Why did southerners feel they were citizens of their states rather than of the USA?

In our discussions of the Civil War (here, here, here and here)  it seems to me that we have not adequately addressed a fundamental question. It is the question of choice of nationality (which is also addressed in The Long Shadow that we just discussed). Why is it that in 1860 many people in the United States believed that they were citizens of their individual sovereign states while many others felt that they were citizens of the United States of America -- the true location of national sovereignty? How is it that former U.S. president John Tyler, former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and former U.S. Army officer Robert E. Lee believed that their loyalty to their states was more compelling than that to the United States of America.

Let me begin by differentiating civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism occurs when the citizens of a state accept that citizenship because they accept a common ethnic identity. Civic nationalism exists where people choose to be citizens of the state, abiding by the country's laws and fulfilling the obligations of citizenship; citizens can have different ethnic backgrounds, be of different religions and speak different languages in their homes.

If we think of the United States of America as "a nation of immigrants" then the nation would seem to be built on civic nationalism. Thus, its citizens might be seen to conceive of the USA as a state with citizens of many ethnic backgrounds; its citizens choose to be Americans, to abide by U.S. laws and to fulfill the other obligations of U.S. citizenship (in part because of the advantages of doing so).

The decision between civic nationalism in a larger state or ethnic nationalism in a smaller ethnic state is still present in many places. We have just seen the Scots vote to accept British nationality rather than separate Scotland from the other states of Great Britain. A majority of Catalans have just voted to separate from Spain. One could point to ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Basques in Spain, or Tamils in Sri Lanka as examples of ethnic groups still debating their identities as part of larger states. The partition of India into India and Pakistan, and of Pakistan into a reduced Pakistan and Bangladesh were examples of countries breaking apart into ethnic nation states with great loss of life.

In 1776 the residents of the individual colonies rebelling to obtain freedom from the British empire clearly declared their individual colonies to be sovereign states. It is not surprising given the distances between them, the difficulties of transportation and communications of the time, and the differences in their histories (for example, the different religious histories), that the people of these colonies did not understand themselves as being a single ethnic nation. The Articles of Confederation recognized that the colonies had to form a confederation if they were to remain independent in a world dominated by European imperial powers. The Confederation was conceived as an alliance of sovereign states. I find it interesting that the Articles explicitly invited Canada (with its French speaking, Catholic population) to join, but did not so mention the British colonies in the Caribbean, nor Spanish colonies in North America.

Clearly the Constitution was written and ratified in recognition that the Articles of Confederation did not make the U.S. Government strong enough; it could not raise the money to defend itself against potential foreign enemies. The federalists sought to locate sovereignty in the federal government of the Republic. The nullification crisis during the Jackson administration seemed to affirm that a state did not have the sovereign power to decide whether or not to obey a federal law. Yet disunion frequently discussed up until the Civil War (see Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859 by Elizabeth R. Varon).

Those prior to the Civil War who thought that the USA should divide into ethnic nations  might be said to include the representatives of the New England states that met in the Hartford convention during the War of 1812.  The members of the Know Nothing movement who opposed the immigration of large numbers of Irish Catholics, and those who opposed the annexation of Texas and of large areas after the Mexican War wanted the larger USA to be ethnically homogeneous. Indeed, there were many in the north and in the south who questioned whether people whose ethnicity included African ancestors and a recent history of slavery could ever be citizens of the United States of America.

Abraham Lincoln appears prototypical of those holding that the United States was a single nation, "indivisible with liberty and justice for all" and that the citizens of all the states formed a civic nation; there were millions of Americans who agreed with him in 1860.

Let me suggest that the institution of slavery was the dividing line. In the south, many people defined themselves as a nationality for which the institution of slavery was not only important, but defining; they were the people who provided the political support for the institution of chattel slavery. In the north, many abolitionists defined themselves as a nationality of people who rejected the institution of slavery. If all the people of the United States were to become a single civic nation, this fundamental difference had to be settled.

Those who defined themselves as the dominant group in a slave holding nation, also apparently believed that sovereignty was placed in their (southern) states. On secession, they formed a confederation of sovereign states, not a federal union holding sovereignty. On the other hand, those who defined themselves as of a non slave holding people also believed that sovereignty resided in the United States of America. Perhaps it was a realization in the south that only be leaving the union might they maintain the institution of slavery, and leaving the union was only morally justified if their states had the sovereign right to do so.

Was the issue settled by the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution? During the Reconstruction, the south was divided into military districts and placed under martial law. While the North never admitted that the 11 states of the Confederacy had seceded from the Union, it also did not immediately allow them to participate in elections after the war. Congress admitted members from Tennessee in 1866, and from 6 additional southern states in 1868. Four states had to wait until 1870 for readmission to Congress.

Culturally, the reintegration has taken much longer. Thus veterans organizations formed after the Civil War were composed of either Union or Confederate veterans, but not both. The Ku Klux Klan was active (albeit not just in the south) until the 20th century. "Lost Cause" ideas were common in the south long after the war.

Education: On the other hand, the idea that Americans had common civic responsibilities goes back to the foundation of the country, as does the idea that they must learn how to fulfill those responsibilities. When  schools in the United States began to be publicly funded in the 19th century, civics education began to become more available to all children. As immigrants from many nations flooded into the country later in the century and early in the 20th century, civics education became a way to promote civic nationalism.

The Pledge of Allegiance, declaring the USA to be "one nation" was not written until 1898, and was not adopted by Congress until 1942. The American Legion, created in the aftermath of World War I specifically accepted a mission of promoting "Americanism" -- essentially indoctrinating immigrants into American civic nationalism, while those immigrants retain other aspects of their national culture.

The USA remains composed of many ethnic minorities; Hispanics, Asians and Blacks are an increasing portion of the population, and the population is split among many religious denominations. Still, perhaps more than in the past, Americans also share many aspects of the same culture. Ask a foreigner how long it takes to identify whether someone comes from the USA by speech, appearance and attitudes. Perhaps this is becoming a hybrid of both civic and ethnic nationalism.

The Memory of the Great War and More

The History Book Club met on Veterans Day (chosen as a special meeting day given our book's focus on World War I) As usual we met at the Kensington Row Bookshop. The owners, who offered their usual great hospitality, have made the shop's website still more attractive and useful -- check it out.

A dozen members were present and the discussion was unusually spirited. Before we started the scheduled discussions, long time member Allen Wiener signed copies of his new book, Channeling Elvis: How Television Saved the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

The Washington Post had recently published a letter to the editor by another long time member, Dorothy Pugh. We briefly discussed it. John Tyler, her subject, while perhaps one of the least known of American presidents, she described as quite an interesting man. Married twice, he had 15 children, 8 by his first wife. After his first wife died, Tyler (at age 54) married a 24 year old woman, Julia Gardner.  We wondered why she might be interested in so old a man, but were told she really loved being the First Lady and White House hostess. Her portrait is still to be found in the White House. Tyler is also notable in that after stepping down from the presidency, he was elected to office in the Confederacy. He wanted to be elected president of the Confederacy but died before the election.

Dorothy also told us about the disastrous voyage of the USS Princeton in 1844. President Tyler and his then fiancee, Julia, were on the ship for a pleasure trip with a number of other people. The voyage was used as an opportunity to demonstrate a new, huge canon that had  been cast in the United States. Unfortunately it blew up, killing Colonel David Gardiner, Julia's father. Fortunately President Tyler and Julia were not injured.

The Ebola Epidemic and Virus Hunter

Occasionally a member will make a brief presentation of a second book at a meeting of the club. Several members had expressed an interest in reading a book that would be relevant to the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa. For that purpose, Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World by C.J. Peters and Mark Olshaker was described by a member. It is the biography of Dr. Peters.

Dr. Peters is a consummate professional -- a physician, certified in internal medicine, with additional years of training in immunology and virology. That expertise was applied to study perhaps the world's most dangerous diseases, often at risk to himself, and often in the most trying of circumstances. He was the man most responsible for dealing with the outbreak of Ebola in monkeys in Reston, Virginia in 1989.

There are a handful of such experts who are the world's first line of defense against emerging diseases such as Ebola and SARS. The world is greatly indebted to them for their sacrifices.

The book, as it describes Dr. Peters' career, also provides a history of the emergence of a number of diseases new to science and medicine in recent decades. It explains the complexity of dealing with these diseases, especially the bureaucratic issues that must be resolved. It also provides some familiarity with the technology for the study of those diseases, and a view of the rapid development of that technology over the span of Dr. Peters' long career. For example, he worked in the first Bio Safety Level 4 lab in the USA -- the only lab at the time of the Reston Ebola outbreak designed to study highly infectious diseases for which there were no vaccines, no treatment, and a high probability of death following infection.

One of the members present had worked with Dr. Peters' colleague in dealing with an outbreak of Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever in Bolivia, and described Peter's work on that occasion. Another member had planned the development of a health service delivery system in Liberia, and described the way in which that system had been damaged in the  subsequent revolutions and political turmoil in Liberia. The group went on to briefly discuss the epidemic in West Africa, and the poor way that the information on the cases in the United States was handled by the media.

After the presentation and discussion, the majority of the group voted that they wanted to read Virus Hunter. Thus, it will be the club selection for February.

The Long Shadow

The main book for discussion this month was The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century by David Reynolds. Indeed, the meeting was moved to 11/11 in honor of the date of the Armistice that ended the Great War on the Western Front. A book of considerable scholarship, it traces the shadow of World War I for a century, especially through the writings of historians, the works of high culture of poets and artists, and through the more popular arts of television and novels. The book also considers how the war was memorialized in public monuments.

Prior to the meeting several useful materials were circulated to members:

Streaming video of the Three Part BBC Series Long Shadow with David Reynolds

• Part 1   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayp3XIBLYZQ
• Part 2   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WffL3P9mOxU
• Part 3   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACa-rX4gpio

The review of the book in The Guardian. 

A brief video in which David Reynold's describes the purpose of his book; recorded last November, he is wearing a poppy.

A Facebook post on the Russian "Night Witches"; pilots of World War I.

The British set forth this display of ceramic poppies in remembrance of those who died in the war.

The discussion began with comments about how well David Reynolds writes. He captures a great deal of content in concise, clearly written chapters. It was noted, however, that he focuses more on the British experience than on that of the rest of the world, perhaps because he is a professor at Cambridge University.

The book was described as one of historiography and cultural history. Its main focus seems to be how historians have viewed World War I. However, a strong secondary focus is on the cultural history of how that war has been viewed in television. art, literature and even memorials to those who fought and died. Of course, the book describes a great deal of history as it describes how people wrote and thought about the war and its influences. An important theme of the book is how ideas about the war changed over time (and with the then current events that absorbed peoples attention at various periods). So too, the book stresses how differently the war was treated in the histories and memories of different countries, and how differently the popular conception of the war sometimes was from that emerging as the dominant historical paradigm. A member said he may never believe a history presents the "truth" again after reading this book. (The discussion here resembles that from last March.)

One member said that she found the chapter dealing with the partitioning of the Near East after the war as full of errors. A member complained about the minimal treatment of the impact of the war on art; he cited Dada as an example. He noted that Dadaist art was first made in the USA and then in Switzerland, and perhaps wasn't mentioned in the book because it had little impact in England. Another suggested that Picasso and his friends didn't start out to create "cubism", that the idea that the paintings that they made at the time constituted "a movement" was something we later imposed on a body of work that may not have been so intended by the artists.

Member: "Reminds me of the Marilyn Monroe song, My Heart Belongs to Dada."
Other member: Don't you mean My Art Belongs to Dada."

A member mentioned that there was almost no discussion of the partitioning of Africa, nor of African nor Asia views of the war and its aftermath. Another was concerned with the impact of the war on the independence movement in Africa; African troops fought in the armies of a number of European imperial armies; tens of thousands of Africans were enlisted in the German army, but were rejected eventually as a result of German prejudice against blacks. There was of course a portion of the war fought in sub-Saharan Africa. We assumed that the Africans who fought for European powers must have been affected by that experience on returning to their homelands, and that the experience must have influenced feelings about their colonial status.

Similarly, there was a large Indian contingent that fought the Ottomans in the Middle East; a member noted that his English uncle had served in the British Army in India during the war. Thus Indians were defending the empire away from home, and English were serving in India to assure that it remained a British colony. We noted that the book did not deal in any depth with the impact of the war on the Indian independence movement; only three pages were devoted to Gandhi. A member suggested that that was true of Asia in general - that the majority of the world who actually lived in Asia didn't get much play in the book.

A member mentioned that one way the war could be understood was in terms of the end of the divine right of kings as a theory of government in the West, and a considerable reduction in the trust of the aristocracy's right and ability to run government well. Thus an aftermath of the war, well described in the book, was competition among democracy, communism and fascism as political systems to replace monarchy, and competition among economic systems.

The member also commented that a way to understand the war was as a step toward the ending of multi-ethnic and colonial empires. Perhaps surprisingly, the Berlin conference in which European powers had divided up Africa was not mentioned in the book; seemingly one of the contributing factors leading up to the war was imperial territorial ambitions in Africa.

An outcome of the war was the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the German Empire. Russia lost that part of its empire that existed in Central Europe. While the British and French gained territory after World War I, there was relatively rapid decolonization of Africa and Asia after World War II. With the fall of the USSR at the end of the 20th century, the Soviet empire lost much of its territory. Thus World War I could be seen as the beginning of the end of imperialism, and the start of decolonization.

Ireland was an exception, achieving independence from the British Empire soon after World War I. A member who had written a thesis on the Irish revolution described a relative's capture in Queenstown when that relative tried to join the Rebels. Another shared a photocopy of a grand-uncle's letter describing his efforts to organize branches of the Friends of Irish Independence in South Dakota in 1919; he also described the death of an Irish uncle in the British army putting down the Iraq rebellion in 1921. We noted the complexity of soldiers from Ulster coming back to Ireland feeling that they had fought for the Union, other soldiers returning to support the IRA and Irish independence.

From the letter:  "The Wilsonian League of Abominations"

We were diverted into a brief discussion of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark. Two members had recently read the book, which is longer than that which the club chooses to read. One part of the causal chain leading to World War I was the weakening of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, with the tacit approval of France (that held the western part of the Maghreb, and Britain which controlled Egypt, Italy successfully fought the Ottomans and took control of Libya.

Shortly thereafter, the Serbs and Greeks fought the Ottomans and gained control of much of the Balkans. The specific trigger of the war was related to Serbia's desire to create a state unifying the Southern Slavs -- a desire supported by Russia and leading to war with the Austro-Hungarian empire. A member mentioned that this book provided the best description of the Balkan politics that he had ever read. (Yugoslavia was created in the peace talks after World War I.)

Clark also describes the formation of the German-Austro-Hungarian Alliance and the counterbalancing triple alliance of Russia, France, and Britain. We mentioned the arms races, such as the German and British competition in building warships, and the building of railroads capable of moving troops and their equipment rapidly to the front. One member expressed surprise that such huge armies were organized, especially by the Russians and Germans. The title of the book suggests that the leaders of these empires were like sleepwalkers, unknowingly moving into a situation more dangerous than they ever recognized, and eventually plunging the world into World War (and a peace that would lead to a still greater war).

We noted the way in which German treatment of Belgium and Belgians was inflated by propaganda to justify the war. As an aside, a disingenuous statement of Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty -- that the navy could not support the movement of troops into Belgium but could move troops into France if necessary -- was influencing national policy far beyond what would have been justified by his rank.

The term "Holocaust", used in conjunction with German atrocities in Belgium while initiating the war with France, led us to discussion of the World War II Holocaust. The latter of course dwarfed the earlier deeds. We noted that in the early years of the war, in spite of Nazi secrecy some knew of the predicament of the Jews in Germany, and Allied government officials kept the information secret. Our oldest member described having leaned of the Holocaust in 1943, and immediately trying to enlist in the army (he had only been 17 at the time, and was required to wait six months more to enlist). We concluded that the Holocaust must have become public knowledge before the end of the war and the capture of the extermination camps. Still General Eisenhower/s efforts to expose the Nazi atrocities were very important; it would be hard to deny the Holocaust later.

We discussed the anti German sentiment in the USA during the two world wars. One of our members is part German American and could speak from her personal experience. Her perception was that during the World War I, some in German communities were frankly pro-German. There was strong anti-German sentiment among most Americans in World War II. It was suggested that there may have been a difference between the east and west coast, with most anger in the east directed towards the Germans and both the Japanese and Germans subject to strong antagonistic feelings in the west. The anger at the foreign enemies spilled over onto German-American and Japanese-American ethnic groups in the USA.

We briefly discussed German sabotage during World War I, as well as mentioning the Zimmerman Telegram (in which the German government encouraged Mexico to declare war on the USA). A member mentioned that German sabotage is discussed in Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America by Howard Blum. It was suggested that it will be important to understand the background in German sabotage in reading next month's book for discussion, The Great Dissent by Thomas Healy.

Tidbits

Author Reynolds destroys the reputation of Barbara Tuchman's book, The Guns of August, in a brief but devastating section of his book. We noted that that it is our understanding that the reputation of that book has been greatly tarnished by other historians in the last decade. Still, it seems clear that the book greatly influenced John Kennedy and his key advisors during the Cuban missile crisis. Interesting that a not-so-good book could have such great and beneficial influence.

The Long Shadow is quite critical of Winston Churchill. Members who could remember his speeches, thought that they were critically important in keeping Britain fighting in the early part of the war. Someone recalled the Wall Street Journal as lauding Churchill as the finest speaker and finest writer of his time. On the other hand, a member pointed out that Churchill's reputation may well have been greater in the USA than in Britain, and that the Labor Government won the election immediately following World War II, throwing Churchill out of office.

Several of the members had long careers in government agencies. They vented! It seems that political appointees to head government agencies often arrive with little or no practical experience, and don't stay long enough to really understand the agencies, their functions, and the challenges that they face. There are so many checks and balances in government, so many complex processes that simply have to work their own way out for progress to be made, that the senior professionals in agencies may be the only people to fully understand the work of their agencies. Briefings of political appointees may often be -- necessarily or deliberately -- simplifications of reality. The real importance of the senior professional staff is often under rated. (There was reference to the British situation comedy, Yes, Minister.)

Final Comment

There was uniform agreement that this was a very good book, enjoyed by all. A good read!

Here are some comments posted by a member on books discussed:

• The Long Shadow of WWI: Nationalism and Democracy
• More on "The Long Shadow"
• The Long Shadow: Part 3 of My Comments
• Final Comment on the Long Shadow of World War I
• Dr. Peters, Virus Hunter

Recent History of the History Book Club

Starting in February of 2013 I have been writing fairly long summaries of the discussions held by the History Book Club. Here are some statistics about the club since that time.

Month     Book                                          # Attending   # Page Views
                                                                   Meeting          of Summary
2/2013   The Plundering Time                         14                   27
3/2013   God's Englishman                              16                   40
4/2013   Manias, Panics and Crashes             18                   35
5/2013   The Conquerors                                 14                   20
6/2013   Henry Wallace Bio                            12                    21
7/2013   Life in Stalinist Russia                      16                    52
8/2013   Birth of Modern Politics                   15                    37
9/2013   Eleanor of Aquitaine                         12                    14
10/2013 Brazil on the Rise                              11                    24
11/2013 The Silk Road                                    11                    15
12/2013 US Founding Documents                  10                    49
1/2014   The Reformation                               11                   135
2/2014   Ancient Alexandria                           12                    55
3/2014   Practice and Uses of History             11                   49
4/2014  Longitude                                           12                    53
5/2014  Borderland: Ukrainian History          16                   89
6/2014  The War of 1812                                 12                   54
7/2014  This Republic of Suffering                  11                   70
8/2014  Natural History of the Palette             14                   61
9/2014  Poland: A History                               17                    41

The number of people attending the discussion meetings in person has varied from 10 to 18, with no obvious pattern. The number of downloads of the discussion summaries has increased, perhaps in part as the blog is getting more traffic (the total number of page views is now over 3.800). It seems that more people may be following the book club than are attending its meetings in person.

A Common Soldier in the Civil War

copyright: Bailey Hampton

October 8th was the day of the blood moon, and eleven members of the History Book Club met at the Kensington Row Bookshop to discuss The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War 1861-1865 by Leander Stillwell. The book is out of copyright and is available in many forms. For example:

• It is available for Kindle and on paper here.
• Here is the Project Gutenberg free online version of the book.
• Here is a free audio book from the Internet.

Members were also given access to Project Gutenberg's version of The Civil War Centennial Handbook by William H. Price. 

The various versions are all computer scanned versions of library copies of the original book. They may contain errors due to the quality of the 84 year old library books or to scanner errors, The Project Gutenberg digital books are proof read by volunteers and tend to have fewer typographical errors; they also have very interesting illustrations that may not be included in other editions

Leander Stillwell in 1863 and later in life

Leander Stillwell grew up in a frontier farm in western Illinois. He seems to have been a man who loved and understood nature, perhaps typical of the frontiersmen of his time and place. He certainly could find food not only in farmers fields when foraging, but also on a stroll though the forest (as a soldier he seemed often to find opportunities for such lone walks). He was used to guns, having hunted for the pot from the tie he was a young boy. He could also enthuse about the song of a bird 50 years after he heard it.

He joined the 61st Illinois Volunteer Regiment of the Union Army at age 18 in January of 1862. He served throughout the Civil War. A member of our club noted that he had been promoted rapidly to corporal, 4th sergeant, 1st sergeant of his company (a more demanding and responsible position), 2nd lieutenant, and a month later (after the Lee surrendered at Appomattox) 1st lieutenant.  After the war he went to law school in New York (with the money that his father had saved for Leander from the army pay that he had sent home) and passed the bar there. He moved to Kansas where he had a long career as a lawyer and judge. 

Stillwell began the book at the ago of 72 in 1916 at the request of his son. His original purpose was to leave his family a record of his experience in the war; however during its preparation realized that the memoir might be published and adjusted his writing accordingly. The book was published in 1920. 

There was general agreement among the book club members that Stillwell wrote very well. He used a diary he had kept for the latter part of the war as well as an extensive set of letters he had written to his parents during his service; they had saved them and he recovered them late in life. From his comments in the memoirs it is clear that he had read the major works about the war. He also seems to have read a number of the popular works of the 19th century, and quoted them in his memoir. Indeed, he writes about finding a copy of Dickens' Bleak House in 1862 and reading it in barracks. (As was the custom in the 19th century, he reports rereading the book frequently, each time recalling his dreary time in the barracks at its first reading.) We assumed that, as was common with veterans of the Civil War, he periodically met with other veterans and discussed old times. He even met with General Sherman long after  the war and had the opportunity to talk with him for several hours about the war (General Sherman was apparently fond of meeting with "his boys" and liked talking to them if they were smart and polite.)

We were impressed by the detail of his memories of the war. One member mentioned that it is not surprising when someone remembers in great detail the most important moments of even a long life. Another suggested that we all are subject to failures of memory, especially as we talk with others and read about the events we experienced. It was also mentioned that people at the time often wrote well, and that Stillwell would probably have written often and carefully in his long legal career.

Service in the Western Theater of the War

Stillwell and the 62nd Volunteer Regiment served in the western theater of war (see map at the end of this post). They were involved directly

•  in the Battle of Shiloh, 
• in the siege of Vicksburg guarding the vital railroad supply route for the Union forces, and 
• in the taking of Little Rock (by a brilliant maneuver planned by Union General Frederick Steele). 

When the battle of Nashville was taking place, Stillwell and his regiment were assigned to nearby Murfreesboro, again protecting a vital railroad; there he was involved in a night running nighttime battle -- Overall's Creek -- in which a large part of his unit was captured. He had hoped to be included in the forces used in Sherman's March to the Sea, but that did not come about. His was the luck of the draw, since an enlisted man has little to say about where he is assigned during a war.

The 62nd Illinois Volunteer Regiment had between 800 and 900 men when it was formed; 37 of them died or were mortally wounded in battle during the war. 187 died of disease. Stillwell himself reports that he was very ill and hospitalized once during his service (although he managed to leave the field hospital early). Of course, the number of men in the regiment varied widely over the course of the war, as some men left when their enlistments were completed or left for other causes, or as reinforcements were received.

There was a discussion as to whether the western theater was a less dangerous place than the eastern theater. The east saw the great battles of Antietam and Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and the siege of Richmond. One member pointed out that the eastern Union army also went into winter quarters, and fought only occasional battles in the first years of the war; it was only when General Grant took command that battles occurred every week or two in the east. He felt that in fact the experience of the common soldier in the east was probably not too dissimilar to that of Leander Stillwell in the west.

Another member of the club was not convinced and brought our attention to a second book that she had read, The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-life (Civil War) by Sarah Palmer. Palmer, in this 1867 book, tells of her three years as a Union Army nurse serving in the eastern theater, and dealing with the almost unimaginable horror of a Civil War battle hospital.

Stillwell was fortunate in not drawing assignments that increased his danger of being captured, wounded or killed, but units in the Western theater saw plenty of action. Indeed, the Union forces in the west played a crucial role in winning the war.

The Enlisted Man's War

A couple of members who had served in the military pointed out that a soldiers life tends to be long periods of relative inaction, some drill and routine work, and very occasional battle. Stillwell may have had fewer battles than many others, but even the soldiers in the eastern theater also spent winters in quarters, and had many more days away from the combat than in combat.

Stillwell's life was hard. He states that:

the great "stand-bys" in the way of the food of the soldiers of the western armies were coffee, sow-belly, Yankee beans, and hardtack.

There were other foods, notably dried peas. The railroads allowed the Union forces in the Civil War to be better fed than the Confederates or the forces in earlier wars, but there were times when food was very scarce. However, there were also times when foraging introduced fresh foods to the diet. Stillwell describes a couple of memorable occasions when he enjoyed the hospitality of a plantation or a Soldiers Home. On the other hand, small groups of soldiers cooked their own food, and when the young men began their service they did not know how to do so and often made themselves sick.

Clothing was grabbed off of stacks of unassorted pants and jackets; the soldiers traded trying to find something that fit. Shoes were better (but they often went barefoot on long marches).

Union troops made long marches on occasion, and did so carrying heavy packs. Roads were often bad or non-existent. The soldiers often slept in tents, and sometimes in the open with a single blanket even in cold weather. Camps were lacking in rudimentary sanitation which is why there was so much sickness.

Stillwell on Soldiers in Battle

We noted that the young men who went off to war in 1862 had no idea of what they were getting into. The first experience of battle was shocking. Stillwell describes standing in line looking for someone to shoot at; his experience as a hunter was that he did not waste ammunition if he was not able to aim at a clear target. An officer yelled at him to shoot as fast and as often as he could into the smoke in the direction that he thought an enemy might be found. A club member recalled Stillwell describing a time when the smoke had cleared and Stillwell and his comrades could the trees riddled by bullets, most of the marks over the heads of where the enemies would have been.

Stillwell noted that that in battle, the work of loading and firing as fast as possible was so all consuming that there was little time for thinking of anything else. He described once firing his weapon and being knocked flat on his back -- he had put a second load in the weapon not noticing that the first had not been discharged. Reports from battles included men firing their weapons with the ram rods still  in the barrels. He also mentions that when possible, the soldiers lay down to present as small a target as they could to the enemy.

Stillwell says that he was always deeply afraid going into battle. But he apparently always performed his duty during the battle. (The respect of his peers and his rapid promotions suggest that was true.)

The boys that went to war with Stillwell were quickly turned into men; they lost their naive beliefs about the task that they were about and became serious about the dangers and hardships that they faced, and it showed in their faces.

A member wondered why Stillwell describes the artillery as so ineffectual during the Civil War, usually way off the mark, when artillery caused most battlefield deaths and wounds in the First World War. A response was that between the wars a recoil mechanism had been invented, and was included in World War I artillery pieces. In the Civil War, the recoil of a canon moved the piece some distance; the artillery men would pull it back to approximately the original spot (as marked by the bucket of water used to swab the barrel), but the aim was lost. The artillery pieces in World War I could be aimed with much greater accuracy, and with the recoil controlled could hit the same spot again and again. Given the growth in manufacturing capacity, there was probably a lot more artillery available in World War I as well as more ammunition for the guns to use. It was also mentioned that Napoleon's artillery was more lethal, perhaps because the tactics used in the Napoleonic wars were more vulnerable to artillery fire.

The Union Army

Some 2.3 million men served in the Union army in total, but the peak number serving at any one time was just over one million. Enlistments varied from a few months to the duration of the war. However, the fighting force was always less than the number on the rolls, especially because of the high rates of sickness among the soldiers.

The Centenial Handbook states:

Of the 2.3 million men enlisted in the Union Army, seventy per cent were under 23 years of age. Approximately 100,000 were 16 and an equal number 15. Three hundred lads were 13 or less, and the records show that there were 25 no older than 10 years.

The states had militias during the Civil War which remained under the authority of their governors. A member recalled the story of President Lincoln speaking to three regiments of Ohio militia. They had been on three months enlistments, assigned to help protect Washington not being needed for the defense of Ohio, and were returning home. Lincoln took the opportunity to do some electioneering for the Republicans. But the example illustrates that short term enlistments were still being used late in the war.

We wondered why the soldiers were so disproportionately young. It was suggested that in America's rural economy, the older men who had wives and children might have been needed to work to support their families. A soldier's pay might allow for someone to be hired to replace the soldier on the farm or in the shop, but the soldier's pay was unpredictable and labor was scarce. We noted that Leander Stillwell was also missed on his father's farm when he went off to war, and on furlough he was in farm cloths working the farm on the day after he got back. On the other hand, a three month enlistment in the militia might be possible for a farmer at a time when the farm workload was low.

Civil War Flags

A member, accustomed by years as a teacher to wearing clothes related to the history lesson of the day, came in a light jacket covered with stars and bars, over a tee shirt. She explained that when Lincoln was elected, there were 33 stars on the flag of the USA. Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861 bringing the number of stars on the flag to 34. West Virginia, which seceded from Virginia during the war, was admitted to the Union as a new state in 1863 -- the 35th star. Nevada was added to the Union at the end of October 1864, bring the 36th star to the flag but most flags were not changed until after the war was over. Our member then removed her jacket with a flourish to reveal the full 35 stars on her tee shirt.

Final Comment

History is usually not written from the point of view of the common man. Leander Stillwell was clearly an impressive person, but he wrote about the Civil War as he had seen it when he was just an enlisted soldier. His was a long, uncomfortable and unhealthy war, punctuated by a few days of terrible danger. He comes across as a man of quiet heroism and stoicism.

The book was chosen as part of a two book deal. It is quite short, while the book chosen for November is longer than our usual choice. This story of a common soldier is worth your reading time.

Here are a first and second post on the book by one of our members.

Map of Western Theater of the American Civil War, Theater Overview.

A History of Poland

Last night 17 of us held a fascinating discussion based on Adam Zamoyski's book, Poland: A History. As usual, we were hosted by Eli and Al, the proprietors of the Kensington Row Bookshop. A member was even tasked by his wife to bring snacks, enjoyed by all. We noted that this year is the 25th since the end of the Cold War, and perhaps a good moment to look at the history of a  country that was so much a pawn in that Cold War.

One of our members brought in materials printed from the Internet, describing author Zamoyski's family background; though born in the United States and educated in England, he is of an aristocratic Polish family whose members held many positions  in government over the centuries. Zamoyski's family escaped Poland in 1939 and was stranded in exile during the Communist era. He speaks Polish and his books include biographies of Chopin and Paterewski, several books on Polish history, and a guidebook to Poland. A map of Poland in the 16th and 17th century showed that the Zamoyski magnates held huge estates in several parts of the country.

This was an unusual meeting in that we had an expert present. She was from a Polish family, with a graduate degree in Polish history, specializing in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. She had spent a year as a Fulbright Fellow in Poland, and had extensive visits subsequent to that year -- all during the Communist period. Moreover she had been a legislative contact for a Polish-American organization at the time of the emergence of the Polish Third Republic in the 1990s. Thus much of the evening was based on questions formulated from our reading of the book and responses from our expert. Of course, several others in our group had ancestors who had come from Poland, and at least one other had visited Poland as a tourist.

It was pointed out in the discussion that Poland during much of its history was a very stratified society. The Zamoyskis, who took their title from a town that they owned, like other magnates were very wealthy, and sufficiently powerful to own hundreds of villages and have private armies. These were of the class that attended the universities and traveled abroad; they were the ones who brought the arts and architecture of the Renaissance back with them to Poland. On the other hand, the mass of peasantry were very poor, poorly educated and lived a very restricted life style. One of our members pointed out that we seldom hear from the peasants in history books. It was also suggested that it is sometimes hard for members of a family that has had leadership in a country for centuries to recognize how different is their families culture from that of the mass of their countrymen.

The Rise and Fall of the Polish Empire

A number of Slavic tribes inhabited the area south of the Baltic in the late middle ages. From these the Polish and Lithuanian people emerged as holding large amounts of land, and in 1386 the Duke of Lithuania married the widowed Queen of Poland, combining the two into a single domain. Poland became the largest country in Europe, and the ruling Jagiellon family came to rule not only Poland but Hungary and Bavaria as well.

Occasionally during the discussion we mentioned aspects of the ethnic diversity of the Polish empire. Thus, for many years, ethnic Ukrainians were mostly peasants serving on lands owned by Polish and Lithuanian aristocrats, paying rents to Jewish administrators. (The attitude of the recipients of the rents toward the Jewish intermediaries were described as probably different than those of the people paying them. Indeed, the attitude of the Polish aristocrats towards Polish Jews may have been much more positive than those of the Polish peasants.) We wondered about the relations between Lithuanians and Poles during the long period of their joint state.

For the time this was an unusually progressive country. There was a parliament, elected by the aristocracy, with thousands participating in the choices of the king. There was a tradition of open debate, which did not end until consensus was reached. As will be discussed below, this was a society less traumatized by religious conflict than many other European countries.

Yet by 1800, Poland had been partitioned among Prussia, Russia and Austria; the country of Poland no longer existed. We discussed how so great an empire could so rapidly fail and disappear. Our expert pointed out that this has been a topic of active debate for many years, especially between the historians of Krakow and those of Poznan. Clearly the answer is that the Germans, led by Prussia, the Russians, and the Austrians developed more powerful states and economies, and were able to impose their will on the Polish, formalizing the partition of Poland in a series of treaties in the late 18th century.

We thought that one of the reasons that this came about was that the magnates and the aristocracy of Poland would not grant power to the monarch, fearing that to do so would threaten their own positions. The result was a weak state, with a small standing army, and a small tax base. Thus the Kings of Poland could not force modernization as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great did in Russia.

It was also suggested that in the 18th century as western countries were beginning to industrialize, Poland's economy remained based on agriculture and mining. Poland did not develop the manufacturing industries nor the cities and large towns comparable to those in other countries.  In part, it was suggested, this was due to the culture of the magnates. They preferred ostentatious displays of wealth in the forms of jewels and palaces to investments in industry. As a result, Poland did not have the economic power to compete militarily with its rival powers.

Polish Nationalism in Search of a Polish State

There was a rise of nationalism in Europe in the 19th century, and the Polish having lost their state continued to militate for a Polish state. Many went into exile, and so many of the Polish military went into exile that they were formed into Polish or Foreign legions in the several European countries. They managed insurrections and ultimately succeeded in achieving a Polish Republic at the end of World War I. Unfortunately, the country was devastated during the war and by reparations and ran into a global depression, and its people had no experience in governance.

The Polish exiles of the 19th century had amazing life stories. One member read what he described as his favorite paragraph from the book:

Typical is Alexander Ilinski, a wealthy nobleman who fought in the 1830 insurrection and then went into exile. He took service in the Polish Legion organized by General Bem in the Portuguese army, then fought in the Spanish Civil War (developing a sideline as a successful bullfighter), and for the French in Algeria, winning the Legion d'Honneur in the process, followed by service in Afghanistan, India and China. In 1848 he was at General Bem's side in Hungary, whence he made his way to Turkey. He converted to Islam and fought in the Crimean War as General Iskinder Pasha. He later became Turkish governor of Baghdad before dying in Istanbul in 1861.

When the Germans and Soviets again partitioned Poland in 1939, Polish nationalism again took the stage. as exiled Polish troops fought with the Allies against the Germans, and as insurgents became active at home.

The Polish experience as a people fighting for a state resonates with current experience of people such as the Kurds or the Palestinians. Understanding Polish nationalism might help us better understand these others.

A Hard 20th Century and the Emergence of the 3rd Republic

The Polish  people suffered more than most as Germans and Russians fought over their land in World War I and in World War II. They were dominated by the USSR and badly governed by communists for decades. When the Cold War ended in 1989, the Polish economy like that of other Warsaw Pact nations was in a terrible state. Again the Polish people opted for democracy, and again were faced with managing a democratic government of which its people had not living experience.

Among the first efforts of the country were to join NATO and the European union. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted to NATO in 1999 and Poland was admitted to the European Union in 2004. In part, the Polish government must have approached NATO and the EU as part of its effort to obtain financial aid from the west. We danced around the issue, without explicitly saying that membership in NATO provided protection from military threats posed by the Russian Federation, and membership in the EU offered help not only in privatizing and liberalizing the Polish economy, but also in opening markets in the west that had been denied for the previous decades.

We noted that as the Russian incursion in Ukraine and the reported increase in Russian presence in Belarus are taking place, it is useful to think about Poland. Understanding Polish experience in the 20th century and the efforts of the Polish people to achieve a truly independent democratic government and a successful free market economy is similar to those of other countries freed after the break up of the Soviet Union. Understanding these experiences helps to understand the desire of these nations for a strong NATO to guarantee their continued self government.

Religion

The King of Poland accepted Christianity in 966. While that may have been a political act, without much immediate impact on the actual beliefs and practices of the royals and aristocrats, it determined the religion of the common people.

Christianity was brought to Poland by the Latin Right church of Rome. It was brought slightly earlier to the Kievan Rus by the Greek Right church in Constantinople. The Russians accepted the Cyrillic alphabet with the religion, as the Poles accepted the Latin alphabet -- a difference that has had serious repercussions to this day (we noted how it played out between modern Serbs and Croats). The schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches in the 11th century led divided religious loyalties between the adherents of the two religions in Poland, especially during the time when the country was at its largest size.

During the Reformation, Poland saw significant introduction of Protestant thought and beliefs, especially in its ethnic German population. It also remained largely Catholic and Orthodox. There was not the militarized religious conflict that marked much of Western Europe. In part this was the result of the religious tolerance of the kings. (One king was cited as stating that he ruled the land of his people, but not their consciences.)

During the counter reformation, however, Jesuits were very active in Poland and succeeded in their efforts to restore the importance of Roman Catholicism and reduce that of the various protestant religions.

The Communists sought to repress the Catholic religion. One member pointed out that author Zamoyski failed to represent the intensity of the effort, since in fact priests were executed by the Communist regime. Catholic mothers resisted Communist efforts to reduce the exposure of their children to the Catholic faith, and even to resist military service for their sons if the army did not provide Catholic chaplains.

Poland is a largely Catholic country now. Pope John Paul II, who was Polish, saw millions attend his public masses when he visited Poland.

We also discussed the history of Jews in Poland. When the Jews were expelled from Spain, many immigrated to Poland and Russia. In Poland the immigrant population eventually were granted limited self-rule under their own laws. Jewish culture thrived, especially in Lithuania. Indeed, over time many Jews from the communities in Russia also immigrated to Poland. By the beginning of the 20th century, Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe, amounting to millions of people.

The Polish Jews were a major target of the Nazi Holocaust, and the vast majority were killed. Synagogues were destroyed in much of the country. After the war there has been some return of Polish Jews to Poland, and the Chief Rabbi of Poland is an American. There apparently is some interest expressed now by the Christians of Poland about the history of Jews in that country.

Polish Immigrants in America

There has been an immigration of ethnic Polish into America for many years. Someone mentioned Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution. However, even in our lifetimes there was significant prejudice against Polish-Americans; "Pollak" was an ethnic slur, and there were Polish jokes (often anthologized in books by Polish Americans). We concluded that the Polish who came as immigrants to the United States in the past were often poor, working in menial jobs; they were the subject of discrimination much as the Germans or Irish were before them. We also noted that that discrimination has largely disappeared. Some 10 million Americans share Polish ancestry, and while there are still "Polish neighborhoods" in some cities, the Polish Americans are generally well integrated and respected in American society.

Polish Americans have been important in raising American support for the Republic of Poland. For example, they helped educate members of Congress about the long history of Polish support for democratic institutions, and encouraged American support for Poland's entry into NATO. Since the United States is not a member of the European Union, this country was not active in the EU decision to admit Poland.

Final Words

The members liked this book, finding it easy to read and able to keep our attention in spite of the amount of material covered. It seems to fill the need for a single volume history for the intelligent lay reader. The club has read Adam Zamoyski before, and continue to find him a satisfying author.

Here is a review one member posted on his blog.

One of our members wore a black sweatshirt in honor of the occasion.
Slightly different than this, it also had the Polish eagle emblem.

Possible Books for December 2014

Here are a couple of books that we discussed reading in the August meeting, and members asked that we retain to consider again.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre (4.7 stars, 384 pages, 2014) This book is available in Kindle, Hardback ($17.08) and large print paperback ($20.15). Here is the review of the book in the New York Times.

Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world.

But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow—and not just Elliott’s words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott’s unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him—until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.

From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 by Pauline Maier (4 stars, 368 pages, 1992, $12.63) Here is the Kirkus review of the book. Here is a streaming video of an in depth interview with Pauline Maier.

"An intellectual interpretation of the American revolution that raises it to a new height of comprehensiveness and significance. A superbly detailed account of the ideological escalation . . . that brought Americans to revolution." —Gordon S. Wood, New York Times Book Review
In this classic account of the American revolution, Pauline Maier traces the step-by-step process through which the extra-legal institutions of the colonial resistance movement assumed authority from the British. She follows the American Whigs as they moved by stages from the organized resistance of the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 through the non-importation associations of the late 1760s to the collapse of royal government after 1773, the implication of the king in a conspiracy against American liberties, and the consequent Declaration of Independence. Professor Maier's great achievement is to explain how Americans came to contemplate and establish their independence, guided by principle, reason, and experience.

Cathy suggested that this book might bring an entire era in U.S. history together for us:

Presidents' War: Six American Presidents And The Civil War That Divided Them by Chris DeRose (4.6 stars, 392 pages, 2014) Not yet available in paperback but hardback $19.21. Here is the Kirkus Review of the book. Here is the Book TV program featuring the author speaking about the book.

The story of the Civil War's record number of living former and current presidents, and how the ex-Presidents’ Club--for and against Abraham Lincoln (but mostly against)--maneuvered, seceded, plotted, advised, and aided during the Civil War while Lincoln navigated the minefield they created. 

“When Abraham Lincoln became president in 1861, five former presidents were still alive—a fact unique in American history. In this discerning book, Chris DeRose shows that all of them had opposed Lincoln’s election, none supported his determination to resupply Fort Sumter, John Tyler became a Confederate and Franklin Pierce a Copperhead, Martin Van Buren’s and James Buchanan’s support for the Union war effort was lukewarm, and the three men still alive in 1864 (including Millard Fillmore) opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln’s re-election. In effect, Lincoln presided over the preservation of the Union and abolition of slavery without the support of his predecessors in the presidency.”
          —James M. McPherson

We have not read a book on American Indians in some time, and this seems to be an interesting one.

West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 by Claudio Saunt (4.1 stars, 288 pages, 2014) The book is not yet available in paperback; hardback $17.04. Here is a review from the Los Angeles Times. Here is a streaming video of Claudio Saunt's talk about this book on Book TV.

This panoramic account of 1776 chronicles the other revolutions unfolding that year across North America, far beyond the British colonies. In this distinctive history, Claudio Saunt tells an intriguing, largely untold story of an immense and restless continent connected in surprising ways. 

In that pivotal year, the Spanish established the first European colony in San Francisco and set off a cataclysm for the region’s native residents. The Russians pushed into Alaska in search of valuable sea otters, devastating local Aleut communities. And the British extended their fur trade from Hudson Bay deep into the continent, sparking an environmental revolution that transformed America’s boreal forests. 

While imperial officials in distant Europe maneuvered to control lands they knew almost nothing about, America's indigenous peoples sought their own advantage. Creek Indians navigated the Caribbean to explore trade with Cuba. The Osages expanded their dominion west of the Mississippi River, overwhelming the small Spanish outposts in the area. And the Sioux advanced across the Dakotas. One traditional Sioux history states that they first seized the Black Hills, the territory they now consider their sacred homeland, in 1776. "Two nations were born that year," Saunt writes. The native one would win its final military victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn one hundred years later. 

From the Aleutian Islands to the Gulf Coast and across the oceans to Europe’s imperial capitals, Saunt’s masterfully researched narrative reveals an interconnected web of history that spans not just the forgotten parts of North America but the entire globe.

The book we read on the War of 1812 focused on the northern theater of operation. It has been suggested that we might also read a book on the campaign in the Chesapeake and/or the burning of Washington -- which relate to our local history.

The Dawn's Early Light by Walter Lord (4.8 stars, 400 pages, 1994) Apparently no longer in print but many copies available online. Here is a review from H-Net.

Walter Lord—author of such best-sellers as A Night to Remember and A Day of Infamy—brings to life the remarkable events of what we now call The War of 1812—including the burning of Washington and the attack on Baltimore's Fort McHenry that inspired the Francis Scott Key to write what would become our national anthem. Lord gives readers a dramatic account of how a new sense of national identity emerged from the smoky haze of what Francis Scott Key so lyrically called "the dawn's early light."

 When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington by Peter Snow (4 stars, 320 pages, 2014) Paperback apparently not stocked by Amazon, but available online. Hardback $16.43. Here is a review in the Washington Post. Here is a streaming video of a panel discussion on the Battle of Bladensburg and the Burning of Washington in which Peter Snow participated.

In August 1814, the United States army was defeated just outside Washington, D.C., by the world’s greatest military power. President James Madison and his wife had just enough time to flee the White House before the British invaders entered. British troops stopped to feast on the meal still sitting on the Madisons’ dining-room table before setting the White House on fire. The extent of the destruction was massive; finished in wood rather than marble, everything inside the mansion was combustible. Only the outer stone walls would withstand the fire. 

The tide of the War of 1812 would quickly turn, however. Less than a month later, American troops would stand victorious at the Battle of Fort McHenry. Poet Francis Scott Key, struck by the sight of the American flag waving over Fort McHenry, jotted down the beginnings of a poem that would be set to music and become the U.S. national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” 

In his compelling narrative style, Peter Snow recounts the fast-changing fortunes of that summer’s extraordinary confrontations. Drawing from a wealth of material, including eyewitness accounts, Snow describes the colorful personalities on both sides of those spectacular events: including the beleaguered President James Madison and First Lady Dolley, American heroes such as Joshua Barney and Sam Smith, and flawed military leaders like Army Chief William Winder and War Secretary John Armstrong. On the British side, Snow re-creates the fiery Admiral George Cockburn, the cautious but immensely popular Major General Robert Ross, and sharp-eyed diarists James Scott and George Gleig.

 The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814 by Anthony S. Pitch (4.2 stars, 336 pages, 2000, $17.80) Here is a review from History.Net. Here is a streaming video of author Pitch discussing the book on American History TV.

With all the immediacy of an eyewitness account, Anthony Pitch tells the dramatic story of the British invasion of Washington in the summer of 1814, an episode many call a defining moment in the coming-of-age of the United States. The British torched the Capitol, the White House, and many other public buildings, setting off an inferno that illuminated the countryside for miles and sending President James Madison scurrying out of town while his wife Dolley rescued a life-sized portrait of George Washington from the flames. The author's gripping narrative--hailed by a White House curator, a Senate historian, and the chairman of the National Geographic Society, among others--is filled with vivid details of the attack. Not confining his story to Washington, Pitch also describes the brave, resourceful defense of nearby Fort McHenry and tells how Francis Scott Key, a British hostage on a ship near the Baltimore harbor during the fort's bombardment, wrote a poem that became the national anthem.

Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay by Christopher T. George (4+ stars, 2001, 256 pages) The book appears to be out of print, but is available online. Here is an article on author George and the book.  Here is a streaming video of a panel discussion on the Battle of Bladensburg and the Burning of Washington in which Christopher George participated.

For nearly two years during the War of 1812, the British treated the Chesapeake Bay as their private lake. But in 1814, as attention moved from the northern frontier to the Mid-Atlantic region, the Americans fought back and drove the invaders from the bay. Christopher T. George traces the abuses of the inhabitants of the Chesapeake Bay by Royal Navy raiding parties under arrogant Rear Admiral George Cockburn. Cockburn’s burning and pillaging of bay communities proceeded the burning of our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., on August 24-25, 1814, by Major General Robert Ross. Cockburn persuaded Ross that the Americans could not stand up to Lord Wellington’s Peninsular War veterans. But he miscalculated when it came to attacking Baltimore, where citizen soldiers, strongly led by Revolutionary War veterans General Samuel Smith and John Stricker, and backed by U.S. Navy regulars, held the British at bay, killing Ross and reclaiming American pride.

Here are a couple of books on foreign policy and Richard Nixon. The first of the two was also suggested several months ago, but still seems interesting.

The Blood Telegram by Gary J. Bass (4.5 stars, 2014, 346 pages of text, $14.13) Here is a review in Foreign Affairs. Here is a streaming audio of an interview with Gary Bass on the book together with the review from The Economist.

This magnificent history provides the first full account of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s secret support for Pakistan in 1971 as it committed shocking atrocities in Bangladesh—which led to war between India and Pakistan, shaped the fate of Asia, and left major strategic consequences for the world today. 

Drawing on previously unheard White House tapes, recently declassified documents, and his own extensive investigative reporting, Gary Bass uncovers an astonishing unknown story of superpower brinkmanship, war, scandal, and conscience. Revelatory, authoritative, and compulsively readable, The Blood Telegram is a thrilling chronicle of a pivotal chapter in American foreign policy. 

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction; Winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize for Best Foreign Affairs Book; One of the Best Books of the Year at * The Economist * Financial Times * The New Republic * The Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * A New York Times Notable Book

Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate by Ken Hughes (4.7 stars, 240 pages, 2014) This book is not yet available in paperback, hardcover $19.23. Here is the Washington Post review of the book. Here is a streaming audio of Ken Hughes talking about the last release of Nixon tapes.

The break-in at Watergate and the cover-up that followed brought about the resignation of Richard Nixon, creating a political shockwave that reverberates to this day. But as Ken Hughes reveals in his powerful new book, in all the thousands of hours of declassified White House tapes, the president orders a single break-in--and it is not at the Watergate complex. Hughes’s examination of this earlier break-in, plans for which the White House ultimately scrapped, provides a shocking new perspective on a long history of illegal activity that prolonged the Vietnam War and was only partly exposed by the Watergate scandal. 

As a key player in the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program, Hughes has spent more than a decade developing and mining the largest extant collection of transcribed tapes from the Johnson and Nixon White Houses. Hughes’s unparalleled investigation has allowed him to unearth a pattern of actions by Nixon going back long before 1972, to the final months of the Johnson administration. Hughes identified a clear narrative line that begins during the 1968 campaign, when Nixon, concerned about the impact on his presidential bid of the Paris peace talks with the Vietnamese, secretly undermined the negotiations through a Republican fundraiser named Anna Chennault. Three years after the election, in an atmosphere of paranoia brought on by the explosive appearance of the Pentagon Papers, Nixon feared that his treasonous--and politically damaging--manipulation of the Vietnam talks would be exposed. Hughes shows how this fear led to the creation of the Secret Investigations Unit, the "White House Plumbers," and Nixon’s initiation of illegal covert operations guided by the Oval Office. Hughes’s unrivaled command of the White House tapes has allowed him to build an argument about Nixon that goes far beyond what we think we know about Watergate. 

Chasing Shadows is also available as a special e-book that links to the massive collection of White House tapes published by the Miller Center through Rotunda, the electronic imprint of the University of Virginia Press. This unique edition allows the reader to move seamlessly from the book to the recordings’ expertly rendered transcripts and to listen to audio files of the remarkable--and occasionally shocking--conversations on which this dark chapter in American history would ultimately turn.

There was interest expressed some time ago in reading a book about railroad history. Here are a couple of possibilities.

The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America by Christian Wolmar (4.5 stars, 360 pages of text, 2013, $12.66) Here is the Wall Street Journal review of the book. Here is an streaming audio of an interview with Christian Wolmer on the book.

America was made by the railroads. The opening of the Baltimore & Ohio line––the first American railroad––in the 1830s sparked a national revolution in the way that people lived thanks to the speed and convenience of train travel. Promoted by visionaries and built through heroic effort, the American railroad network was bigger in every sense than Europe’s, and facilitated everything from long-distance travel to commuting and transporting goods to waging war. It united far-flung parts of the country, boosted economic development, and was the catalyst for America’s rise to world-power status. 

Every American town, great or small, aspired to be connected to a railroad and by the turn of the century, almost every American lived within easy access of a station. By the early 1900s, the United States was covered in a latticework of more than 200,000 miles of railroad track and a series of magisterial termini, all built and controlled by the biggest corporations in the land. The railroads dominated the American landscape for more than a hundred years but by the middle of the twentieth century, the automobile, the truck, and the airplane had eclipsed the railroads and the nation started to forget them. 

In The Great Railroad Revolution, renowned railroad expert Christian Wolmar tells the extraordinary story of the rise and the fall of the greatest of all American endeavors, and argues that the time has come for America to reclaim and celebrate its often-overlooked rail heritage.

To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Express, the World’s Greatest Railroad by Christian Wolmar (4 stars, 320 pages, 2014) Not yet available in paperback, hardback $20.96. Here is a review of the book from Foreign Affairs. Here is a streaming video of an English language interview of the author on the book from Russia Today.

To the Edge of the World is an adventure in travel—full of extraordinary personalities, more than a century of explosive political, economic, and cultural events, and almost inconceivable feats of engineering. Christian Wolmar passionately recounts the improbable origins of the Trans-Siberian railroad, the vital artery for Russian expansion that spans almost 6,000 miles and seven time zones from Moscow to Vladivostok. The world’s longest train route took a decade to build—in the face of punishing climates, rampant disease, scarcity of funds and materials, and widespread corruption. 

The line sprawls over a treacherous landmass that was previously populated only by disparate tribes and convicts serving out their terms in labor camps—where men were regularly starved, tortured, or mutilated for minor offenses. Once built, it led to the establishment of new cities and transformed the region’s history. Exceeding all expectations, it became, according to Wolmar, “the best thing that ever happened to Siberia.” 

It was not all good news, however. The railroad was the cause of the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, and played a vital—and at times bloody—role in the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War. More positively, the Russians were able to resist the Nazi invasion during the Second World War as new routes enabled whole industries to be sent east. Siberia, previously a lost and distant region, became an inextricable part of Russia’s cultural identity. And what began as one meandering, single-track line is now, arguably, the world’s most important railroad. 

This is very different than what we have been reading, but was recommended to me and looks interesting:

The Sultan's Shadow: One Family's Rule at the Crossroads of East and West by Christiane Bird (4.2 stars, 400 pages, 2010) Going out of print. Some copies still available from Amazon and new and used  books available online from other sellers. Here is a review of the book from The New York Times. Here is a streaming video of a talk by Christiane Bird on another of her books, A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts.

A story virtually unknown in the West, about two of the Middle East’s most remarkable figures—Oman’s Sultan Said and his rebellious daughter Princess Salme—comes to life in this narrative. From their capital on the sultry African island of Zanzibar, Sultan Said and his descendants were shadowed and all but shattered by the rise and fall of the nineteenth-century East African slave trade. 

“As shrewd, liberal, and enlightened a prince as Arabia has ever produced.” That’s how explorer Richard Burton described Seyyid Said Al bin Sultan Busaid, who came to power in Oman in 1804 when he was fifteen years old. During his half-century reign, Said ruled with uncanny contradiction: as a believer in a tolerant Islam who gained power through bloodshed and perfidy, and as an open-minded, intellectually curious man who established relations with the West while building a vast commercial empire on the backs of tens of thousands of slaves. His daughter Salme, born to a concubine in a Zanzibar harem, scandalized her family and people by eloping to Europe with a German businessman in 1866, converting to Christianity, and writing the first-known autobiography of an Arab woman. 

Christiane Bird paints a stunning portrait of violent family feuds, international intrigues, and charismatic characters—from Sultan Said and Princess Salme to the wildly wealthy slave trader Tippu Tip and the indefatigable British antislavery crusader Dr. David Livingstone. The Sultan’s Shadow is a brilliantly researched and irresistibly readable foray into the stark brutality and decadent beauty of a vanished world.

Do you think of the allies in World War II as the USA, the British Commonwealth and Russia? If so, this book might remind you how much of the burden the Chinese took in the war against Japan.

Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 by Rana Mitter (4.3 stars, 379 pages of text, 2013, $12.92) Here is the New York Times review of the book. There is a streaming video of an interview with Rana Mitter on the book as part of this review from The Economist.

An Economist Book of the Year and a Financial Times Book of the Year. “A book that has long cried out to be written.” — Observer (UK), Books of the Year 

In 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, Chinese troops clashed with Japanese occupiers in the first battle of World War II. Joining with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, China became the fourth great ally in a devastating struggle for its very survival. 

Prizewinning historian Rana Mitter unfurls China’s drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue as never before. Based on groundbreaking research, this gripping narrative focuses on a handful of unforgettable characters, including Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and Chiang’s American chief of staff, “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell. Mitter also recounts the sacrifice and resilience of everyday Chinese people through the horrors of bombings, famines, and the infamous Rape of Nanking. 

More than any other twentieth-century event, World War II was crucial in shaping China’s worldview, making Forgotten Ally both a definitive work of history and an indispensable guide to today’s China and its relationship with the West.