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7 Reasons You Should be Writing Articles
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Writing the Civil War, researching the causes
Many an aspiring short story writer or novelist has dreamed of
putting to paper a romantic tale to rival at least come near to
the quintessential civil war novel Gone with the Wind. Romance,
treachery, occupation and struggle were the overt messages from
Margaret Mitchell's best seller. But few have a grasp on the
depth of research needed to even build a storyline to equal
Mitchell's. As a Historian and fiction writer I've put together
my own knowledge and research into the American civil War in
hopes of steering other writers who may not come from a research
background in the right directions.
As historians, whether academic, short story writer or essayist,
we live and die on the level of research we are willing or able
to conduct. The depth that we are able to attain will firmly
plant our efforts upon the proper historical time frame. Others
may dispute our conclusions or subject matter, but they won't
question our research unless we show ourselves to be shallow or
relying upon one or the other source that is in itself
questionable.
There are several sources for research, each having its own pros
and cons to deal with and consider.
First hand sources.
These are interviews with survivors, auto-biographies, letters
and correspondence, diaries, records, and anything that ties the
source directly to the participant or subject. Are these the
best sources? Yes and no. Yes, in that you can get the words
right from the horse's mouth.
Should a research paper on slavery be totally based upon first
hand sources? No. The main problem with first hand sources is
that they are biased. They are filtered through the hopes and
fears of the individual and at times written or produced several
decades after the event and time has colored the source.
First hand sources are excellent for capturing the feeling of
the times. You don't have to guess what a person is thinking or
feeling at a particular time as you will be able to divine that
directly from the individual. First hand accounts also give us a
microcosm of the society and its current events as seen through
the source. First hand accounts definitely have their place
within the pantheon of an historian's bookshelf, but they should
be considered with a wary eye when tackling such things as
judging their involvement in the grand scheme of the events
being written about. A case in point, many of the biographies
and auto-biographies written after WWII by German generals or
from interviews conducted upon capture paint the picture of
Hitler as the maniacal mad man and themselves as innocent and at
times frustrated or ignorant participants. Because Hitler did
not survive the war, he could not be interviewed nor could he
defend himself. The common thread running throughout all
material, whether auto-biographical or interview based paint the
subjects as victims and Hitler as the sole perpetrator of
Germany's demise. That he played the major role cannot be
denied, he was in fact the supreme ruler and therefore worthy of
the accusation. But archival records paint a different picture
of the subjects conduct in the war than they were willing to
admit to.
Second hand sources
This is where second had sources come into play. They help
balance the bias of first hand accounts with more data. Although
the second hand accounts may also be biased, their bias is
usually tilted in a different direction, allowing the historian
to fill in a few gaps. They are not reliable for discerning the
intent of the subject or of motivation, but they are reliable in
giving a second view point of any event. Criminalists interview
participants and witnesses in hopes of building a complete
picture, as neither first nor second hand accounts contain the
complete picture.
Examples of second hand accounts are reports, records,
biographies, news paper articles, or anything produced after an
event by a non-participant.
Causes for conflict
To really understand the causes of the sectional strife that
flared from time to time, one has to go back to the
Revolutionary war and the documents that eventually formed the
United States of America.
What of the below events caused the American Civil War?
All of the above Slavery Lincoln's election in 1860 Anderson's
refusal to surrender Ft. Sumter in 1861 Missouri Compromise of
1820
If you chose anything but Anderson's refusal to surrender Ft.
Sumter, you were incorrect. If your fist impulse was to select
Slavery, then you would be like many others who have been taught
from an early age that slavery caused the civil war.
This is to highlight the differences between a cause and a
catalyst. When a fire starts, is it the wood that starts the
fire or the spark? The wood certainly plays a large part in the
fire, it is the fuel by which the fire lives. But the wood is
just the potential energy by which the spark ignited. Likewise,
the spark that ignited the first cannon to lob a shell at Sumter
had nothing to do with slavery. But the question of slavery and
the emotions that charged the men on both sides of those cannon
played its part. Certainly, the question of slavery was at the
core of the sectional strife and indeed was the reason for the
separation of the sections along philosophical boundaries. But,
it goes much deeper than that. Slavery was not just the holding
of human chattel. It was power, it was control in congress, it
was the maintenance of the social order, it was the differences
in rural versus urban society, and it was the belief that
slavery needed a constant move westwards in order to maintain
and feed itself, as arable land became depleted. In this sense,
Slavery was defiantly a catalyst to the conflict, but not the
cause.
Abraham Lincoln has been criticized by modern and racial
historians for not declaring a purpose for the war from the
beginning. In attempts to ennoble the war, to state that Lincoln
brought a higher purpose to it by issuing the Emancipation
Proclamation brings with it a certain political and social
agenda. Hence, the arch nemesis of any historian is the filter
by which he/she uses the research. 100% objectivity can never be
attained, for we are who we are and that is what allows us to
see and understand the world around us.
It is true, Lincoln's move to change the purpose of the war by
issuing the EP was an act of boldness and calculation. The
ending of the war for either side would have signaled the end or
continuance of slavery in some form or the other.
However, to ascribe such high sounding qualities to ones actions
is an act of post-occurrence declaration, meant only to make
excuse or elevate ones standing in the present - but does not
ascribe true motivation.
Putting slavery in its proper light is essential for any writing
on the war, as it is always an undercurrent for everything that
happened. Like a rip current in the ocean, it is invisible from
the surface until one is caught in it.
After the firing on Ft. Sumter and Lincoln's call for ninety day
volunteers to put down the rebellion, the war was commenced as a
struggle for the rights of an individual state to choose to
leave the Union or if its association was binding once ratified.
This then, as the start of the war, remained its focus and its
ultimate resolution at the surrender of the last Confederate
Army at Bentonville, North Carolina the surrender at Appomattox
being the first and most famous surrender, but not the last. The
issues brought in 1863 after the Federal victory at Antietam
only solidified the Federal resolve to end slavery once and for
all as a goal of victory, making it a public declaration instead
of just an assumed result.
Understanding this one point, will take you far in writing a
story or essay on the civil war, as it puts the pieces in proper
context, and allows you to write with the perspective of a
character caught up in the middle of the strife. It also avoids
ascribing motivations to those characters that are not realistic
to the time.
©2005 by Phil Bryant
About the author:
Phil Bryant is a Systems administrator for a Fortune 500 company
and a writer/actor/director of numerous locally produced stage
plays and shorter dramas. Phil recieved his Bachelors of Arts in
History from the University of New Mexico. Phil is an author on
a site for writers http://www.Writing.Com/ and his portfolio can
be visited at http://phil1861.Writing.Com/.
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