Carmel
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- May 31, 2019
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Highly Selective Use of Primary Sources in Chernow's Grant Support his Thesis that Grant was an Alcoholic
A tweet by the thoughtful and eloquent public historian Nick Sacco brought to my attention this project by Marie Kelsey, who studies the Civil War, particularly Ulysses S. Grant, but says she is not a Civil War scholar. Kelsey has begun a fact-checking project on Ron Chernow's use (often misuse) of primary sources in his biography of Grant, particularly around the drinking issue.
I was delighted a couple of years ago to see another biography of Grant that treats him as an intelligent person, and on the whole found the book highly readable and interesting. However, I was not alone in my disappointment with Chernow's obsession with Grant's drinking, and questioned some of his sources, as did many others. Kelsey is undertaking a rexeamination of the primary sources Chernow uses. She has finished the first few chapters and plans to continue this project this Fall.
Among the misuses Kelsey has identified are issues with selective partial quotes, where Chernow uses the part that supports his thesis that Grant was an alcoholic and not the part that contradicts it, and the use of eyewitness accounts from people who could not have been where they said they were. She has checked Cullum's Register, which publishes the history of all West Point graduates, to show that sometimes the fellow officer Chernow quotes had not actually served at Fort Vancouver at the same time as Ulysses S. Grant. (I imagine that once he became famous there were many who wanted to claim to have known him.)
Another misuse is the citation of current webpages on alcoholism as if they were primary sources. One example is an 1852 letter by Grant to Julia from the Columbia barracks in Oregon in which he mentions cramps in his feet and hands due to the cold, wet weather. Chernow quotes from the letter, then follows up with quotes from a website about alcoholic neuropathy, making the leap in logic that the cramps were due to alcoholic neuropathy rather than to the fact that Grant worked long hours outdoors in the cold and damp. The footnote he provides is just a website called Healthline.
On numerous occasions in Grant Chernow repeats a rumor about Grant, states that it's discredited, but nonetheless repeats it in detail. Absurdly, Chernow repeats a rumour that Grant fathered a child by a Native American woman. In this case Kelsey traces the rumor to a completely different "Captain Grant" who served on the West Coast at the time and shared only the same common last name with the subject of his biography.
Kelsey says that she plans to continue her investigation, as she has only covered the very early chapters. I wrote her a note to thank her for her valuable contribution to the discussion.
Highly Selective Use of Primary Sources in Chernow's Grant Support his Thesis that Grant was an Alcoholic
A tweet by the thoughtful and eloquent public historian Nick Sacco brought to my attention this project by Marie Kelsey, who studies the Civil War, particularly Ulysses S. Grant, but says she is not a Civil War scholar. Kelsey has begun a fact-checking project on Ron Chernow's use (often misuse) of primary sources in his biography of Grant, particularly around the drinking issue.
I was delighted a couple of years ago to see another biography of Grant that treats him as an intelligent person, and on the whole found the book highly readable and interesting. However, I was not alone in my disappointment with Chernow's obsession with Grant's drinking, and questioned some of his sources, as did many others. Kelsey is undertaking a rexeamination of the primary sources Chernow uses. She has finished the first few chapters and plans to continue this project this Fall.
Among the misuses Kelsey has identified are issues with selective partial quotes, where Chernow uses the part that supports his thesis that Grant was an alcoholic and not the part that contradicts it, and the use of eyewitness accounts from people who could not have been where they said they were. She has checked Cullum's Register, which publishes the history of all West Point graduates, to show that sometimes the fellow officer Chernow quotes had not actually served at Fort Vancouver at the same time as Ulysses S. Grant. (I imagine that once he became famous there were many who wanted to claim to have known him.)
Another misuse is the citation of current webpages on alcoholism as if they were primary sources. One example is an 1852 letter by Grant to Julia from the Columbia barracks in Oregon in which he mentions cramps in his feet and hands due to the cold, wet weather. Chernow quotes from the letter, then follows up with quotes from a website about alcoholic neuropathy, making the leap in logic that the cramps were due to alcoholic neuropathy rather than to the fact that Grant worked long hours outdoors in the cold and damp. The footnote he provides is just a website called Healthline.
On numerous occasions in Grant Chernow repeats a rumor about Grant, states that it's discredited, but nonetheless repeats it in detail. Absurdly, Chernow repeats a rumour that Grant fathered a child by a Native American woman. In this case Kelsey traces the rumor to a completely different "Captain Grant" who served on the West Coast at the time and shared only the same common last name with the subject of his biography.
Kelsey says that she plans to continue her investigation, as she has only covered the very early chapters. I wrote her a note to thank her for her valuable contribution to the discussion.