"Why This Happen?"

Winston Groom. Vicksburg 1863. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Illustrations. x + 482 pp. $30.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-307-26425-1. Reviewed by Christopher R. Waldrep Published on H-CivWar (July, 2009) Commissioned by Matthew E. Mason (Brigham Young University) Vicksburg 1863 is the skillfully crafted work Groom does not intend to appeal to aca‐ of an experienced writer. In 1978, Winston Groom demics or even history buffs. In a 2005 book on a published his frst book, Better Times Than These, different war, Groom warned readers that some based on his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. of his information might be “old hat” to “those Other books have followed, and Groom most who devour every scrap of detail about the Sec‐ forcefully established his credentials in 1986 with ond World War.” Groom explained that he did not a comic novel on his Vietnam experience that be‐ consider such aficionados to be his audience: “it is came a hugely successful movie: Forrest Gump. In not for them that I write but to the average Ameri‐ Vicksburg 1863, Groom exhibits not only his sto‐ can reader.” He frankly stated that he hoped read‐ rytelling prowess but also a delightful talent for ers would “take renewed pride in what our fore‐ mischievous observation. Henry Halleck is “the fathers dealt with and determined to accom‐ nervous bug-eyed military whiz” (p. 56). William plish.”[2] Groom has no patience for “the new lib‐ Tecumseh Sherman had “zany” adventures in Cal‐ eral fad of ‘moral relativism’ or ‘moral equivalen‐ ifornia before the war (p. 85). The USS Benton cy.’” He believes, in fact, that there are good guys came into battle “like a bear beset by hornets” (p. and bad guys, and dismisses “the fetish of self-ha‐ 121). Groom’s descriptions are clearly the work of tred that has become so pervasive in the main‐ a talented novelist: “The night was villainously stream media and the halls of academia.”[3] For dark” (p. 276). “Vicksburg twinkled along the its part, the “mainstream media” has called great bluffs like a miniature galaxy” (p. 277). Such Groom’s faith in moral progress “endearing but vivid characterizations and crisp sentences are inherently ridiculous.”[4] the most obvious reasons to read Groom’s history In short, this well-written and entertaining writing. Reviewers have generally praised Groom, book has no scholarly pretensions. There are no one calling him “first-rate.”[1] footnotes--even though the narrative is laced with H-Net Reviews juicy quotations and his earlier history books do from Vietnam, Groom knew his service had been have notes. Groom appends a three-page biblio‐ honorable. Confronted by the antiwar movement, graphic essay entitled “Acknowledgements and “I just kept my mouth shut.”[7] Source Notes” that will allow curious readers to These two landscapes shape Groom’s Civil chart the limits of his bibliographic explorations War narrative just as surely, if more subtly, as but not trace the sources for specific facts and they do his novels. Groom has no trouble recog‐ quotations. The introduction, a place where aca‐ nizing that slavery animated southerners’ march demic readers will go looking for a thesis state‐ to war. He makes that clear in the frst chapter of ment, curiously only summarizes the author’s ge‐ Vicksburg 1863. He also knows that slavery and nealogical connections to Vicksburg. His great- racism were and are evils; in Forrest Gump, he grandfather, it turns out, joined the Fourth Missis‐ names his main character after Nathan Bedford sippi Cavalry which raced to the aid of Vicks‐ Forrest, nevertheless observing that “startin up burg’s beleaguered defenders. Armed with that that Klan thing was not a good idea--any idiot not obviously helpful knowledge, the reader could tell you that.”[8] Into that single sentence plunges into a 464-page narrative. A brief argu‐ Groom incorporates both his recognition of the mentative passage at the end makes the case that South’s racialist past and his condemnation of it. Vicksburg was the most important battle of the In Forrest Gump, one unlikely event follows an‐ war, forty times more important than Gettysburg. other until one soldier dying on a Vietnam battle‐ But that argument does not animate this narrative field pleads, “Why this happen?” and another which aims more for detailed description than character explains that “it is all part of a scheme analysis. One event follows another--at one point of some sort.”[9] No dying Confederate asks exact‐ Groom suggests that the Confederates might have ly that question in Vicksburg 1863. If one had, marched up and captured Chicago, “not that they Groom would presumably have had to point to would have,” he adds (p. 71). In this way, and per‐ slavery. Slavery was “paramount” on the “list of haps only in this one way, Groom echoes the contentions” between North and South, he writes thinking of a leading academic historian of the (p. 29). Increasingly militant abolitionists bedev‐ Civil War. Unlike Groom, Edward L. Ayers es‐ iled the South. John Brown--“aging and unbal‐ chews turning points, but like Groom, Ayers “fo‐ anced”--infuriated white southerners (p. 30). cuses on deep contingency.”[5] To that, Groom Those white southerners mistook Lincoln for a might say “Amen.” The author of Forrest Gump “die-hard abolitionist” (p. 33). The “national rift knows a thing or two about contingency. over slavery” ran so deep that it split religions (p. Readers will fnd in Vicksburg 1863 the con‐ 34). All this agitation over slavery lit the fuse lead‐ tingency that Ayers recognizes, but joined with ing to war. In Vietnam, Groom writes, “we was the kind of national affirmation Ayers rejects. In tryin to do the right thing, I guess.”[10] Groom searching for an explanation for this apparent cannot say that about the South in the Civil War. contradiction, the Vietnam War is an obvious In Vicksburg 1863, he fnds no Confederate soldier place to go. One critic has observed that “two asking the Vietnam question, “Why this happen?” landscapes loom large in the work of Winston but he comes close. A young boy asks his grand‐ Groom”: Vietnam and the American South. These mother, the daughter of a Civil War soldier, “why “twin towers” prop up Groom’s fction, he writes. did they do it, Bamaw? Why did they die?” About [6] Groom has said that there will always be an Vietnam Groom can have his character answer important connection between Forrest Gump and the same question, “it was a bunch of shit.”[11] He all his other books. There is, he explains, “a little cannot bring himself to say that about Vicksburg. bit of Vietnam” in many of his books. Returning For that battle Bamaw answers, “I don’t know, 2 H-Net Reviews son. I supposed they’d all be dead now anyhow” trolled Congress or any part of Reconstruction or (p. 458). To Vietnam, Groom can bring a brutal that Reconstruction was ever “severe.” truth, to the Civil War, comic evasion. Groom concludes with a patriotic salute to all In Vicksburg 1863, Groom recounts a string of Civil War soldiers: “They were not Gods, nor were events chaotic and even (at times) “zany,” albeit they saints, but in their time they were giants who with less reflection than he brought to Forrest ruled the earth, and they feared not. No army as Gump. Groom’s determined rejection of the moral yet assembled could have matched them” (p. 458). relativism that Vietnam encouraged in others may Here we have moral positivism, not relativism-- be an artifact from a different era stranded on a the kind of thinking that insists on clearly defined landscape remolded by the civil rights revolution. bad guys and good guys, combined with a recog‐ In his Civil War book, Ayers rejects “works of na‐ nition that southern soldiers (those fearless gi‐ tional affirmation” and “national redemp‐ ants) fought for slavery. tion.”[12] When writing about Andrew Jackson or Notes World War II, Groom redeems and affirms nation‐ [1]. Michael A. Ross, “‘Patriotic Fire: Andrew al values, though fnding those qualities in Vicks‐ Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Or‐ burg 1863 challenges his imagination. Groom at leans’ Draws Jackson as Daring Dazzling Man in least twice accuses Sherman of pyromania, as if Full,” review of Patriotic Fire, by Winston Groom, some personal mental failing led him into wanton New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 30, 2006. destruction. Black soldiers’ service at Milliken’s Bend gets brief mention, starting out with a claim [2]. Winston Groom, 1942: The Year That that the battle “did not reflect much credit on any‐ Tried Men’s Souls (New York: Atlantic Monthly one concerned” (p. 387). Black soldiers ran for Press, 2005), xiv. their lives before triumphant Texans, he writes, [3]. Winston Groom, “Hatchet Job in ‘The saved only by the timely intervention of Union War’: Criticisms of the World War II Documentary ironclads. This is one version of what happened-- Are More Examples of Growing ‘Moral Rela‐ the version that most shortchanges black heroism tivism,’” Mobile Register, October 14, 2007. on that battlefield. Other narrators have been [4]. John Leo, “‘Forrest Gump’ and His Mes‐ more generous, and even Groom concedes at the sage the Movie Serves Up a Box of Chocolates and end of this passage that black soldiers proved they Moral Values,” Charleston Daily Mail, August 3, would fght at Milliken’s Bend. He also repeats the 1994. old canard, made famous by Ken Burns, that [5]. Edward L. Ayers, In the Presence of Mine Vicksburg did not celebrate the Fourth of July for Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863 eighty-five years after the war.

Load more