Dear List,

Accuracy, is, in fact, important--not only in history--and accounts of
the Battle (I know some prefer the term "Siege") of Yorktown, should be
full, fair, and truthful as study can contrive. It may not be too much
to say that history is ill served if any axe is ground in accounts,
re-enactments, or commemorations of Cornwallis' defeat.

Any axe.

It was kind of Randy to point out, so gently, that the translation  of
"Col." in military records is not "Colonial," but "Colonel." As rank an
amateur historian as I am (colleagues can testify to the poverty of my
historical skills, and I own up to it), the error seemed so singular as
to discourage taking seriously an individual culpable of such a mistake.
On the other hand, I was wrong once before, stand prepared to be
corrected again, and apologize if I am in error this time. It would not
surprise me.

Nevertheless, would any member of the list accept as accurate a roster
of African-Americans at Yorktown, no matter the back-up, from a person
who knows not what "Col." means?

Can anyone identify any organization named "Colonial Yorktown," as
repeatedly mentioned by the poster in question? Should we ask whether
that person is informed of the ground she takes if she cannot name the
organization she criticizes--before the fact?

Moreover, Mike Litterst, though he may be trained in history, works for
the National Park Service as a public affairs executive, and a damn fine
one. Litterst goes out of his way to share his knowledge of the whole
history of Yorktown, which is large, and promotes it by community
service as a private citizen. It is hard to imagine that he deserves
such a slight as was posted by a subscriber to this list. Isn't an
apology to Litterst required before any of that poster's comments can be
regarded as informed?

It is disturbing, a little, that Colonial Williamsburg's
African-American programming was so casually faulted. "A little" because
any one who knows the program understands that it is pathbreaking, and
that it requires no defense. Any one who denigrates so forthright and
risky an initiative, especially in so off-hand a fashion--and, by
implication, the dedicated individuals, African-American and Caucasian,
who execute it--cannot be supposed to know what they are talking about.
It isn't that the program has no shortcomings; it is that it leads the
field.

But that's not what I write.

Genealogists are not historians. Genealogy is self-contemplation. "My
ancestor served at Saratoga," and such. So what? So did some ancestor of
everyone's somewhere, and also often unmentioned. Any Scots in your
family? History contemplates cultures, and politics, and economics, and,
most importantly, ideas--so much, much more than belly buttons, pension
applications, petitions for reparations, or race. It is discouraging
that the list seems sometimes to confuse genealogy for history, and
genealogists for historians--or their sad little books for things worth
the time of reading.

No question that genealogy is useful, or that it informs history, but
lists of ancestors and notations of their doings aren't history. They
are record keeping. Genealogy may be an anteroom of history, but history
is not family trees, and the authors of family histories should not be
taken seriously, even on that score--any more than me--when they take up
a cause, no matter how righteous, to promote points of view. Advocacy is
often commendable, sometimes calls attention to facts that we may think
have been neglected by the people who went before us, but, by itself,
can never be history.

To my mind, history pursues no agenda but truth (whatever "truth"
means). It is neutral, factual (whatever "factual" means), and
dispassionate. Neither, to coin a phrase, black nor white. It sets out
to make no point. To grind no axe. To right no wrong. Its adherents are
rational, calm, and objective, and do not trash ad hoc for personal
purposes the reputations or motives of individuals or institutions
dedicated, in all their imperfections, to promoting the study of all our
pasts, merely because we wish they would do more of what we think they
should be doing.

The poster's aims are laudable, for sure, but one wonders whether, in
the pursuit of righting indisputable wrongs, the means are properly
describable as promotive of the ends of history. The History News
Network article seemed an embarrassment of the author, though she should
be congratulated for calling attention to the subject. As I said, I was
wrong once before, but not, I'm positive, this time.

Less heat; more light. More reflection; fewer ascriptions of motives.
More study; fewer indulgences in conspiracies. Get the facts straight
before writing, as well as the spelling,

And let us indulge again no one possessed of a truth.

Best,
Dennis Montgomery










W. Scott Smith wrote:

>JLB says: "Give it up, Scott.  You can't win against this
>woman who is a master of self-promotion."
>
>Bill Bryant says: "Finally, a poster that I can agree with!"
>
>Anita Wills says: "Bill, Me To [sic] !!!"
>
>
>
>
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