It may be unfair to judge a classic by standards other than those of its own time. On the other hand, most of the social views of Charles Dickens hold up today. Those of GWTW don't.
In 1939, white Americans considered it all right for Butterfly McQueen and Hattie McDaniel to be cute though enslaved, just as it was all right for Mantan Moreland to play a stereotyped succession of railway porters and other servitors in Charlie Chan pictures; the black actor was usually required to demonstrate Comical Negro Cowardice by trembling, exhibiting saucer eyes, and speaking lines such as the famous "Feet, don't fail me now!"
My problems with the magisterial GWTW, which I love with shameless emotion despite its clear negative aspects, are two. First, it is the major film representation of the war, thus an implicit validation of its own dubious morality. Second, only one recent picture that I can recall — David L. Wolper's landmark production of Roots — comes close to matching it for popular stature and impact. Yet that enduring acclaim may be valuable as a continuing reminder of the difference between the standards of the thirties and a newer America; the difference between the myth and the truth.
Occasionally there are works of fiction — Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage, the landmark Andersonville, the wonderful The Killer Angels — that cut to the bone and expose the truth about the war. The truth that the legends of perpetual chivalry and decency at all levels, beginning to end, are false. Along with correct detail, I sought this larger sense of truth throughout the book. Whether I found it is not a judgment that is mine to make.
On the trail of accuracy, I rewalked every one of the eastern battle sites and historical parks. I had visited most before, but not all. I saw little Brandy Station on a beautiful spring day in 1982. That same week, I spent the whole of a foggy wet Saturday at Antietam. There were few present beyond those the markers and monuments conjured. It was a dark and moving day.
In passages dealing with battles and campaigns, readers may have noticed that there is little use of the names and numbers of military units. An army table of organization is always complex, but that's doubly true in the Civil War, since the armies on both sides were restructured several times to suit the ideas of the particular general in command. I believe the alpha-numerical hash of armies and corps, divisions and regiments is chiefly of interest to the specialist. When used, as it is so often, as the backbone of an account of a battle, it leaves me confused and irritated. That is why I avoided it. Nevertheless, I endeavored to put units important to the story in the right place at the right time.
A couple of other points must be mentioned to keep the record straight.
Wade Hampton did have "Iron Scouts," but the ones whose exploits are described are fictitious.
Remarks of senators taking part in the 1863 debate over H.R. 611 — the West Point appropriation bill — are excerpted from the Congressional Globe for January 15, 1863. Although my version of the content and general flow of the floor fight is accurate, the actual debate was far more windy. In transcript it runs ten pages, three columns per page, in miniature type. I have also chosen widely separated sentences from long statements by Ben Wade and other speakers and arranged these into shorter pieces of oratory. Where I've taken liberties, I have abridged the factual record, not invented a new one.
To one deliberate long step from the true path, I plead guilty. I voted against trying to duplicate what Douglas Southall Freeman rightly termed the period's "ornate conversational style." For a reason. "Even the casual conversation ... was, by present-day usage, deliberate and stiff." Billy's fellow engineering officer, Farmer, is a character meant to give a flavor of this style, but only a flavor.
The third ingredient I needed was help. Help from experts who knew the answers to specific questions. Help from individuals who assisted in areas not directly connected with research. And help from those who gave support just by being there. I want to thank them all publicly and at the same time absolve them of all responsibility for possible mishandling of any reference material they provided. Nor are they responsible for my interpretations of fact, or the story, in part or in total.
I begin with Ruth Gaul, of the Hilton Head Island Library, who patiently processed and kept track of my long list of requests for interlibrary loan materials. The secondary source books, the diaries, letter collections, monograph and training manual photo copies, maps, and other references consulted approach three hundred. There's even a slim but fascinating collection of Confederate wartime recipes, many of them food substitutes. Without Ruth and the equally helpful people at the Beaufort County and South Carolina State libraries, the research job would have been all but impossible.
I also owe much, as does every Civil War student, to The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies — the O.R., as it's commonly called. This monumental and justly famed work was begun in 1864 and completed in 1927. It runs to 128 volumes, not counting the separate atlases. I have a friend who owns one of the very few complete sets in private hands in this country. For invaluable help, I hereby thank him, though not by name, because he prefers to remain anonymous.
In Liverpool, K. J. Williams, honorable secretary of the Merseyside Confederate Navy History Society, and Cliff Thornton, curator of the Williamson Museum and Art Gallery, Birkenhead, became new friends while proving themselves expert guides to the various sites connected with the Confederacy. To Jerry, my thanks are almost inexpressible. And I shall never forget the windy summer afternoon Cliff and my wife and I received dispensation to enter a fenced patch of land on the bank of the Mersey, where we gazed down, at low tide, on some slipways Cliff himself had never seen before — perhaps the very ways where Alabama was built. No one knows exactly which ways held her, but the abandoned land is the site of Laird's in the 1860s. That is a thrill of discovery to be remembered always.
Senator Ernest Hollings and Ms. Jan Buvinger and her staff at the Charleston Public Library helped me track down a copy of the fascinating, if prolix, West Point appropriation bill debate.
My friend Jay Mundhenk, whose Civil War expertise is matched only by his skill as chef and host, solved several difficult problems about operations in northern Virginia when I was at a dead end.
Robert E. Schnare, chief, Special Collections Division of the Library at the U.S. Military Academy, was generous and helpful in matters as diverse as the daily whereabouts of the Army of the Potomac's Battalion of Engineers throughout the war and the contents of the cavalry tactics manual in use at the beginning. As with North and South, the cooperation of the West Point library has been all an author could wish for.
Arnold Graham Smith, M.D., was invaluable on medical matters. Other special questions were answered with the help of Belden Lee Daniels; Peggy Gilmer; Dr. Thomas L. Johnson, of the South Carolinians Library; Bob Merritt, of the Richmond Times-Dispatch; Donna Payne, president of the Rochester, New York, Civil War Roundtable; John E. Stanchak, editor of Civil War Times; and Dan Starer. Two of my daughters, Dr. Andrea Jakes-Schauer and Victoria Jakes Montgomery, helped with work on special topics.
In addition to the gratitude expressed to my editor in the dedication, I cannot overlook a number of other people in publishing.
Julian Muller's assistant, Joan Judge, handled quite literally reams of computer-printed manuscript with her customary efficiency and good cheer. Rose Ann Ferrick brought her speed and fine judgment to preparation of the fine typescript, which then benefited from the talents of Roberta Leighton, copy editor nonpareil.