Daniel Decatur Emmett, one of the founders of minstrelsy and author of “Dixie,” was born 200 years ago today. To mark the occasion, I wrote a guest post on the awesome history blog, We’re History, about Emmett’s life and legacy. Head over there and check it out.
Dark Command. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Written by Grover Jones, Lionel Houser, F. Hugh Herbert, and Jan Fortune. Based on the novel, The Dark Command: A Kansas Iliad, by W. R. Burnett.
Release Date: April 15, 1940.
The McWhirter family is cancelling its Amazon Prime subscription, so I’m racing through a handful of Civil War movies I’d placed in my queue. The Conspirator was up first but the next few reach back further into Hollywood history. Today’s movie, Dark Command, is an interesting case because it focuses on Kansas and especially William Quantrill (which it mistakenly calls “Cantrell”). It also stars a young John Wayne and his charisma propels the film. Unfortunately, his presence also ensures this is really just a Western grafted onto a Civil War story. Read More
The Conspirator. Directed by Robert Redford. Written by James D. Solomon and Gregory Bernstein.
Release Date: April 15, 2011.
I should start this post with an admission: I avoid the Lincoln assassination like the plague. It’s not that I don’t understand its historical importance—obviously it’s a huge deal. What I mean is, I avoid the details and literature about the act itself. There seems to be a subculture obsessed with the minute details of presidential assassinations with little regard for genuine historical context, and that turns me off. Nevertheless, I’m aware there’s legitimate work being done on the subject. For instance, it’s clear I don’t know enough about the trial of the assassins, especially the controversy surrounding Mary Surratt. Thus, I approached The Conspirator with a pretty open mind and I did manage to learn a little about Surratt. Unfortunately, I also found myself doubting the script’s veracity because it’s clearly far more interested in constructing a parable for post-9/11 America than a historical drama about the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s death. Read More
Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman. Designed by Douglas Gonya.
Release Date: October 31, 1997.
There are a lot of Civil War games out there. I’ve only played a few but I spent an enormous amount of time with one of the best: Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman. When I discovered this game, I was at the height of my love affair with the epic military narrative I described in my last post, so being able to lead my forces through almost all of the war’s major engagements certainly scratched the right itch. But that’s not really what I want to talk about here, nor do I want to discuss how it possesses many of the same historical and moral problems I covered in my review of Ultimate General: Gettysburg. Revisiting CWG2 for this blog, one aspect stood out like a sore thumb: the strange way it ends. Read More
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first airing of Ken Burns’s The Civil War. My original plan was to mark the occasion with a review (or series of reviews) because I have lots of opinions on it (for instance, I both agree and disagree with Kevin Levin’s recent article). Unfortunately, I don’t have time to watch it again and it’s been too long since my last viewing for me to write a proper entry. I’ll get to that someday, but today I want to say a little about my personal relationship with the film. For me, The Civil War isn’t just any documentary–it directly inspired me to pursue American history as a career. Read More
The Better Angels. Written and directed by A. J. Edwards.
Release Date: November 7, 2014.
“The short and simple annals of the poor”; this is how Abraham Lincoln described his childhood (quoting Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”) and A. J. Edwards apparently believes him. Edwards’s debut film, The Better Angels, begins by establishing the contrast between Lincoln’s humble roots and the eventual heights he would reach–letting us hear the sound of a frontier river (probably Pigeon Creek) before presenting several imposing shots of the Lincoln Memorial. The river is a good metaphor: it is part of the rustic uncivilized world but always moving forward, just like Lincoln as he moved from rural Indiana to the pinnacle of the American social ladder. Read More
“Rebel Yell,” Billy Idol. Produced by Keith Forsey. Written by Billy Idol and Steve Stevens.
Release Date: October 24, 1982.
I recently reviewed Craig A. Warren’s The Rebel Yell: A Cultural History for The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. I liked the book and my review is largely positive, but there’s one aspect I’d like to discuss here because it pertains directly to Civil War memory in popular culture. Warren commendably incorporates “Rebel Yell,” Billy Idol’s most famous tune (with the possible exception of his cover of “Mony Mony”), into his study but I disagree with Warren’s interpretation of the lyrics. This was too small an issue to warrant a lot of attention in my review, but it seemed like good fodder for a blogpost–especially since there’s some overlap with my previous discussion of the Confederate flag. Read More
The Dukes of Hazzard, “Treasure of Hazzard,” Season 2, Episode 16. Directed by Hollingsworth Morse. Written by Gy Waldron, William Raynor, and Myles Wilder.
Release Date: January 25, 1980.
In the aftermath of the Charleston shooting, I (like everyone else) wrote a piece about the Confederate Battle Flag. In part, I argued there was a brief period in the mid-to-late 20th century when popular culture appropriated the flag as merely a symbol of rebellion and the South, ostensibly devoid of any white supremacist connotations. I highlighted The Dukes of Hazzard as one of the primary examples of this phenomenon. The show subsequently became a focal point of this ongoing debate when TV Land pulled it due to the prominent placement of the flag on the roof of the Duke brothers’ famous car, “The General Lee.” The show indirectly also made news when Ben Jones–who played Cooter and, until recently, served as the “Chief of Heritage Operations” for the Sons of Confederate Veterans–made himself one of the flag’s most vocal defenders. In the wake of these developments, I decided to watch an episode for the first time in 30 years to measure how much Civil War memory really influenced the show. The second season episode, “Treasure of Hazzard” seemed like a good place to start, since it’s apparently the only episode that directly uses the war as a plot point. Read More
Glory. Directed by Edward Zwick. Written by Kevin Jarre.
Release Date: February 16, 1990.
Glory is my favorite Civil War film, as evidenced by the image in the blog’s letterhead. I have lots of opinions on it and would love to share them with you. However, my good friend Glenn David Brasher is a first-rate historian and has a much deeper personal relationship with this film. Indeed, I believe he’s one of the most qualified people to write about it and I’m delighted to hand the blog over to him. Enjoy. Read More
Some of you thought I was too hard on Gettysburg, especially in my first post. I’ve often complained that historians judge historical films unfairly, and maybe I’ve been a little guilty of that–at least where Gettysburg‘s concerned. So, to make amends (and because I know you are all dying for even more Gettysburg content), here’s a list of things I like about the movie. Taken together, they show why I would still recommend the film, despite some of its historical problems. Read More
Civil War Pop 