MULLIGAN - The Treatment of A Historical Source

Wesleyan University
The Treatment of an Historical Source Author(s): John D. Milligan Source: History and Theory, Vol. 18, No. 2 (May, 1979), pp. 177-196 Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504755 . Accessed: 04/04/2013 10:20
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THE TREATMENT
OF AN HISTORICAL
SOURCE
JOHN D. MILLIGAN
Every historian knows the special excitement that is derived form perusing the documents, the primary sources that are the basic, if incomplete and imperfect, evidence from which he seeks to re-create the past. Yet, immersion in the sources can sometimes present the scholar with a dilemma. On the one hand, manuscripts evidently written by persons long dead exude a sacrosanctity which may make the historian reluctant to question the veracity of their contents, let alone the authenticity of the manuscripts themselves. Yet things can inhibit the historian's giving credence to the substance of the documents, notwithstanding their apparent venerability. If other scholars have already plumbed aspects of the historical subject to which the particular documents refer and have arrived at conclusions seemingly at odds with the testimony presented in those documents, the researcher may hesitate to accept the new evidence at face value. Some time past, in the course of my research, I came across a manuscript letter which posed rather precisely the problem of the hallowed document versus the accepted historical conclusion. The letter contained charges against several of its writer's contemporaries, men whom historians have elevated to considerable prominence in the chronicles of American military and naval affairs. Indeed, the charges were so sensational, so directly contradictory to established historical opinion, that my first impulse was to dismiss them out of hand. Perhaps it was a reverence for manuscripts which gave me pause; or perhaps it was a caution I had once read in a classic work by Marc Bloch. The student of the past, Bloch wrote, must forever be on the lookout for evidence which, though it may not correspond to expectation, may still be valid in some respects. Otherwise, historians would never uncover new and surprising facts. One "could make a long list of facts which scholarly routine first denied because they were surprising."'
1. Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft, transl. Peter Putnam (New York, 1953), 120-121. Another French historian has similarly warned that if the historian "allows himself to be too readily influenced by established tradition, he runs the risk of seeing the past through the spectacles of others." See Henri-Iren&e Marrou, The Meaning of History, transl. Robert J. Olsen (Baltimore, Md., 1966), 78.
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Dated February 28, 1863, the letter in question was apparently written during the American Civil War by a Federal officer near Vicksburg, Mississippi. On the day designated, that Confederate-held stronghold on the Mississippi River was being besieged by Northern troops commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant and his chief lieutenant, General William T. Sherman, and by Northern naval units commanded by Admiral David D. Porter. The letter's accusatory sentences are brief and to the point. I was over to see Portertoday. Found Grantand Shermanwith him. They are all traitors. I heard Grant say myself that the Governmentat Washington must be
overthrown - the North revolutionized - etc. but that it was not yet quite time. Porter said his interests were all with the South - that his best friend was Jeff Davis etc. What are we coming to?2
Now, of course, anyone who is at all familiar with the events of the period knows that no military coup d'etat occurred within the North, nor have students of the Civil War uncovered any evidence of an attempted coup. Yet, alerted by Bloch, might one not still ask the question: Is it possible that these officers discussed, however briefly, the desirability or possibility of executing a coup? It was in the hope of answering this query that I put the document to the several tests suggested by the experts. Interestingly, even surprisingly, when subjected to analysis, the letter does meet certain of the accepted criteria of historical criticism. A document must first of all measure up to the standards of what the authorities call external criticism. Here the researcher asks the question put by Lester Stephens: "Is the source authentic?" To answer this question, he looks at the document from the perspective which G. J. Renier calls the "outside." Rather than immediately concerning himself with the ideas "inside" the document, he first wants to know when, where and by whom the document was written. "Lacking this information," warns Edward Hulme, "we cannot be sure of the worth of a document." If the document itself does not provide some or any of this information, the historian, using prescribed methods, must seek to provide it. If, however, as is the case with the document under scrutiny, the date, place, and name of the author are all given, then the job of the external analyst becomes one of establishing the authenticity of this information. According to Arthur Marwick, the historian must determine that the document was written at the time it says it was, at the place it says it was, and by the person it says it was. In short, he engages in a negative exercise described by Renier "as making sure that the alleged trace [document] is not a fake or a forgery." This exercise may call upon a classicist or medievalist to be an expert in a number of esoteric arts, but it demands less of the Americanist because of the relative modernity of his subject. Thus, as V. H. Galbraith has with
2. Charles R. Ellet to Alfred W. Ellet, February 28, 1863, Ellet Family Papers (Transportation Library, University of Michigan).
THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE
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only slight exaggeration remarked about the application of one of these arts: "For the historian working in any period later than the sixteenth century, the study of paleography involves little more than a certain low cunningquickly gained by practice - in deciphering bad writing."3 In truth, of course, there is something more to the exercise of distinguishing a fraud, even a recent one, from the genuine article than Galbraith's remark implies. The historian who would determine the genuineness of a comparatively recent document can frequently apply "an argument from multiplicity." If the particular document is filed with other documents apparently written by the same person, then, writes Renier, each document, including the questionable one, "is vouched for by all similar documents preserved with it. . . . As the number of documents of the same nature grows, so does the probability that each of them is authentic." In other words, the hypothesis that the letters are authentic is more credible than the hypothesis that a conspiracy led to the forging of the whole series of letters and the placing of them in the archive. To be certain that his special document comports with the others in the series, John Vincent advises the investigator to be "thoroughly saturated" with the personal language, manner of expression and writing habits of the ascribed author as they are manifested in the series as a whole.4 This familiarity will not only enable him to check the authenticity of the author of the document but of its date and place of record. Thus if the series of documents provides information about when and where the author was, and if that information is congruent with the time and location provided in the document being studied, the researcher can also assume the probable authenticity of these details. The letter which accuses Grant, Sherman, and Porter of treason, when submitted to external criticism, passes inspection. First of all, it reposes with scores of other communications apparently written by the same author and held by the Transportation Library of the University of Michigan, to which institution they were bequeathed along with the whole of the writer's family papers by a relative of the writer. Thus the document is, in Louis Gottschalk's phrasing, "where it ought to be," and where it can be compared with other documents by the same author. This comparison establishes that its form of presentation - its "diction, style, versification, [and]
3. Lester D. Stephens, Probing the Past: A Guide to the Study and Teaching qf History (Boston, 1974), 37; G. J. Reiner, History. Its Purpose and Method (London, 1950), 162, 109-110; Edward Maslin Hulme, History and Its Neighbors (New York, 1942), 55; Arthur Marwick, The Nature of History (London, 1970), 136-137; V. H. Galbraith, An Introduction to the Studv of History (London, 1964), 22. The first use of the terms "external criticism" and, as treated below, "internal criticism" is usually credited to the German historian, Ernst Bernheim. See his Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (Leipzig, 1889). 4. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method, 110, 162-163; John Martin Vincent, Historical Research: An Outline of Theory and Practice (New York, 1911), 103.
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handwriting," to cite Gilbert Garraghan's criteria - is consistent with that used by the author. So the rule of there being safety in numbers would here seem to apply. Further, the author's correspondence reveals that he was near Vicksburg on February 28, 1863, the place and the day the accusatory letter was dated. In fine, there seems to be no reason to doubt that the apparent origin of the letter, respecting who, where, and when, is its true origin. It should be added that the determination of the authenticity of a document in the file of a library or archive is not, of course, the sole responsibility of the historian. Allan Nevins has noted that custodians of such repositories "usually take every precaution to exclude spurious documents. "5 There still remains a final step in the process of criticizing the external characteristics of an historical source: "is it," asks Allen Johnson, "an original or a secondary source of information?" Does the source express ideas that originated with its author or ideas that he derived from what Garraghan labels "pre-existing material," that is, another source or sources?6 This question might in other circumstances require considerable attention, but in the case under consideration it would seem to have already been answered. Since no period in American history has been studied more closely than that of the Civil War, and since no students of the period have reported other sources (nor have any come to hand) that in any sense duplicate the charges contained in the present document, the historian can probably assume that they are peculiar to that document and not derivative. In truth, since the author of the document claimed that he was an eyewitness to the event and heard the traitorous pronouncements with his own ears, the question really becomes whether the man was actually an eyewitness or whether he derived his ideas from someone else who was an eyewitness. This question will be considered below as part of the process of internal criticism. To the extent, then, that external criticism can determine genuineness, the document under inspection is in all probability authentic. Significant in this context is the word probability. In analyzing historical documents there is no absolute certainty. In each step of the procedure thus far examined and still to be examined, "the judgment," in the dictum of the authors
5. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method (2nd ed., New Yoik, 1969), 123; Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method, ed. Jean Delanglez (New York, 1946), 177; Allan Nevins, The Gateway to History (rev. ed., New York, 1962), 140. 6. Allen Johnson, The Historian and Historical Evidence (New York, 1926), 61; Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method, 168. Garraghan (p. 206) explains the process of analysis: "When two or more sources (witnesses) report the same fact or series of facts in the same way, the sources are mutually related. If the sources are two in number, one is derived from the other, or both are derived in common from a third. If the sources are more than two, various relationships of dependence may exist between [sic] them."
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of the volume edited by Robert Shafer, "is one of varying degrees of probability - probably true, probably accurate, probably untrue, probably inaccurate."7 So the investigator has convinced himself of the probable authenticity of the Civil War letter; he must next address himself to the probable credibility of its content. "Is it reliable?" is Stephens' question. W. H. Walsh observes that the historian now "has to decide whether or not to believe it [the document], or again how much of it to believe"; because, as the Shafer volume warns, authenticity is not a measure of credibility. An authenticated document "may lie or mislead, intentionally or unintentionally." To probe this possibility, say Norman Cantor and Richard Schneider, the source "must be explained and analyzed in terms of validity, accuracy, and point of view." Benedetto Croce explains the problem in more detail. Though there is a tendency to assume that simply because the authenticated document "has been written down it answers to the truth," this assumption, he writes, may turnout to be false in fact, owing to the note having been made in a momentof distractionor of hallucination,or too late, when the memoryof the fact was already imprecise and lacking in certainty, or because it was capriciously made or made with the object of deceiving others. But just for this reason, writtenevidence is not usually accepted with closed eyes; its verisimilitudeis examinedand we confrontit with other written evidence, we investigate the probity and accuracy of the writer or witness.8 The "other written evidence" to which Croce refers is subsumed under those standards that the researcher applies to determine the credibility of a document and which, taken together, authorities call internal criticism. The process of internal criticism, as contrasted with external, looks at the document, in Renier's word, from the "inside." Further, Renier points out, whereas external criticism applies an argument from multiplicity, internal criticism "is individual in its method." The credibility of each document "has to be assessed on its own merit."9 Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos have suggested that the historian begin his internal analysis by asking, what exactly do the words in the document mean? This may seem an elementary question, but the investigator must take care not to read into the written statement more than its maker intended to say. To guard against this eventuality, Langlois and Seignobos advise the critic to divide the question into two parts. First he
7. A Guide to Historical Method, ed. Robert Jones Shafer (rev. ed., Homewood, Ill., 1974),41.
8. Stephens, Probing the Past, 37; W. H. Walsh, An Introduction to Philosophy of History
(3rd ed., Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1976), 20; Shafer, Guide, 141; Norman F. Cantor and RichardI. Schneider,How to Study History (New York, 1967), 33; Benedetto Croce, History, Its Theory and Practice, transl. Douglas Anslie (New York, 1921), 137. 9. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method, 162-163.
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should ask, what does the statement say, literally? Here the statement being investigated would seem to contain little or no ambiguity. It accuses of contemplating treasonable acts two men who would later become the North's most successful generals, and a third, who would become its second most successful admiral. It specifically attributes to Grant the statement that, though the time was not yet propitious, the government in Washington had to be overthrown. Further, in remarking on Porter's stated sympathies for the South, it implies that in such a revolution the objective of the admiral, at least, would have been to aid the Confederacy. The second part of the question that Langlois and Seignobos would have the historian ask of the document to clarify its sense is, what is its real meaning? As Homer Hockett points out, "there is often a difference between the literal and real meanings." The reader will recognize that the experts are not yet concerned with whether or not the statement in the document is true but rather whether, in Hockett's words, it "is intended to be taken literally or in an oblique sense." 1Hulmeexplains: "Sometimes the real meaning of a writer is expressed in jest, sarcasm, or allegory."' 0 Here again the wording of the statement is so explicit, that it is difficult to conceive of its maker intending it in anything but the most literal sense. Moreover, as the reader will learn below, its maker was a most direct person, not given to ambiguity or obliquity, nor to jokes, irony, or fables to make a point. Convinced of what the document means and that its author meant what he wrote, the historian must get down to the business of determining its credibility. The authorities suggest several ways to approach the problem. Hockett writes, for example, that "the critic must inquire whether a statement under scrutiny is based on the observation of the maker or someone else." As noted above, the writer of the letter apparently did not obtain his ideas from other written sources. Now the question becomes, did he obtain them by actually witnessing the events he described or was he merely passing on hearsay? Respecting this point, there seems scant reason to doubt that the witness was actually present at a meeting with Grant, Sherman, and Porter. To be sure, warns Hockett, the scholar must be chary of the self-proclaimed witness who "betrays vanity, by habitual ascription to himself of a conspicuous share in important actions or events, [or an] intimacy with prominent personages."' 1 Thorough research indicates, however, that, as a full colonel who headed what was in effect a separate, if not independent, command, the witness frequently consulted with the
10. Ch[arles] V. Langlois and Ch[arles] Seignobos, Introduction to the Study of History, transl. G. G. Berry (New York, 1925), 145-146; Homer Carey Hockett, The Critical Method in Historical Research and Writing (rev. ed., New York, 1955), 43; Hulme, History and Its Neighbors, 71. 11. Hockett, The Critical Method in Historical Research and Writing, 50, 58.
THE
TREATMENT
OF AN
HISTORICAL
SOURCE
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admiral and at times with the two generals. In fact, the colonel had only just returned from an expedition which he had undertaken with the admiral's approval. A close inspection of the records also reveals that all four officers were in the vicinity of Vicksburg on or about February 28, and hence had the opportunity to confer.12 The man's rank and authority would also seem to answer, if only in part, another question that the historian addresses to his witness. Even supposing "the witness was in a position to know what he was talking about," did he, ask Oscar Handlin and his associates, have "the skill and competence to observe accurately"?"3 The credentials of the witness in this instance seem to warrant that he at least be given a respectful hearing. If the witness were close to the event in space, it is also important, note Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff, that his testimony about what he saw and heard be given close to it in time. To be sure, as Daniel Aaron notes, "no writer enjoys total recall . . . every recollection is suspect." Nevertheless, the freshness of testimony is important for two reasons. Gottschalk explains the first. "There are three steps in historical testimony: observation, recollection, and recording. . . . At each of these steps something of the possible testimony may be lost." In a word, other things being equal, the sooner the witness transcribes his recollections, the greater is likely to be their veracity. A second reason for suspecting belatedly recorded testimony is aptly if sardonically stated by Aaron, himself. [W]hata person was or did or thoughtthirtyyears ago is past and dead, even if that person is technically alive. The living relic is his own ancestor; and feeling a deep familialpiety for his defunct historical self, he indulges in ancestor worship, tidies disordersof his dead past, reverentlyconceals his own skeleton in up embarrassing a hidden closet.14
12. These statements are based on my research for John D. Milligan, Gunboats Down the Mississippi (Annapolis, Md., 1965); and on Charles R. Ellet to Alfred W. Ellet, February 28, 1863, Ellet Papers; David D. Porter to Gideon Welles, February 28, 1863, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons: Mississippi, 18611865 (National Archives, Record Group 45, hereafter cited as Mississippi Squadron Letters); Ulysses S. Grant to Henry W. Halleck, February 18 and March 1, 1863, and Special Orders of U. S. Grant, March 1, 1863, U. S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 130 vols. (Washington, 1880-1901), Series I, Vol. XXIV, Part I, 18, and Vol. LII, Part I, 337 (hereafter cited as O.R.A.); and William T. Sherman, February 26, 1863, Home Letters of General Sherman, ed. M. A. DeWolfe Howe (New York, 1909), 239-242. 13. Oscar Handlin et al., Harvard Guide to American History (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), 24. 14. Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher (3rd ed., New York, 1977), 128; Daniel Aaron, "The Treachery of Recollection: the Inner and the Outer History" in Essays oil History and Literature, ed. Robert H. Bremner ([Columbus] 1966). 10, 18; Gottschalk, Understanding History, 151. Though Aaron is referring specifically to oral testimony given long after the event testified about, obviously written testimony belatedly given raises similar problems of fidelity of memory.
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When the questionable document is put to the test of the proximity of its testimony to the event testified to, it bears up well; the event described was witnessed, recalled, and recorded all on the same day, Febraury 28, 1863. Another criterion which the historian applies in his investigation of the reliability of a document inquires for whom was the testimony of the witness intended? Clearly, it makes a difference. Marwick believes "that a primary source is most valuable when the purpose for which it was compiled is at the furthest remove from the purpose of the historian," that is, when the primary source was not compiled for posterity. In the same spirit, Hockett advises researchers to be wary of testimony "colored by the desire to please hearers or readers." A statement made to advance one's interests or to win public approbation or to secure one's niche in history would have less credibility than a statement made privately to a close associate or relative. Gottschalk puts the matter this way: "Because the effort, on the one hand, to palliate the truth or, on the other, to decorate it with literary, rhetorical, or dramatic flourishes tends to increase as the expected audience increases, in general the fewer the number for whose eyes the document was meant (i.e., the greater its confidential nature), the more 'naked' its contents are likely to be."15 In this connection, the testimony being evaluated once again appears to have substance. It was given in a personal letter to an uncle with whom the writer was on intimate and affectionate terms. To this point the historical source has apparently passed inspection. Its authenticity, date, and place of inception appear valid. Its meaning seems unmistakable. The individual whose testimony it presents evidently was an actual witness to the event he sought to describe, had sufficient experience to observe accurately, recorded his recollections immediately subsequent to the event, and meant them solely for the eyes of a person whom he would seem to have had no reason to deceive. All well and good; and yet by now the reader is undoubtedly aware that, while I have ostensibly played the part of detective, carefully and objectively assaying the evidence, I have in fact worn "the mantle of Guardian," have presented in defense of the proclaimed witness to the historical event a lawyer's brief which reveals only that evidence that supports the credibility of his testimony. Now, of course, the reader knows not only that no military coup occurred or was attempted in the Civil War North; if he be a student of the period, he must also know that the particular charges contained in the document under study are not corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses. As a matter of fact, this point was admitted when it was argued
15. Marwick, The Nature of History, 136; Hockett, The Critical Method in Historical Research and Writing, 58; Gottschalkj Understanding History, 90.
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that the ideas in the testimony were original to the document. And this admission could be telling. "[I]n most instances," Nevins emphasizes, "guilt cannot be hcJd conclusively established save by corroborativeevidence from at least one independent source." In the present case, the historianis left with a single witness; and the testimony of a single witness, warns Nevins, is "the most difficultform of evidence to test," because the witness "may be affected by a hundred forms of personal bias." This, however, does not mean, Barzun and Graff stress, that a single witness cannot "be quite accurate"; and, as a devotee of the truth, the reader may perhaps admit that the brief drawn above, as obviously one-sided as it is, does raise some questions that merit answers.16 Before considering the case against the witness, the reader might also wish to ask himself, what if the evidence thus far presented were all that had survived? At Gottschalk writes, "only a part of what was observed in the past was rememberedby those who observed it; only a part of what was rememberedwas recorded; [and]only a part of what was recordedhas survived."17This truth presents an especially thorny problem for the historian of ancient or medieval times, in which eras fewer people were literate and from which eras fewer documents survive; but it can also on occasion pose difficulty for the historian of more recent times. Suppose for a moment that the accusatory document provided the only source of informationabout its author, because it was the only item by or about him that had survived. The scholar, in that case, would have no direct evidence by which to weigh the author's credibility. And suppose that the surviving documentsby and about the accused men were not sufficientlyinformative to exonerate them from the charges. Might not historians in that situation be justified in speculatingthat certain high-rankingFederal officers may at least have discussed the possibility of carryingout a revolution? Happily, of course, since all kinds of evidence about both accuser and accused have survived from the period of the Civil War, the historiancan in this instance test the credibility of the single witness by additional means. Indeed, historians through surviving documents have studied the three accused officers so thoroughly, have written in such detail about the impulses which drove them, the objectives which beckoned them and the events which informedtheir lives, that, unless the testimony against them were unimpeachable, there would be no justification for probing and evaluatingagain their biographicalsources.18Withoutfurtherequivocating,
16. Nevins, The Gateway to History, 196, 214; Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, 128. The term "the mantle of Guardian"is Robin Winks's. See The Historianas Detective: Essays on Evidence, ed. Robin W. Winks (New York, 1969), 177. 17. Gottschalk, Understanding History, 45.
18. For listings of biographical works on Grant, Sherman,and Portersee the comprehensive bibliography in J. G. Randalland David Donald, The Civil Warand Reconstruction(rev. ed., Boston, 1969).
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MILLIGAN
therefore, let it be stated that the testimony of the accuser can be discredited to the point that no further investigation into the lives of the accused seems warranted. This is not to say that the document which makes the charges is a forgery; it has, after all. withstood the tests of external criticism. Nor is it to say that the witness's testimony was an intentional lie; it has, after all, withstood certain of the tests of internal criticism; and no evidence has been uncovered to suggest that the witness purposely sought to deceive. It is rather to say that by completing the process of internal criticism, the historian can cast so much doubt upon the ability of the witness to tell the truth about the particular conference in question that his testimony can safely be characterized as unreliable. The difficulty, writes Sir Charles Oman, is often one "in which the author [witness] is not intentionally falsifying the progress of events, but practically doing so, owing to bad information, personal bias, or sometimes mere stupidity." J. A. Passmore puts the matter even more pointedly when he observes that it is the endless ability of men to deceive themselves "rather than the risk of lying, [that] is the principal reason for regarding their testimony with suspicion. ' 19 If the reader now knows that the witness was the culprit, that is, knows the solution to the game of detective being played by the historian, he may still discover that the final moves by which the researcher arrived at the solution have a certain interest of their own. Beyond recognizing that the evidence thus far presented is favorable to the witness, the reader may have also noted that it is for the most part circumstantial in nature. It implies mainly from attendant spatial and temporal circumstances that the witness was present at the event, was competent to observe it, and recorded his recollections of it under conditions favorable to credibility. Apart from the fact that he was a colonel in command, however, the reader knows almost nothing about the witness himself. If he knows that spatial and temporal circumstances were generally conducive to the witness's reporting accurately, he does not know that psychological and emotional circumstances were conducive to it. As the critic studies his witness, Gottschalk and the contributors to the Shafer volume advise him to concentrate on whether the witness was able to tell the truth. The latter writers divide the question of the witness's ability to tell the truth into (1) his "Social ability [which] . . . concerns the familiarity of the witness with the subject matter, and his willingness [without inhibition or prejudice] to observe to the best of his ability," and (2) his "Physical ability [which] . . . includes the condition of the witness, and
19. Sir Charles Oman, On the Writing of History (London, 1939), 28; J. A. Passmore, "The Objectivity of History" in Philosophical Analysis and History, ed. William H. Dray (New York, 1966), 79.
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external conditions that affect his observational powers."20 Concerning the social ability of the witness to tell the truth, it has been established that he was a colonel exercising command responsibility, and this information is doubtless important; but it may be even more important to know that at the time he made his accusations his total military experience spanned exactly nine months and that he was nineteen years old, surely one of the youngest colonels in the Union Army. Specifically, the young officer, who charged Grant, Sherman, and Porter with treason, was Charles Rivers Ellet, commander of the Mississippi Ram Fleet. That a youth with so little experience had attained such high rank and heavy responsibility is partly explained by the fact that the amazingly rapid expansion of the armed forces during the Civil War resulted in many young men attaining rank and responsibility. Still, the phenomenal advancement of this particular young man was not typical even of those times; before being promoted colonel, the only rank Ellet had held had been the lowly one of medical cadet and assistant to an army surgeon. A second and more important factor explains his sudden elevation and bears directly on the credibility of his later testimony. The ram fleet which he commanded was originally the brainchild of his father, the well-known civil engineer, Charles Ellet, Jr. Long an advocate of resurrecting the tactic of ramming in naval warfare, when the USS Merrimac (alias CSS Virginia) rammed and sank a United States sloop-of-war in Hampton Roads, Virginia, the elder Ellet had persuaded the War Department, which controlled Federal naval operations on the inland rivers, to send him into the Mississippi Valley. His mission was to convert river steamers into rams to cooperate with Union gunboats already operating against the Confederate River Defense Fleet. The engineer not only created a ram fleet; as its first commander he secured a colonel's commission and gathered about him a daring band of boats' crews and marines, among whom were a number of his relatives, including three nephews; his younger brother, Alfred, who transferred from the infantry to accept the rank of lieutenant colonel and the position of second in command of the rams; and his only son, Charles Rivers, who left his medical studies in Washington, D. C. to enter the service as apprentice to the fleet surgeon.21 In a sense, the older Ellet made the ram fleet into a family enterprise, a circumstance which was to have a profound effect upon his son. The Ellet
20. Gottschalk, Understanding History, 150-155; Shafer, Guide, 145-146. 21. For information on the Ellets see the Ellet Papers; U. S. Navy Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 30 vols. (Washington, 1894-1914), Series I, Vols. XXIII and XXIV (hereafter cited as O.R.N.); G. D. Lewis, Charles Ellet, Jr.: The Engineer as Individualist, 1810-1862 (Urbana, Ill., 1968); "Charles Rivers Ellet" in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1897), IV, 360-361; and John D. Milligan, ' Charles Ellet, Naval Architect: A Study in NineteenthCentury Professionalism," The American Neptune 31 (1971), 52-72.
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family, itself, personified the stereotypic nineteenth-century clan. Charles, Jr., a genuinely self-made man, was the patriarch not merely of his immediate family but of his brothers' families, too; and, having shaped the ram fleet, he proceeded to preside over it and its personnel just as he did his extended family. All looked to him, until he was struck down. On June 1, 1862, his nineteenth birthday, Charles Rivers joined the fleet. Five days later, his father was mortally wounded while leading two of his rams in battle. The command passed to the boy's Uncle Alfred, who gave his nephew charge of a ram. In the autumn, when his uncle was promoted to brigadier general and sent north to recruit a special counter-guerrilla marine brigade, young Ellet, who in his short military career had served with daring and imagination, was made colonel and succeeded to the command of the ram fleet. So it was that this youth of undoubted courage but limited experience, taking as it were the helm fashioned by his father's hand and with it the obligation to continue the family enterprise and to protect its reputation, commanded for a time the organization which embodied both the obligation and the reputation. He hoped, he had written to his sister just before receiving his colonel's eagles, to "crown my father's head with the laurels which are his due.'22 As if this responsibility were not enough, the new colonel was burdened with the fear that his trust was threatened, not simply by the enemy but by the very Federal officers with whom he was expected to cooperate. The Northern squadron of wooden and ironclad gunboats, which had been operating on the interior waters when his father had brought his rams into action, was like the ram fleet administered by the War Department; but, whereas the rams were commanded by recently commissioned army officers without military education, the gunboats were for the most part commanded by professional naval officers. The existence of these two independent water-borne organizations was obviously not calculated to allay jealousy and friction; and, in fact, while they had directed ram operations, the elder Ellets seemed intentionally to encourage the rivalry. In mid-summer the gunboats were officially transferred to Navy Department jurisdiction, but because of a technicality -- the rams were not defined as gunboats - the Ellet flotilla remained under War Department auspices, and the rivalry continued, only in exacerbated form. Writing in his diary, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles later correctly assessed the situation: "there cannot be two distinct commands on the river, under different orders from different Departments without endangering collision.' '23 The October succession of Admiral Porter to the command of the gun22. C. R. Ellet to Mary Ellet, November 4, 1862, Ellet Papers. 23. Entry (or November 4, 1862, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, ed. Howard K. Beale, 3 vols. (New York, 1960), I, 180.
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boat squadronhad done nothing to span the breech. Believing with reason that all naval operations should be under one director, he put pressure on the Navy Departmentto have the rams transferredto his command. In the meantime, it was at his suggestion, he later claimed, that the troublesome Alfred Ellet was sent off to recruit. Perhaps Porterassumed young Charles Rivers would be more tractable; if so, he was wrong. With his model a father who had pursued his ambitions relentlessly, and defined his rights broadlyand guardedthem zealously, the new chief of the ram fleet was no
less suspicious of the motives of the professionals than had been its two
former commanders. He gave himself over to paroxysms of anxiety that the navy, and Porter especially, were plotting to rob him and his charge of their independence.24 Letters from his uncle did much to fuel his suspicions that a conspiracy was afoot. Called to Washingtonto consult with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton about the special marine brigade he was to raise, General Ellet kept Charles apprised of the contest going on between War and Navy Department officials as to who should control the ram fleet and, once it was operational, the marine brigade. In the end, after a protracted and bitter cabinet session, the President imposed a compromise. Although the rams and the brigade would remain under the War Department, by Lincoln's order of November 7 the Ellets would "report to Rear AdmiralPorter for instructions,and act under his directionuntil otherwise orderedby the War Department." Needless to add, neither side to the dispute was happy with this settlement. Even before learning the outcome, the general was communicatingto his nephew: "We are going to have most powerful enemies to contend with in Porterand his naval associates.... these naval officers with guilt [sic] stripes aroundtheir sleeves seem to feel that God Almighty holds but a small commandcomparedto what they exercise"; and again on the day after Lincoln's order went out: "I can assure you that we have a tremendous hostility to contend against in the navy.' '25 Ironically, even as the uncle was nourishinghis nephew's distrust of the naval commander at Vicksburg, the latter and his military counterparts were admittingthe younger Ellet to their councils, a fact which could only
activitiesin his "Journal,"I, 410-411, 24. Portertells of his role in AlfredEllet's recruiting David D. Porter Papers(Libraryof Congress). For Colonel Ellet's suspicions respectingthe navy's machinations,see his letters to Mary Ellet, November 18, 1862, and January8, February6, and March9, 1863, Ellet Papers. Roy P. Basler, 9 vols. (New Brunswick,N. J., 1953-55),V, 490; Edwin M. Stantonto Alfred Ellet, November 8, 1862, and Alfred Ellet to C. R. Ellet, November 3 and 8, 1862, Ellet Papers. For the Navy's dissatisfactionwith the compromisesee Gustavus V. Fox to Porter,
November 8, 1862, Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary 25. Lincoln's order of November 7, 1862, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed.
of the Navy, 1861-1865, ed. Robert M. Thompson and RichardWainwright,2 vols. (New York, 1920), II, 147-148.
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have strengthened his aspirations and, given his uncle's missives, increased his sense of familial obligation. Thomas Jerome stresses how influential are the memberships the witness holds in a class, church, clique, and, not least in this case, family. In "all of these relations he is virtually obliged to see things as they are not, and to speak that which is false." As he watched Admiral Porter working hand in glove with army commander Grant and his lieutenant, Sherman, Charles may also have become mistrustful of the generals' motives. Moreover, something else his uncle had written could have preyed on his mind and caused him to be on the lookout for the least sign of confimation. "I think before the next twelve months roll around," General Ellet, without attribution, specificity, or elaboration, prophesied darkly, "that he who then holds the army will have great oportunity [sic] for good or evil in his hands[.] A great revolution is in progress aside from the present rebelion [sic], that will shake the pillars of government to their very foundations if it does not overthrow them." Whatever motives or whatever events, real or fancied, may have prompted Alfred Ellet to write these words, it seems no travesty of the law of cause and effect to speculate that he may have planted one of the seeds which several months later would sprout in his nephew's charges of treason. Gottschalk emphasizes the importance of the witness's expectations or anticipations; "so that," says the Shafer volume, "the eye apparently beholds and the ear apprehends what the mind wishes them to report.26 In fine, the witness can become a prisoner of his own perceptions. With all of the pressures he bore, with his uncle fostering his misgivings, how could young Ellet be expected accurately to interpret what went on in those top-level sessions? If all this were not sufficient, the historian can define yet another circumstance which most probably worked against the social ability of this witness to tell the truth. Vincent suggests that in addition to the witness's "relations to superiors," the researcher should consider "the line of promotion which lies open to such an official, or what may be his personal ambitions." Charles was no doubt deeply concerned to protect the honor of his family's reputation, to which he referred often, and perhaps too, the existence of the Union, though he referred to it seldom if ever; but how does one separate family honor or patriotism from personal ambition? No sooner had Ellet learned of his promotion to colonel than he was writing: "So you see, Sister, the eagles have perched on my shoulders at last. ... Now for the stars!" There were, he continued, but two steps between him and a major generalship, the highest military rank the Federal Government was then conferring. Given the right opportunities, his next birthday could
26. Thomas Spencer Jerome, Aspects of the Study of Roman History (New York, 1923), 48; Alfred Ellet to C. R. Ellet, November 3, 1862, Ellet Papers; Gottschalk, Understanding History, 160; Shafer, Guide, 146.
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There is see him, "well, much higher than boys of nineteen usually get.... a tide in the affairs of men, and I think that the present one will roll me either very high up or very low down. And I would have it so. Gold and power or the grave."27 Yet, his great ambition to the contrary notwithstanding, when young Colonel Ellet attended that critical meeting of February 28, his military future was already under a cloud; he had just returned from an expedition which his seniors pronounced a failure. The sortie had begun auspiciously enough. Although they had failed to sink a Confederate steamer tied at the Vicksburg levee, Ellet and a bold crew had, under Porter's orders, successfully taken one of the rams down the Mississippi, directly but safely through the fire of the city's riverside batteries. Their objective was to establish a blockade of the Red River, which, flowing through Louisiana into the Mississippi 190 miles south of Vicksburg, provided a highway over which the enemy was sending vital supplies to Vicksburg and the eastern Confederacy. With Grant and Porter's campaign stalled for the time being, the young colonel may have felt compelled to do something decisive. When the regular navy had seemed balked in the past, his father and uncle, as if to emphasize the caution of the professionals, had taken it upon themselves to press downriver on daring missions of their own. Porter, being reluctant to risk one of his ironclads, seemed delighted when Ellet had volunteered. He later insisted that the idea, although not the failure, was all his. General Grant, himself, appeared convinced that Ellet's ram by itself could shut off the Red River, and for a time he was right.28 In quick succession, the ram colonel captured and destroyed several Confederate supply boats which he intercepted on the Mississippi. He must have felt that he was more than advancing whatever causes impelled him. Then, impetuosity got the better of him. Ignoring Porter's orders to remain at the mouth of the Red River, he steamed up that stream, only to have to abandon his vessel when she grounded under heavy fire from the guns of a Confederate shore battery. The details of the affair are not important to the present context. To appreciate the state of Ellet's mind by the time he had returned to Vicksburg, it is enough to know that he and some of his surviving crewmen had floated down the Red River on cotton bales, fled pursuing Confederate vessels in an auxiliary steamer until she lost her rudders, continued their flight up the Mississippi in a captured Confederate steamer, and were only assured of escape when they ran in with the USS Indianola, an ironclad gunboat that Porter had belatedly dispatched past Vicksburg. The Confederates meanwhile had repaired the captured Federal ram and
27. Vincent, Historical Research, 130; C. R. Ellet to Mary Ellet, November 4, 1862, Ellet Papers. 28. Porter to Welles, February 22 and 27, 1863, Mississippi Squadron Letters; Grant to Henry W. Halleck, February 3, 1863, Ulysses S. Grant Letter Books (Library of Congress).
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eventually with her and two other craft sank Porter's ironclad. The admiral can probably be excused for being exasperated with his impetuous subordinate.29
The point, however, is that Ellet's general suspicions concerning Porter and his military colleagues were now reinforced by considerations of selfinterest, because Ellet was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he confronted an effort to place entire responsibility for the losses of the ram and ironclad squarely on his shoulders. Several days before attending the meeting of the 28th, he wrote as much to his uncle, and in a postscript to the very letter in which he accused his superiors of treason, he added these words: "I would not be surprised if they tried to throw all the blame of this upon me." Though he concluded this sentence with a martyred, "but I can stand it," one strongly suspects that, in fact, he could not. Apart from a momentary lapse, when he admitted that before going up the Red River he should perhaps have waited for Porter to send down the Indianola, he gave every evidence of wanting to shift the blame to the admiral. To his uncle he pointed out correctly that Porter's orders had not promised reinforcement; they had merely said not to be surprised to see the ironclad. Ellet claimed that many army officers sided with him in wanting to know why Porter had not in the first place ordered the ironclad to accompany the ram. "The Indianola was ready and Capt. [George] Brown anxious to go long before Porter would consent."30 All this is by way of saying that there were many "social" influences operating to impede Charles Ellet's ability to tell the truth. Even had he been in the best of emotional and physical health, the various stresses on one so inexperienced would most likely have warped the way he perceived the men he accused. In point of truth, Ellet9s health was not good, and this raises the second set of factors which Shafer et al. advise the internal critic to ponder concerning the witness: Did he have the physical ability to tell the truth? In answer, the reader knows that Ellet had only just returned from an expedition which if nothing else had left him physically exhausted and stretched his nerves taut. The reader does not know, however, that Ellet, who like his father had never been robust of physique, was apparently ill. Porter described him so when, after the younger man's return from Red River, he had been unable to report immediately to the admiral. Ellet, himself, wrote to his uncle that he was suffering from "chills," which may have been symptomatic of a mild case of the malaria or typhoid which
29. Details of Ellet's expedition can be found in Ellet Papers; Mississippi Squadron Letters; O.R.N., Series I, Vol. XXIV; and O.R.A., Series I, Vol. XXIV, Part I. For the account of newspaper reporter Albert Bodman, who accompanied Ellet, see Chicago Tribune, March 1 and 3, 1863. 30. C. R. Ellet to Alfred Ellet, February [2]5 and 28, 1863, Ellet Papers; Porter to C. R. Ellet, February 10 [1863], O.R.N., Series I, Vol. XXIV, 370.
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commonly infected the men of the river navies. Finally, Ellet was a chronic victim of migraine, from which he sought relief in laudanum, a tincture of the addictive drug, opium. Given this bill of physical particulars, Marc Bloch's warning note concerning a circumstance which can "impair the accuracy of perception of even the most gifted person,' would seem to apply: it "depends upon the condition of the observer at the time --- such for example as his fatigue or emotion."31 To sum up, a nineteen-year-old youth, exhausted, feverish, and possibly drugged, went to that meeting of February 28 freighted with emotions and suspicions born of filial devotion to his father's memory; of familial loyalty to the Ellet clan; of concern to uphold the reputation of the ram fleet, a reputation which the youth may have already tarnished and which appeared to him threatened by superiors; and, perhaps not least, of an unease that his own reputation was at stake. His judgment in the circumstances could hardly have helped being prejudiced. True, immediately afterward he described the meeting in a private letter, but this fact does little to enhance credibility; without a lapse of time, the identical social and physical distractions still obtained. Furthermore, the writer knew that the recipient would be a kindred spirit, nursing many of the same emotions and suspicions. Is the historian, then, justified in rejecting Colonel Ellet's charges against the two generals and the admiral? The answer is almost surely, yes. Possibly these officers, as servicemen even in high echelons no doubt are sometimes wont to do, may simply have been indulging their frustrations by criticizing the Federal Government and its conduct of the war; and possibly Ellet, given his state of mind and body, may have misconstrued their gripings as evidence of sinister intent; but, without corroborating witnesses and in light of the sole witness's bias and emotional instability, it seems a certainty that as nearly as historical truth can be established these men were not plotting the overthrow of the government. Of course, recalling the impossibility of judging with absolute certainty the authenticity of an historical document, the reader may well ask, with how much certitude can historical truth be established? As Bloch poses the question: "To what extent, however, are we [historians] justified in mouthing this glorious word 'certainty'?" That an historical event was impossible, he continues, can never be a certainty. There is always a chance, however remote, that the event did occur. Walsh makes the same point: "the contrary of every matter-of-fact statement, even one about which we
31. Shafer, Guide, 146; Porter to Welles, February 22, 1863, Mississippi Squadron Letters; C. R. Ellet to Alfred Ellet, February 28, 1863, Ellet Papers; Bloch, The Historian's Craft, 101 On October 1, 1864, Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet died in his sleep, apparently from an overdose of opiate. See J. T. Headley, F-arra gut and Our Naval Commanders (New York, 1867), 222-223.
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are supremely confident, is always logically possible. No such statement, whether in history or elsewhere, can be raised to the status of a logically necessary truth." And Bloch quotes Cournot: "The impossible physical event is nothing but an event whose probabilityis infinitely small."32 Having submitted Charles R. Ellet's accusations to the standardsof internal historical criticism and finding the probability of their being true infinitely small, the researcher deduces that they should not be incorporated into the corpus of accepted historical facts. The tug between the apparentlysacred document and the traditionalinterpretation laid down by established historians ends in victory for the latter; the historical reputations of Grant, Sherman, and Porter remain as they are, not because of piety but because the document which accuses them is found wanting. Does this fact mean, nevertheless, that the document is worthless to the historian? Vincent answers, yes. If internal criticism cannot establish the trustworthinessor at least the probabilityof the statement in a document, the document should be discarded, "the whole cast out as worthless." R. G. Collingwood, on the other hand, answers the question with a resounding, no! He believes that the historianshould ask a more profoundquestion of the historical statement than simply whether it be true or false: what significanceattaches to its having been uttered? This does not mean that the historian is freed from the limits imposed by the document. He still, FrederickTeggartwrites, "cannot arrive at any fuller informationof what occurred than is contained in the documents which have survived." Rather, it means that the historian, in order not to miss any of its nuances, should examine the document with peripheralvision.33 From a document, or a "trace" of the past, as Renier refers to it, the historianinfers an event or events. The obvious event to be inferredfrom the trace left by Ellet, the event he wanted inferred, was that certain officers had articulatedtreasonable designs. Yet historical criticism indicates that the inferred event did not occur or was misinterpreted. The question remains, however, are there not other events which can be inferred from the same trace? At the very least there is the seemingly indubitable historical fact that Ellet recorded the charge. Where the conventional "scissors-and-pastehistorian"is interestedin no more than the contents of statements, the "scientific historian," argues Collingwood, "is interested in the fact that they are made." Paul Weiss reaffirmsthe premise when he writes that "any occurrencehas possible significancefor the historian. This fact is missed by those who view history from the perspective of some
32. Bloch, The Historian's Craft, 133; Walsh, An Introduction to Philosophy of History, 87. Bloch (p. 133) quotes Cournot. 33. Vincent, Historical Research, 20; Collingwood, The Idea of History (London, 1946), 259, 275; Frederick J. Teggart, Theory and Processes of History (Berkeley, Calif., 1962), 32.
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limited standpoint."' Passmore elucidates further: "the historian is not quite at the mercy of the chronicler; . . he can discover important facts from [the primary source] . . . which the chronicler had no intention whatever of recording." He can, in Collingwood's phrase, "get out of his 'authorities' the answer to a question which they did not expect a reader to ask.'"34 Truly, once the historian begins asking of the Ellet document questions other than those concerning the truth of its author's accusations, he opens new areas for investigation, the more so if he also directs his questions to the other documents in the context of which the questionable one is found. This exercise calls for powers of imagination, conceptualization, and ingenuity; because, as Paul Conkin and Roland Stromberg assert, "neither musty manuscripts nor arts of detection" alone do history make. Rather, the investigator begins what Bernard Bailyn describes as "this kind of creative process, a process in which the student, his radar wide open, probes the data with his mind, searching for patterns, for relevance, for significance. Often in the process the investigation becomes transformed."' 35
No matter, then, that Charles R. Ellet was young, inexperienced, weighed down with responsibility, biased, ambitious, emotionally overwrought, and ill; the fact that he made his charges at all could be significant. Without going into a subject, which, just to plumb its possibilities, would require a separate essay, one can see that simply by exploring the reliability of Ellet's letter one has already uncovered a number of suggestive leads, some of which may confirm or contradict existing historical conclusions, some of which may be novel. There are possible military leads, for example. Ellet's letter reveals intra- and interservice friction among the Union forces besieging Vicksburg and raises the question why there was no unified command. It also brings to mind the topic of the relationship between amateur and professional soldiers and sailors in Civil War times, and whether resulting strains compromised operations. With respect to technology, the student might wonder whether the amateurs, with little or no vested interest or loyalty to the military or naval status quo, were not readier than the professionals to experiment with new or different technology and tactics.36 Might the conservative naval establish34. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method, 156; Collingwood, The Idea of History, 275; Paul Weiss, History: Written and Lived (Carbondale, Ill., 1962), 67; Passmore, "The Objectivity of History" in Philosophical Analysis and History, ed. Dray, 80; R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography (London, 1939), 133. 35. Paul K. Conkin and Roland N. Stromberg, The Heritage and the Challenge of Histoty (New York, 1971), 225; Bernard Bailyn, "The Problems of the Working Historian: A Comment" in The Craft of American History: Selected Essays, ed. A. S. Eisenstadt, 2 vols. (New York, 1966), II, 205. 36. This generalization, to which the exploits of the Ellets lend credence, is convincingly
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ment have felt threatened by the Ellets' insistence that the ram was the ultimate naval weapon? The senior Charles Ellet had boasted that steam rams could easily sink conventional warships, and the Merrirmac had seemed to substantiate his claim. That the success of naval rams would be short-lived was not obvious at the time. In fact, before the Ellet craft had come to the Mississippi, Confederate rams operating on that river had sunk two Federal gunboats. Young Ellet's letter and its contextual environment also say something about personal ambition in wartime. The writer was concerned to protect his military reputation, not to mention the reputations of his father, uncle, and cousins; and this concern, most broadly construed, suggests to what extent the Civil War, or for that matter any war, was exploited by participants to further their own interests. If Ellet's correspondence suggests topics having to do with the military and war, a little more thought reveals that it further suggests related political and social topics. For example, the probable falsity of his charges against senior military and naval officers notwithstanding, they do raise questions about the wartime efficiency of a political system in which the commander-in-chief of the armed services is a civilian. And these questions lead rather naturally to the fact that even during a civil war the American military apparently gave no concerted thought to executing a coup. The professionals would seem to have been far more conservative than the Ellets believed they were. To be sure, professional soldiers and sailors of Southern origin followed their states out of the Union, but the key word is followed. Can one generalize that American democracy fosters in civilians, such as the Ellets, who were no more than civilians in military uniform, suspicion and skepticism toward officialdom but obedience and respect in career military and naval men? Finally, still further afield, the responsibilities which Charles R. Ellet inherited bring to mind the subjects of the role of the patriarch and the practice of nepotism in America. Additional thought would lead the researcher to additional possibilities, but the point is not to identify every subject suggested or implied by the Ellet manuscript. It is rather to be alerted to alternative ways in which the historian can comprehend and interpret such material. As Henri-Irenee Marrou reminds the scholar, "there is an unlimited number of different questions to which the documents can provide the answers, provided that the questioning is properly done."37 State University of New York Buffalo
developed in a recentlycompleteddissertation.See Rowena Reed, "CombinedOperationsin the Civil War" (doctoral dissertation, Departmentof History, Queen's University at Kingston, 1976).
37. Marrou, The Meaning of History, 76-77; emphasis added.

MULLIGAN - The Treatment of A Historical Source

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THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE

THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE

THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE

THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE

THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE

THE TREATMENT OF AN HISTORICAL SOURCE

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