The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The War Against Spousal Aggression

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Mike D. — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:20:14 -0000

With this:

Cannons: An Introduction To Civil War Artillery

you just bought my love. That is the shit.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Darth Thulhu — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:09:37 -0000

Yes, this. When not flunking out, skipping grades by acing the respective material so thoroughly. I've been told it's part and parcel of being low end Asbergery. Some quasi-autistic superfocus, and also some quasi-autistic difficulty or inability to just "do the thing" that everyone is expected to do, unless a conscious effort is repeatedly expended to remember to do it.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Marcos El Malo — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:33:58 -0000

Beautiful quote. RIP Lester

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

DRW — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:25:08 -0000

Any visit to Antietam has to be combined with perfectly preserved, fantastic Harper's Ferry. This gets you into the world of John Brown - then good luck to you and your obsession!

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

shwa — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:55:06 -0000

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. (Lester Bangs, Almost Famous)

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Liza — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:34:36 -0000

I think that is one of the most poignant photographs I have ever seen. As soon as I saw the first post with this picture, it became my wallpaper (even before I knew TNC had it as wallpaper) and I left it up for about a week.

That gaze into the camera of the three soldiers in the front row is a story unto itself, but not one that we will ever know. We can only imagine what their lives were like and what it meant to them to be fighting.

We see here how pictures are often so much more powerful than words. I think that this picture raises the universal question that we usually have to ask ourselves when we see the pictures of war and other human conflicts.

That is, "Why do our best people have to die this way? Why do we waste them?"

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Midland — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:49:19 -0000

The sunken road at Antietam was haunting, I swear I could feel something standing in that road.

Standing in the sunken road, you can see north over that little rise about a hundred feet away, then a quarter mile slightly downhill towards the woods along the creek. The Union soldiers under French and Richardson formed up on the low ground, marched in line, shoulder to shoulder, across that field and over the rise. The Rebs, in double ranks, were dug into the road. The Union soldiers couldn't see them until they walked over that rise, as the Rebs opened up at point blank range and shot them down in rows. Four times they came on, about twenty minutes apart, each battle line walking up over that little rise over the bodies of the dead and wounded, so thick you had to step on them or fall out of ranks, to face that same blast of point blank fire.

Amidst the skirmishing and smoke Colonel Francis Barlow and two New York Regiments got over to the left and discovered that just where the Confederate line turned away south there was another little rise that allowed his men to fire straight west down the length of the Sunken road, so a minie ball couldn't help hitting flesh once or thrice before it was spent. The Confederates were routed.

Most of the 2600 hundred Rebs who fell lay in the 800 yard ditch of the Sunken Road, about three men per yard of road. 3000 dead and maimed Union men lay mostly in the field along the crest of the rise in front of the Confederate line.

You can walk Bloody Lane on foot and then look the battlefield over from the tower at its eastern end.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:53:32 -0000

I guess I vaguely suspected, but now I am sure that many commenters here are total nerds. No wonder I feel so at home.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:44:42 -0000

You need to up the ante and start collecting civil war figurines (i.e., toy soldiers). Then dial it back down once she realizes how bad it could get if you become a hardcore Civil War nerd.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

David — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:48:02 -0000

Sharp looking coats, but they seem a bit pricey. I got my Union enlisted sack coat for $80 from a sutler at a re-enactment event,pants for $45, and a pair of rather sexy Cavalry boots for $150.

I fear I may have revealed far too much about myself just then...

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Jive Turkey — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:44:55 -0000

My wife and I had a similar moment recently. I was actually reading one of your posts regarding the CW that had a photo of some soldiers in it. She walks by and looks over my shoulder and, with complete exasperation, cries "Isn't the Civil War over? I mean, really." I thought about quoting Faulkner or Gadamer on the intractability of history, etc. but decided against it.

These posts always seem to involve book recommendations. A good bathroom book is Kenneth Stampp's "The Causes of the Civil War." It's a collection of editorials and speech excerpts from the period and afterwards. Fascinating windows into the era that can be enjoyed a few minutes at a time.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

433E83 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:34:43 -0000

Wow wow wow. But not surprising at the same time. You grow up living a line of BS and never move away from it you'll keep spouting that line.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Matt Gabriele — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:35:06 -0000

Oh, and check out the freakin' comments at that post. Frightening.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Jennifer D. — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:32:05 -0000

Yup, if you couldn't "follow the directions" in 11th grade, you probably can't follow them now either! At least, that's been my experience.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Matt Gabriele — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:31:51 -0000

Interesting that you called it Sharpsburg. Antietam to me, yankee that I am. Just saw this too and thought you might be interested -- http://bit.ly/gQlcw. About a new monument in Lynchburg, VA to some Union soldiers killed there. Apparently some are up in arms about "foreigners" being commemorated...

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Robert Murphy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:23:15 -0000

Dear Tah-Nehisi,

Antietam is the 'best' Civil War battlefield I have toured. It is isolated enough that development has not encroached upon it, and--along with Gettysburg--it is a battle where Union and Confederate lines remained relatively static throughout, thus it is easier to get a real understanding of how the battle was fought from surveying the terrain. (I tried to get a feel for a far more fluid battle, The Wilderness, when I toured the site. Forget it!) Also, unlike Gettysburg there is not a monument to this or that regiment every ten &^$$#%# yards. It is exceptionally well preserved. The Burnside Bridge is in near-perfect condition, and one can still see the impressions of the Confederate rifle pits hastily dug to oppose the Union crossing. (One can also see that the water is knee-deep, and wonder wtf the Union soldiers didn't just forget the bridge and charge over Antietam Creek, but I digress.)

As a reader suggested earlier in this thread, Tony Horwitz' superb, funny and most illuminating Confederates in the Attic is essential reading! Also, I would recommend Battle Cry of Freedom, and the Negro's Civil War,* both by James M. MacPherson. The maps in the former are excellent. Take 'Battle Cry with you to any battlefield you tour; you'll want to refer regularly to them.

Robert Murphy

* I am not patronizingly suggesting you read this book just because you are black; I believe ANY serious student of the war should read it. It is first-rate, trust me.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Robert Murphy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:49:40 -0000

I too have severe ADD; your experience gels with many of my own.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Lyle7 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:38:24 -0000

So what do you think about George B. McClellan? Good or bad? I'm a fan of his actually. Not as bad as people think.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

Alyssa Rosenberg — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:30:08 -0000

I would join Horwitz on that trip ANY TIME. And have been tweaking TNC to read Horwitz's book as a companion to all the other stuff: http://alyssarosenberg.blogspot.com/2009/07/ta-nehisi-coates-needs-to-read.html

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

LCrawfty — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:29:21 -0000

In her defense, taking care of a small kid on a trip like that also seems like a real p in the b.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

sporcupine — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:03:37 -0000

I spent years wondering if child number two had ADD, and always saying "couldn't be, because she engages so completely with things she cares about." When we finally arrived at the psychologist's office, she laughed at me and gave me stacks of the books confirming Shwa said.

Ten books into a reading spree (books on the couch, books in the bathroom), I was convinced that child two was merely a slightly more intense version of my side of her genetics. We can invest great, intense, maybe too-much, attention in things we care about: my spouse calls it "falling into a keyboard." We find it harder than most folks around us to pay enough attention to things we find dull, including lots of what happens in school. I actually took to calling it "attention-excess disorder," because my daughter WAS focusing intensely--but not on the teachers' agenda.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

thephoenixnyc — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:48:54 -0000

TNC, I feel ya.

I have been studying and learning about the Civil War, slavery, reconstruction for a long time.

My gf at the time (now my wife) picked up on it and starting making good for me at holidays and birthdays. A signed Lincoln letter, battlefield artifacts etc.

Well, three years ago she put a whole package together for me that included 2 days at a B&B in Gettysburg. She loved touring the batlefield (we are both obseeives when it comes to history, art, architecture) and really developed a new passion for the subject matter.

On our second night there we had dinner at an Inn that was built in 1776. After the desert of red velvet cakes I proposed to her.

Six months later we got married.

epilogue: Our combined libraries are something to behold and we are visiting Antietem this Summer and are going to Springfield sometime in the near future.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

canuckistani — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:17:04 -0000

Beware of the other confluence of D&D and an interest in history - wargaming. Before you know it, you'll be sitting around a table with a bunch of nerds, sending the Iron Brigade to Little Round Top so you don't have to sacrifice Sickles to keep from being flanked by Hood...oh, it is addictive. Beware. Beware!

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

ObieJoe — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:04:02 -0000

Heh, yeah, it's all fun and games until moving day. I've been spending the last month preparing for a move from a 5-bedroom to a typical Baltimore rowhouse, and I've been regretting every book, notepad, archive, clips forming a tsumani of paper from over 20 years as a writer. Good thing we have The Book Thing, a book exchange whose shelves have been blessed with dozens of books from my house.

Re: The War Against Spousal Aggression

boldface — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:57:12 -0000

Ha! TNC, Kenyatta should commiserate with my wife, who long ago gave up any hope of having any surfaces in the house without books on them. The upside is that they are a great conversation piece when guests are over: "hey, I see you have Frankenstein and Pursuit of Glory in your bathroom. How did you come up with that combination?"