American civil war at the university of virginia and a great friend to the Virginia Historical society. He has spoken here on several occasions and has done research here in the Rich Holdings of our civil war manuscripts. He was a member of the class in 1988. I wont tell you how old i was at that point. We were glad to have him then as today. He has also mined the collection of the Confederate Memorial Society at the museum of the confederacy for his essays. That question, that collection, as you may know, will be housed at the Virginia Historical society where it will be preserved, catalog, and digitized as part of a new Civil War Research center. This will be, through this partnership, the largest private repository of civil war archives in the world. [applause] as you might imagine, that comes with a great cost and lots of work. This is a 3 million effort to provide storage, process and catalog the collection, and in doubt this so it can be available to the largest possible audience. Were halfway there, and we welcome your help. Professor gallagher has received many awards, including the prize for the best book on the civil war, the award for contributions to civil war studies, the lincoln prize, and the award for the best Nonfiction Book on the civil war. He was the founder and first president for the foundation of preserving civil war sites. Please join me in welcoming professor gallagher. Prof. Gallagher i am going to switch microphones. I am delighted to be here. It is always fun to speak in this room. Jamie wouldnt tell you how old he was when i was a mellon fellow here. I will reveal i had brown hair. It was a long time ago in deed. It was about that time i gave a lecture in the mural gallery, which i dont think happens anymore, a lecture about the lost cause. The vibe in the room was right for that lecture. The vibe in this room is perfect because it is filled with booksellers and those of you who are friends of the library and interested in history. I will talk about the best confederate memoirs. That is Edward Porter alexander. That is not just my view, it would be unanimous of people who know what books confederate soldiers wrote. He stands by himself. These accounts are unrivaled among those published by men who fought for the confederacy. They were written over a decade beginning in the late 1890s, but appeared more than 80 years apart, in print more than 80 years apart. A critical narrative was First Published in 1907. The next was published in 1989. Alexander brought to his books acuity, a gift for describing key scenes and dramatic and memorable fashion, and the perspective of one who bitterly fought from manassas to appomattox. He served on the staff of general beauregard. Johnson, and lee, before distinguishing himself as the finest artillerys inist in the confederacy. He wrote with almost none of the lost cause special pleading that was evident in the writings of most of his former comrades. I want to convey a sense of why alexanders books are remarkable. I will start with a little biographical information before moving on to address how he wrote the books and what audience he had in mind for each of them. He had very different audiences in mind. I will close by reading passages from the books that will illustrate their great strengths. His narrative skills. I will open and close with three of his finest narrative passages. They are great, gripping, fine narratives. In almost every part of his book this is true. They convey interesting information about the army, its makeup, and its character. I will use passages that illustrate his willingness to convey the heard, the dark side, of the civil war. I will quote a couple of passages that show his sharp criticism of lost cause icons. Robert e. Lee and jackson at a time when confederates didnt do that. He is not all alone in his willingness to do that, but he doesnt have much company. I will offer other passages that illustrate how he deviated from what people generally expected to get in an account written by a former confederate. Before getting on with the substance of my talk, i will give you to personal observations. I spent four years editing fighting for the confederacy. I worked on them through the late 1980s. Of all the projects, that was the most enjoyable. The only one i was sorry to finish here use only usually are not only happy to finish but staggering to the end wondering if life is worthwhile. In fighting for the confederacy, it was not that way because i knew id would not be in Porter Alexanders company anymore. This is interesting to the audience because of the booksellers, but as a confirmed bibliophile since i was 10 years old, i have had the chance to own many copies of the memoirs of fighting for the confederate. The First Edition in 1907 that had a dust jacket on it. The person that sold that timmy is in this audience, but i had Porter Alexanders own copy with his annotations. Two very nice copies to own. Now i will stop talking about that. Just to set the scene, he was born into a prominent slave owning family in washington, georgia on may 25, 1836. He received his education at tutors at home before going to west point in 1853, graduating third in the class of 1857. He was marked from the beginning as someone that would go somewhere. And the three years following his graduation he taught at west point, participated in the last days of the mormon war, and developing the system of motion telepathy that would be the wigwag system of motion that would be used in the war. He left in february of 1861 and made his way to richmond. Upon arrival found out he had been commissioned in the confederacys fledgling army. No other officer played such a varied roles or worked closely with such prominent officers as e. P. Alexander. He joined beauregards staff as the chief signal officer in june of 1861. He also made him chief of ordinance in his army. He held both posts in johnstons army and under re lee after that. He served in both capacities through much of 1862. He did so during the peninsula campaign, second bull run, and during the Maryland Campaign of 1862. He was also frequently called upon to perform engineering tasks. He was really smart. He knew he was really smart. You could tell he probably found ways to let other people know he was really smart. He was really smart, so people valued him and asked him to do things that were not necessarily related to his official portfolio within the army. Lee was one of those. Lee and the others figured out while he was doing these things figured out where his real aptitude was , was with artillery. We have no more accomplished officer, wrote the chief of artillery and recommending alexander be promoted to command one of the battalions of artillery in james long streets first corp. He gathered the batteries into battalions in the autumn of 1862, a much more efficient way to deploy artillery. It is one of the great innovations in artillery during the war. Now he has been given a battalion. Lee thought that was where he belonged and he was promoted to a colonel in 1863. He now had a secure place in the branch where he would make his reputation. The most famous historian of the army of Northern Virginia, wrote of alexander, he was far and away the superior of all others in this arm. He was the best confederate artilleryist. Ive made that 4 times. I wont tell you again, but you can file that away. He immediately excelled in his position at he plays the guns in fredericksburg that played such a significant role during the battle of fredericksburg on december 13, 1862. He was the key person on may the third. Hazel grove, they key ground that gave the confederates one of the few opportunities during the war to obtain artillery superiority in a major battle. He was in charge of the bombardment in gettysburg on july 3, 1863. He is everywhere in lees campaign. He is in the first corp, but while half was near suffolk, alexander was with the army. He is with them all through those campaigns. He went to north georgia in september of 1863 with long streets first corp. On all of those fields he functioned as the tactical chief of artillery in james long streets first corp. Walton had that position. This was a difficult situation. It made sense in a practical way because the best person is in charge when it counts the most, but not all the time. There was a little bit of tension. That was a situation that involved frustration. That ended in 1864 when alexander was promoted to Brigadier General and became the official head of the artillery. There are only three biggest Brigadier Generals of artillery. He maintained his position through the seizure of petersburg and on his way to appomattox near it he helped to lay out part of the defensive line in richmond in the last part of the war. Lee eventually put him in charge of all the confederate artillery between the james and appomattox rivers. As the army made its way to appomattox and went on the ninth of april, federals were pressing in several directions against lees troop. Porter alexander drew the last battle line on the army in Northern Virginia and ended his memorable military career. Despite the demands of a successful postwar career, he was an educator and railroad executive i wont go into that. Despite supporting his family, he had a large family, he had the opportunity to study the campaigns of the war. He was originally going to write a history of the first corp but was too busy. He didnt push through with that. He could not find enough material as he wanted. He dropped his plan to write a history of the first corp in the late 1860s. He returned to the history of the war in the 1870s and contributed several pieces. He contributed two to the century companys landmark series. He began thinking about perhaps writing more than just essays. In all of the things that he wrote, he showed a scrupulous attention to detail and absence of special pleading that showed him to be very different from most of the men writing about the war. Most people sought to get even. Now i will get even with him. I will write this article, and it will feel so good to get even with him. He will know how good it makes me feel, and that will make him feel even worse. [laughter] life is rich. Robert underwood johnson was one of the editors of battles and leaders aptly described alexander as a man of integrity and candor. Anything he writes may be relied upon. Alexander undertook a full memoir in the late 1890s. He was sent to nicaragua to adjudicate a boundary dispute by grover cleveland. He went down in 1897 and had not been there that long when he got a letter from one of his daughters. Poplar, you have not had time to write your reminiscences, and now i want you to. I want you to start writing them for us, meaning his children. So, he decided that would probably be a good idea. He didnt have a lot of time on his hands. He had a small library. He had brief diaries that he had kept during the war. He corresponded with fellow confederate soldiers as he went along and he began to retrace the campaigns of the army of Northern Virginia. He intended to let no one but his family read this account. That is exceedingly important. He is not writing this for publication. He does not think anyone will read this except for his children, and eventually their children, and perhaps a very small circle of his closest friends. No one but his family would see the finished project, but he still wanted to get things right. As he explained to one of his sisters, i intend not to publish, but only to let my children see these. So, of course, they are very personal, he wrote to his sister. But although they were going to be personal, he said he wanted to get things right. He said, i have written with my own viewings a critical narrative of the military game which was being played. I have not hesitated to criticize our moves as i would moves in chess, no matter what general made them. Upon returning home, he said he would revise the manuscript. He wanted to finish a first draft before he left nicaragua. Take thet he would time and really polish it and let his family see it. He said i will just fill in some gaps once i get home. He thought it would take two years. He did finish a draft before he left in 1899. Octoberit was 1200 pages long, just a shade more than 1200 pages long. He has a beautiful hand. When i edited it, there was one word in 1200 pages that we couldnt figure out. Porter alexander seemed to take a different view. How about writing in a legible hand . There is an idea. He certainly did. It is 1200 pages long, and it offered innumerable insights into lee and his campaigns, as well as a bountiful supply of anecdotes about alexanders activities. Bluntly honest in a text he believed very few people would ever see, except for family and friends. He dissected campaigns with a very impartial and analytical eye. It is unlike anything else in the literature. Re lee, Stonewall Jackson, and others in the southern pantheon came in for very close analysis. He admired both of them a great deal. There is a tremendous amount of praise in his manuscript, but also very telling critiques of them. The distortions characteristic of southern accounts influenced by the myth of the lost cause have almost no place in the graytown recollections, almost none. 90 years after alexander wrote them, unc press published them. There is a long period when no one knows this existed. The only reason i found out is because stephen roe saw a passage from what became fighting for the code c, showed confederacy, showed it to bob crick who showed it to me. We discussed which would edit it. Crick because he is such a Stonewall Jackson guy, said why dont you go look in chapel hill . He would not have said that if he had known what was there of course. I think bob deeply regrets this. I went down to chapel hill, spent a week, gave myself one week to figure out what it was. The manuscript for fighting for the confederacy had been pulled apart and the chapters filed with topical chapters from other of alexanders writings, so this 1200 page manuscript literally disappeared into the mass of alexanders papers, and people who did see it believed it was a draft of campaigns. Military memoirs. I found a letter to his wife that said i am sending the gettysburg chapter. It is 115 pages with two maps. I went and found 115 pages and two maps and then began to look for other pieces. This was literally friday afternoon when i found this letter. I was on the last half of my last day. I extended my visit, and very quickly i had a manuscript that went from page 1 to 1200. The entire manuscript. It was remarkable. It was fun. Some might say, big fun. First,rate, that is the wn reminiscences are the first ones. He used the graytown as the basis out of which military memoirs group. The death of his wife in 1899 and of a daughter five months later cast alexander in a very depressed place. It took him a number of months to pull out of it. What really pulled him out of it was the decision to revise his reminiscence into another book. He decided to make it a different kind of book. He talked to some historians, leading historians it is always dangerous to talk to historians. He talked to them and they said it is interesting, but why dont you get rid of all that personal stuff . Nobody cares about all that. Why dont you make it more of the history of the army of Northern Virginia, and that is what alexander decided to do. He took out most of the really personal stuff, he left some in, but took out a lot of it and made it a more analytical, almost scholarly history, of the army of Northern Virginia. It took him six years to work through all of this. The revised text differed from graytown manuscript inn important ways. Most of the personal stuff is gone. A lot of the really blunt assessments, gone. He toned those down. He is still very critical and military memoirs, but not the kind of language he used in fighting for the confederacy. He often softened or cut his most critical passages. The original allocated 30 of the text to events before gettysburg. Military memoirs, 57 . They both gave about 13 to gettysburg. And graytown had 47 after gettysburg. Military memoirs, 28 . Youbners as i already told published in 1907, and it made an immediate impact. It gained the status very quickly of that overused word yu published in 1907, and it made it happens on monday, it is a classic . Really . Three days later . This one was perceived quickly as a classic. Theodore roosevelt informed alexander shortly that i must write to tell you that i have thoroughly enjoyed your military memoirs. The army and navy journal announced it one of the most valuable of all books on the war. Although many southerners complained of alexanders sometimes too harsh evaluations of lee, or took exception to his lack of regret over the decline confederacy, but most had a deep admiration for what alexander accomplished. Later historians echoed that an initial enthusiasm. In an introduction to a reprint of military memoirs, t. Harry williams wrote in introduction that came during the centennial years. Williams was one of the towering figures in civil war scholarship at that point. Williams observed, no book by a participant in the war has done so much to shape the historical image of that conflict. As alexander drew lessons from the battles, so a lesson can be drawn from his book. Namely, that the finest military history may be written by a soldier who is also a scholar. The principal criticism registered by modern historians, pre1989, was that alexander had not put enough of his own experiences in his book. We wish we had gotten more from him. Of course, that criticism evaporates when you put fighting for the confederacy along with military memoirs , because there you get both things together. They complement each other and are a matchless contribution to the literature on the military side of the war. Ok. Now i am just going to read you some passages from the two books to give you a sense of why i think it is so good. I am going to open with the passage from military memoirs dealing with fredericksburg. Not the battle on december 13, but the scene on december 11, 1862 as the United StatesArmy Engineers are throwing pontoon bridges under fire across the rappahannock river. Alexander has this incredible view of what is going on. The scene at fredericksburg was never duplicated anywhere else during the war. It is this fast the article situation where you can see more men than