Unabashedly Bookish

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At the end of September, on the conservative website NewsMax, a commentator named John L. Perry began a column with the lede: "There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the 'Obama problem.' Don't dismiss it as unrealistic." Although this sort of rhetoric is deeply unsettling (NewsMax tried to bury the article, then wound up disavowing it), it's not a unique curiosity in American politics, not even in living memory.

Today General Douglas MacArthur is remembered for declaring that he'd return to the Philippines in WWII, for the Inchon landing in Korea and for his maudlin "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech to congress. But he's also remembered for the reasons leading up to that speech: his repeated insubordination to President Truman, his sandbagging of the peace process with the North Koreans, and the political capital he expected to generate for grandstanding about both in letters to Republican politicians and that speech itself.

This skein of mistrust runs through Vietnam as well, with criticisms that Democratic leaders refused to commit enough troops to win, were willing to cut and run (LBJ's peace process in 1968) and were willing to sabotage effective new tactics to victory: viz. undercutting President Nixon. Of course, Nixon ran for office in 1968 partly on a platform of "Peace with Honor" (this is actually a paraphrasis of his platform and a later speech), so it's something of a questionable charge to blame one party for undercutting the martial aims of a president elected on a mandate to secure a peace.

These popular (mis)conceptions of troops "stabbed in the back" by civilian leadership unequipped to give that last full measure persist in living memory and in discourse such as Perry's lede paragraph above. But it's the Civil War and the challenges that Abraham Lincoln faced that may have been most critical in this regard and most instructive.

Fans of Civil War scholarship should recognize the name of James McPherson, author of The Battle Cry of Freedom, widely considered one of (if not the) best one-volume history of the war. His recent history, Tried by War, focuses on how Lincoln faced and overcame challenges to his own legitimacy as a civilian commander from within his own army — and how his sure hand, innovative thinking and stirring rhetoric (for example, the origins of the term "last full measure") reaffirmed the legitimacy of the civilian Commander-in-Chief.

Many of his challenges are peculiar to the time. For instance, Lincoln was obliged to commission generals on purely political considerations, repaying favors to regional politicians by granting commands to those who weren't even career military men. This military-political spoils system undermined the war effort but was temporarily necessary to stave off political defeat that might have resulted in a compromise peace.

Contemporary idiosyncrasies aside, the remaining challenges are resonant even today. One of Lincoln's best insights, as McPherson sees it, came in 1862 in hitting on the idea of "concentrations in time." Since the Confederacy was geographically smaller and because Confederate armies could withdraw into their borders and more easily concentrate troops on an attack in a specific area, they would essentially equalize the population advantage the north enjoyed. However, by attacking on several fronts at once — concentrating in time, rather than in numbers — Confederate strategists would be obliged to stretch their troops thin.

It may not be remarkable today to think of a civilian theorist failing to overawe military advisors, but the degree of opposition Lincoln faced by General George McClellan is frankly astonishing. While he trained and drilled his troops excellently, McClellan's hesitancy to chase the enemy and his desire to see his career/political opponents brought low — even within the context of battle — mar his record. McPherson quotes him extensively:

The rebels again defeated Banks in the Battle of Cedar Mountain. McClellan learned of this outcome with satisfaction. He predicted that Pope "will be badly thrashed within two days... very badly whipped he will be & ought to be—such a villain as he is ought to bring defeat upon any cause that employs him." Then "they will be very glad to turn over the redemption of their affairs to me.  

These words help explain why McClellan seemed to be in no hurry to obey orders to reinforce his despised rival.... [I]f "Pope is beaten," which McClellan expected, "they may want me to save Washn. again." Once they "suffer a terrible defeat" and Pope is "disposed of... I know that with God's help I can save them." (p. 114)


McClellan's opinion of Pope was scarcely a secret, nor was that of Gen. Fitz-John Porter, McClellan's protégé.... "Pope is a fool," wrote Porter, and the administration that had appointed him was no better. In a sentence that could be construed as treasonable, he added: "Would that this army was in Washington to rid us of incumbents ruining our country." (p. 118-9)

McPherson obviously admires Lincoln, but with nothing like the uncritical hagiography often accorded founding fathers. He finds Lincoln's suspensions of civil rights a blot on his record, but defends them against the abuses of WWI, WWII, McCarthyism and the War on Terror. He also expresses a reasonable exasperation with Lincoln's patience with truculent generalship and repeated failure. A reader can almost feel the delight emanating from McPherson when he relates a Lincoln telegram to McClellan reading, "If you don't plan to use the army, may I borrow it for a while?"

His text vindicates the founders' faith in a civilian Commander-in-Chief, showing how Lincoln's "concentration in time" theories were borne out by Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. Lincoln was willing to entertain new technologies and new strategies (the Emancipation Proclamation is, amongst other things, a strategic attack on a rebellious territory's population) within the context of an overarching legitimate political objective.

Most importantly, McPherson shows how even 150 years ago, a civilian leader was presumed to lack — and in fact be incapable of apprehending — the specialized and unique knowledge of the battlefield. Warfare was assumed to be beyond Lincoln's ken. Men who spent their lives dedicated to a practice refused to entertain the implication that it could be questioned by one not of their order. It was inevitable he would fail. And they were wrong. Yet this debate inevitably arises as some wrenching recurring spasm of history. In the absence of foes that can be compelled to sign official surrenders, it will probably never cease.