Edward L. Widmer - The New York Times Disunion: A History of the Civil War

A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR

EDITED BY TED WIDMER

WITH CLAY RISEN AND GEORGE KALOGERAKIS

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The New York Times 2016

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Widmer, Edward L., editor. | Risen, Clay, editor. | Kalogerakis, George, editor.

Title: The New York Times disunion : a history of the Civil War / edited by Ted Widmer, with Clay Risen and George Kalogerakis.

Other titles: New York times

Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016015114 | ISBN 9780190621834 | eISBN 9780190621858

Subjects: LCSH: United StatesHistoryCivil War, 1861-1865.

Classification: LCC E468 .N493 2016 | DDC 973.7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015114

Ken Burns

Ted Widmer

Adam Goodheart

Richard Striner

David Blight

Manisha Sinha

Jean H. Baker

Charles Lockwood and John Lockwood

Susan Schulten

Richard Parker

Gregory P. Downs

Manisha Sinha

Susan Schulten

David Eltis and David Richardson

Steven Hahn

Susan Eva ODonovan

Adam Goodheart

Daniel J. Sharfstein

Gregory P. Downs and James Downs

Adam Rothman

Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle

Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle

Nicole Etcheson

Elizabeth R. Varon

Jon Grinspan

Albin J. Kowalewski

Alecia P. Long

Ellen Gruber Garvey

Ford Risley

Nicole Etcheson

Jennifer R. Bridge

Jean R. Freedman

George Kirsch

Gary Gallagher

Michael O. Varhola

Jamie Stiehm

Cate Lineberry

Carol Bundy

Lawrence A. Kreiser Jr.

James Q. Whitman

Glenn David Brasher

Carole Emberton

Pat Leonard

Peter Cozzens

Jon Grinspan

Thom Bassett

Boyd Cothran

Adam Goodheart

Richard Parker

Adam Goodheart

Susan Schulten

Richard Parker

Adam Arenson

Nicole Etcheson

Melinda Miller and Rachel Smith Purvis

Jim McWilliams

John Fabian Witt

Paul Finkelman

John Fabian Witt

Rick Beard

Crystal N. Feimster

Douglas L. Wilson

Gerard Magliocca

Frank J. Williams

William Moss Wilson

Joseph S. Moore

Paul Finkelman

Stephanie McCurry

John J. Miller

Adam Goodheart

Phil Leigh

Christian McWhirter

Kenneth W. Noe

Terry L. Jones

Sue Eisenfeld

Yael A. Sternhell

Elizabeth R. Varon

Ron Soodalter

Don H. Doyle

William Moss Wilson

Adam Goodheart

Don H. Doyle

Kenneth Weisbrode

Aaron W. Marrs

Michael J. Douma

Jeffrey Allen Smith

Rick Beard

Jamie Malanowski

Louis P. Masur

Harold Holzer

Russell McClintock

Guy Gugliotta

Aaron Astor

Mark Greenbaum

Paul Finkelman

Mark Greenbaum

Jeffrey Allen Smith and B. Christopher Frueh

Martin P. Johnson

Rick Beard

Heather Cox Richardson

Joshua Zeitz

Paul Quigley

Terry L. Jones

Edward P. Kohn

Ted Widmer

Amanda Brickell Bellows

Joshua Zeitz

Christopher Phillips

Jon Grinspan

Don Doyle

Ted Widmer

Our decadent experimentation with disunion began in so many places that it is difficult to fix precisely its origin. Was it in the monumental hypocrisy of our founding, our ignominious acceptance of chattel slavery, even after a century of Enlightenment thinking had been artfully distilled, poetically articulated, and then proudly proclaimed to mankind that we the people believed in certain universal truths? Was it the corrupt bargains of the constitutional conventions and slaverys subsequent enshrinement into our manual of operation, with its sickening tolerance of three-fifths of a person?

Maybe it was the impertinence of a growing number of Americans, dedicated to abolition and emancipation, who threatened the immoral profits of the Southern states property. Maybe it was all the imperfect geographical compromises that dripped out over the ensuing decades, compromises that seemed to propel us inevitably toward carnage. Or was it the legislative and judicial embarrassments of the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott decision? Perhaps it was John Browns murderous raid in Pottawatomie, Bleeding Kansas, followed by his blatant insurrection at Harpers Ferry. Or Nat Turners own brave, futile attempt at liberation for his people and himself. Maybe it was, as Lincoln joked, little Stowes big book. Perhaps, as the writer and historian Shelby Foote believed, it was our failure to compromise (our great genius, he thought) that brought our civil war. Historians will forever debate and assign significance to each of these examples and dozens more.

Today, even with a century and a half between us and our greatest cataclysm, we have an eerie sense that so much of what seemed safely finished and distant about the Civil War now seems present, palpable, the underlying racial causes of the old conflict on nearly daily display. We begin to think with increasing alarm that it has always been with us; our interim historical glare has been distracted by other more important events. Black lives still dont matter, it seems, and we are faced with the crushing reality of a truth we thought had slipped into discarded clich: that slavery and its consequences, including the Civil War, are our original sin. The jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis says that in our country the question of race is like the thing in the story, in the mythology that you have to do for the kingdom to be well. We are not well, and it becomes increasingly clear that the ghosts and echoes of our near-death experience have much to teach us today.