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Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

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  • #1

    Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

    Like all of you, I've spent countless hours watching (and re-watching) Civil War-related programs on History Channel, PBS, Discovery, etc. I am entertained and often enthralled by the commentary given by the celebrity historians.
    And while I certainly enjoy Robertson, McPherson, Gallagher, Foote et al, my personal favorite would be Thomas Y. Cartwright. There's something about his halting delivery and intellectual homespun style that puts him number one for me. Franklin has become a favorite battle to me simply because of him.
    I was wondering, who's favorite with you all.
    Mark Warren
    Hairy Nation Boys
    Davis County, Iowa
    [COLOR="Green"]Gooseberry Pie
    "The Official Dessert of the Hairy Nation Boys"[/COLOR]
    Mark Warren
    Bloomfield, Iowa
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  • #2
    Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

    I agree with Cartwright, but I also really liked the late Brian C. Pohanka, his style and delivery, plus he was one of our own, and always will be.
    Robert W. Hughes
    Co A, 2nd Georgia Sharpshooters/64th Illinois Inf.
    Thrasher Mess
    Operation Iraqi Freedom II 2004-2005
    ENG Brigade, 1st Cavalry Div. "1st Team!"
    Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America

    Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
    And I said "Here I am. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

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    • #3
      Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

      All those names are great, but I like the energy in Ed Bearss, when he speaks.
      [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

      Aaron Schwieterman
      Cincinnati

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      • #4
        Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

        Ed Bearss is certainly right up there. If you ever get the chance to be on a battlefield with him, by all means go. What a mind for detail and place! We will certainly lose something when he is gone.
        Michael Comer
        one of the moderator guys

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        • #5
          Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

          I enjoy watching and listening to Mr. Bearss very much. My favorite historian has to be Wiley Sword, I enjoy any C.W. program he is on, as well as reading his books. As far as a good read goes, it's a toss up between Sword and Cozzens for myself.
          sigpic
          Grandad Wm. David Lee
          52nd Tenn. Reg't Co. B

          "If You Ain't Right, Get Right!"
          - Uncle Dave Macon

          www.40thindiana.wordpress.com/

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          • #6
            Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

            Great question.
            Ed Bearss for me, I've been a fan for years. Recently while on my way to...somewhere with work, I was boarding a plane in Jackson, Ms. and who do I see but the man himself checking in also. Well I worked my way round to him and introuduced myself to him and s we had mutual friends he iinvited me to come sit with him after we got up and going.

            So for an hour and a half we talked and I was plum giddy, I was sitting next to Ed Bearss. I mocked him countless times around the campfire and now here I am sitting next to him and....boy what a hoot he is.

            His wife died recently, she was in a nursing home just outside Jackson, Ms. which is where she was from. He'd met her there when he was at the park in Vicksburg way back in the day. One of his two daughters lives in Jackson.

            Shelby Foote was cool also.
            Dennis Neal
            "He who feels no pride in his ancestors is unworthy to be remembered by his descendants"
            David F. Boyd, Major 9th Louisiana
            Visit the site of the 16th Louisiana at
            [url]http://www.16thlainf.com/[/url]
            J. M. Wesson Lodge 317

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            • #7
              Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

              Ed Bearss and Brian Pohanka. They are heroes, as much for their dedication to preservation as their extraordinary ability to bring the past to life so that we want to preserve it all the more.
              Soli Deo Gloria
              Doug Cooper

              "The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner

              Please support the CWT at www.civilwar.org

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              • #8
                Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                I have to go with Ed as well, he is a true treasure. He is someone I aspire to be like. That being said, in the academic world I like Steven Woodworth.
                Lee White
                Researcher and Historian
                "Delenda Est Carthago"
                "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

                http://bullyforbragg.blogspot.com/

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                • #9
                  Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                  I took a ten hour driving tour with Ed Bearss two summers ago. Basically followed the route of Stuart's cavalry through the whole Gettysburg campaign. His presentation and knowledge was unbelievable. He could quote long passages from the OR's from memory, just to add a little bit more to his own interpretation. And his own military service to this country in WWII can't be forgotten either.

                  -Craig Schneider
                  Craig Schneider

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                  • #10
                    Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                    I didn't realize I was this nieve{sic}, I think that Ed Bearss is the greatest and others do to !!

                    Here's a link to a site that has a great interview with him that I found very insightful, think you will too. http://civilwarstudies.org/OnlinePro...udio/start.htm

                    I got Ed to autograph a book that I'd gotten at the Marine Corps bookstore at Quantico and was reading entitled [I]Battle Leadership, by Captain Adolf Von Schell[I] it was all I had at the time and guess what, HE KNEW ABOUT THE BOOK AND HAD READ IT YEARS AGO ! It's written by a WWI German officer and his infantry combat experience.

                    Mr. Bearss has a gift in his memory and personality.

                    OH and what a great hero, his WWII experience and his service. Thank God for men like him. I told my wife I just as soon Sh*T on a hollywood movie star door step as give them the time of day, but Ed Bearss made me starstruck and is my hero !
                    Dennis Neal
                    "He who feels no pride in his ancestors is unworthy to be remembered by his descendants"
                    David F. Boyd, Major 9th Louisiana
                    Visit the site of the 16th Louisiana at
                    [url]http://www.16thlainf.com/[/url]
                    J. M. Wesson Lodge 317

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                    • #11
                      Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                      I would have to go with Mr. Ed Bearss as well. I attend one of his tours at Gettysburg in the mid 90s (put together by Rob Hodge). I still remember to this day; the energy that man has. I seem to out walk most of us 20 and 30 year olds.

                      Then I had the great honor to talk with Ed during one of his trips to Hawaii (while I was station there) he is good friends with the founder of the Hawaiian Civil War round table. Ed came out to speak to us, not once but twice. I have some great photos, one of which is Ed dancing the Hulu......Yes that is right.....................

                      We talked more about his days in the Corp and and his early days as a park historian. Those sorts of things I will always treasure.

                      Now for the photo of Ed dancing .....that goes to the highest bidder.
                      Aka
                      Wm Green :D
                      Illegitimi non carborundum
                      (Don’t let the bastards grind you down!)

                      Dreaming of the following and other events

                      Picket Post
                      Perryville

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                      • #12
                        Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                        For battlefied tours and overall knowledge, Ed Bearss takes the cake. What recall! What scope of knowledge (Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I & World War II). I've read his 3 volumes on The Vicksburg Campaign and it was very useful to me. His book on the Battle of Cowpens (American Revolution) is great too.

                        For overall writing style though, Bruce Catton. He's a page turner and it's hard to put his books down.
                        GaryYee o' the Land o' Rice a Roni & Cable Cars
                        High Private in The Company of Military Historians

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                        • #13
                          Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                          Mr.Pohanka, Mr.Foote, Mr.Cartwright are my favorites.:D
                          [B]Derrick Pugh

                          Western Independent Grays
                          S.C.A.R.[/B]


                          "Yaller-hammer, Alabama, flicker, flicker, flicker,"
                          I felt sorry for the yellow-hammer Alabamians,
                          they looked so hacked, and answered back
                          never a word." ~Sam Watkins

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                          • #14
                            Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                            Two of the best speakers I've ever met are Ed Bearss and Gordon C. Rhea. Both are gentlemen, that I could tell, riveting speakers, and have a sense of humor. Of the two, while I greatly respect Bearss' knowledge--probably few surpass him in that department--I think that Rhea is my favorite current writer of Civil War history. His style is engaging and, for me, so easy to read that his books pretty much read like a novel.

                            I never met the late Shelby Foote, but his writing style was extraordinarily easy to read. While some folks fault his "The Civil War: A Narrative" for its lack of citations and references, and some of his findings in it are now outdated by more recent scholarship, it's difficult to deny that Foote's writing was so entertaining that he, too, made Civil War history read like a popular novel. I've read a number of other well-researched "scholarly" works by others that do a good job of telling the facts, but few made/make the history come off the page right into your mind's eye like Foote did with his titanic trilogy and like Rhea does with his Overland campaign histories.

                            Don't get me wrong--there's lots of other very good writers and some speakers who give excellent battlefield tours; among the foremost of these (in my opinion) is Frank O'Rielly, a ranger at the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania NMP and author if the excellent 2002 campaign history, The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock; and one of the best speakers I've seen at the local CWRT is author Noah Andre Trudeau; but I believe the intent of this thread was to discuss the better-known and more "popular" historians.

                            Some of the folks you see in old reruns of History Channel's "Civil War Journal" shows are nice guys (I personally owed a debt of gratitude to Brian Pohanka for vouching for me to some magazine editors and encouraging me to submit some articles to them; a friend of mine who has worked with William C. Davis speaks highly of his demeanor and knowledge), very good historians, and so forth, while others (that I see no reason to name here) are reported to be arrogant and distant. Heck, some of 'em almost sound like some of the personality types one finds in reenacting. :)

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                            • #15
                              Re: Favorite High-Profile CW Historian

                              I met Ed Bearss twice. They way he speaks its like he was in real combat (which he was!). Being in WW2 sure helps him with his guided tours. He knows his stuff and is great to talk to.
                              Breandan Mackie

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