Delicate Topics in First Person

[JeffLawrence]

Pards,

Something I've been weighing the possibilities & practicalities of as of late has been some of the details of my first person impression; particularly how to address delicate, sensitive or questionable topics. The ones that concern me the most are those personal beliefs that may not be in any way tasteful to modern sensibilities (or mine as a modern Joe, for that matter), but would be very much commonplace sentiments in the period.

Example: The average Billy Yank was not an abolitionist, and was most certainly not fighting to free the slaves. In fact, he was probably pretty racist; and if he were an Irish immigrant on top of it all, he probably would prefer the slaves stay in chains.

This is something that I believe is commonly misperceived amongst the general public who I think tend to lean towards the "Union is fighting to free the slaves" myth; and as such, to give a better portrayal and shatter false myths, perhaps is something I should add to my first person persona.

The catch: The last thing I would want to do is to drive off people who might otherwise be interested in learning more about the period by offending them with statements that shatter their myth too harshly, and possibly leave them thinking that the sentiments are mine, and rooted in a racist mind, rather than an effort to give them a more accurate reflection of the time.

What are you folks' thoughts on this? For those of you who do first person, do you ever broach topics like this? If so, what is your approach?

[ephraim_zook]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Good question, Jeff.

My approach is generally this:

In my part of Pennsylvania farm country I've only seen three or four negroes in my life at all, and they seemed like ok sort of fellas, so I have no personal feelings toward them at all. The Quakers in town have some strong feelings about abolition, but they are kind of strange anyhow. On the other hand, there's something just not right about one man owning another, and if they are freed because of the war, well that's just fine with me. If not, that's ok too. I joined the army because some of my neighbors and kinsmen did, and my grandfather fought for our separation from the king and I don't want to see that generation's work come to naught by dissolving the republic.


This may be copping out on the issue, but it presents a not-uncommon sentiment without getting anyone riled up one way or the other. That's my "spectator face". At a history-heavy event where my contact with visitors may be non-existant I may take a radical approach one way or the other, depending on the scenario, whether I'm union or confederate, etc.

Your mileage may vary.

Ron myzie

[AZReenactor]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

I don't shy away from historic persona and attitudes, even controversial ones, although I do try to avoid depicting any kind of "stereotypical" dehumanized generic persona of what the average soldier thought. The men who served in the war were individuals with a myriad of opinions and attitudes on all kinds of issues.To try and dilute that individuality down into some formulaic impression is to do them an injustice in my opionion. I much prefer to base opinions and attitudes on individual letters, diary's and then extrapolate that using period news newspapers, books, and other items that helped form those attitudes.

That said, I do first person as a way of enriching the experience of my pards and myself. It is a way for us to step into the past a little more fully by distancing ourselves from modern and anachronistic conversation during immersion events. When modern 'tators are around it has little gain for us since the entire experience is filled with anachronisms already. It has been my experience to try and carry on a conversation in first person with someone not in character frequently becomes hokey within minutes. If they want to play along they usually end up attempting to trip up the reenactor, or educate them on the marvels of modern society rather than learning about history.

For all our events where we are doing first person, immersion or otherwise, we select one individual ahead of time who is designated to serve as a bridge to the modern world allowing the rest of us to remain in first person. This person can step out of first person into the role of historic interpreter to explain who we are, what we are doing, and answer any questions from the public directly. Even on back country patrols and marches we have such a person designated so that they can address the occasional hiker, or forest Ranger etc. without disrupting the flow of the event; for everyone else they just carry on as though the modern were not even there.

On some occasions I have also found it useful to perform first person orations based on a specific individuals letters or journals, but these are staged and scripted performances rather than off the cuff first person role playing. And the audience understands such stage presentations for what they are.

It is a system that has proved quite manageable and allows us to individually and collectively more fully explore attitudes and opinions of the men we depict without confusing or alianating an often underinformed public.

[bAcK88]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Example: The average Billy Yank was not an abolitionist, and was most certainly not fighting to free the slaves. In fact, he was probably pretty racist; and if he were an Irish immigrant on top of it all, he probably would prefer the slaves stay in chains.

This is something that I believe is commonly misperceived amongst the general public who I think tend to lean towards the "Union is fighting to free the slaves" myth; and as such, to give a better portrayal and shatter false myths, perhaps is something I should add to my first person persona.

This won't help you answer your question, but I suggest that you read What This Cruel War Was Over by Chandra Manning. Questions the reenactor belief that Yankees in uniform were "not abolitionists, and was most certainly not fighting to free the slaves," with war time writings from the soldiers themselves showing how they were pretty radical.

Bill

[Mcouioui]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Good question, Jeff.

My approach is generally this:

In my part of Pennsylvania farm country I've only seen three or four negroes in my life at all, and they seemed like ok sort of fellas, so I have no personal feelings toward them at all. The Quakers in town have some strong feelings about abolition, but they are kind of strange anyhow. On the other hand, there's something just not right about one man owning another, and if they are freed because of the war, well that's just fine with me. If not, that's ok too. I joined the army because some of my neighbors and kinsmen did, and my grandfather fought for our separation from the king and I don't want to see that generation's work come to naught by dissolving the republic.


This may be copping out on the issue, but it presents a not-uncommon sentiment without getting anyone riled up one way or the other. That's my "spectator face". At a history-heavy event where my contact with visitors may be non-existant I may take a radical approach one way or the other, depending on the scenario, whether I'm union or confederate, etc.

Your mileage may vary.

Ron myzie

I do not know this I am well to express my thought with my bad written English, but I try.

I think that the study of the history and the truth imposes the honesty of the language, by speaking about things which hurt, the problem not were the one who says things, but the one who hears them.

For me we must be able to say these things and break the false images without that made of us racists.

We have the same problem in France (the old people in first time) with German of WWII, all people in France do not want to hear that German were not all Nazis in WWII, even if the shoah is of the responsibility collective of German people of this period, but attention, those current german people today not have to pay for that.

As I do not have to pay for 200 years of colonial massacres of France, even if I am not proud of my country for that, I do not feel responsible.

The slavery, it is the same matter for you today, for the current generations, even if that is a part of your history, you are not responsible, you today of that.

There is a very beautiful Yiddish proverb which says that in any life experiment, even negative, there is one good education to keep.

Now there is a great part of psychology in the transmission from our passion to the others, it is not simple, I recognize him, I have no supernatural solution for that, just my experience of life and my pilgrim's stick of the lover’s of the history.

For your first person (my opinion) it is necessary to put in it your heart by forgetting not that it is only a role and not you, if you pass on this message there, by being convincing as an actor playing Hamlet, without that your "public" forgets that you is only an actor, it is won …

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

I would highly recommend reading "Past Into Present" by Stacy Roth. She addresses many of the challenges of difficult impressions, and how to handle them in a smooth manner for maximum educational benefit.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Indeed, WHEN the soldier is expressing an opinion might matter a great deal. Those of you who have read a good many letters home have no doubt seen the shift in attitude between leaving home, with whatever degree of contact there was with people of color, versus what they said after they had seen more enslaved people, more free people of color, black soldiers in our out of combat, etc.

One of my GGG-uncles killed himself after he came home, leaving behind a pamphlet blaming the entire war and all its consequences on African-Americans. Before he left, most of his family had been involved with the Underground Railroad in the Hocking Valley. In his defense, he had become obviously mentally ill not long after his return and was getting worse very rapidly. I wonder whether he actually had PTSD or was suffering from blue mass poisoning.

On the other hand, many men who had the sort of indifferent approach described above appear to have become much more abolitionist after they saw people who had been enslaved. Letter after letter reflects, at best, unease with the evidence of how slaves must have been treated.

The issue of When To Say What is especially sensitive in areas like national or state parks, where people might really get hysterics. Political correctness has a frightening effect on history, since some venues don't even want historians to mention unpleasant subjects. We went to a living history presentation at a library once to see Annie Oakley. She arrived with holsters, sans pistols, and spent the entire hour talking about how she hired out as a maid early on and couldn't believe how beautiful the draperies were in the employer's house. What did the kids learn? Annie Oakley was a maid when she was a little girl and she got famous for some reason. The presenting organization didn't want any mention of guns! If that were the case, why did they pick Annie Oakley from the list of historical people who could be portrayed? I actually had one teacher ask me to talk about the Civil War, but not to mention slavery. I declined.

[lukegilly13]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Speaking from the Confederate side...I was asked to speak on Slavery in first person in front of about 150 college students and the board of higher education in the area I was in. Just to add...I usually get chosen to field this question since I now have a rep for it. I usually start with what I think I would of felt if I were really alive then.....now of course, they expect a confederate to support slavery and are usually blown away when I'm against it. I have a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I show them...throw it down...say it's a bunch of bull-you know what....and explain that everyone doesn't treat their slaves that way and the ones that do be damned! I think that people are suprised to see that when it comes to the individual soldier...their ideas of slavery were:
1. Sometimes very mistaken and based on hear-say reads in the newspaper and dime novels.
2. Not all that much different north to south
You could maybe go with the Lincoln opinion....anti-slavery, but pro deportation.

[Indianabugles]

I am that Middle guy, the one between the impression and the Public.
I actually do a talk on Slavery and abolition and it is very easy to talk about post Lloyd Garrison abolition, or the first true Abolition. I always start with Benjamin Lundy and the Gradualists (read lukes Deportation). Perhaps not true abolition, but a start. Did Garrison not start his cause with them? Todays thinking seems to class all Abolitionist into the Garrisonite Immediate family as this sits better with modern perception, so I dispel that straight away?
On ths one I agree 100% straight away with Luke.
Having come into this hobby a Union man with a misguided opinion over slavery, the more I read, well the more I became aware that the average Billy Yank was probably more concerned with other factors and the average Johnny Reb didn't own slaves. It was just a side effect of states rights.
Did Billy become a practical abbo after seeing slavery in effect, did he become one to get the war over quicker perhaps, or did he not give a damn. Or was he fundamentally racist. I have come across several writings that seem to be anti slavery while still considering the Negro a second class human so back them Racism and Abolitionism were not mutually exclusive. I find it easier to make the audience think rather than tell as this is very broad and subjective field, even back in the 1860s.
Did Lincoln get shot of slavery to satisfy a growing Abbo trend a home, to keep Britain and France out of the Game, perhaps to satisy his own moral concience, maybe to cause disruption within the Confederacy, even to keep Republican faith with the one man one vote or most likely a collection in unequal measure of all.
If the public come with the view that this was the Morally high fighting the wrongness of Slavery all I do is make them think.
Present all angles.
Personaly I like to picture it as an argument between the Morally ambiguous and the morally misguided. No black and whites..... Literaly!!

But if I had to do in the Union first person I would probably dscuss it from a geting the war over quicker view with a detatchment from any high moral cause.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Sounds like folks would benefit from reading some new and older works:

Eric Foner. Free Soil, Free Men, Free Labor: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, 1996.

Foner illustrates how Republican ideology provided the consensus that motivated Northerners to mobilize their society into war.

James McPherson. What They Fought For, 1861-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.

McPherson believes that soldiers were motivated by causes and peer pressure was not the main reason to fight the Civil War. For Union troops he argues that while most Union troops did not fight for racial equality, most understood slavery as a cause of the war, without its elimination the South may rise again, and that enslaved people provided strength to the Confederacy. Others thought that the destruction of the institution would be punishment to the South for starting the war. For those who fought for the South, McPherson argues that even in their masked language of “liberty” and “freedom” most Southerners were interested in preserving racial inequality and the slave institution which best preserved this inequality.

Peter S. Carmichael. The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

This work surveys 121 Virginians born between 1831 and 1843 who were mostly born into slaveholding families and collectively were convinced that Virginia had lost its prominence in the country because of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. These men advocated Christian discipline, economic modernization, and increased educational opportunities and eventually displayed their devotion to secession and the Confederacy much earlier than the “old fogeys.” Carmichael reads and in some cases re-reads primary sources to investigate a generational worldview to expose the concept of progress in Virginia’s slave society.

Chandra Manning. What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 2007.

Manning’s book provides deep insight to the support of whites to the Confederate cause whether slaveholders or not. She argues that Southerners wished to maintain cultural formulations of racial and sexual identity. She maintains that Southerners did not abandon their cause because they feared submission to the Union and what they perceived as the Union’s racial crusade.

Jason Phillips. Diehard Rebels: The Confederate Culture of Invincibility. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007.

The author consults letters and diary entries written by soldiers from 1863 to 1865 to explain how religious dogma and perception of Union barbarity and ineptitude sustained Confederate soldiers. These men who were diehards were both consumers and producers of rumors, misinformation, and propaganda that allowed them to visualize the longevity of a Confederate republic.

Aaron Sheehan-Dean. Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Sheehan-Dean argues that Virginia soldiers continued to be motivated by the profound emotional connection between military service and the protection of home and family, even as the war dragged on.

Aaron Sheehan-Dean, ed. The View from the Ground: Experiences of Civil War Soldiers.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007

This anthology contains essays on the Union soldiers' changing opinions of slavery, Confederate soldiers' changing opinions of their foes; the inherent friction between military and civilian values; religion; and the memory of a battle.

[Pat.Lewis]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Thanks Emmanuel, glad you posted that. I think the concern here is not one of interpretative skill or tact, but one of historiography. We first need to be grounded in the post-civil rights historical literature on race, slavery, and Civil War before we can move on to then talk about it to the public. This world is too complex -- and, yes, too different -- from our own to understand through one good book.

On one level I am fine with reenactors sticking to battles, tactics, and the minutia of soldiers' lives because that is an area where they can pick up most of the information they need from a limited number of sources. However, the decision to engage the raging debate (then and now) on slavery and race needs to be followed up on by an honest commitment to historiography. That means a lot of reading, a lot of facing up to the fact that history isn't nice, isn't pretty, and isn't simple. This is, in short, a commitment I believe most reenactors unwilling to take on to a satisfactory degree. This is not a knock on them by any means, they are simply interested more in the military aspects of the war rather than the political and social.

That having been said: when living history seamlessly combines accurate physical representation of the era with hard-hitting commentary on antebellum and wartime society it is a transcendent thing. It don't just happen easy, though.

[Mudslinger]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

First, I must agree with Ron...this is one of the best posted threads in a long time.

Second, when responding to the sensitive questions on the causes and such, let us remember that IMHO, we are here first to preserve the history before us and educate those who ask these "sensitive questions".

True, through all the research and writings, it is especially hard to understand the individual reasons of why the men enlisted, for both sides. There are the common reasons in the hobby today such as preserving the Union, States' Rights, Emancipation, etc...

For example, I too, had those who fought for both sides, mainly Virginia and Ohio. Three of my ancestors who fought for the Commonwealth of Virginia were very well-to-do and lived in the Shenandoah Valley. Not one owned a slave. Now why did they fight for the Southern cause? I could formulate an idea on the subject that will baffle me to the day I die.

I do know that one of my ancestors who fought for the State of Ohio lived in Georgia long before the war as a farmer. When the war broke out, he wrote that he returned to Ohio and enlisted due to patriotism and love of his native state, though he also loved the south, and had no qualms with the southern cause.

I think the big question is:

1. Why did South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas secede before the bombardemnt of Ft. Sumter?

2. Why did Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina secede after the bomabardment of Ft. Sumter and Lincoln's call for volunteers?

3. Why did Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri stay in the Union during the war?

Yes there were individual reasons the men fought (i.e. peer pressure, better income, making history, preserve the Union, abolition, etc..), and many have studied this topic over the past century and have come to the same conclusion; that they must formulate thier own opinion based on fact from written journals and other publications, including political. These publications, as we all know, were not very accurate and biased time and time again.

Born and raised in South Carolina, and the southern culture, I understand why the South seceded. Now living in (West)ern Virginia, 2 miles from the Ohio River, and portraying a Yankee soldier (having a few that served there too), I understand why they fought for the North. Irreconcilable cultural differences.

The point is, even if it is sensitive, remember we are here to educate. Give your honest opinion based on fact. I as Emmanuel has already recommended, would also recommend to read
Chandra Manning's book:

What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War.


Again, a very good question Jeff. Let's keep this one going. I would love to hear more responses.

Capt. Nick Miller
33rd O.V.I., Co. F
"The Acorn Boys"
Western Federal Blues"

[lukegilly13]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Good post Cap'n Miller.
Question for all......Would one's historical portrayal be strengthened more by reading books from the period? Rephrasing....would your 1860's opinion be more accurate without considering the benefit of your 2008 education? Yes the books will be very biased being written by folks that were angry one way or the other...but it's the twisted opinion that they read as well. My suggestion would be to read "Uncle Tom's Cabin". It will probably anger you one way or the other. Of course I would not suggest that people avoid modern sources....Lord knows there have been some VERY good ones out since 1865....however, as you would when buying clothing or gear......form your "period" impression opinion from original period documents whenever possible.

[jake.koch]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

One thing that you have to be really careful with when it comes to period documents is the bias of the time period. I'm not disagreeing with Luke, I think that those period sources are essential, you just have to "look out for the bull" at times. One thing we also have to remember is that many sources, such as soldiers' memoirs were written long after the war was over and they tend to overlook some aspects of how they might have felt about certain subjects such as slavery 20 or 30 years earlier.

I think it is fair to say that there were very many different viewpoints of the soldiers when it came to slavery, and for that matter, why each soldier went off to fight. Each state even fought for different reasons, especially the Southern States. The Deep South seceded for different reasons then did Tenn, Ark., NC, and VA. What it boils down to is a confusing mass of viewpoints and information that we try to teach or relate to the public, as much as we would like, we will almost never be able to get 100% of the point across, but we can hammer away and try to get as much to sink in as possible.
One way might be for 1st person interaction, have a couple different guys in your mess or unit take different viewpoints when you talk to the public. For example, if you are portraying a U.S. group, run the spectrum of what the predominant viewpoints would have been, you could even get unit specific, there were certainly some regiments that were diehard abolitionists, and there were others that were pretty upset when Lincoln publicized the Emancipation Proclamation.
I hope this has been more helpful then just me rambling, I've enjoyed checking in on this thread over the course of the day.

[jake.koch]

Re: Delicate Topics in First Person

Forgot to add this in, for anyone interested in Tennessee, read Parties, Politics, and the Sectional Conflict in Tennessee 1832 - 1861. by Jonathan M. Atkins. I'm reading it for an independent study and thought it was an interesting way to look at the way things turned out in the different parts of Tennessee. Gives a good idea of the way that people from each side thought.