Like many Civil War historians, I have for many years accepted invitations to address the general public. I have nearly always tried to offer fresh perspectives, and these have generally been well received. But almost invariably the Q and A or personal exchanges reveal an affection for familiar stories or questions. (Prominent among them is the query “What if Stonewall Jackson had been present at Gettysburg?”)
For a long time I harbored a private condescension about this affection, coupled with complete incuriosity about what its significance might be. But eventually I came to believe that I was missing something important: that these familiar stories, endlessly retold in nearly the same ways, were expressions of a mythic view of the Civil War, what the amateur historian Otto Eisenschiml memorably labeled “the American Iliad.”[1]
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