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Human Rights  » Writing the Civil War, researching the causes

Writing the Civil War, researching the causes

Many an aspiring short story writer or novelist has dreamed of

putting to paper a romantic tale to rival at least come near to

the quintessential civil war novel Gone with the Wind. Romance,

treachery, occupation and struggle were the overt messages from

Margaret Mitchell's best seller. But few have a grasp on the

depth of research needed to even build a storyline to equal

Mitchell's. As a Historian and fiction writer I've put together

my own knowledge and research into the American civil War in

hopes of steering other writers who may not come from a research

background in the right directions.

As historians, whether academic, short story writer or essayist,

we live and die on the level of research we are willing or able

to conduct. The depth that we are able to attain will firmly

plant our efforts upon the proper historical time frame. Others

may dispute our conclusions or subject matter, but they won't

question our research unless we show ourselves to be shallow or

relying upon one or the other source that is in itself

questionable.

There are several sources for research, each having its own pros

and cons to deal with and consider.

First hand sources.

These are interviews with survivors, auto-biographies, letters

and correspondence, diaries, records, and anything that ties the

source directly to the participant or subject. Are these the

best sources? Yes and no. Yes, in that you can get the words

right from the horse's mouth.

Should a research paper on slavery be totally based upon first

hand sources? No. The main problem with first hand sources is

that they are biased. They are filtered through the hopes and

fears of the individual and at times written or produced several

decades after the event and time has colored the source.

First hand sources are excellent for capturing the feeling of

the times. You don't have to guess what a person is thinking or

feeling at a particular time as you will be able to divine that

directly from the individual. First hand accounts also give us a

microcosm of the society and its current events as seen through

the source. First hand accounts definitely have their place

within the pantheon of an historian's bookshelf, but they should

be considered with a wary eye when tackling such things as

judging their involvement in the grand scheme of the events

being written about. A case in point, many of the biographies

and auto-biographies written after WWII by German generals or

from interviews conducted upon capture paint the picture of

Hitler as the maniacal mad man and themselves as innocent and at

times frustrated or ignorant participants. Because Hitler did

not survive the war, he could not be interviewed nor could he

defend himself. The common thread running throughout all

material, whether auto-biographical or interview based paint the

subjects as victims and Hitler as the sole perpetrator of

Germany's demise. That he played the major role cannot be

denied, he was in fact the supreme ruler and therefore worthy of

the accusation. But archival records paint a different picture

of the subjects conduct in the war than they were willing to

admit to.

Second hand sources

This is where second had sources come into play. They help

balance the bias of first hand accounts with more data. Although

the second hand accounts may also be biased, their bias is

usually tilted in a different direction, allowing the historian

to fill in a few gaps. They are not reliable for discerning the

intent of the subject or of motivation, but they are reliable in

giving a second view point of any event. Criminalists interview

participants and witnesses in hopes of building a complete

picture, as neither first nor second hand accounts contain the

complete picture.

Examples of second hand accounts are reports, records,

biographies, news paper articles, or anything produced after an

event by a non-participant.

Causes for conflict

To really understand the causes of the sectional strife that

flared from time to time, one has to go back to the

Revolutionary war and the documents that eventually formed the

United States of America.

What of the below events caused the American Civil War?

All of the above Slavery Lincoln's election in 1860 Anderson's

refusal to surrender Ft. Sumter in 1861 Missouri Compromise of

1820

If you chose anything but Anderson's refusal to surrender Ft.

Sumter, you were incorrect. If your fist impulse was to select

Slavery, then you would be like many others who have been taught

from an early age that slavery caused the civil war.

This is to highlight the differences between a cause and a

catalyst. When a fire starts, is it the wood that starts the

fire or the spark? The wood certainly plays a large part in the

fire, it is the fuel by which the fire lives. But the wood is

just the potential energy by which the spark ignited. Likewise,

the spark that ignited the first cannon to lob a shell at Sumter

had nothing to do with slavery. But the question of slavery and

the emotions that charged the men on both sides of those cannon

played its part. Certainly, the question of slavery was at the

core of the sectional strife and indeed was the reason for the

separation of the sections along philosophical boundaries. But,

it goes much deeper than that. Slavery was not just the holding

of human chattel. It was power, it was control in congress, it

was the maintenance of the social order, it was the differences

in rural versus urban society, and it was the belief that

slavery needed a constant move westwards in order to maintain

and feed itself, as arable land became depleted. In this sense,

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Slavery was defiantly a catalyst to the conflict, but not the

cause.

Abraham Lincoln has been criticized by modern and racial

historians for not declaring a purpose for the war from the

beginning. In attempts to ennoble the war, to state that Lincoln

brought a higher purpose to it by issuing the Emancipation

Proclamation brings with it a certain political and social

agenda. Hence, the arch nemesis of any historian is the filter

by which he/she uses the research. 100% objectivity can never be

attained, for we are who we are and that is what allows us to

see and understand the world around us.

It is true, Lincoln's move to change the purpose of the war by

issuing the EP was an act of boldness and calculation. The

ending of the war for either side would have signaled the end or

continuance of slavery in some form or the other.

However, to ascribe such high sounding qualities to ones actions

is an act of post-occurrence declaration, meant only to make

excuse or elevate ones standing in the present - but does not

ascribe true motivation.

Putting slavery in its proper light is essential for any writing

on the war, as it is always an undercurrent for everything that

happened. Like a rip current in the ocean, it is invisible from

the surface until one is caught in it.

After the firing on Ft. Sumter and Lincoln's call for ninety day

volunteers to put down the rebellion, the war was commenced as a

struggle for the rights of an individual state to choose to

leave the Union or if its association was binding once ratified.

This then, as the start of the war, remained its focus and its

ultimate resolution at the surrender of the last Confederate

Army at Bentonville, North Carolina the surrender at Appomattox

being the first and most famous surrender, but not the last. The

issues brought in 1863 after the Federal victory at Antietam

only solidified the Federal resolve to end slavery once and for

all as a goal of victory, making it a public declaration instead

of just an assumed result.

Understanding this one point, will take you far in writing a

story or essay on the civil war, as it puts the pieces in proper

context, and allows you to write with the perspective of a

character caught up in the middle of the strife. It also avoids

ascribing motivations to those characters that are not realistic

to the time.

©2005 by Phil Bryant

About the author:

Phil Bryant is a Systems administrator for a Fortune 500 company

and a writer/actor/director of numerous locally produced stage

plays and shorter dramas. Phil recieved his Bachelors of Arts in

History from the University of New Mexico. Phil is an author on

a site for writers http://www.Writing.Com/ and his portfolio can

be visited at http://phil1861.Writing.Com/.