Full Disclosure/Transparency

[Barrycdog]

I posted this here as it is more of an opinion question. Do you believe that everything was disclosed or listed during the war? For example, there are events that we know happened on both the US and CS sides. Some records may have been destroyed but some things may have been covered up or simply forgotten.

More examples for me include memoirs. Sherman has one version of Cassville and Hood has another. I have read instances where soldiers have corrected Wheeler and other Generals in their accounts. The O.Rs are pretty detailed but is everything there.

No matter what side you are on my experience has been that government and that is any government will deliberately withhold facts. With this in mind how can you reach for the Official Records or any account without additional sources of collaboration.

 

[ole]

I posted this here as it is more of an opinion question. Do you believe that everything was disclosed or listed during the war? For example, there are events that we know happened on both the US and CS sides. Some records may have been destroyed but some things may have been covered up or simply forgotten.

More examples for me include memoirs. Sherman has one version of Cassville and Hood has another. I have read instances where soldiers have corrected Wheeler and other Generals in their accounts. The O.Rs are pretty detailed but is everything there.

No matter what side you are on my experience has been that government and that is any government will deliberately withhold facts. With this in mind how can you reach for the Official Records or any account without additional sources of collaboration.

And there's the rub, Barry. We talk about primary sources but are those sources the real thing?

The ORs are offered as primary sources, but they are records written by primary sources who were maybe covering their butts or inflating their accomplishments. It's not just governments that deliberately withhold or embellish what actually happened.

But that's where corroboration and interpretation confuse the issue. It is always fun to read the accounts of a match-up -- one from each side. They don't often agree. And so we pick the one we like best.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Tell you what gets you running for those, both sides- especially for a beginner like me is the collections like ' Hearts '- you know, Century Magazine's compilation of memoirs they asked various leaders to please write? OH my gosh- you think you people who know your stuff become confused, try hearing accounts which make no sense according to various records from the gray and blue horse's mouth. I personally lean towards men like Porter Alexander, Oates, - men who kept their professionalism somehow intact all those years later. Hancock even finally submitted something later. Their accounts still seem to be the most clear and make the most sense- of course as such a relative beginner, have not-much to base that on.

No idea if anyone can use this massive collection for a source- it's not official but it does have battle reports written by men who ordered a lot of the action.

 

[James B White]

With this in mind how can you reach for the Official Records or any account without additional sources of collaboration.

Who does that? I can't imagine anyone but the most naive researcher assuming that one uncorroborated account must be the gospel truth.

 

[RobertP]

No matter what side you are on my experience has been that government and that is any government will deliberately withhold facts. With this in mind how can you reach for the Official Records or any account without additional sources of collaboration.

 

[brass napoleon]

Who does that? I can't imagine anyone but the most naive researcher assuming that one uncorroborated account must be the gospel truth.

Exactly. One of the big advantages we have in researching the American Civil War is the plethora of information available, from multiple sources and multiple viewpoints - and from BOTH major sides of the conflict. It would be absurd to accept just one as the gospel truth. The idea is to look at them all and try to reconcile them with each other, taking into account each source's own particular lens.

Of course we can never know everything, but we are lucky with the ACW to know so much more than we can about any earlier war (and most later wars too, for that matter).

 

[jgoodguy]

The thing about the ORs is that not only are there the General's reports but reports by lower officers, often just mundane statistics. So while a general's report may put the best face forward, the details can be used to determine what really happened.

 

[Nathanb1]

Rule of thumb for most of my professors was four corroborating sources for most stuff. The more corroboration you can find, the better. Period. One source is too likely to be a biased one. You find four that agree, you're relatively safe in arguing a point. At least you have a chance.

 

[JerseyBart]

Not only do I think that some sources don't include every deed of every event, but some sources exaggerate deeds from events because they thought they saw or heard something that may or may not have happened, for bragging purposes, sympathy or to cause undue negativity to be brought upon someone or groups.

 

[Nathanb1]

Not only do I think that some sources don't include every deed of every event, but some sources exaggerate deeds from events because they thought they saw or heard something that may or may not have happened, for bragging purposes, sympathy or to cause undue negativity to be brought upon someone or groups.

Ya think? Don't forget CYA.

 

[diane]

There is, occasionally, only one source for a certain account. For example, during the Nore mutinies in Britain during the 18th century, every captain had a problem - except Nelson. That was a fact until Nagle's journal was accidentally discovered during an estate sale in New England. Nagle had an account of - a mutiny against Commodore Nelson! Nagle was an American sailor who was impressed by the British and was all over Australia and Botany Bay and all sorts of things. The only account of this mutiny is in his journal. Well, it's been accepted because everything else in Nagle's journal checks out with numerous other sources and there happens to be a good reason for neither Nelson or the captain of the mutinous ship to report it. The captain was the admiral's son!

 

[JerseyBart]

Ya think? Don't forget CYA.

That's what I meant by not including every detail...definitely cya.

 

[JerseyBart]

Ya think? Don't forget CYA.

I was the recording secretary for a group I belong to for two years and was taught specifically how to write vaguely in the official book from my notes so that if any lawsuits came about, nothing specific was in the official book and my notes "disappeared."

 

[ForeverFree]

The Civil War Museum at Tredegar in Richmond, VA has billed itself as the one museum to tell the war from the viewpoint of white southerners, white northerners, and African Americans. Implicit in that statement is the notion that the war was experienced and interpreted differently by those three groups.

And there are even more groups than that. There is the soldier vs civilian experience; male vs female; adult vs child; upper vs middle vs lower class; politician vs non-politician; etc. It's impossible to get a comprehensive view of the Civil War without accounting for all of these experiences. Even if one's only goal is to understand the military history of the war, just looking at the OR is not enough.

No matter what side you are on my experience has been that government and that is any government will deliberately withhold facts.

This is just a pet peeve of mine: I always tell people, we need to be careful about ascribing things to "the government." The government is not some nameless, faceless machine. The government is a collection of people with certain interests. "Government" doesn't hide facts, people hide facts. To understand why or if or how the government did or did not do something, we need to look at the people in government who performed these acts, and their interests and motivation.


-Alan

 

[AndyHall]

This is just a pet peeve of mine: I always tell people, we need to be careful about ascribing things to "the government." The government is not some nameless, faceless machine. The government is a collection of people with certain interests. "Government" doesn't hide facts, people hide facts. To understand why or if or how the government did or did not do something, we need to look at the people in government who performed these acts, and their interests and motivation.

Amen.

 

[AndyHall]

As others have said, every source needs to be questioned and corroborated wherever possible. Sometimes the historian only has a single source for an incident or anecdote, and those probably should be used with caution. In crafting his or her narrative, the historian makes all sorts of judgments and assessments of sources -- which are reliable, which probably are not -- based on experience and what one knows about the topic. The other operative rule, of course, is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so the more "out there" one historical account is, the more imperative it is to find corroboration for it.

One reason that the ORs are valued highly is that the reports and dispatches in them were generally written by those who were present, almost immediately after the event, when memories are fresh and less likely to be influenced by others' recollections or accounts. These have what historians call proximity, which is invaluable for understanding what the participants themselves believed and did at the time, and how they understood the events they were a part of. That doesn't make them necessarily accurate, but it does make them extremely useful for understanding what people did and why.

 

[whitworth]

Ha, when was there ever full disclosure and transparency the part of the government concerning the Civil War. There are people who still think the Confederates won. So much for disclosure.

 

[brass napoleon]

Rule of thumb for most of my professors was four corroborating sources for most stuff. The more corroboration you can find, the better. Period. One source is too likely to be a biased one. You find four that agree, you're relatively safe in arguing a point. At least you have a chance.

Indeed. And even then, one has to be careful. The four corroborating sources might have taken their information from the original source.

 

[NedBaldwin]

Who does that? I can't imagine anyone but the most naive researcher assuming that one uncorroborated account must be the gospel truth.

James, I see it all the time from published historians.

 

[John Davison]

Tell you what gets you running for those, both sides- especially for a beginner like me is the collections like ' Hearts '- you know, Century Magazine's compilation of memoirs they asked various leaders to please write? OH my gosh- you think you people who know your stuff become confused, try hearing accounts which make no sense according to various records from the gray and blue horse's mouth. I personally lean towards men like Porter Alexander, Oates, - men who kept their professionalism somehow intact all those years later. Hancock even finally submitted something later. Their accounts still seem to be the most clear and make the most sense- of course as such a relative beginner, have not-much to base that on.

No idea if anyone can use this massive collection for a source- it's not official but it does have battle reports written by men who ordered a lot of the action.

I wonder how extensive the press corp was on each side. As I recall one of Shaara's novels was told from the point of view of a reporter or an artist. Am I totally bonkers or just slightly slipping away?