Monthly Archives

May 2015

Blog

The Plundering Generation

This piece was originally published in Southern Partisan magazine in 1987-88. A few years ago I was shuffling through accumulated litter in my garage attic when I came across some clippings dating from the 1960s. Among them were several letters to Life magazine comment­ing on an article by Bruce Carton. One reads as follows: Bruce Carton's article is interesting and…
Ludwell H. Johnson
May 29, 2015
Blog

Lincoln and Equal Rights: The Authenticity of the Wadsworth Letter

This article was originally published in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Feb., 1966), pp. 83-87. In the current national debate on the race problem, the authority of the Great Emancipator has been claimed by both sides. Some have represented Lincoln as an archsegregationist by quoting from the 1858 debates, in which he opposed political and social…
Ludwell H. Johnson
May 28, 2015
Review Posts

Ludwell Johnson: Master Southern Historian

  Life and Work Why Read Ludwell Johnson? Both Ludwell Johnson’s style of work and choice of subject matter strongly recommend him to our consideration. As a working historian he is calm and measured, with just the degree of detachment that historical work ideally requires. As he puts it, “trying to identify cause and effect is, to me, the very…
Joseph R. Stromberg
May 26, 2015
Blog

PBS’s “The Civil War”: The Mythmanagement of History

This piece was originally printed by Southern Partisan magazine in 1990. In the September issue of the American Historical Association's newsletter, a rave review predicted that the PBS production "The Civil War" might become "the Gone With the Wind of documen­taries." After watching almost all of it, I would suggest Uncle Tom's Cabin as its fictional alter ego. But let…
Ludwell H. Johnson
May 25, 2015
Blog

“Scientist of the Seas”

Few Americans know of the great American scientist Matthew Fontaine Maury, and those that do probably do not know of his steadfast devotion to the Confederate States during the War for Southern Independence or his firm commitment to the South and her people. Maury was a native Virginian and his father had once been a teacher to Thomas Jefferson. Maury…
Brion McClanahan
May 22, 2015
Blog

Why the South Fought

This piece originally appeared in Southern Partisan Magazine in 1984. The Thirteen Colonies in their War of Independence had fought for freedom. But the French Revolution (a true revolution of an under­class) proclaimed not only liberty but equality: and that idea was loosened on the world. But liberty (freedom) and equality are natural allies only up to a point, and…
Sheldon Vanauken
May 21, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

Antebellum Southerners in Europe

I want to look at Southerners going back to Europe long after the roots were planted, especially in the period before the second War of Independence began in 1861. The reason for looking at this is what it tells us about Southerners. One of the things it tells us is that we Southerners were a people. Our relationship to Europe…
Clyde Wilson
May 20, 2015
Review Posts

The Sesquicentennial of the War for Southern Independence as Symbolic of the Fallen State of the South

With the Sesquicentennial of the epic war of American history winding down, many may think this War no longer particularly relevant and we can move on to more current concerns. Such an attitude, which I dare say prevails among most Americans, Southerners included, ignores the watershed importance of the War known by any number of names, the “Civil War,” the…
William Cawthon
May 19, 2015
Blog

Remembering the War Between the States and Its Aftermath

This piece was originally printed at res33blog.com. The commentary by University of North Carolina-Wilmington history Professor Chris E. Fonvielle Jr. titled, “Why the Civil War still matters” published in the Wilmington StarNews last March caught my attention both for his review of some interesting facts, and his omissions and conflicting ideas about that historic period.  Prof. Fonvielle explains some of…
R.E. Smith, Jr.
May 18, 2015
Blog

“…The Patriotic Gore, That Flecked the Streets of Baltimore?”: Musings on the Baltimore Riot by a Native Son

The recent riots in Baltimore gave most Americans pause as they struggled to make sense of the violence that tore at the fabric of some of the city’s most impoverished and desperate neighborhoods.  President Barack Obama moved swiftly to enlighten Americans that the origins of the violence in Baltimore could be traced back to the days of Jim Crow and…
John Devanny
May 15, 2015
Blog

No History, No Culture, No Past

  The title of this article is how the radical Muslim organization, ISIS, characterizes its callous destruction of Jewish, Christian, and other pre-Islamic religious statuary; places of worship, libraries, and other ancient cultural artifacts. There are even videos of ISIS slaughtering groups of civilians. As justification for these massacres and devastation, ISIS claims that its concept of the Muslim faith…
Gail Jarvis
May 14, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

The South and the West, Part 2

It seems my mission here is to bring to your attention unfamiliar and unfashionable truths about American history. Let me give you another one. The American West, the frontier, was NOT conquered and settled by a “Nation of Immigrants.” George Washington was already the fifth generation of his family in Virginia, as were most of his neighbours. There was a…
Clyde Wilson
May 13, 2015
Review Posts

Modern Times

Goodbye, Dear   How seldom now do you begin with Dear, Both warm and formal (civil) but a mere First name -- “David:” -- like a Sir or Madam   Summons to a wayward child of Adam, No salutation as in Saint Paul’s Letters, Your curt tone saying one should know his betters As if you bid a servant or a…
David Middleton
May 12, 2015
Blog

Lee in the Mountains, Part 2

Donald Davidson's (1893-1968) Lee in the Mountains was one of the first pieces we ran for the Abbeville Review when it was launched last April.  Davidson was one of the more important Southern intellectuals of the twentieth century.  His forays into both fiction and non-fiction helped establish the framework for what became known as the Southern agrarian movement.  His essay…
Brion McClanahan
May 11, 2015
Blog

New From Southern Pens, Part 2

Maryland Redeemed Everybody knows that our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was written by Francis Scott Key as he watched the British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor during the War of 1812. Almost nobody knows the rest of the story. In 1861, Key’s grandson, Francis Key Howard, was locked up in Fort McHenry.   Howard wrote: “The flag which…
Clyde Wilson
May 8, 2015
Blog

Reconstruction’s Hungry Locusts

The wife of the president H.L. Mencken referred to as “Roosevelt the Second” provided much of the impetus for the communizing of the Democratic party in the mid-1930s, and could be readily found supporting and speaking before openly Marxist groups like the American Youth Congress, Communist National Student League, Young Communist League, and anti-Franco communists. In a news column she…
Bernard Thuersam
May 7, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

The South and the West, Part 1

When our ever-wise leader set up a program on the American West, he obviously had in mind the geographic west of North America—the Great Plains, mountains, and Pacific coast beyond the Colorado, Red, Arkansas, and Missouri rivers. But when Americans emerged onto the Great Plains in the second third of the 19th century, they were already the inheritors of two…
Clyde Wilson
May 6, 2015
Review Posts

James Henley Thornwell and Southern Religion

The God-fearing, Bible-reading, hymn-singing Confederate army grew out of a Southern soil well cultivated during the long struggle of countless, if largely unsung, preachers to civilize a harsh and violent frontier. Personal piety and Bible-centered family circles bolstered the churches in a successful effort to shape the regional culture. The churches assumed responsibility for the education, especially moral, of the…
Eugene Genovese
May 5, 2015
Blog

Kent Brown and Sharpsburg

After my last trip to Gettysburg with Kent Masterson Brown, I could hardly wait for Sharpsburg. The experience did not disappoint. Kent was as congenial as ever, warm with his longtime followers (a group of fellow Kentuckians known as the ‘I Corps”) and welcoming to newcomers – many of whom, I was happy to discover, came from the Abbeville Institute.…
James Rutledge Roesch
May 4, 2015
Blog

April Top 10

The top ten for April 2015.  Thank you for a great one year anniversary for the new and improved Abbeville Institute website.  We exceeded our previous traffic for the entire year in April alone.  There is more to come in the near future, so please, like, share, and tweet our material, and if you are so inclined, please consider a tax deductible…
Brion McClanahan
May 2, 2015