No Conflict

In his review of Shelby Foote’s volumes on the Civil War (“Matters of Fact,” December 1987), Geoffrey Ward directed the back of his hand to those academic historians who do not appreciate writers such as Foote. Letters in the March 1988 issue suggest that tenured “historiographers” are envious of those who write well and in order to protect their turf do not accept gifted writers as real historians. I suggest that there is no such conflict. In more than twenty years of close contact with tenured historians, I have yet to hear such protectionist comments. This is a non-issue.