January 2011

If you want to see the American Revolution from a fresh perspective, the book of choice is A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, by Private Joseph Plumb Martin. I am happy to report that his neglected classic is being reissued by New American Library.

George Washington may have heard his share of hissing British bullets, but the general never met the “old enemy” Private Martin encountered in these places —hunger. He never marched in shoes that fell apart, then kept marching through ice and snow in bare, bleeding feet.

Martin’s story has both set-piece battles such as Monmouth and small, savage encounters with marauding Loyalists. His account of the mutiny of the Connecticut Continental Line in 1780 is riveting and amazingly evenhanded. And more than once, he tells of being refused food by hardhearted farmers or their wives. In retaliation, he and his friends felt no compunction about liberating chickens, pies, cheeses, and other eatables and drinkables.

Bathtub admirals and wading-pool commodores will jump at the chance to experience several millennia of naval architecture with The Amazing Book of Paper Boats (Chronicle Books, $18.95), which provides cutand-fold versions of watercraft ranging from a birchbark canoe to an aircraft carrier to a rubberband-driven Mississippi paddle wheeler (along with a text explaining each one of the ships’ historical significance). All are made of waterproof paper, and nothing more is required for their assembly than scissors, model cement, and oatience. The book is being marketed as a children’s book, though the lack of anything to click on may deter those in the target group of ages 10 and up. But adults who bought the JFK action figure featured recently in “History Now” will be eager to fold a companion PT boat, while Civil War enthusiasts can make their own Monitor and Merrimack and refight the two ships’ epic 1862 encounter, this time giving the victory to whichever side they choose.

Your February/March “History Now” column carried a short piece about grog in the British and American navies (“The Taste Test”). You note that ”.. .the U.S. Navy abolished its grog ration in 1862.” That may apply to hard liquor, but it was Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels who eliminated alcohol altogether. Legend has it that sailors drinking coffee out of deference to the teetotaler Daniels’s orders coined the expression cup of Joe .

Mr. Hanson compares our involvement in Vietnam with the Athenian invasion of Sicily, when a more accurate comparison would be Athens and the Soviet Union. Military adventures are not good for any nation’s health, regardless of its form of government, unless they lead to a quick and decisive victory. The Syracusan Expedition and the war against Afghanistan were major factors in the downfall of their respective countries. By accepting reality and getting out, the United States positioned itself to be the single world power today. Wouldn’t it be ironic if some future Thucydides writes that the saviors of the American way were Abbie Hoffman and the SDS?

Mr. Hanson’s Vietnam article is very interesting, but it leaves out one important item. Robert McNamara has stated that at the time he had the job of conducting the war, he felt it was unwinnable. Any person who would take an assignment he believes to be impossible is dishonest. Any person who would take an assignment he believes impossible and then proceed to cost tens of thousands of lives is a murderer. Any executive who would give such a person such an assignment is a fool and a murderer.

The historian Victor Davis Hanson should really not jump on the revisionist bandwagon. Four million dead or wounded Vietnamese and 58,000 dead American servicemen would surely have a different opinion. We Students for a Democratic Society contributed to the self-critique of our society as it struggled with a terrible, divisive, and unjust war. Mr. Hanson should read Thomas Merton’s essay’s against the war; it is he who is on the wrong side of history.

25 YEARS AGO

July 2, 1976 By a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court rules that capital punishment does not violate the Constitution.

50 YEAR AGO

July 11-25, 1951 America’s costliest flood to that time submerges more than a million acres in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.

75 YEARS AGO

August 23, 1926 Rudolph Valentine, the original motion-picture idol, dies suddenly in New York City.

125 YEARS AGO

August 2, 1876 In Deadwood, Dakota Territory, Wild Bill Hickok is shot by Jack McCall during a poker game while holding aces and eights.

150 YEARS AGO

August 3, 1851 Narciso L’pez, a Cuban refugee, invades Cuba with a force of Americans in an attempt to incite a rebellion against Spain. Many raiders are quickly captured and executed.

On July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress brought a new nation into the world by adopting the Declaration of Independence. The drama had begun on June 7, when Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution calling for the colonies to sever themselves from Great Britain. A divided Congress left the question open but appointed a committee to prepare a declaration. On July 2, the Congress made the momentous and irrevocable decision to declare independence, and two days later, after making a few changes, it adopted the committee’s text, which had been written mostly by Thomas Jefferson.

Your May issue excelled with two articles: “The Meaning of Tet,” by Victor Davis Hanson, and “Why We Hate to Love Judges,” by Hiller B. Zobel. No one has yet been able to figure out an acceptable rationale for why we were so engaged in Vietnam. Mr. Hanson comes as close as anyone in trying to sort the reasoning that led us and kept us there for so long. And, as a judge, I can relate to Zobel’s piece on how our citizens both love and hate us. All Americans should close their eyes for a second to see what our democracy would be like without an independent judiciary. It would, of course, be nothing but darkness and anarchy.