction, 1863-1877”. However, if you want an earlier, shorter but nevertheless informative overview of Reconstruction this is one of your first stops.

Radical Reconstruction: The Second Civil War

DVD REVIEW

Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, Two Parts Revolution and Reaction, PBS, 2004

Back in the days of my personal ‘pre-history’ the Reconstruction period directly after the American Civil War ended in 1865 was cast as the time of the scalawags, carpetbaggers, Black Codes and ultimately after a determined fight by the ‘right’ people in the South ‘redemption’. In short a time of shame in the American experience and, at least implicitly, a racist slap at blacks and their supporters. Well so much for that nonsense.

There certainly was plenty that went wrong during radical reconstruction in the South but the conventional high school history textbooks never got into the whole story. Nor did they want to. The whole story is that until fairly recently this radical reconstruction period was the most democratic period in the South in American history, for white and black alike. Previously, I have written some book reviews on this subject that led me to this documentary. This documentary goes a long way toward a better visual understanding of what went on in that period.

The first part of the Radical Reconstruction era was dominated by three basic plans that are described here in some detail; the aborted Lincoln ‘soft’ union indivisible efforts; the Johnson ‘soft’ redemption plans; and, the radical Republican ‘scorched earth’ policy toward the South. In the end none of these plans was pursued strongly enough to insure that enhanced black rights gained through legislation would lead to enlightened citizenship. The documentary presents detailed critiques of all these plans and some insights about the social and cultural mores of the country at the time that do not make for a pretty picture.

The producers spend some time trying to demystify what the radical reconstruction governments did and did not do. This is done in the usual ‘even-handed’ approach of PBS documentaries by the use of various individual life stories-a former slave, ex-Yankee officer and a woman plantation owner. That there were scandalous activities and more than enough corrupt politicians to go around goes without saying. However like most myths there is a snowball effect about how bad things really were that obliterates the very real advances for black (and some poor whites) like public education, improved roads and increased state facilities that were anathema to the planting class that formerly ruled the South.

The second part of the documentary deals with the conservative counter-revolution in order to overthrow the radical governments culminating in the well-known Compromise of 1877. The actions of that Southern rabble, rich and poor whites alike, formed in militias and other para-military operations like the Klan is certainly not pretty. Moreover it took about a century and a ‘cold’ civil war during the 1960’s to even minimally right that situation (a battle that continues to this day). For those that need an in depth, definitive study of this subject you must turn to the master Eric Foner (who is also one of the ‘talking heads’, another PBS standard practice, on screen) and his monumental Reconstruction, 1863-1877. However, if you want a shorter but nevertheless informative visual overview of Reconstruction this is your first stop.

In The Time Of The Second American Revolution-Reconstruction

Book Review

February is Black History Month

The Era of Reconstruction, Kenneth Stampp, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975

The Reconstruction period directly after the American Civil War ended in 1865 was cast as the time of the ‘scalawags’, ‘carpetbaggers’, Black Codes and ultimately after a determined and ugly political and military fight by the ‘right’ people, the so-called natural rulers in the South, ‘redemption’. In short, a least for any radical, a time of shame in the American experience and, at least implicitly, a racist slap at blacks and their supporters for attempting to upset the traditional social order.

There certainly was plenty that went wrong during Radical Reconstruction (there were, as Professor Franklin points out several phases of Reconstruction, not all of them radical) in the South but the conventional high school history textbooks never got into the whole story. Nor did they want to. The whole story is that until fairly recently this Radical Reconstruction period was the most democratic period in the South in American history, for white and black alike. The book under review that reflects the earlier efforts of the likes of Professor Kenneth Stamp (whose book of essays on Reconstruction I have previously reviewed in this space) goes a long way toward a better understanding of the period than those old high school textbooks.

Professor Stamp, as he must, starts off his book by describing the political problems associated with most of the earlier studies of Reconstruction done by those influenced by Professor Dunning and his school in the early 20th century. That picture presented, as I described in my opening sentence, the familiar corrupt and scandalous activities associated with this period. Needless to say this position dovetailed very nicely with the rationale for Jim Crow in the pre-1960’s South. Moreover, in the hands of its northern liberal devotees it nicely covered up the burgeoning corruption of the northern- based ‘robber barons’. There is an old adage that history is written by the victors. Whatever the truth to that assertion early Reconstruction history was written by the losers, or rather their apologists once removed.

The Reconstruction era was dominated by three basic plans that Professor Stampp describes in some detail; the aborted Lincoln ‘soft’ union indivisible efforts; the Johnson ‘soft’ redemption plans; and, the radical Republican ‘scorched earth’ policy. In the end none of these plans was pursued strongly enough to insure that enhanced black rights gained through legislation would lead to enlightened citizenship. Stampp presents detailed critiques of all these plans and some insights about the social and cultural mores of the country at the time that do not make for pretty reading.

The professor then goes on to try to demystify what the radical reconstruction governments did and did not do. That there were scandalous activities and more than enough corrupt politicians to go around goes without saying. However like most myths there is a snowball effect about how bad things really were that obliterates the very real advances for black (and some poor whites) like public education, improved roads and increased state facilities that were anathema to the planting class that formerly ruled the South.

The last part of the book deals with the conservative counter-revolution to overthrow the radical governments culminating in the well-known Compromise of 1877. The actions of that rabble, rich and poor whites alike formed in militias and other para-military operations like the Klan, is certainly not pretty reading. Moreover it took about a century and a ‘cold’ civil war during the 1960’s (a battle that continues today) to even minimally right that situation. For those that need an in depth, definitive study of this subject you must turn to the master, Eric Foner, and his monumental Reconstruction, 1863-1877. However, if you want an earlier, shorter but nevertheless informative overview of Reconstruction this is your first stop.