Scott and Karl finish their discussion of Volume One of Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative.

The duo agrees, if there was anyone to write about the real Civil War, Shelby Foote was the man to do it.

Overflowing with color, life, and character, Foote is able to bring a novelist’s narrative power to this great epic. In Karl’s words, “this book is filled with perfect sentences.”

Both as a historian and a novelist, this trilogy firmly places Foote in the ranks of the masters. Tune in for Part Two of Scott and Karl’s conversation, brought to you by onlinegreatbooks.com.

 

Transcript

 

Scott Hambrick 0:09
Welcome to the Online Great Books podcast brought to you by onlinegreatbooks.com where we talk about the good life, the great books, a great conversation, and great ideas

Brett Veinotte 0:30
Hello, dear listener, welcome back to the online great books podcast. This is Brett. And we are about to continue with Scott And Karl’s discussion of Shelby Foote’s The Civil War Volume One, even though over a long enough period of time, I think there’s going to be more Shelby foote. So you will hear Scott mentioned enrollment in online grade books during this conversation. Enrollment will be reopening in four days, they are currently full. But you can go to onlinegreatbooks.com, click the Get Started tab. And you can join the VIP waiting list if you wish. You can also read about how the program works. And some frequently asked questions. And if you’re on a browser like me, you will also just see Scott peeking up at you from the bottom of the frame. He has an explainer video there as well, that’s worth checking out. While you’re there, make sure you’re on the email list. So you get updates. And we will return next week with something brand new. Thank you for listening. And here is part two of Shelby Foote’s the Civil War, Volume One.

Scott Hambrick 1:40
You know, we already talked about how sort of magnanimous Grant ended up being in victory. What about the magnanimity from Lee? Every day? You know, he, he’s just so gracious to his subordinates, never takes credit for anything they do. So consider it, of Jefferson Davis. Davis, Davis was a little bit of a pain in the ass too. He was a military man himself. Well, Lincoln could micromanage. But I think Davis had a Davis early on, had an inclination to micromanage, had trouble with some of his military help. And we understood that and he would always sit down and take the time to write him a letter received him at the field of battle. Talk to me, keep him in the loop. Just a super kind guy who seemed to care about all the people involved all of them. You know, and later on after this war, he ends up being the President of University, Arlington National Cemetery is his, his ancestral home, they took it from him. And he ends up being a university president and it just beloved, no, nobody until 2014 had nary a negative word to say about them. And

Karl Schudt 3:05
yeah, if you’re going to delete your history, maybe you ought to learn it first. I quote this all the time, Chesterton, You don’t just take things out of your liturgy, just because you don’t understand them.” Not allowed to take them out when you don’t understand them. You have to understand it, and then maybe you’ll take it out. I mean, I wonder how many people that those statue smashing parties if you asked him, when did the Civil War happen? Could they get within 30 years? So then I started taking notes of page 451. It’s fine, but that’s when Lee takes over command of the army of Northern Virginia. But there’s some things about some quotes from Jackson. Somebody said it’s impossible to turn over command to the next officer. If he can’t do it. I’ll find someone who can if I have to take him from the ranks. Why he gave up whiskey why sir, because I like the taste. That’s a good reason to give it up. Hard Protestant man. Yeah, yes, his tactics. So Jackson is a fascinating figure. Nobody can beat him. They have no idea where he’s what he’s doing and attacked. It’s on for 64 Always mystify mislead and surprise the enemy if possible. And when you strike and overcome him never let up in the pursuit so long as you have the strength to follow for an army routed if hotly pursued becomes panic stricken, and they can then be destroyed by half their number, which he would do. The other rule is never fight against heavy odds of any possible maneuvering, you can hurl your own force that only apart and that the weakest part of your enemy and crush it such tactics will win every time and a small army may last destroy a large one in detail and repeated victory will make it invincible. So there you go. That’s exactly what he did. In that valley campaign, they never knew where he was. They’d hide behind mountains. He would have people marched out where they could see him just to pretend that he was there. He wouldn’t tell his subordinates where they were going because of the The guard rapper problem which hadn’t happened yet.

Scott Hambrick 5:02
This is the upshot of the valley campaign. Application of these strategic principles, Karl just read them to us. Plus, of course, the blessing of Providence. He always attributed his victories the blessing of Providence, particularly in the form of such meteorological phenomena as cloudburst and hailstones large as Hynix had enabled Stonewall with 17,000 troops. to frustrate the plans of 60,000 Federal CS generals were assigned the exclusive task of accomplishing his destruction. For pitch battles he fought six formal skirmishes and any number of minor actions all had been victories in all but one of the battles he had not numbered the enemy in the field anywhere from two to 17 to one, the exception was crosskeys, where his opponent showed so little fight that there was afterwards debate as to whether it should be called a battle or a skirmish. Was this had been done by rapid marching since March 22. The eve of currents town his troops had covered 646 miles of road at 48 Marching days, the rewards had been enormous 3500 prisoners 10,000 badly needed muskets, nine rifled guns, and quartermaster stores of incalculable value. All these things were things that he could hold, and look at, so to speak. And either larger reward was the knowledge that he had played on the hopes and fears of Lincoln, with such effect that 38,000 Men doubtless at first, a first relay seemed to have been followed by others were kept from joining McLoughlin, in front of Richmond. The guy was a giant,

Karl Schudt 6:25
amazing stuff that he did more good writing from Foote on the next page about his troops. “All they got in return for their sweat and blood was victory.” It was enough. Just perfect little sentences.

Scott Hambrick 6:39
Wherever he rode, he was cheered. That’s making take his hat off. They’d say when they saw him coming hungry as they often were dependent on whatever game they could catch to supplement their rations. They always had the time and energy to cheery I’m hearing a hullabaloo on the far side of camp. They laughed and said to one another, it’s old jack for a rabbit. Something I noticed about Foote, Karl, is that from time to time, he’ll tell a story about some officer typically it’s he never He never says it’d be an officer who’s not up to the task that either is incapable of dealing with it. I don’t mean Pope. They’re typically majors or lists, or are stricken with some sort of cowardice. And then he doesn’t name them. Did you notice that? Huh? Yeah, he would. He would tell these stories. Let me see if I got I’ve got one here. Let’s see. The leader of the McDowell’s advanced head surprised the fort royal Garrison regiment of Georgians is Colonel fled at the first alarm, leaving his men and $300,000 worth of captured goods to be scooped up by the Yankees. Jackson interviewed the runaway Colonel that night. How many minutes you have killed? None? How many would none, sir? You call that much of a fight and put him in arrest. Fortunately, the senior captain had taken command burn the supplies about the troops out. Anyway, he doesn’t name that guy. And I noticed him doing this several times. I love that about him. I can’t fault a guy that would run probably might have had family. I have no idea. Well, no, but

Karl Schudt 8:29
you name him in the story, doubtless. Okay, so the sources for this, which he talks about a little bit in the end of the book. There are, I can’t remember what it’s called. I found a link to it on the internet a while back and I’ve got it bookmarked. But there’s this huge set of the official correspondences from the Civil War. So you can get battle reports for everything that happened.

Scott Hambrick 8:52
Yeah, it’s like 129 volumes are something huge.

Karl Schudt 8:56
I was sitting in, we went to Jefferson Davis’s house in Mississippi, when we were there, which is an interesting house. It was given to him. He had been in prison, and was given to him by a woman who was dying of cancer. And he lived in it for a couple years. Who was siding with that’s where the museum is in the

Scott Hambrick 9:16
library. Who was that woman?

Karl Schudt 9:18
Who is that woman? I forget her name. But she’s a relative of Walker Percy. Yeah. Interesting. They all knew each other. He had the feeling in the 1860s everybody in the country knew each other. It’s like a Star Wars universe. But I was sitting there in the in the library. And these volumes are on the shelf, and I just pulled a few of them down and started flipping through them. You could spend a lifetime reading that and it’s fascinating. So in other words, this Colonel has a name and he chooses not to reveal it. Well, if you’re writing the official book of the history of the civil war, what I’m saying is flip might have said, well, he might have known the guy’s family. Do you want to memorialize cowardice? By Name? Maybe not.

Scott Hambrick 10:13
Maybe not.

Karl Schudt 10:15
If anyone really wants to know who it is, they can look it up. Right. But

Scott Hambrick 10:18
you know, he doesn’t want to cast aspersions on the family. But also, that wasn’t my thought. I think you’re probably right. That’s probably what it was thinking. But my thought was, is that he just doesn’t blame them.

Karl Schudt 10:33
That’s another way to read it

Scott Hambrick 10:35
to know he didn’t blame me. I can’t blame that guy. I have no idea what that’s like Jackson did and Jackson arrested him. That’s for Jackson to do. But I can’t do that. Because I I’m not him. That’s another thing that endeared me to Foote. Yes. I hope I’m endured to Foote. I don’t even know what to do about this book. You could just endlessly sort of armchair quarterback this thing. You know? A

Karl Schudt 11:22
Yeah, I have another line that I like. There’s a bunch of them. And there’s a story of Jeb Stuart riding around his father-in-law in the dark, but 45 But lead no more considered turning back apparently than McClellan had considered moving forward. Yeah. Another perfect sentence. You get the character of these two men, Lee’s is he’s not going to budge. He’s defending Richmond. And McClellan’s not too excited about attacking Richmond, which he never actually did.

Scott Hambrick 11:50
He never actually did to me. He had it in the palm of his hand. Yeah, there are 515. I wrote here. McClellan would take no chances he need not. The North didn’t need to take any chances. I think McClellan’s ride.

Karl Schudt 12:06
Well, you know, they did. There’s an election coming up. There’s a congressional elections which the Republicans lost in 1862.

Scott Hambrick 12:18
The midterms

Karl Schudt 12:21
in the midterms, so in wars, which America fights the commander in chief is a political officer.

Scott Hambrick 12:31
Is that a good idea?

Karl Schudt 12:35
Well, we tend not to prosecute wars to the finish. We tend to not want to do it because well, I don’t know. I mean, Canada, it’s not a democracy, but Canada democracy actually fight a war. We haven’t done so well, recently. You know what I mean, I don’t want to get into politics, current events. But so Lincoln’s desperate, he needs the cloudland to win something. And McClellan is saying, Well, no, I don’t want to lose. I’m the only thing between the Confederacy and Washington DC, which he was. So the stakes are high. If he loses, let’s say, let’s say he screws up and Jackson and Lee and Longstreet. And they tear him apart. Because that does happen. Sometimes. We’re armies lose so bad that they’re no longer armies. Let’s say that happens. Then it’s opened across the Potomac and take Washington, DC, and then you’ve lost. So his caution is, after you said that, I started rethinking McClellan because he’s usually he’s usually portrayed as the goat. Yeah. And not the greatest of all time, but just the goat.

Scott Hambrick 13:51
Yeah. I don’t think that he got to my conclusion. For the same reasons. He’s there. Coincidentally, like he, he wants to prep he, he does like in action. He does like drilling and training. He’s he’s not a scrapper like Jackson, but, but that’s okay. It works. He’s right. I don’t think you need to find it.

Karl Schudt 14:14
Well, his also his intelligence was very, very bad. The Pinkertons by continually overestimate the number of Confederates that are there the Blackwater

Scott Hambrick 14:22
of 1862 the Pinkerton organization. Yeah, so Alan Pinkerton is the guy’s name. We never sleep his detective agency was under contract for McClellan to essentially be northern operatives are spies and gather intelligence on the south, not a government agency. Maybe that’s good. Maybe it’s not I don’t know. But they’re not. It’s a company and they are on the payroll. Now, if you think you’re on if you’re on the payroll, do you think it behooves you to give intelligence reports that make your boss want more information or less information. I think they have the incentive to over report numbers. So what I’m saying

Karl Schudt 15:17
hmm. Well, this is a common thing for those in government service, who never are going to make a budget request that is under is going to go over. And your budget has to go up every year. To justify your existence. Yeah. So there’s a tendency towards to do that for sure.

Scott Hambrick 15:38
Yeah, the Pinkertons. Using them was the wrong way. He doesn’t talk about that in here, and I’ve never heard anybody else say it, but I did a book report on a biography of Pinkerton when I was in the sixth grade, Karl. I don’t that

Karl Schudt 15:53
I bet that it is well done. Did you

Scott Hambrick 15:55
like when Stuart lost the plan, it was fell asleep on the front porch of that house and I got rousted out and he lost his hat. To the northerners.

Karl Schudt 16:04
Yeah, but then he gets the other guy’s coat.

Scott Hambrick 16:07
Yeah, so Jeb Stuart. Yeah, dashing character with his silk lined Cape in his felt hat with a brim turned up an ostrich point. Baddest, most stylish, handsome is swashbuckling. His cavalry man ever lived, lost his hat, because he got startled when it’s in his sleep. And they were making fun of him. The Northerners were making fun of him and passing his hat around, and he was outraged. And then he and his men run around Pope’s rear, and ran into the headquarters camp. I mean, like 1700 horsemen run into the camp, and sacked general Pope’s camp, it would be like if somebody sacked Eisenhower’s camp AFTER D DAY. And took Pope’s coat and hat at everything. glorious, glorious.

Karl Schudt 17:04
So this is another reason why, you know, and I don’t know if this happens anymore. But you know, like I say, my grandfather is one of them. There are people that get absorbed with this war. I am and will end up studying everything about it. Maybe they end up as reenactors or something. It’s fascinating. If you study World War Two, who are the great characters? I mean, nobody’s going to allow any of these generals to be as crazy

Scott Hambrick 17:33
as Stewart patent tried, and then he killed him.

Karl Schudt 17:36
And nowadays, they’re all They’re all middle management types. I mean, patent was kind of crazy. And they the cashier, they set him down for a while. And we have we have middle management desk people. Yeah. Well, not in a civil war. I mean, these people might be like a 28 year old brigadier general. They all have personalities, and you can see them and it’s very entertaining. I can

Scott Hambrick 18:05
just look at look at pictures of Stuart for hours. Slavitt the coolest dude ever man. So they had macloan his hat in the seven days running off of by the way, they win the Revolutionary War. Just you know, 6571 does it know 80 years earlier at Yorktown. Richmond’s just right up the road from Yorktown. It’s like a one day’s horse ride from Yorktown to to to Richmond. And the North as the army of the Potomac. situated there on that Peninsula. Pressing on your own Richmond. It’s the same, it’s the same battlefields. It’s Cornwallis and Washington is the same. It’s the same fucking dirt. And it’s there. It’s all of their grandkids. By the way, Lee’s grandma granddad was in that war. He’s married to one Washington, Martha Washington’s kin. Like it’s the same people

Karl Schudt 19:09
Jefferson’s grandson is. The Jefferson’s grandson is in this.

Scott Hambrick 19:14
Jefferson’s grants is what the Secretary wore for the Confederates. I think he’s a Randolph

Karl Schudt 19:19
Randolph. I think his name is George Randolph.

Scott Hambrick 19:23
It’s the same it’s the same stuff. McClellan gets pushed back down this peninsula.

Karl Schudt 19:29
Yeah. And that is another thing which struck me from this, like this is a general not specific thing. To get a sense of the quickness of the change. So 1776 Declaration of Independence, George Washington is doing generally in a powdered wig. You know, I don’t know if you wear the wig when he was out there. But there are no railroads. Life is very, very different. So 70 to 76. And then 90 years later, 90 years. That’s a long lifetime. You have this other war. Well, all the railroads that they were fighting over. The first railroad was 1823, something like that. All of these railroads that they’re fighting over to get supplies in are brand new. They’re within living memory. Everything is changing. The weapons are changing. I was going to go down a rabbit hole and do the weapons, but I didn’t have time to do it. You know what weapons are fighting with what sharpshooting rifles they have, which are brand new. So you have Confederate sharpshooters, there was no such thing before. Then,

Scott Hambrick 20:31
at some point in here, Shelby says everything in the nation was new except seeing.

Karl Schudt 20:37
Yeah, it’s just a frantic development of the of the United States of America on this continent. And to go through the slavery issue, the slavery issue was not objectionable to the northern states. Until it was, and why does it become objectionable? Well, you could say it’s because of the moral development of the people. Good. That’s right, fine. People should not live in bondage. I agree. But they were still buying that cotton. But when you have mechanization then you don’t need cheap labor. Yep. And now you have the luxury of having moral qualms about it. Yeah. So I’ll give you an example. If, if you own an iPhone, your iPhone was made in Foxconn? Is that the name of the company that makes them Foxconn in China in a factory which has trampoline nets around the building? Because so many of its employees were leaping to their death. Because of the conditions in the factory, I’m not making that up. So do you support the bondage of the workers in China? I guess you do. Now, if it became the case that iPhones could be made, but completely by robots and not by those humans, then probably you would find it much easier to oppose the enslavement of people in China to make your cheap products and

Scott Hambrick 22:20
you could get real sanctimonious.

Karl Schudt 22:21
You know what I’m saying? Yeah, morality often follows economics. And so the South was was doomed because their way of life was doomed because of the technological advances and their way of life, which was formally acceptable, perhaps with a sniff, you know, to people like John Adams becomes completely unacceptable.

Scott Hambrick 22:46
Did you see the quote from my beloved Thomas Carlyle in here? I’ll do this. Remember, he said, The South preferred to buy their servants for life and the North preferred to buy them by the hour?

Karl Schudt 22:58
Yeah, I saw that. It’s complicated is is what I’m saying. And you can look back and say I, I me reading this book. I am very pure. And would never have done any of the things that these people do. Well, check your conscience. Check all the stuff in your house who made it? When you go shop at Walmart because it’s cheapest? What are you supporting?

Scott Hambrick 23:25
A great number of people living on no money a day.

Karl Schudt 23:31
Yeah, and not free to quit. So slaves. So there you go. Yeah.

Scott Hambrick 23:37
If if a wage changes hands, it’s not slavery, Carl. You see, if a wage doesn’t change hands, then you have to work then your slave. But if I give you a single penny slavery it’s the free market. I gave you a penny. And then you didn’t have to take that penny to curl. You could have done something else.

Karl Schudt 24:04
Does that. Does that make your conscience free?

Scott Hambrick 24:07
Yes. Yes, that’s what libertarianism does. It lets me sleep like a baby and ignore all nuance. Yeah.

Karl Schudt 24:16
Oh, gosh. Yeah, I’m sorry. I can’t ignore all nuance.

Scott Hambrick 24:22
You’re not a libertarian. You know, if we ever had the free market, though, you could ignore it. Because price would contain all information moral, ethical, and otherwise, and everything would be priced in. You wouldn’t have to worry about it then. So at the end of that seven days campaign, Lee masterfully. Somehow ropa dopes all the way down the peninsula and runs McClellan off which is amazing. We can rattle rattled 533 below the three stars. This is going to be a harder war from here on out in Lincoln News. He knew it because he was going to make it. So, in fact, he was going to make it just as hard as he had to. And he said as much, quite frankly to anyone who asked him, most particularly despite conflicting advice from McClellan and men like him, it was going to be harder on civilians. Of the four actions which the general had said should not be contemplated for a moment, one confiscation of property to political execution of persons, three territorial organizational of state organization of states and for forcible abolition of slavery. The first second had already been carried out with government sanction. The third was in legislative works in fourth, the fourth was under urgent consideration. The second

Karl Schudt 25:39
Yeah, so McClellan had sent this letter in of his political opinions and McClellan. I say he probably loved his soldiers too much. He loved the south too much. He did not want to do these horrible things. Yep. to confiscate their property or execute them, or reorganize their states, or uncompensated emancipation, you need didn’t want to do these things to them. And is in Lincoln’s they’re doing all of them

Scott Hambrick 26:08
like it’s like, I won’t make as hard as I need to or want to. Spoons Butler, Carl spoons. So why is it called spoon as he will steal the family silverware from you? He was the occupational governor of New Orleans or of Louisiana. He was stationed in New Orleans, I have been to the Confederate States of America Civil War Museum in New Orleans, and you should go there because the losers don’t get to have museums very often. They’ll burn that fucker down, just like they have done with so many statues. So go while you can. It’s not too far from the World War Two Museum down there. They’re not very kind to this day, two spoons Butler. There is a collection of Benjamin Butler chamber pots there. It was a fashion of the day to do on the likeness of Benjamin Butler in the bottom of the chamber pot. people hated his guts. So, you know, Lincoln said he’s gonna make it as hard as he needed to on the people. Then just below that Benjamin Butler, he said at any rate when he reached New Orleans and found that the National Incident prematurely raised over the MIT had been ripped from its staff by the mob, they have insulted our flag torn it down within dignity, he noted, notified the War Department. This outrage will be punished in such a manner as in my judgment will caution about the perpetrators and abettors of this act, so that they shall fear the stripes if they do not reverence the stars in our banner, as good as his word. Butler found a man still wearing a tattoo of the outraged bunting in his buttonhole, brought him before drumhead court and carried out the result and sins by hanging Him in public from a window of the building where the crime had been committed. The women of New Orleans famously hated his fucking guts. They still do, the ones that are from there know anything about it. And if he was walking down the street, they’d walk the they had crossed the street get away from him. They drew their skirts aside to escape contamination. He said or they would talk they would they would talk grap Adam, somebody up empty a slop jar on to Admiral Farragut in the quarter at one point. In that time after that time, Butler retaliated with a general order directing that hereafter. When any female shall by word gesture or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation. They would treat them like horse with all that entails. With all that entails.

Karl Schudt 28:41
Yeah. I don’t know what to say, you know, it’s the war is a hell of a thing. The political killings really bugged me.

Scott Hambrick 28:49
It’s Lincoln. The people here at Lincoln says the people of Louisiana all intelligent people everywhere knew full well that I never had a wish to touch the foundations of their society or any route of theirs. With perfect knowledge of this they forced the necessity upon me to see and armies among them, and it is their own fault, not mine that they are annoyed. What listen, if you agree with him, all them all the better. He was an absolute tyrant. And if you agree with him, that’s what you want.

Karl Schudt 29:24
Well, okay, let me argue with myself. Because I was gonna agree with you.

Scott Hambrick 29:31
Then you’re arguing with me,

Karl Schudt 29:32
but I’m arguing with myself arguing with myself. Northerners are executed to Yeah. David suspends habeas corpus to Yep. There’s you know, Andersonville prison. You know, there’s horrors all over the place. If Lincoln’s a tyrant Davis might be a tyrant too. That’s fine. And so, you can ask yourself, Do I not like tyrants? Or do I not like tyrants who are not on my side?

Scott Hambrick 29:59
I don’t like tyrants. And I particularly don’t like them if they’re not on my side. And in addition to that, I particularly hate it if they are never treated as tyrants, and our government teaches them that they are sainted. I like it when they’re called what they are. And the suspension of habeas corpus in the south. And the introduction of conscription is a big, big, big problem. For me. There’s no question about it. But I’m not I don’t have to ever deal with sixth grade history teachers who are Jefferson Davis, apologists.

Karl Schudt 30:41
Nope, you certainly don’t

Scott Hambrick 30:42
know i don’t i don’t have to worry about that too much.

Karl Schudt 30:44
Good luck getting a sixth grade history teacher would even know who Jefferson Davis says true.

Scott Hambrick 30:48
But we know when I was a kid, like the first you know, not in kindergarten, but definitely in first grade. He’d go in there. And at the top of that we had blackboards back then and above the Blackboard was corkboard. Like maybe 12 or 18 inches wide all the way across the room, you know? And they would have the ABCs up there written in cursive and then number you know, you know, the ones they had them there back there. Or did you guys have a slight? Yeah, we

Karl Schudt 31:13
had a pulse shovel.

Scott Hambrick 31:16
And, and they would buy these stupid things at the teacher supply place or whatever, like these decorations. And there would always be Lincoln and there would always be a Washington up there every time. Mm hmm. Washington was Virginian. First, whatever, page 535. So in 1862, he’s already thrown around emancipation. He’s trying to figure it out because he’s Machiavellian. He’ll do anything he needs to do to preserve the Union. The unplayed card was emancipation mindful so far, is a new Naga real statement. This was his inaugural statement. I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so. And I have no inclination to do so.

Karl Schudt 32:11
Yeah, that’s the inauguration. Foot goes on. He resisted mainly on practical grounds, considering the probable reaction in the border states, we should lose more than we would gain he told one Jacobin delegation. So the reason not to emancipate is because it’s got to keep the border states and

Scott Hambrick 32:29
it’s just political calculation. You know, he’s not the Great Emancipator. He’s not you know, and I’m not a slavery. I’m not a slavery apologist. I’m just tired of this fucker getting this free pass. I’m sick of it. You can’t We can’t understand anything if we don’t understand this. I’m tired of the one sided story. Can I change gears for a minute, Carl? Sure, Chris sent us an email. He says Scott and Carl first off OGP is my favorite podcast. I found your podcast to The Art of Manliness podcast years ago, and I’ve listened to most of the episodes multiple times. Now. I always pick up something new and interesting about truth, beauty and goodness. case you feel like you’re shouting in the wind. I wanted to communicate the tangible impact you both have had on at least one soul. When I uncovered your podcast, my life was on the path. The Neo American dream you might say I just finished my MBA and landed a good though objectively meaningless job at a fortune 500 company where I’m sure I would have put in my 35 years got my goal was entirely missed my children growing up and never thought twice about what life was for. The first second and third time I listened to the podcast on Self Reliance I cried when Scott read the part about the sturdy lad from New Hampshire, Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions he teams it farms it pedals keeps a school preaches edits the newspaper, goes to Congress buys a township and so forth in successive years and always like a cat falls on his feet. It is worth 100 of these city dolls. I was a city doll. I went to college join the military went back to college and sold my soul to mega corporation. After several months of dealing with the government and corporate overreach associated with the Cuf had had enough, I finally got engaged and married my fiance. Sorry, Scott. I didn’t hire a private investigator but we’ll see how it plays out. And take Scott’s advice about kids are first just due in March. I quit my job without a backup plan and moved to Northwest Arkansas not too far away from the cultural mecca of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve since started working as a small business consulting helping build small businesses in the local community. I don’t know what the future holds for myself and my family. I can say the clarity that without the convictions that I’ve developed from listening to then considering the topics you discuss, that would not that would not have happened without that. Today I’ve reread Homer Escalus and Plato for the first time. It should it be thank goodness or central considerations in my life, and it would certainly not be the case if I hadn’t discovered your podcast, etc, etc. Thank you. There you go. Thanks, Chris. Yeah,

Karl Schudt 34:58
my joking response I’m sorry, we ruined your life.

Scott Hambrick 35:03
Right? Uh,

Karl Schudt 35:07
yeah. I appreciate that. People, it’s good to know that people are listening. I hope, I hope we’re doing you some good, which, you know, doesn’t mean agree with us. That’s fine, whatever it means thinking at least making your thoughts your own. You know, I had a thought I was annoyed. You wrote a podcast on or you wrote a blog post on this? Where people will they’ve come up with this thing content, content creators. Content, I’ll tell you, I generate content, usually every morning

Scott Hambrick 35:46
at nine minds at 910.

Karl Schudt 35:51
Usually a little earlier than that. And then I flesh it. And it goes away. Content is a product content is something that you could restrict, you know, or shut off or whatever. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re generating thought, if we’re doing anything. So I was, it took me a while for your blog to really piss me off. But then it did. Yay. It’s thoughts. And so if you’re going to, gosh, the people that want to cancel people, because it’s the wrong kind of content or misinformation or something, no, let’s label it what it is, it’s thoughts that they want to shut off. And what we do here is thoughts of our own, you and me together. And if it produces thoughts within you, dear listener, mission accomplished. If your thought is, Carl is crazy about Jefferson Davis or something? Fine. Yeah, great. I hope you have reasons for it. The whole point, I mean, part of the point is, you know, then you can do what Chris, the emailer did. And you can decide whether you want to live the life you’re living or not. And if you’re thinking rather than just you going along in the cultural content flow, then you might be free to make some better decisions. I don’t even know what those will be.

Scott Hambrick 37:18
You’ll be wrong, it’s okay. But you’ll have done something done something, you’ll have done it for a reason of your own reason of your own. Now, that content thing bothers me, you know, people, people, well intentioned, very nice. People will send me an email and says, you know, thank you for all the content. And they’re not being nasty, but it’s not content, I get upset on every one of these fucking shows. I do these books wear me out. I cry on the third of these shows. My blog, it’s got ember.com It’s not any good. I don’t edit anything. It’s full of typos. I’m not gonna say I put it all out there. But I write the things I feel like I needed to write that day did not explode. It’s not content. And I hope you don’t generate any content, whoever you are. Do something that matters to you. Hopefully, it’ll matter to somebody else. But even if it doesn’t matter to you don’t do content. I’m not I don’t even know what the people don’t analytics are on my blog. I have no idea how many people look at it. It might just be you

Karl Schudt 38:24
know, it shows up. Yeah. People don’t understand what a wrestling match. Thinking is. Thinking is not the same thing is opinion. No. It’s not the same thing as feeling where you can watch a movie and feel pleased. Well, that’s not anything. Thinking is. Gosh, it’s Jacob wrestling with the angel and waking up exhausted and building an altar you know that that’s what thinking is thinking is rocky and Apollo Creed. I know that’s fake. It’s a movie, but

Scott Hambrick 39:06
this book wore me out. I cried over this book several times. It’s it’s really stressful to do what we do. Let me just tell you how hard it is to do I do. Like the Civil War 150 years later, 100 almost 160 years later, is still red hot. It’s probably harder now than it was in this in the 1970s You know, so I’m reading this and I know I’m gonna have to talk about it in front of people. A little spooky. There is a chilling effect. I’m never able to say all the things I want to say. On speak there is a chilling effect on speech today. And it’s nerve racking. And I need to know what it is I want to say as I read it because I have to think it through and I’ll I’ll change my mind. You know, two, three years from now? Well, I won’t listen to this again, but I’m sure my tastes won’t be the same. But it ain’t constant. Right. I want to read you another one from Ted just gonna

Karl Schudt 40:10
give a quote about since we were talking about Lincoln, and we’ll get to you, Ted in just a second about the mass patient proclamation, you probably ought to go read it and see what it actually does. It does not free all the slaves. And so Foote writes another great sentence, he would go down to posterity, not primarily as a preserver of the Republic, which he was, but as the Great Emancipator, which he was not. Yeah, that’s, that’s a fair sentence about Lincoln.

Scott Hambrick 40:39
There are hours of footage on YouTube, singing Lincoln’s praise. He’s so even handed about it. So I believe he’s being fair. Ted says, he’s been listening for a while. And he says, I have a barbell in Iraq, and I train when I can, but sometimes busy and sometimes I’m just a pussy. He says I live in Wales and have a sheep farm that I run with my beautiful wife. We’re expecting our first child next year. Thanks to you. We are sitting at the CSA veg scheme. And hoping to some warm eat directly offsetting poultry, pigs and beef to our system. We have been intensively grazing for a while and have highly sought after genetics and our flock. But everyone around us thinks we’re crazy to make ends meet I also work more or less full time hours as a self employed pastor. I don’t know if that’s a trade where you guys are. But I hope to end this once we can generate enough income from the farm so I can raise my family and my livestock full time. Thanks for doing what you do. Because there’s made a big difference in my life by seeing someone else seek truth and talk about the hard things is allowed me to become decoupled from boring, mediocre moderation. That seems to be installed in most of us. He says Keep at it.

Karl Schudt 41:48
We have drywall or not plasters. It’s hard to find a plaster. When we have old buildings that still have it, you just can’t find anybody that knows how to do it, pirated if you can. I think this book is going to beat us into submission. I don’t think we’re going to tell you about what

Scott Hambrick 42:01
you can’t. For a moment, for a moment the South had Maryland wanted to read this from Jefferson Davis 666 65 There coral. There after second Monascus we had Maryland for about 11 minutes. See, I said we all you all you iTunes reviewers. The population was addressed to the people of Maryland. The people of the Confederate States have seen with profound indignation that their sister state deprived of every right and reduced to the condition of a conquered province. We have long wish to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke to enable you to enjoy the inalienable rights of Freeman. We know no enemies among you, it will protect all of every opinion. It is for you to decide your destiny freely and without constraint. And while the southern people will rejoice to welcome you and your natural position among them. They will only welcome you when you can have your own free will.

Karl Schudt 43:02
So that’s a statement of the Confederate position. I want to give you the other page 800 Yes, sorry. I was looking at the wrong page. Massachusetts kind of home just governor from Beaufort, South Carolina. He added I hope I shall do something into great fumigation before the sulfur gives out just what it was. He was proposed to do with regard to those he called our southern brethren he had announced while waiting in Annapolis for the ship that brought him down to the coast. Do we fight them to avenge insult? No, the thing we seek is permanent dominion, and what instances are a permanent Dominion without changing revolutionising absorbing the institution’s life and manners of the conquered peoples. They think we mean to take their slaves Bas, we must take their ports, their minds, their water power, the very soil they plow, and develop them by the hands of our artisan armies. We are to be a regenerating, colonizing power or we are to be whipped schoolmasters with how it serves must instruct our southern brethren, that they are a set of damned fools and everything that relates to modern civilization. This army must not come back settlement migration must put the seal on battle, or we gain nothing. That’s an interesting quote from a colonel in the Union army.

Scott Hambrick 44:18
Yeah, that’s not the proclamation from the president like the one I read from Davis. But I think that sums it up. Now, whether that’s what Lincoln wanted or not, that’s the effect of it. How could he have denied that?

Karl Schudt 44:35
Yeah, and if you think that slavery makes it worth it, that’s, that’s fine. That’s what I what I’m saying is you should realize it was a subjugation. subjugation means walk under the yoke. It was a subjugation and a remaking of a way of people’s way of life. And you can say that the evil of bondage just justifies it. You maybe right? There’s evils all over the world. Make your case. I hope when the armies form you sign up.

Scott Hambrick 45:08
Yeah, that same. That same guy says that vindicating the majesty of an insult government by extra painting all rebels by the fumigating their nest with the brimstone of unmitigated Hill, I can see to be the holy purpose of our further efforts.

Karl Schudt 45:24
insulted government, my gosh,

Scott Hambrick 45:25
how dare they?

Karl Schudt 45:30
Yeah, so after the Civil War, it’s a completely different thing. It’s not I think foot says somewhere it’s before the war. It was the United States are and after the Civil War the United States is. That’s why I think it’s a revolution. This guy this colonel, he won. And they did it. They won. And so it’s no longer a free union of states it is. Whatever it is after 1865 Empire, yeah, it’s the Empire. Well, that would be consistent with the expansion Western, the Indian Wars. I mean, those are Imperial acts. Yeah. Gosh, it’s hard book.

Scott Hambrick 46:08
Yeah, foot is a Master. Master. You know, I said I wanted to read this on the show. This is actually in his biographical note here on page 815 815, dear

Karl Schudt 46:24
listener, 815 pages I had to read just want you to know that

Scott Hambrick 46:28
every page was a delight.

Karl Schudt 46:32
It’s not that it’s not that they weren’t a delight, it’s that there were so many of them. While I have all these other things, I hear a

Scott Hambrick 46:37
lot. Whether the event took place in a world now gone to dust preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in the imagination preserved by memory and distilled by the creative process. They both want to tell us how it was to recreate it by their separate methods and make it live again, in the world around them. This has been my aim as well, only I’ve combined the two he’s in. He’s combining the ways of the novelist and the historian, he says, excepting historian standards without His paraphernalia, I have employed the novelist methods without his license. Instead of inventing characters and incidents, I searched them out and having found them, I took them as they were, nothing is included here either within or without or outside quotation marks without the authority of documentary evidence, which I consider sound. Although I have left out footnotes believing that they would detract from the books narrative quality by intermittently shattering the illusion that the observer is not so much reading a book and sharing an experience. I thought it proper to employ three dots of illusion to signify the omission of interior matter from quotations. In all respects, the book is an accurate as care and hard work could make it. Partly, I’ve done this for my own satisfaction. For in writing history, I would no more be false to effect dig out of a valid document than I would be false to effect dig out of my head and writing a novel. Also, I’ve tried for accuracy because I have never known a modern historical instance, where the truth was not superior to distortion, by any standard in in every way. Wherever the choice lay between soundness and color soundness had at every time, the problems were encountered in the course of all this study, but lack of color in the original materials was never one of them. In fact, there was the rub. Such heartbreak such was here involved came not from trying to decide what to include, but from other trying to decide what to omit in the omissions far outnumber the inclusions. When we’re worried perhaps will not be out of place. I am a Mississippian. The the veterans I knew are all dead now. Down to the final home guard drummer boy my childhood through remembrance of them is still with me. However, being nearly as far removed from them in time, as most of them were removed from combat when they died, I hope I have recovered the respect they had for their opponents until reconstruction lessened and finally killed it. A bias is the last thing I would be able to know when in my admiration for heroism and ability. No matter which side of the line a man was born or fought on when the war broke out for score the 17 years ago. If pride in my resistance in the resistance my forebears made against the odds as leaned me to any degree in their direction. I hope it will be seen to amount to no more in the end than the average Americans normal sympathy for the underdog in a fight shall be foot he snuck one in there real a real nasty one Carl I hope I have recovered the respect they had for their opponents until reconstruction lesson and finally killed it

Karl Schudt 49:43
yeah saw that. Oh god.

Scott Hambrick 49:50
Whole lot of people walking around but not enough humans and he’s one of them. He’s one of those humans. I don’t know, what are we gonna do next? rung me out like a rag

Karl Schudt 50:07
I had some suggestions. I think we need something lighter than this momentous monument of literature. I thought something short we could do rule of Saint Benedict,

Scott Hambrick 50:23
we need to do that.

Karl Schudt 50:25
Which is short. I want to inflict more Walker Percy on you at some point last in the cosmos is fun and not a novel. And he’s a friend of footsie. I read their letters to each other. That’s a book you can find. Find the correspondence. It’s worth reading. But really, St. Benedict is it’s short and very influential. Yeah, I don’t know. What do you wanna do? Let’s

Scott Hambrick 50:58
do that we got to do we’ve got to do it anyway. And then we could follow that up with lost in the cosmos. Sounds like a plan. And then volume two.

Karl Schudt 51:11
Volume Two is like 1200 pages.

Scott Hambrick 51:13
I know. Are you not going to read it?

Karl Schudt 51:18
No, I’m not not gonna read it. But am I going to read it in a month?

Scott Hambrick 51:26
No, it took a long time to get to this thing.

Karl Schudt 51:28
I gotta recover from this one.

Scott Hambrick 51:30
I had a hard time getting started. But once I would pick it up, I’d read 50 or 100 pages at a sit. But every time I learned pretty quick that if I picked it up, it was gonna stick to me like, it’s like a tar baby. And I found that I didn’t want to pick it up. Because I’d be engrossed by and I’d have bad dreams about it and stuff. I didn’t even want touching sometimes. I thought second, when asked this several times

Karl Schudt 51:59
the haunting thing. Don’s been sending his surgeons off to help federal people who are wounded and then dying of his own wounds. The Confederate you know that? Gosh, there’s a commentator that calls himself he’s not a veteran. He calls himself a war movie Veteran that’s how I feel like I’m I’m now a civil war, a civil war account veteran

Scott Hambrick 52:20
Stonewall being offered reinforcements at Sharpsburg anteed in refusing them we’ve got it is there another general is anybody ever refused reinforcements but they ever

Karl Schudt 52:43
not aware of it. And he’s right didn’t need Alright, so real estate Benedict next time. Please, dear listener, if you haven’t, go check out the website, online, great books calm. You can buy some stuff from us. We have some T shirts, which are very nice. made out of very fine cotton. You should go do that we have the the world history timeline, which is unique you can’t get anywhere else. You could also join get on the mailing list and join and read great books with people who will soon become your friends. Yeah. And might add some color to your life. Yeah,

Scott Hambrick 53:28
enrollment will be open for one week starting January 16. So we do that once a month. But this

Karl Schudt 53:34
and don’t forget about the music and ideas podcast with a friend Trent, who’s also a member. We just completed a show on rock’n’roll roots. Which I liked better than I thought I would. I thought it was very enjoyable. You learn a whole lot of stuff and some interesting theories from Mr. Scott Hamburg about the origins of rock’n’roll. What’s wrong? Don’t think so. But they’ll have to listen to it to find out what that’s about

Scott Hambrick 54:05
three hours. Here’s what happened to those shows. We start talking. And then I start then I that I’m just talking because I don’t prepare. I listen to everything like once and then I start talking and I realize that I might be a savant maybe I just remember all these dates. And these publishing companies and it’s weird. It’s super weird, and I don’t even know what’s in there and then we start doing it. Can Shelby Foote? God

Karl Schudt 54:37
should we wrap it up? Turn off the machines.

Scott Hambrick 54:42
Yeah, probably. So hey, y’all past show around, recommend it to people. We will get some blowback from this. You can’t say anything about certain things in history that are anything like contrary to the thing your sixth grade teacher tells you without catching some blowback. So gave us a review and help bury those that are sure to come that say that we’re slavery apologist, we would appreciate that. And also, I highly recommend that you go to your US bookstore or wherever you get books on the cheap. And get yourself a hardback set of the Shelby Foote Civil War trilogy, because I think that there is a better than even chance that you can’t buy this anymore. In the near future. Yeah, it’s worth having anyhow, you want to have that around. On a snow day when your kids might pick it up and read a couple paragraphs and it’d be worth having around just just on the off chance that happens. Go out and get that and any other book that you think it’s important to get yourself a hard copy of it and lay it up because she might want it one day. All right. Thank you guys so much for listening. We’ll talk to you in another week.