That’s the way I view history. Battles and diplomacy are interesting only insofar as they illumine what the PEOPLE were doing. If I find nothing worthy of interest in a person, then what he (or she) did is of little interest to me unless if directly or obliquely affects someone in whom I AM interested. And being interested in someone doesn’t necessarily mean that one LIKES that person. Some of the most interesting people in history are those one loves to hate. More has been written about Jack the Ripper than many a President or Prime Minister and certainly his name is better known!

Take the most historically well known episode involving Ulrich Dahlgren, the so-called ‘Dahlgren raid’ which resulted in the young man’s death. How can one possibly understand it at all unless one knows something about Dahlgren? Were ‘higher-ups’ in the Federal Government involved? Some say yes, some no, but the matter might be better understood by knowing Dahlgren himself. For instance, if Dahlgren were the type of soul who would only obey orders from a respected superior – and I don’t mean Kilpatrick – then one must assume that there was an order ‘from above’ regarding not only the raid but what it was intended to accomplish. On the other hand, if he was a young man who would throw caution to the winds in a great enterprise, it might well be that the matter originated with Dahlgren and Kilpatrick while Lincoln and Stanton et al. were as innocent as Davis and Lee in the matter!

How anyone can make judgments about historical events without knowing about or being interested in those who were involved? And, after all, isn’t that what biographies are all about; that is, getting to KNOW these people? For all of me, you can keep your endless repetition of facts and dates! Give me the PEOPLE and if they interest me, I’ll LEARN the facts and dates.

V. P.

Eric

The true test is being able to recognize what represents personal ‘bias’ as opposed to conclusions drawn from the evidence extant. Not everyone CAN do that and – even more to the point – not everyone WANTS to do that. I have no fear that you fall into neither of the two latter categories but rather, you are in the former. You will present your personal viewpoints as ‘fact’ only when the evidence sustains them. THAT is the mark of a good biographer.

There’s nothing wrong with being prejudiced on the side the subject – it must be HELL to write about a subject one dislikes – but a good biographer will present him (or her) as did the man who painted Oliver Cromwell’s portrait – warts and all.

V.P.

Eric

Biographies – even moreso than simply ‘histories’ – are subject to the ‘mental lens’ of everyone who had contact with and/or intimately knew the subject – including published documents from the subject him (or her) self. Let’s face it, very few people are objective about others, still less about themselves, so the biographer must muddle through a lot of material that is not only lacking in objectivity, but is frequently written as a means of validating (or excusing) the author as well as revealing (or obscuring) the subject. And even after all that is considered and dealt with, the biographer must then deal with his own feelings about the subject.

Michael Kauffman in his book ‘American Brutus’, began his 30+ years of research prepared to be objective about John Wilkes Booth. Indeed, Kauffman stated in a Civil War Roundtable presentation, that he had difficulties making sense of Booth in the context of assassin given how apparently good and well loved he was by those around him earlier in his life. The Booth known by most people before April, 1865 didn’t seem to be the same man known by most people AFTER April, 1865. As his work continued, however, Kauffman learned much about Booth that put the lie to his benign character, finding instead a manipulative and murderous man obsessed with bringing down a prominent political figure.

But Kauffman’s objectivity in his subject study is not always (or even often) the norm. Most biographers have a definite point of view referable to their subject and it is only the best among them who are willing to ignore their own prejudices when facts clearly indicate that they should do so. Insofar as Mr. Wittenberg is concerned, I am absolutely assured that any biography he undertakes will be objective even when that objectivity ‘hurts’.

V. P.