S1E1 – Introduction

This is Breaking Nation, a Civil War podcast. I'm your host, Scott Holmgren. My goal is simple: to bring the American Civil War to life by exploring and discovering the people, the places, and the events, as if we didn't know how it would all turn out. There's no drama, no wonder, no surprises. At that point, history simply becomes names, dates, and information. It becomes boring. But that's not what it was to the people who had to live through it. They had no idea what was going to happen. Those uncertainties are what make history as gripping as any story where fact is stranger than fiction. That's what I want to capture as together we experience the Civil War, without spoilers. And I get it, that's a pretty tall order. We all know how it turned out. We all know the ending. Our American flag has fifty stars, not thirty something. The slaves were emancipated. Lincoln went to Ford's Theater, and the South began the work of Reconstruction. So we'll have to get lost, we'll have to forget. We'll need to drop ourselves into the past and more than a hundred and fifty years ago, and try to imagine what the United States was like in the eighteen sixties. The good news is that people are still people. The very same patterns of thinking, the depths of desires and risks associated with decision making that you and I face every day were the thoughts, the wants, and the choices that those Americans had. Thoughts of right and wrong, hard work versus laziness, passions and anger, fear and bravery, life and death. And as we listen to them, I think we'll see ourselves. That said, in this first episode, an introduction, I want to share what inspired me to produce this podcast, why it's so important that history must be learned from, and what you can expect in episodes to come. First off, I owe a serious and major debt of inspiration to two people, Dan Carlin and Leon Nayfok. Dan Carlin hosts several podcasts, but it's his hardcore history podcast that I want to highlight. It's long form with episodes lasting hours and hours in length, but it is mesmerizing. Some of his series include explorations of the history of the Pacific Theater of World War II, ancient histories of Caesar and the Persian Empire, and the sweeping mural that's World War I. If you've never listened to Dan Carlin, pause this podcast and go get it now. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Leon Nafok hosts his Slowburn podcast and adapted streaming series. The series was produced by Epics and can be seen there or on Amazon Prime. Six episodes. People you've never heard of, telling firsthand stories, high leverage decisions, and threatening demands and backroom DC maneuvering. I never realized that Nixon very nearly didn't get caught. The break-in happened, but Nixon's resignation didn't have to. You'll need to watch Slowburn on Amazon Prime. Both these series have set the bar, and I hope to get close. I've also been inspired by a lifetime of study and travel. Across my life, my parents, my teachers, friends, fellow history fans all encouraged this pursuit of history. When I was in grade school, I went to a Civil War reenactment in Galena, Illinois, and as a little kid it left a huge impression that I never forgot. I also remember thumbing through the two-volume American Heritage History of the Civil War when I was in junior high, every night before I'd go to bed, and I just kept reading and reading. I've traveled through Virginia and Tennessee, Georgia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Pennsylvania. U.S. history is right here in our backyard. You just need to stand still on the hallowed ground of Gettysburg and close your eyes and feel the gravity of what happened there. I've also wargamed the war, from tabletop to computer simulations, from classic Avalon Hill games from years gone by to those published by Against the Odds GMT and many others. I've even designed and published games of my own in an attempt to better understand what happened on Civil War battlefields and why. And the Civil War is incredibly paradoxical, which I find multiplies the interest. It's a war fought between factions that are in many ways fundamentally the same, brother against brother, as the saying goes, Americans fighting Americans. It's the first modern war with technologies such as rifled weapons, railroads, ironclad ships, and the telegraph. And yet most leaders studied, fought, and made decisions using tactics based on Napoleonic models from decades before when none of the innovations existed. It's a war fought because of the Constitution itself. As historian Joseph Ellis says about the document, quote, it manages to combine the two time bound truths of its own time, namely that any legitimate government must rest on a popular foundation and that popular majorities cannot be trusted to act responsibly. A paradox. These paradoxes remind us of the utter unpredictability of history. Remember, the war did not have to end the way that it did. What we think of as history was not inevitable. For those living it, they didn't know how it would turn out. So secondly, why is learning from history so important? Primarily, it's embarrassing how little people today know of history, especially US history and especially those events during wartime. And currently the fad is to attack history, which causes others to defend it. Both motivations lead to agenda-driven statements and conclusions. I'd submit instead that history is meant to be learned from, not lectured at. It's like this illustration. It's a fool who looks in a mirror, sees what they look like, then walks away, ignorant and forgetful of who they've just seen. That's someone who's dishonest with history. Dishonest with the reality of what previously happened. If instead that person would rather debate what just happened, attack the reality of it, or justify the reality of it, then there's never the opportunity to ask, so in light of what just happened, what do we do with that? What have we learned? How does it change me? What we often see is just the opposite, an arrogant insistence that history needs to learn from us. We judge the past with what we imagine is a superior vantage point, and then tell the past where they went wrong and why they were wrong. Well, guess what? Nobody's listening, they're gone. Now who looks foolish? I think it's people lecturing to no one. It's vital that we don't go lazy into that good night. It's easy to fall into the trap of presentism. As Professor Sam Weinberg at Stanford describes it, quote Presentism, the act of viewing the past through the lens of the present, is a psychological default state that must be overcome before one achieves mature historical understanding. How do I grow in viewing the past through the lens of that past, not through the lens of my present? Like the fool who looks in the mirror, I have to remind myself, don't be that fool. We are not superior to the people of the past, no more than people a hundred years from now will be superior to us, because the mistakes we will make will be their opportunities to learn. So be sure to learn from history. Secondly, there is so much cynicism about history. In the power struggle of who gets to tell the history of an event, it's completely erroneous to conclude that there are simply winners and losers, the powerful and the weak. That cynical assumption is that it's only the winners of wars who write the history. Now there may be a measure of truth there, especially if you look at history in terms of only winners and losers. And there's figures throughout history that have fed this cynicism. Napoleon is quoted as saying something like history is a set of lies agreed upon. Well, that's only accurate if it's consumed thoughtlessly, and only if people actually do agree upon the lies. So don't be lazy, be vigorous. Virginia Wolf tried to make a point saying, for most of history, anonymous was a woman. Now I don't think anyone would deny that women's voices took time to grow to the volume that men had spoken at for so long. And I would also say don't encourage that anonymity by not digging and exploring for those who did give voice to their stories. Clarence Darrow thought he was pointing out the folly of history by saying, history repeats itself, that's one of the things wrong with history. But I would suggest it's just the opposite. By repeating itself, history gives us the opportunity to learn and grow through it. History demonstrates that both and of reality. Yes, history is cyclical. General and even specific sociological and political forces happen and occur time and time again. But within those waves and tides, people are different, particulars are different, patterns are different. And don't we want to look for different choices, solutions, or outcomes? Isn't insanity doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results? That's why cynicism of history reveals a laziness when it comes to the hard work it requires to explore, discover, and learn from it. I'd rather take the approach articulated by Maya Angelo. She wrote, History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Remember, what we think of as history was not inevitable. For those living it, they didn't know how it would turn out. John Gardner, a businessman, educational leader, and U.S. Cabinet Secretary, once said, History never looks like history when you are living through it. Finally, I want to let you know what you can expect in episodes to come. I hope this story will be chronological as well as topical. Both are necessary to wrap your brain around the context, the characters, and the complexity of the American Civil War. Even the name itself has ebbed and flowed depending on when or where you encounter it. Is it the Second American Revolution? Is it the war between the states? Is it the war of northern aggression? Is it the war of rebellion? Yes, yes, yes, yes, all of the above. But it was a civil war and it did happen in America. So for this series, I'm going to use the name the American Civil War. We'll begin with causes and hopefully the history of those causes. We'll look at the specific stepping stones that led to the election of 1860. I would argue it was the most pivotal presidential election the United States has faced in its history. We'll look at the events leading up to the first exchange of gunfire at Fort Sumter and how populism and the media painted the rising conflict in terms of patriotism and spectacle. Then there are the political decks of cards each region was dealt, the north and the south, and people are people, whether politicians, generals, or other important individuals of history in the 1860s. The war itself is primarily military history, with waves of political white caps surging across its progress. While we will explore grand strategy campaigns and battles, it won't be to the level of minute-by-minute troop movements. I want us to really understand why battles were fought, how they were fought, and what can be learned from them. The men who led and followed across the fields of Shiloh, Antietam, and all the others who fought across Five Aprils lived real lives with real families, real hopes and dreams. The war did not just occur on maps and in after action reports. It occurred in the hearts and minds of people like Winfield Scott Hancock and Louis Armistead, career soldiers who were close friends. They were also battlefield enemies and in fact casualties on the very same ground at Gettysburg. And again, every single morning when they woke up from a night of sleep, each one had no idea what the coming day would hold. Would the United States of America even survive as one nation after existing for just 85 years? Would the Confederate States of America continue to exist into the 19th or possibly even on into the 20th century? Would the institution of slavery continue to spread across North America and to function as a socioeconomic model in the South and perhaps the West? Would Abraham Lincoln be remembered as a success or as a failure to future generations? Would hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans, citizens, soldiers, and slaves sacrifice their lives, hopes, and futures to answer all these questions and many more? And the most personal and dire question anyone can ask, would I live to see another day? Let me close with this story from the opening days of the war. On Sunday, april fourteenth, eighteen sixty one, Private Daniel Howe awoke on a tiny island in the middle of the harbor across from Charleston, South Carolina. As he stepped out from under the shadows of stone and brick walls, he looked upon the colossal wreck and ruin of Fort Sumter. The first shots of the Civil War had been fired. Brick, mortar, and earth had been blasted for thirty four hours straight. Artillery shells had been fired from a mile away by batteries of Confederate guns, more than forty of them to the north, south, east, and west. The five-sided fort had been constructed 30 years before where a sandbar had been, but now the bastion and its man-made granite island had been battered and blistered by projectiles fired in aggression. Two days earlier, on Friday, April 12th, the U.S. fort, its commander, Major Robert Anderson, and its garrison of 85 Federal soldiers, including Private Howe, began trading blows with rebel forces on Sullivan Morris and James Islands, and the American Civil War had begun. More than 3,000 rounds fell on the fort. And miraculously, not a single soldier on either side was killed by the time Anderson surrendered Saturday afternoon. Private Howe must have wondered at his own survival. How had so many shells inflicted so much damage but resulted in not a single death? As Major Anderson reviewed his roll call, he couldn't believe it. Amazing. But the next day, that Sunday, after the surrender, Confederate officers and troops sailed to the fort to take possession of the artificial island. The shaken survivors lined up to receive the victors, and then prepared a few surviving guns to fire an honorary cannon salute as they removed their tattered American flag in defeat. While the stars and stripes was being lowered, Private Howe manned one of the guns firing the salute. As the smoke wafted past in the breeze and dissipated following an honorary shot, he grabbed the next woolen cartridge bag off the pile. Filled with black powder, the bag was rough to the touch, but no different than the dozens and dozens he had manhandled during the furious bombardment of the past two days. Another gunner sponged the piping hot barrel with a wooden ramer with the intent to extinguish any lingering flame, and then Howe pushed the next bag into the barrel. And then it exploded. Howe's arm was blown completely off and he was instantly killed. The fire spewing forth ignited nearby powder bags, and five other soldiers were wounded, one mortally. Private Daniel Howe became the very first soldier to die and not live to see another day. He was the first casualty of the American Civil War, the first of hundreds of thousands more. Again, as John Gardner said, history never looks like history when you are living through it or dying. Thanks for listening to this introductory episode of Breaking Nation, a Civil War podcast. Check out our website at BreakingNation.com. I'm Scott Holmgren, your host. Thank you for listening. And if you're not learning, you're not living.