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This month, our Five Things column features co-editors Chris Mackowski and Brian Matthew Jordan, whose The Great "What Ifs" of the American Civil War: Historians Tackle the Conflict’s Most Intriguing Possibilities, was released March 2022. Here, Chris and Brian share five facts they discovered while researching and compiling this book.
Take it away gentleman. . .
1. Chris: There are a surprising number of Civil War buffs who seem openly hostile to "What If" questions. I hear things like "I'd rather stick to what actually happened" or "There's no point in speculating." Of course, if there was no point in asking "What if," the Army wouldn't do staff rides. After all, that's essentially what they do when they visit a battlefield: they look at all the possibilities in a given moment and try to better understand what DID happen by looking more closely at what DIDN'T and what MIGHT HAVE.
Brian: Historians bristle at counterfactuals---after all, we traffic in the past: in what actually happened. Yet the past was (and is) alive with contingencies, choices, and alternatives. Our approach in this volume was not to invent alternative endings but to invite historians to reflect on the richness and possibilities of particular historical moments. Illuminating the full range of choices available at any one moment sheds light on what actually happened.
2. Chris: Even people who say they don't like asking "What If" questions ask them. We all do. It's the nature of what we do to arm-chair general the Civil War. It's fun to do!
Brian: The persistence and proliferation of counterfactual questions are telling measures of the grip that the war maintains in the American imagination.
3. Chris: People love to jump to conclusions when they ask "What If." For instance, everyone loves to parachute Stonewall Jackson onto the north edge of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, when they start talking about what would have happened had he survived his wounding at Chancellorsville. That's the question that got me thinking about this whole topic in the first place. Kris White wrote a great essay about it for the book.
Brian: Editing these essays reinforced something that I have emphasized to my undergraduate students time and again: nothing in the past had to turn out the way that it did.
4. Chris: There are really two distinct approaches writers have used when tackling "What If" questions: alternative history, which is the main approach used by fiction writers, and counterfactual history, which is the main approach used by historians. We have an essay in the book that explains more about those two traditions and traces their roots.
Brian: Civil War Americans asked "what if," too. Freedom seeking enslaved persons, battlefield commanders, fretful civilians, anxious diplomats, combat weary soldiers---all of these diverse cohorts pondered the possibilities before them without the advantage of hindsight. They made decisions rooted in experience and anticipation. They navigated the extremes of unprecedented war.
5. Chris: My fifth thing is something I already knew but am always glad to be reminded of: Brian Matthew Jordan can write. Man, can he write. Brian is a writer who knows his way around a sentence. It's awesome to me, in the fullest sense of the word. He's a brilliant mind who always sheds new light on things, so working with him is like getting a little mini master class on a topic.\
Brian: Chris Mackowski is a dream to work with. His energy, vision, and generosity have left an indelible mark on our field. Beyond his capacity to reach a popular audience with a rare blend of engaging prose and thoughtful scholarship, he has mentored a growing stable of dynamic young historians.
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