Communications

COMMUNICATIONS To the Editor of Civil War History: My attention has been drawn to the review by E. Merton Coulter of my book, The Reconstruction of Georgia [CWH, Mar., 1967]. I am indebted to him for pointing out minor errors which occur in the text and for which I accept responsibüity. At the same time, I must protest at some of the accusations made by Dr. Coulter. I did not attempt to denigrate Miss Thompson's 1915 study of Georgia. Indeed, in the introduction I paid tribute to her scholarship and research even though I could not always agree with her interpretations and conclusions. Your reviewer takes me to task for referring to the "inflammatory oratory" and "diatribes" of Benjamin H. HiU. Hül's attacks upon Georgia Radicals can hardly be termed moderate or restrained in die period before this "respectable Southern Statesman" decided to make a complete volte face and cooperate with them. I did not gloss over the shortcomings of Negroes such as A. A. Bradley. On the contrary, I was severe in my criticism of his irresponsib üity and demagoguery. I did not excuse the corruption and extravagance of Radical government in Georgia but more simply tried to put it in perspective by assessing the reasons for such corruption and extravagance. Dr. Coulter accuses me of smug judgments. No one can afford to be smug when examining Georgia in 1867—or 1967—except those completely resistant to change who consider that the emancipation of the slaves was a major disaster for Georgia. These and other criticisms in Dr. Coulter's bad-tempered review lead me to suspect that he does not like my book—a view to which he is perfecdy entitled and one which I expected. Reluctandy, I also trod on Dr. Coulter's historical toes in this book, which, incidentally, was written after a number of years of considerable thought having been given to the subject and not as he insinuates immediately after one year in Georgia. I sincerely regret that as one of the few surviving "flat-earth" historians of the reconstruction period with most of the weight of modem scholarship against him, Dr. Coulter has abandoned both elementary courtesy and objective criticism for what I can only consider to be a petty-minded tantrum of a personal nature masquerading as a scholarly review. Alan Conway University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand 281 282civil war history To the Editor of Civil War History: I have been caUed many names, and now I have Professor Conway to thank for another—a "flat earth" historian, whatever that may mean. I am glad he did not make it a "flat foot" historian. Not caring to enter into a name-calling contest, I let the matter drop by suggesting to anyone who might be sufficiently interested, to read Conway's book and then apply my review of it to determine how far from the mark I strayed. EL M. Coulter Athens, Georgia To the Editor of Civil War History: How nice that Professor Ludwell H. Johnson agrees with my basic premise about Lincoln and equal rights for Negroes! At first I didn't realize that this concord obtained. But after Professor Johnson raised his sights from the hoary target represented by his "Wadsworth letter" article, to an objective worthier of his skiU and talent, the consensus became apparent. Professor Johnson fired a first round in what became a volley of views in his "Lincoln and Equal Rights: The Authenticity of the Wadsworth Letter," Journal of Southern History, XXXII (1966), 83-87. I replied in "Lincoln and Equal Rights for Negroes: The Irrelevancy of the Wadsworth Letter,'" Civä War History, XII (1966), 258-266; and Professor Johnson has countered in "Lincoln and Equal Rights; A Reply," ibid., XIII (1967), 66-73. Happily, and despite his somewhat strident tone (see Professor Johnson 's "Reply," 67, fn. 3) of a sort that I forbid pre-doctoral students to employ even in the privacy of seminars, his conclusion is that the "Wadsworth letter" is irrelevant after aU, that Lincoln was "a sincere man of sincere principles, but those principles changed with the political circumstances surrounding him," (ibid., 72) Agreed. Further...