Views from the Dark Side of American History

168 Pages·2011·0.49 MB·English

by  Michael Fellman

views from the dark side
of american history
also by michael fellman
In the Name of God and Country:
Reconsidering Terrorism in American History (2010)
“This Terrible War”:
The Civil War and its Aftermath, with
Daniel E. Sutherland and Lesley Gordon
(2002, 2007)
James Russell Young, Around the World
with General Grant, abridged and edited (2002)
William T. Sherman, Personal Memoirs,
edited (2000)
The Making of Robert E. Lee (2000)
Citizen Sherman:
A Life of William T. Sherman (1995)
Inside War:
The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri
During the American Civil War (1989)
Making Sense of Self:
Medical Advice Literature in Late
Nineteenth-Century America, with
Anita Clair Fellman (1981)
Antislavery Reconsidered:
New Perspectives on the Abolitionists,
co-edited with Lewis Perry (1979)
The Unbounded Frame:
Freedom and Community in Nineteenth-Century
American Utopianism (1973)
conflicting worlds
New Dimensions of the American Civil War
T. Michael Parrish, Series Editor
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v i e w s f rom
t h e da r k si de
of
a m e r ic a n
h i story
Michael Fellman
Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright © 2011 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
LSU Press Paperback Original
First printing
Designer: Michelle A. Neustrom
Typefaces: Whitman, text; Tribute, display
Printer and binder: McNaughton & Gunn, Inc.
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Fellman, Michael.
Views from the dark side of American history / Michael Fellman.
p. cm. — (Conflicting worlds : new dimensions of the American Civil War)
ISBN 978-0-8071-3902-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8071-3903-5 (pdf) — ISBN 978-0-8071-3904-2
(epub) — ISBN 978-0-8071-3905-9 (mobi) 1. Fellman, Michael. 2. Historians—United States—Biography.
3. Historiography—United States. 4. United States—Historiography. 5. United States—History—Study and
teaching (Higher) I. Title.
E175.5.F38A3 2011
907.2'02—dc22
2011006961
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production
Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. (cid:2)(cid:2)
Portions of chapter 1, “Madison Daze,” were first published in Labour/Le Travail 29 (Spring 1992): 221–27.
Reprinted with permission of Labour/Le Travail.
Portions of chapter 3, “At the Nihilist Edge: Reflections on Guerrilla Warfare during the American Civil War,”
were first published in Förster, Stig and Jorg Nagler, eds. On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and
the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Reprinted with the
permission of Cambridge University Press.
Portions of chapter 4, “Alligatormen and Cardsharpers: Deadly Southwestern Humor,” were first published
in Huntington Library Quarterly 49 (Autumn 1986): 307–23. Reprinted with permission of the Huntington
Library Press.
Portions of chapter 5, “Robert E. Lee: Man and Myth,” were first published in Wallenstein, Peter, and Bertram
Wyatt-Brown, eds. Virginia’s Civil War. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 2004. Reprinted with permission
of University of Virginia Press.
For Mike Zuckerman, Chris Phelps, and
for the memory of Bob Wiebe
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contents
Introduction | 1
1. Madison Daze | 12
2. Shadows of the Holocaust: Jewish American
Historians and the Black Slave Character | 29
3. At the Nihilist Edge: Reflections on Guerrilla
Warfare during the American Civil War | 53
4. Alligatormen and Cardsharpers: Deadly
Southwestern Humor | 88
5. Robert E. Lee: Myth and Man | 117
6. Reflections on Inside War | 136
acknowledgments | 153