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In Review: December 3, 1997
Civil War letters reveal soldiers' hearts
Religion, vengeance, and honor motivated many to fight
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
by James McPherson
Oxford, $25
IN AUGUST OF 1864, my great-great-grand-uncle George, a captain serving in Lee's army, knew that the end was near. Asserting that officers must be prepared to take ever greater risks to inspire the troops, he wrote a friend that "I hope to die like a Christian soldier and gentleman, with honor and a credit to my country, friends, and family."
I have often wondered what compelled Uncle George--and the hundreds of thousands of other Civil War soldiers North and South--to suffer through the indescribable hell of Antietam, Gettysburg, and Spotsylvania. The deadly marriage of old Napoleonic tactics with the new rifled musket resulted in casualties that stagger the modern imagination.
So what could possibly motivate so many men to abandon that most basic of human instincts--self-preservation? Was it bravery, or stupidity, or something else?
Princeton's Edwards Professor of History, James McPherson, has taken up the question why they fought? in his newest book, For Cause and Comrades. Distrusting the candor of memoirs and other published accounts, he draws instead on the unvarnished letters written by more than a thousand Civil War soldiers, of all ranks, regions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. From this wealth of material, McPherson identifies a number of broad themes that help us understand why they fought, what they fought for, and how they coped with the incredible strains of the carnage around them.
Some of these themes will be familiar to even casual students of the conflict. On the Northern side, devotion to Union emerges as among the most powerful motivating factors; in the eyes of many Federals, they were fighting to uphold the
principles of liberty that their forefathers had fought for in the American Revolution. Confederates, on the other hand, fought against the invader and against the perceived tyranny of a central government determined to undermine their social institutions, including slavery.
It is no small irony that both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, invoked the spirit of 1776 in articulating their war goals.
But McPherson also gleans other, less conventional insights from these letters. For instance, he argues that the deeply religious nature of both armies helps explain the peculiarly fatalistic attitude of so many of the war's participants. The worse things got, the more religious the troops became, putting in context the widespread revival movement that spread through the Confederate Army during the bleak winter of 1863. The desire for vengeance also played a more prominent role than Americans have been willing to admit.
Once in the line of battle, however, other soldiers--his comrades--kept the average infantryman facing forward. In part, McPherson notes, this derived from the fear of showing cowardice amongst one's friends--an understandable fear, given that most units were drawn from the same town or county and that to flinch would mean humiliation at home as well as in the field. But McPherson also reminds us of the enormous value that soldiers placed on the concept of "honor." To many, personal honor was more important than death, and to show valor in battle was the supreme way of demonstrating this characteristic to the audience that mattered most: one's fellow soldiers.
Vigorous, concise, and thought-provoking, For Cause and Comrades is history at its best. By blending analysis and narrative with first-person accounts, McPherson triumphs over the excesses of historiography while adding something substantive and new to that most popular of American subjects, the Civil War. Even for a historian of McPherson's stature, that is an achievement not to be taken lightly.
And George Williamson? He was killed at Fisher's Hill, on September 22, 1864. He died, according to his friend and messmate Randolph McKim, "bravely but rashly exposing himself to enemy fire."
--David Williamson '84
David Williamson, a former PAW staff writer, works for the Nature Conservancy in Washington, D.C.
Liturgy explained
A User's Guide to the Book of Common Prayer, Volume 1: The Holy Eucharist, Rites I and II and Volume 2: Morning Prayer and Baptism
by Christopher Webber '53
Morehouse Publishing, $6.95 each
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH has rarely been rabid about evangelism. Its strength has always lain in persuasion, not proselytizing. While its early martyrs like Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley might disagree, Anglicans are not the sort of people under whom fires are normally lit.
Calm, lucid, scholarly explanations are the preferred order of the day as these two slim volumes from longtime priest Christopher Webber '53 nicely demonstrate. Together, they walk readers through five versions of three distinct Episcopal services. The services were assembled by the Church in 1979 in what is the most recent--and dramatic--revision of its ancient Book of Common Prayer. One of them explores the two rites of Holy Eucharist. (Rite I essentially preserves Thomas Cranmer's incomparably rich, elegant, and challenging prose from 1549; the modern rite II manages to maintain, in spite of occasional dull thuds, some of the ritual and dignity of that original.) The second guide presents the comparable pair of morning prayer rites, as well as the single, modern service of baptism.
The two volumes represent in book form what the church calls an "instructed" service. Each walks us through an entire service, with running commentary facing the pages reproduced from the Prayer Book. Webber pauses long enough to explain, simply and concisely, the liturgical background or spiritual import of a certain word, prayer, or gesture. He knows instinctively how to satisfy the inquirer's curiosity and piety.
There are times where I would have liked fuller explanations of the rationale behind some of the more radical 1979 innovations. One is the "exchange of the peace," when the congregation is asked "to greet one another in the name of the Lord." Nor does Webber tackle that edition's curious parsing of the Lord's Prayer, which reads "Thy will be done / On earth as it is in heaven," rather than "Thy will be done on earth,/ As it is in heaven." For a church so committed to carrying Christ's mission into the world, that editing has always struck me as poorly judged.
Still, Webber is an exceptional mentor. He provides insights that are both eloquent and profound into the ultimate purpose behind any such religious rite, which is "to provide opportunity for every Christian to offer each day to God."
--Jamie Spencer '66
Jamie Spencer is a freelance writer living in St. Louis.
Doctors or hard drives?
How computers help in health care
Cybermedicine: How Computing Empowers Doctors and Patients for Better Health Care
by Warner V. Slack '55 M.D.
Jossey-Bass Publishers, $24
DESPITE MODERN MEDICINE'S high-tech reputation, changes in health-care practices tend to come grudgingly. As physician Warner Slack '55 points out in his new book, Cybermedicine, even the familiar stethoscope had a rough welcome upon its invention in 1816. "That [the stethoscope] will ever come into general use . . . is extremely doubtful," the London Times editorialized at the time, "because its beneficial application requires much time and gives a good bit of trouble to the patient and the practitioner. . . . There is something even ludicrous in the picture of a grave physician proudly listening through a long tube."
Slack's point is that computerized medicine is getting similar treatment today. Although computers are ubiquitous in the health-
care field--hundreds of Internet Web sites now offer medical advice and chat groups on topics from Alzheimer's to AIDS, and no hospital billing department or blood lab could exist without the machines--Slack argues that computing technology is still vastly underutilized by doctors, and that more computerization would lead to better patient care.
Cybermedicine looks at the history of computerized medicine and where it's headed, told from the perspective of a man who's been on the frontier. At the University of Wisconsin in the 1960s, Slack pioneered the use of computers to interview patients (employing "branch logic"--each answer influencing the next question). He went on to Harvard Medical School, where in the 1970s he helped establish a prototype computer network for the Beth Israel and Brigham and Women's hospitals in Boston, providing up-to-
the-minute information on each patient's medical status. At last count, the system was responding to over 100,000 requests for information per week--and transmitting more than 50,000 e-mail messages.
Slack would like to see us do better, though. "The problem is not too much automation in medicine; the problem is too little," he writes. The culprits, in his view, are hospital bureaucrats, who are slow to grasp the possibilities of computers, and doctors, whose initial squeamishness about computers led to a hands-off attitude. If more hospitals had sophisticated networks based on minicomputers, and if more doctors used the pooled knowledge of diagnostic programs to treat and educate their patients, Slack argues, we could all be getting better, more uniform health care at a lower cost.
Slack's ultimate vision (he admits it's a bit utopian) is a world in which people can actually monitor their own medical treatment on home computers, hospitals are replaced by smaller, decentralized clinics, and doctors once again make house calls: "Even complex laboratory tests . . . will be done by the patient, with easy-to-use equipment kept at home. Costs will go down, and time will be saved. But most important, the quality of medical care will be high."
Certain aspects of his argument may be hard for the layman to swallow--the idea of using a computerized, prerecorded voice in place of a psychotherapist seems like a stretch, for instance--but once again, Slack has been there and done that, and has the recorded dialogue to prove it. For those doctors and clinicians who are still computer-phobic, Cybermedicine is really a warning that the writing is on the wall. Or as Slack might say: Remember the stethoscope.
--Royce Flippin '80
Subduing the wind and a child's fear
Dancing with the Wind
by Stanton Orser '80 and James Bernardin
Rising Moon, $14.95
HOW DO YOU CALM a child who is frightened by the sound of the wind? In Dancing With the Wind, an appealing picture book written by Stanton Orser '80 and illustrated by James Bernardin, a young girl's father soothes her by telling the story of the time when the wind could be seen in the form of a beautiful woman with long hair and fingers. She would play with and tease the animals by blowing through their fur and snapping twigs to startle them. But one day, an enamored hunter catches her in a trap and locks her away in a bag in a trunk. Without the wind the world suffers, and the animals go hungry.
Together, the animals plot to free the wind. Their plan ends successfully, with special help from a tick, but the wind, who here bares a vague resemblance to an ethereal Susan Sarandon, never more reveals herself. She can only be felt as she blows through hair and fur, tickling the earthbound. She also manages to vanquish the hunter by making him shiver in a cold river.
The father's primary message, of embracing and cherishing the wind, comes through beautifully. The book's only disturbing idea, though Orser tries to resolve it, is that a hunter can capture a beautiful woman, who is unable to free herself and is eventually forced to change her identity.
--Lolly O'Brien
Online ouchies and booboos
A Web site where the doctor is always in
WHEN A CHILD IS CONSTIPATED the stool tends to be hard, and passing it tends to be painful . . . Crying while straining may be a sign of constipation." Like any good educator, pediatrician Alan R. Greene '81 knows how to grab the attention of his audience, in this case parents who turn to his Web site, Dr.Greene's HouseCalls, at http://www.drgreene.com.
The observation on constipation appeared on a homepage that deftly communicates the underlying themes of the site. The graphics show Greene examining a newborn baby, as well as a traditional doctor's bag, the sort associated more with Marcus Welby, M.D. than managed care. Along with the motto "Pediatric wisdom for the information age," the opening suggests both personal attention and the latest technology.
The content, design, and tone of drgreene.com let viewers know they are dealing with a pro, as a pediatrician and as a communicator. The site looks great and has a warm, knowledgeable tone. Summarizing his goal, Greene writes, "At a time when economic forces are making doctors visits briefer, less frequent, and less personal, the challenges of raising children are becoming ever more complex. Dr. Greene's HouseCalls is dedicated to using information technology to make pediatric wisdom more accessible than ever before." Based in San Mateo, California, in Silicon Valley, Greene started the site at the suggestion of a patient's parents, both of whom worked in the high-tech industry.
The site includes a search function for the hundreds of questions Greene has answered since the site debuted in January 1996, a question of the day, a detailed biography, and links to other sites. A chat section is also planned. The welcome page compares the Internet with the impact of the printing press, a historical perspective perhaps reflecting Greene's degree in the history and philosophy of science.
Viewers can order Greene's new book, The Parent's Complete Guide to Ear Infections ($14.95 from the People's Medical Society, $11.96 on the site). Using a question-and-answer format, he covers this common malady in understandable terms, dealing with physiology, causes, diagnosis, standard and alternative treatments (including homeopathy), and surgery. He writes, "Equipped with the information in this book, you can be not a blind follower but an informed partner in the care of your child."
Greene brings a strong personal element to the topic, noting, "The only time I've ever had to experience one of my children being wheeled into an operating room was for ear surgery. As a physician, I am used to going into the operating room myself. But I disliked the empty feeling as the doors closed behind my son and I was left standing outside. He had this operation when he was only 10 months old." In a surprising extra, Greene includes a detailed bill: $4,400 for a 15-minute procedure.
If ear infections are a problem, parents should definitely pick up this book. For a look at other issues and resources, drgreene.com is an excellent site--if parents can find the time to go online.
--Van Wallach '80
"Getting in the zone" with Mazin and Erb
Craig Mazin '92 and Greg Erb '91 began working together on screenplays soon after Mazin graduated. Their first, which became Rocketman, a Disney family comedy about a klutz who stumbles into a manned mission to Mars, opened in September. Their second, Dimension Film's Senseless, which opens in January, chronicles the mishaps of a college student who, after a campus lab experiment, accidentally and inconveniently loses one of his five senses at random. It stars Marlon Wayans and David Spade. On location in Los Angeles, Mazin and Erb talked with Stephen Garrett '92 about working in Hollywood.
Q: There seem to be two stages in a screenwriter's job--to think up and write the idea, and then, once the project goes into production, to moderate and interpret what other people want.
Erb: And hopefully keep an eye on what the script is about and what we as writers are trying to do. Part of our job is to be guardian of the script.
Mazin: During production, we have to wear a lot of different hats. We have to be the ones to remember what the script is actually about. We have to sort out all the different suggestions, and we have to respect the process, which sometimes doesn't allow us to do the things we wanted to do.
Q: Do technical or budgetary restraints affect how you write certain scenes?
Mazin: For Rocketman, for instance, we knew we couldn't write, say, a dream sequence where buildings come alive and start talking to each other--it wasn't going to happen. When we wrote a scene where the main character interacts with Patrick Ewing in the middle of a Knicks game, we thought, What are the chances?, especially since the main character tells Patrick Ewing how ugly he is. It was so close to not happening--and then it actually did.
Q: You two were pretty proud of Rocketman when you wrote it, and now, after its release, you're not. What went wrong?
Mazin: The director had a different perspective on the movie than we did. The movie we wrote had a Simpsons-esque humor, the way that Pee Wee's Big Adventure was a film for both kids and adults: it had layers. But Rocketman's director ended up emphasizing the layer that appealed only to three-year-olds.
Erb: We didn't write Moby Dick, you know. There are some movies that aren't very complicated and very complex but are funny. And we wrote that kind of movie--it was a smart, funny movie. But it didn't turn out like that.
Mazin: We wrote a quality piece of crap, and it turned out to be a "piece of crap" piece of crap.
Erb: It works best when both sides, the writers and the director, are open to a dialogue. Everybody works together for the best idea; there's no ego involved.
Q: Do you incorporate improvisation in your films?
Mazin: Absolutely. Any time you're writing a comedy with an actor who, like Marlon Wayans, is fast and smart and improvisational, you're giving him a framework to work within.
Erb: But for Senseless, he also stuck to the script a great deal.
Q: What would it be like to shoot a comedy without improvisation?
Mazin: I think it's a bad idea. When you've written something, you don't know if it's going to work until you've actually seen it. And you'd be surprised what gets laughs and what doesn't.
Q: For example?
Mazin: One-liners have to be really good to work. Let's say you write okay one-liners in the script that make people smile. They are going to die when you film them. They have to be laugh-out-loud or not at all.
Erb: And also you need to get in and out of scenes. We used to have a tendency to overkill certain scenes. The joke usually works best at its simplest and purest. David Spade in Senseless does these little things occasionally that we didn't write, and they're so small--little gestures--and they get giant laughs.
Q: Did you rewrite parts depending on the casting?
Mazin: We rewrote David Spade's character, but it didn't take much though. We were in the zone.
Erb: And there are some people that are easy to write for. We know the way Spade talks from watching him on Saturday Night Live and watching his movies.
Q: How was it to work with Bob Weinstein, executive producer for
Senseless and cofounder of Miramax?
Mazin: I've got nothing but enormous respect for this guy--and I'm not saying this because he might read the magazine. Previously I had heard stories about this guy who was crazy and yelled a lot and screamed--and I'll tell you something: not only has he not yelled or screamed, he's a smart guy, very insightful, and I have never met somebody so wealthy and so in charge who was so willing to say, "I'm probably wrong about this. Let's move on." I think most producers are used to tantrum-throwing by writers. I think the writers kind of screw themselves a bit when they do that, because most of the time the producers just come around and do the changes anyway, so you might as well just do them happily.
Q: So what makes bad movies come out of Hollywood?
Mazin: It's such a delicate, fragile system, in which everything has to go right. Each person depends on the other; everybody has to do his or her job right to make it work.
--Stephen Garrett '92
Stephen Garrett is a film editor and freelance journalist in Los Angeles.
Books Received
THE FUTURE OF ETHNICITY, RACE, AND NATIONALITY, by Walter Wallace (Praeger, $49.50)--an examination of the history and future of the human species, based on the concept of the Grand Cylce, i.e., dispersion, differentiation, contact, and consolidation. Wallace, a professor in the sociology department, believes the "melting pot" idea of species consolidation is working, and has been working for ten thousand years, and it will ultimately improve the human species' chance of survival.
TARA AND MICHELLE, by Wendy Healy Daly '76 (Random House, $3.99)--a young-reader biography of Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan, two teenage ice-skating champions.
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