Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Jul 18, 2020 13 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Having now reviewed the Zoom of the #SHEAR2020 session, and with much of yesterday's Twitter commentary in mind, I can see several issues worth considering.
First, it's a good idea to review the session before making generalizations about it based on Twitter commentary alone. I had caught some of the feed yesterday, including the offensive language used by one participant at the end.
Second, I did see senior scholar pushback, delivered in the way one might expect at a civil professional meeting. But it's there. Twitter can be a far more blunt instrument.

That said, I understand why people were offended by various statements. So was I.
There were worthwhile observations made that have been slighted or ignored altogether, and the session needs to be viewed as a whole. But I found much to question or with which to disagree, and I was very unhappy about certain things.
Oh, there was minor stuff. Feller still doesn't understand that 44 men have been/are president, because Cleveland's counted twice. For someone holding forth on the sloppiness of professional peers ...
And the use of a certain term to describe Native Americans was simply inexcusable. Watson talked about Creeks and Redcoats. Feller transformed the former, despite Watson's attempt to caution him.
As for the discussion about Lyncoya, let's just say it was not as thoughtful or as informed as I would have liked, although there was pushback.

I've already made my point about Jackson as a military hero.
Part of the problem was panel construction. It would have been useful to present a more diverse set of perspectives and it would have been interesting to have someone talk about historians and the public who's not an academic historian.
There were many paths the discussion could have followed, but it became largely a seminar on Jackson. That was unfortunate. I thought it was going to be an exercise in the use and misuse of history, about remembering, distorting, forgetting, or just plain not understanding.
I don't think the words or perspective of a single scholar should render the entire discussion useless, although readers of the pre-circulated paper will notice a certain chippiness there as well. Folks, consider the source.

It's Feller being Feller. Everyone knew that.
I'm not going to excuse that. I never have. But you can tell that some people knew what they were getting beforehand. So why is anyone surprised?

I have no quarrel with the other responses concerning his comments.
I understand why people on Twitter were outraged because some of what was being said was outrageous.

But watch the whole thing. Read the pre-circulated paper, including the footnotes.
I think there are larger issues in play that should be discussed that are structural and institutional in nature. They deserve serious attention and thought.

I'm disappointed. We can do better, and we need to do better.

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More from @BrooksDSimpson

Jun 4
Time and again critics of Ulysses S. Grant's generalship claim that, above all else, he was "Grant the Butcher," who prevailed because of his superiority in resources (which was seemingly endless) despite a certain mindlessness and dullness.
Grant's supporters counter this charge largely in a statistical fashion. They compare the percentage of Grant's losses versus the percentage of losses suffered by other generals, including Robert E. Lee.
Sometimes these analyses focus on the 1864 Overland Campaign, which in the minds of some people is the only campaign Grant ever fought ... the claims of butcher rely mostly on May-June 1864.

Even then Lee's losses were also heavy.
Read 18 tweets
Jun 3
Today's the 160th anniversary of one of the most misunderstood battles of the American Civil War ... Cold Harbor.

The story of the battle has turned into a myth that in turn has long shaped the image of Ulysses S. Grant's generalship.
Make no mistake about it ... Cold Harbor was a significant setback for Grant and US forces during the Overland Campaign. Several US commanders performed poorly that day, especially in not carrying out George G. Meade's orders to reconnoiter the Confederate position.
However, we now know that tales of 7,000 men falling in less than an hour are false. We also know that the quest for a ceasefire to recover wounded and dead between the lines was botched by two prideful commanders.
Read 19 tweets
May 8
It's often asserted the as president Ulysses S. Grant destroyed the Ku Klux Klan.

The reality is not nearly as satisfying or uplifting to those who deplore white supremacist paramilitary terrorism as conducted primarily by veterans of the Confederate war effort.
The KKK became a shorthand descriptor for the many forms of white supremacist terrorism that slowly took organized form in the late 1860s. There were other massacres (Memphis) and attacks (New Orleans) against blacks and their white allies in the Reconstructing South.
By 1867 and 1868, when Black men in large numbers exercised the right to vote for the first time, white supremacist terrorism, often defined as KKK activity, targeted Black voters and Republican officeholders.

This was voter suppression, pure and simple.
Read 21 tweets
Apr 10
Yesterday I shared with you various images of the events in Wilmer McLean's parlor on April 9, 1865.

Today I plan to share a few more images that shape our memory of what happened that day ... and April 10, 1865 as well.

Grant and Lee met a second time this day in 1865.
These images fall into three categories.

First, there are images of an imagined surrender conference outside that draw upon talk of an apple tree at Appomattox.

Second, there's Lee's departure from the McLean House.

Third, there's the April 10 meeting.
Let's look first at the imagined outdoor April 9 encounter.

Sometimes Grant and Lee meet while mounted on their horses. A rather dapper Ulysses, no? Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 9
Visual portrayals of what happened in Wilmer McLean's parlor on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House are worth some study.

Here's a simple early version: two generals, one table. Image
The table is a curious effort to bring together elements of the two tables involved in the event. Grant said at a brown wood oval table; Lee sat at a squarish marble table. Grant's chair was a swivel desk chair backed in leather, while Lee sat in a high-backed chair.
Image
Image
Yet it took a while for artists to include those four pieces of furniture, let alone to assign them to the general who used them. Image
Read 21 tweets
Apr 9
As true Americans commemorate the anniversary of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox, let's recall that the events of April 9 marked an end to one of the most successful pursuits in military history ... one that is often underappreciated.
In some sixteen days the US forces under Grant's command repulsed a breakout attempt, severed Confederate supply lines and railroads, forced the evacuation of Petersburg and the the Confederate capital at Richmond.

That's for starters.
They then outmarched a foe determined to escape, blocked any chance of the enemy combining forces in North Carolina, then headed the insurgents off before they could reach the protection of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In the process the foe suffered nearly 50% losses.
Read 5 tweets

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