Unhistoric History

I

Prof. James Truslow Adams in an article called “Vital Flaws in New Biographies” tells us of the great increase in recent years of biographies, estimating the daily average output of England, America, France, and Germany at six a day. Readers of one type of biography want a “scientific” interpretation of their subject; of the other, amusement and the feeding of their ego. “We know our inferiority and like every class which has felt that some other class possesses qualities of value that it lacks, we tend to defend ourselves by emphasizing our own vulgarity while throwing mud at the others. . . . .” ¹

It is to be expected that with all of the iconoclastic history and biography being written, the great men involved in the Civil War should come in for their share of abuse. It is likewise to be expected that the vilification of one set of leaders would be balanced by the exaltation of their opponents. Thus what we have is a host of books glorifying the South and debasing the North.

Moreover, there is nothing new in this. It is borne in on the crest of the recent wave of interest in biography, but the tradition is familiar. Since “Lee’s surrender,” defenses of the lost cause, strident and pathetic, have been frequent. It was natural. It is the human way out of dilemmas to rationalize. The self pity of the defeated, graduates into self justification. Having nursed his wounds, he nurses his woes; and having recovered his strength, tells the world of the wrongs he has suffered.

Today the tradition of glorifying the South gains momentum. Certain evils of modern life furnish the impulse to an easy romantic escape in dreams to a pleasanter past. Young men of the South, keen of mind, having set themselves up as “liberals,” after having learned the most advanced technique, now use that technique for the buttressing of ancient prejudices.

My purpose is to examine seven of these works; one volume of historical fiction, Quiet Cities and one volume of biographical sketches, Swords and Roses, both by Joseph Hergesheimer; four biographies, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, by Allen Tate; John Brown, by Robert Penn Warren; Abraham Lincoln, by Raymond Holden; and one volume of history, The Tragic Era by Claude G. Bowers.

I think that it is not quite as presumptuous as it seems for one not a professional historian to deal with the works of these men. In the first place, these writers are not professional historians. Joseph Hergesheimer is a novelist; Allen Tate, Robert Warren, and Raymond Holden are poets; and Claude Bowers is a journalist. In the next place these works hardly lay claim to being scholarly; each one has its measure of timeliness; each one has more than a suggestion of partisanship. For instance, Mr. Bowers is spokesman for a political party; Messrs. Tate and Warren are Southerners, schooled at Vanderbilt; Mr. Hergesheimer has long defended a thesis of Romanticism. Next, these books are aimed at the average reader, as most of the new biography and history seems to be.

The Tragic Era has received the accolade of the approval of Literary Guild, whose editors choose for average readers; the lives of Jackson, Davis, and Lincoln are abbreviated; the books by Hergesheimer were written, I understand, for the Saturday Evening Post clientele; and Mr. Warren in John Brown writes an apology for footnotes. The internal evidence would indicate that they are “journalese,” written for the day. In some there is slipshod prose; in some good writing but prejudicial appeal. Each man, however, is a writer of some parts; one or two of exceeding parts.

But though by accredited writers, consideration of these should have no place in an historical magazine except for these reasons: first, they represent a tendency in modern historical writing; second, they reach a wide audience because of certain appeals, meretricious and otherwise, and therefore exert a great influence on historical thinking.

These books seem to me, and to others better equipped to judge than I, exceedingly dangerous. They are in fundamental agreement in their glorification of the Old South and in their regret for its...