10 Questions . . .

with ECW’s James Brookes

James Brookes is Emerging Civil War’s one-man bureau in England. James, who is finishing his degree in American Studies at Great Britain’s University of Nottingham, has a particular fascination with Civil War portrait photography. You can read his full bio here .

As ECW’s “Foreign Bureau,” what does the American Civil War look like from your side of the Pond?

Distant, but its reverberations are still felt across the Atlantic. Statues of Abraham Lincoln stand in Westminster, Manchester, and Edinburgh. In the North West, where I grew up, it’s more noticeable. The “Cotton Famine Road,” the result of a project intended to alleviate the effects of the cotton shortages, cuts through the countryside. In Liverpool, the former-U.S. consulate stands a few minutes’ walk from the unofficial embassy of the Confederacy. A Union veteran lies in my hometown cemetery. The war is often internalized to the U.S., which is logical, but we must remember that the conflict occurred in an era of global change: abolition had already been embraced by most nations, but conservatism faced off against egalitarian movements, monarchism rivalled democratic projects, and republican ideals espoused by the U.S. weren’t as exceptionally American as one might think. I recall hearing the Civil War described as “a universal conflict, fought on an American stage” once, and I think that’s a thought-provoking way to consider it.

How did you get interested in the war in the first place?

Despite what I’ve just said, my entry into the Civil War wasn’t tied to any of these UK-based Civil War touchstones. I was landed with giving a presentation on the war’s impact on the U.S. government in a politics class in high school, and that was my first “serious” engagement with the war. I had applied for American studies programs at university, but I’d been more interested in the colonial period and the early republic. But that small glimpse into the war set something off. I picked up McPherson’s The Battle Cry of Freedom shortly after that presentation, found myself absorbed by his references to the experiences of common soldiers, and within a year or so, if I wasn’t reenacting the war, I was surrounded by a small library devoted to it.

 

Your area of expertise focuses on Civil War-era portrait photography. What do you find so fascinating about those photos?

Portrait photographs were potent vessels of personal identity during the Civil War. Much like letters, they were imbued with the hopes and anxieties of ordinary Americans, but they never seem to receive the same attention from scholars. I’ve taken wet-plate photographs and have been the subject of them. From engaging in that process you gain a real appreciation of the planning and labour that went into producing a portrait photograph in the 1860s. It was a ritual. They were a means for Americans to affirm and immortalize their selves when their identities were so in flux, and were so threatened by the specters of death and disability. Not only that, but they had very practical functions. For soldiers, they were used as tokens of home, as mediators of distance, and as surrogates for loved ones they wanted near.

 

How did studio photography relate to field photography?

I think the differences between the two mediums are most fascinating, though they can bleed into one another in some respects. On the one hand, field photography can have a significant anonymizing element to it, unless were talking about pictures of historic notables. But throngs of African American refugees, hosts of Union soldiers, crowds of civilians, or heaps of Confederate dead are susceptible to be viewed as masses, rather than as individuals. This is because of the documentary nature of field photography: we know we are viewing a major event when we see so many participants and onlookers. Conversely, in studio photography, you’re usually only confronted with one figure. They are the subject and the focus of the picture, and you have to reckon with their individualism. These soldiers made a conscious decision to have their portraits made: it was proof of their commitment to the cause they fought for, and they fixed themselves into the war’s visual archive. It’s incredible that we have such a diverse grassroots archive to parallel the mainstream record.

 

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working towards the completion of my PhD. I’ve spent three years working on it at my home institution, the University of Nottingham, and now I’m currently based at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as a research fellow. My project essentially seeks to provide a comprehensive examination of soldiers’ creation and employment of war imagery: graphic arts, paintings, prints, portrait photographs, etc. I look at the ways in which soldiers made use of popular visual imagery, but also their own depictions of the war. From there, I’m examining the extent to which they associated with the heroic traditions of representing warfare. Most do, but some distance themselves in very interesting ways. I mostly focus on Union soldiers, owing to the greater number of archival materials related to them. It’s proved to be a little too ambitious, considering how much great material I’ve pulled up, but I’m really enjoying it.

 

Lightning Round (short answers):

Most overrated person of the Civil War? 

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. I admire him greatly, don’t get me wrong: his service record is incredible and he was a true wordsmith. But his post-war writings and political career shone a bright light on his contributions, which were then illuminated further by The Killer Angels and the movie Gettysburg. He’s come to eclipse so many other personalities in the popular understanding of the war.

Favorite Trans-Mississippi site? 

I’ve not travelled west of the Mississippi, yet. I’ve always wanted to visit the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, though it’s not strictly a Civil War site (the Arabia sank in 1856). It’s a mammoth time capsule of American material culture from the mid-nineteenth century.

Favorite Regiment?

The 57th Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers. Formed in 1864, they left camp with over 900 men to fight the Overland Campaign. By August, 47 remained. Their endurance was mind-blowing, and Warren Wilkinson tells their story poignantly in Mother, May You Never See the Sights That I Have Seen.

What one Civil War book do you consider to be essential? 

Drew G. Faust’s This Republic of Suffering. It’s difficult to pick up any Civil War book without being reminded of the war’s enormous toll, but Faust’s book forces you to confront it on a very intimate level. Death’s heightened presence, proximity, and immediacy made it almost inescapable. We should always bear that in mind whenever we engage with the war.

What’s one Civil-War related question no one has ever asked you that you wished they would?

It’s difficult to pick out one question. My current work forms my greatest interest in the war so I’m fortunate to get asked plenty of questions about what I’m most passionate about. In general, I’d like to see people asking more about the war’s social and cultural history: it allows individuals to approach the war on a grassroots and personal level, which I think is key in generating interesting in accessible ways.