A History of History: The Origins of War Re- enacting in America

Americans remember history in many different ways. The Historical Re-enactment is the most controversial and bewildering event of public remembrance. Americans re-enact every war in American history from the French and Indian War down to the Vietnam War. My research set out to answer several questions about this custom of public history: why does it exist, what purpose does it serve, and who started it? My research led me to a shattered post-Civil War America. The true test of the unity of America had passed and people were left to make sense of the war that was experienced on the level of a national tragedy. The re-enactor, a veteran and an amateur historian, would begin to write his story and present it for the public. This form of public memory would be used to facilitate an idealistic and blind reunion of North and South. The history would be changed to make remembering safe. INTRODUCTION The power of popular culture, according to historian Jim Cullen, is to offer large numbers of people explanations of why things are the way things are. Re-enacting the Civil War infuses popular culture with explanations of how things came to be the way they are.1 This is precisely what historical re-enacting is, a potent mixture of popular culture and history that has the possibility to infl uence the actions and thoughts of a country. That is why it is so important to study the origins and the effects of re-enacting in America; it is what we are saying about ourselves and how we wish to remember our past. My research focused on that marriage of popular culture and 1 Jim Cullen, The Civil War in Popular Culture: A Reusable Past (Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1995) 13 1 Marquis: A History of History Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2008 2 history, popular history. Re-enacting wars has become a popular American pastime. What I have read and studied has led me to the conclusion that this pastime has origins in the Civil War and grew out of the veterans associations and a strong drive to recognize soldiers’ memories as history. In the following pages I will explain how re-enacting was created, the successes and failures of re-enacting, and how re-enacting affects modern historical memory. Living history arises from the veterans’ desire to write an accurate history for the nation based on their own experiences and to present this information in a palatable way. WAR MEMORY IN EARLY AMERICA Re-enacting did not occur before the Civil War for three reasons: there was no shared national identity, there was very little interest in the individual’s history, and there was very little importance placed on the experience of the veteran. With so little history to remember as an independent nation, Americans focused on local history and on the heroes of the revolution who, by the mid-nineteenth century, had reached mythic proportions. Colonial Americans had shared little in common beyond their opposition to British tyranny.2 The wave of patriotism that swept the nation was one born from anti-British sentiment. By the 1820s this single message of patriotism led by a pantheon of republican demagogues was lost in regional differences that were to be the hallmark of the pre-Civil War nineteenth century. As the educator Andrew S. Draper stated, “we have no frequent or great exhibitions of power; no army to stand in awe of, no royalty to worship; no emblems or ribbons to dazzle the eye; and but a few national airs.”3 Prior to the Civil War, public memory was a matter of worshiping the symbols of the revolution: Washington, Jefferson, and the other founding fathers. History was thus grounded in a higher authority and the new nation left little cultural space for competing symbols of patriotism such as the dedicated individual citizen.4 War memory after the Civil War was very different from war memory after the Revolution. As historian John Bodnar argues, “the war drew thousands of ordinary people into dramatic episodes of tragedy and sacrifi ce. In a sense it furthered the politicization of ordinary lives.”5 Common people’s memories 2 Cecilia E. O’Leary, To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999) 14 3 Ibid. 49 4 John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Press, 1992) 25 5 Ibid. 27 Colleen Marquis 2 McNair Scholars Research Journal, Vol. 1 [2008], Iss. 1, Art. 3 http://commons.emich.edu/mcnair/vol1/iss1/3 3 and experiences would become much more important. After the Civil War, however, Americans were forced to become a more unifi ed nation in name and in identity. The sectionalism that had led to the war had been defeated and shared experience of wartime hardships on both sides led to a common history. The emergence of the importance of the common people’s memory would be the most striking difference between the post-Revolutionary war period and the Reconstruction period, especially the memories of veterans. Revolutionary war veterans were not viewed as a source of historic signifi cance like Civil War veterans were. They were not expected to show up in uniforms or to display any of the personal pieces of their history related to the war. Rather they were spectators, just like all of the civilians, to their history. However, after the Civil War in May of 1865, the rank-and-fi le soldiers assembled before their commanding offi cers at the War’s end and marched in a Grand Review down Pennsylvania Avenue. In contrast, after the Revolution, state regiments had simply returned home after the fi nal battle, “like folks from church.”6 Thus the Grand Review broke with all past conventions by focusing attention on the fi ghting forces rather than the military exploits of its leaders. During the Reconstruction war memory laid dormant. In the 1870s few books and articles were published about the Civil War, in fact fewer than in any period.7 As historian Gerald Linderman argues, the 1870s were a period of “hibernation.”8 The literature that was produced later portrayed vignettes on camp life that were focused on minute detail and glossed over real experiences or used the war for glory. Magazines, such as the Century’s series “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,” pictured gallant generals, heroic troops, and romanticized images of soldiers advancing into battle beneath the stars and stripes. However, they purposely left out prisoner of war experiences since veterans seemed unable to idealize that past.9 Daniel Aaron has written that post-war authors were, “drowned in reams of special pleading and irrelevant minuet.” The war was, “not so much as unfelt as it was unfaced.”10 The war had occurred, but the nation was unable to deal with the trauma. 6 O’leary 31 7 Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992) 175 8 Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1982) 277 9 David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001) 183 10 Daniel Aaron, The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War (New York: Random House, 1973), 115 A History of History: The Origins of War Re-enacting in America 3 Marquis: A History of History Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2008 4 The amnesia that had struck the north in the 1870s and 1880s became, in the words of James Moorhead, “a sea of self congratulatory chauvinism.”11 When people began writing in earnest about the war, Victorian authors focused on expectations for disciplined social order and focused solely through attention to issues of military strategy and tactics.12 In this context Ulysses S. Grant’s biography, Personal Memoirs, became the seminal work during the late-nineteenth century. Before the book was available to the public, veterans’ organizations had ordered 300,000 copies.13 Veterans would sell these copies door to door and the book would become the most popular book of the nineteenth century. The generals would have their accounts of battles and troop movements dryly recorded for the public to consume. These accounts would prove insuffi cient for veterans. According to James Shaw of Rhode Island, everything other than a soldier’s account was “tradition, always unreliable.”14 The interest in Civil War literature did not wane in the coming decades but rather grew; the common soldier would soon fi nd a voice. THE G.A.R. The Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) began “to afford assistance to disabled and unemployed soldiers.”15 In 1866, Dr. B.F. Stephenson of the 14th Illinois and Chaplain Rutledge of the same regiment founded the group.16 Supposedly, Stephenson founded the G.A.R. to provide assistance and promote brotherly love. However, there is evidence for a more pragmatic interest in organizing a Republican voting machine to further the ambitions of soldier-politicians.17 Originally the G.A.R. busied itself as a charity organization, collecting funds for veterans as they waited for the big pensions and millions in government aid that would not fl ow in until the 1870s.18 As the soldiers were more able to care for themselves, the organization began to work on questions of 11 McConnell 170 12 O’leary 54 13 Cullen 122 14 McConnell 172 15 Jones Thomas, A Complete History of the 46th regiment, Illinois volunteer infantry, a full account of the participation of the regiment in the battles, sieges, skirmishes and expeditions in which it was engaged. Also a complete roster of the regiment, together with biographical sketches...Sketches of the organization of the Grand army of the republic... Giving a complete record of the reunions of the 46th regiment up to the present time (Freeport, IL: W.H. Wagner & Sons, 1907) 247