Book Review: War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War
War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War. By Yael A. Sternhell. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023. Hardcover, 271 pp. $38.00.
Reviewed by Kevin C. Donovan
The author’s subject matter—an archive—may seem dry and one-dimensional at first glance, but Professor Yael A. Sternhell has produced a multi-faceted gem with her recently published War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War.
Using a host of primary sources, including from within the archive itself—“the archive of the archive” (10)—Dr. Sternhell shows that, for decades after the Civil War that conflict’s amassed record never was static, in nature or use, nor in how the archive was perceived by its several audiences. Thus, ex-rebels initially hated the archive for how it was used against them but embraced it once they learned how to manipulate it to further their own interests. The archive initially was a source of disappointment to the U.S. government, until it realized that the contents could save it money. And above all, veterans both North and South cooperated to transform the archive into the most famous historical work born of the War—The Official Records (also known as the OR).[1] Sternhell narrates how the archive followed a crooked path before being shaped into the primary highway now traveled by historians to understand almost any facet of the Civil War. But she also explains how that highway is in critical ways—like all archives—“fundamentally deceptive” (2) because, while it consists of supposedly objective records, people built what became the archival record based on their own biases and interests.
Dr. Sternhell first describes how the initial archive was created, including the efforts of victorious U.S. forces to locate Confederate papers. Those papers starred in the “revenge” phase of the archive’s life, when they were scoured (unsuccessfully) for evidence of Confederate complicity in Lincoln’s assassination or other war crimes.
Later the government realized that the archives were a rich source of evidence against claimants for government compensation, pensions or jobs who could be shown to have in some way supported the Confederacy. Suddenly, the government became motivated to spend money to acquire more records, not for historical study, but to save millions by defeating claims.
Suffice it to say, ex-Confederates resented “their” archive being used against them. They turned to creating their own archive to use in justifying their cause, efforts spearheaded by the Southern Historical Society. Dr. Sternhell describes how archival-based bitterness greatly hampered the initial efforts by the War Department to produce what became the Official Records.
The process by which the ORs came to be occupies much of War on Record. The author explores how Northern veterans championed the archival process and helped drive what the OR would contain. Veterans demanded that the government share its war records so that they could write their memoirs and produce books championing their units’ service as well as settle debates about wartime controversies. Battle records thus became a prime focus of the OR.
Dr. Sternhell introduces historically unfamiliar but key actors in the OR process, including Robert N. Scott, head of the War Records Office from 1878-1887 who, “more than anyone else, shaped the contours of the compilation that has underpinned historical knowledge of the Civil War ever since” (126). Under Scott, the OR’s first series focused on battles, but also devoted a series to prisoner of war issues. The author observes that records of POW issues ultimately comprised a surprisingly large section of the OR, possibly because Leslie J. Perry, the man in charge of that part of the project had himself been a POW. Scott also decided what was an “official” record and guided what was to be considered historically important. His rules resulted in the exclusion of entire categories of records, including those reflecting civilian-government interactions (silencing many female voices), Native American issues, and possibly incidents that reflected poorly on the Union war effort. African American voices were stifled, because despite the tens of thousands who served, their white officers wrote the reports. Dr. Sternhell’s point is that the archival process was driven by people who had their own ideas of what mattered, and their biases created what we now consider the “official” record of the War.
One of Dr. Sternhell’s most interesting conclusions is that the OR creation process contributed mightily to sectional reconciliation. The War Department needed Confederate records to make its compilation as complete as possible. Many important records were in the hands of ex-Confederates, who refused to share such without securing concessions. Ultimately, the government bent. Ex-rebels received coveted access to the archive (including, amazingly, that stereotypical unreconstructed rebel, Jubal Early). Key Confederate record holders, including Jefferson Davis, could decide what to conceal from the record, allowing them to shape the published message. Former Confederates were even hired to smooth the record collection process. Consequently, years before the much more public North-South veterans’ reunions and other illustrations of reconciliation, archival-based cooperation developed into enthusiastic and even warm partnerships. Indeed, in the introduction to the final OR volume, Secretary of War Elihu Root singled out Jefferson and Varina Davis for particular gratitude in providing “archives of the greatest historical value” (206).
Dr. Sternhell tells an original and fascinating story of the archive’s history and how part of it became the remarkable research tool known so well today. But the author also reminds the reader not to be fooled into thinking that what we might think of as the “child” of the archive—the Official Records—did not have multiple parents who each had their own notions of how they wanted that child to turn out.
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[1] The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of The Official Records of The Union and Confederate Armies 128 vols., U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1880 – 1901.
Kevin C. Donovan, Esq., a retired lawyer, now focuses on Civil War research and writing, including on law-related topics such as “How the Civil War Continues to Affect the Law,” published in Litigation, The Journal of the Section of Litigation, of the American Bar Association. His inaugural ECW blog publication, “A Tale of Two Tombstones,” appeared December 9, 2022 and was ECW’s most popular post of the year on social media.
See Chris Mackowski’s “Emerging Civil War Podcast” interview with Dr. Sternhell on the ECW YouTube page:
I imagine this work is similar to Dr. Faust’s “This Republic of Suffering,” a fascinating read of how the country dealt with the massive death or the War. Here is another aftermath study, a 128 volume source almost unique in history of armed conflict to that time. I suppose that “Battles and Leaders” would require it’s own examination.
We are fortunate indeed that we kept voluminous records during a mid-19th century war, as many societies, even to this day, do not bother to keep records, be they social, financial, military; or if they do at the time, they often fail to archive them. It is a bit jarring, though, to read in a review claims such as “…ex-rebels initially hated the archive for how it was used against them but embraced it once they learned how to manipulate it to further their own interests.” Ah, once again, the Snidely Whiplash villains of the South got up to evil with something as dry as old reports and records, while the Dudley Dorights of the North were pure and honorable in both intent and action, during and after the war. Odd…no mention is made of how, for just two examples, Grant and Sherman lied in their After Action reports on Shiloh and the Chattanooga Campaign, and how they – and other Federal officers – used the Official Records to further post-war careers in business and politics. Further to this, there was a many a post-war lawsuit brought by current or retired Federal officers hoping to use the Records to clear their names after being accused of cowardice or incompetence in battle. Apparently, the dishonesty and manipulation was not restricted to one side. And gosh – not a single former Confederate brought a single lawsuit concerning the libel and slander heaped on them following the war.
Interesting that the good doctor, a professor of history, describes the work of all archivists as “fundamentally deceptive” … the creation of history is social process involving people — historical actors, archivists, and historians — who exercise power as they determine the facts of the matter and produce the narrative of those facts … so, some historical sources will be included, others will not … archivists will decide which materials to preserve for posterity and which materials will be discarded … and the historian decides which facts to include in the narrative and which facts to omit … at each crucial moment in the process, every inclusion may imply an omission … that’s not deception, it’s just the way a process that involves people works … one wonders what inclusions and omissions the author made in creating her narrative.