I was happy to see that the first installment of this continuing series highlighting the most interesting stuff I am seeing in the blogs was pretty popular. I spend a fair amount of time on Civil War and Reconstruction social media and I hope to highlight some of the more worthwhile contributions. This month I am adding podcasts into the mix.
There are other forms of social media I would like to discuss, including message boards (there are still a few), Twitter, and YouTube. The Number 1 place for discussion of the history is Facebook, of course, with dozens of Facebook groups and pages dedicated to all aspects of the period as well as individual figures from the past. Then there is the emergence of the recorded Zoom discussion which is a pandemic product, along with the viral Facebook Live presentations from historic sites. When I figure out how to talk about all that, I will let you know. For now, here is what I read and listened to that I liked this month.
Probably the most important Civil War-related cultural event of the last month was the premiere of the serialization of the novel The Good Lord Bird on Showtime. Historian Meghan Kate Nelson wrote a seven blog-post reaction on the Civil War Monitor blog to each installment of the series. As you likely know, The Good Lord Bird tells the story of John Brown through a lens of comic misadventure, gender fluidity, and cloudy memory. You can read the first installment here, and find links to the rest of the articles at the bottom of the linked page. Here is an excerpt from Nelson’s series:
The irreverent tone of The Good Lord Bird works well in two ways. First, it reveals the ironies and complications of the “white savior” theme in television shows and movies about abolition and resistance to structural racism in America. Second, it depicts people living in the past as real people, with flaws and desires and dirt under their fingernails. They get drunk. They make mistakes. They have big dreams that fail. They hurt people. And they die.
Over on the Dead Confederates Blog, veteran blogger Andy Hall writes about finding out that an old post of his was recently cited on the white nationalist web site VDARE. The citation was to a post that said the exact opposite of what VDARE was using it for. As usual, one more proof that notions of white superiority are greatly exaggerated. The white supremacist author was trying to use Frederick Douglass to convince the ignorant that the Confederate army was filled with Black men. I suppose it is good that so many supremacists finally see that Douglass is doing an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.
Kevin Levin at Civil War Memory had a short blog with a big link. The link takes you to a vast number of recorded author talks at the Chicago Civil War Round Table going back more than half a century. These include writers like Bell Wiley, T. Harry Williams, Bruce Catton, Grady McWhiney, Alan Nolan, Douglas Southall Freeman, I have listened to a half dozen already. The sound quality is often sketchy, but the talks are historical artifacts in themselves. As I dive into the recordings, I will feature a few on this blog.
Our friend Damien Shiels has an interesting post on the Irish anti-war song often called Paddy’s Lamentation. The song depicts an immigrant soldier pressed into the Union army who winds up wounded and abandoned by his adopted country. There is a rich repertoire of Irish songs warning men not to join the British Army and so it would not surprise one to learn of a warning against enlisting in the Civil War. Shiels provides a history of the song which questions whether it was well-known in the United States in the 1860s.
Podcasts
Keith Harris “The Rogue Historian” has been prolific over the last month. First, he had an interview with Eric Wittenberg on his new book on how West Virginia seceded from Virginia during the Civil War to stay under Union control.
The Rogue followed this up with a two-parter on the so-called Dark Turn in Civil War History. The “Dark Turn” is the history of matters that the Old Guard thinks of as depressing, like PTSD, amputees, etc. Frankly, I am not sure why discussing veterans’ suicides is “Dark” but talking about battles where thousands of people died violently is not. The guests for this discussion are Sarah Handley-Cousins, Jonathan S. Jones, and Diane Miller Sommerville to the Rogue Historian. Sarah is the associate director of the Center for Disability Studies and assistant professor of history at the University at Buffalo. Diane is professor of history at Binghamton University. Jonathan is heading to teach at VMI. Part 2 is here.
The discussion is interesting because the trio say that the general public is rarely put off by their discussions of the Dark Side, it is older scholars at academic conferences who seem to think that telling the whole story will turn-off readers.
The hits keep coming for The Rogue with a discussion of Confederate plans for the world after the Slaveholders’ Republic won the Civil War.
The Battle of Gettysburg Podcast is run by co-hosts Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guides Eric Lindblade and Jim Hessler. They mix history and entertaining banter in talking about all things Gettysburg. Back in April, they hosted fellow guide Stuart Dempsey to talk about the Union XI Corps, a mostly immigrant unit with a large German component. Part 1 discusses the performance of the XI before the battle and Part 2 looks at it during and after Gettysburg.
Finally, the grandaddy of Civil War podcasting is Gerry Prokopowicz who hosts Civil War Talk Radio. The show supposedly got the name because its original concept was to have an argument show sort of like Tucker Carlson. Gerry is not the hate spewer they needed for that format, and instead there is a low-key conversation on this podcast each week. The topic of this episode is Christmas in the Old South. If you ever went to an old plantation for a tour around Christmas time you used to be treated to stories of slaves given a week’s vacation and lots of presents from the master. The reality was, as you might have guessed, a lot different. Torture, the forced separation of families, the giving of Black people to other whites as Christmas gifts, were all part of the reality of Oldtime Christmases.
The last podcast is also from Gerry. He interviews David Dixon in his new book on German radical and Union general August Willich.
NOTE: If you know of a blog or podcast you would like me to take a look at, let me know in the comments.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
