Reasons for War

Human history is thick with wars. Some people say that humans beings are an inherently violent species - that this may in fact be why we survived and became predominant. The cycle of war, while constant throughout human history, has been one which many people wished to escape. Everyone has heard the famous maxim that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. However, as General William Tecumseh Sherman often spoke about after the Civil War, those that have not experienced the horrors of war cannot fully appreciate it as something to be avoided.

The entire prelude to the American Civil War seems to me to be a great suction into the conflict. It's as if war was out there as this irresistible force and men were drawn to it like moths to a flame.

I've often wondered if there is not something latent in men that does desire war. It would explain much, because when you look at history, the majority of wars were fought for entirely stupid reasons. I'm not saying that once some country becomes aggressive that the target nations should not defend themselves. I'm just pointing out that many conflicts, when viewed in retrospect, appear to be events that should have been avoided rather than embraced. Once the idea of war is openly discussed in a country, there seems to be no shortage of people stirring up fear or hatred to support that war. A fever seems to overtake men, subverting their higher reasoning, and making war inevitable.

There was an ancient Greek called Thucydides who wrote a famous history of the Greek Civil War between Sparta and Athens. This was 420BC, almost 2500 years ago. He describes the events leading to war and at one point touches on the motives that drive a state into War. He said they were fear, honor, and interests. Usually a combination of these interests will convince a group of people that they need to wag a war against another group. Fear of what the other group will do if they are not stopped is the first element of building up a war frenzy. If we don't stop them, they will surely hurt us. Honor is the form of pride that requires a group defend themselves or respond to a slight or offense. Interests are the greed that motivate men to think that there are gains to be had to going to war. Sometimes this interest is simply plunder, the other guys have a lot of nice things that we can simply take from them in a war. Many wars in history end with the victors enslaving the vanquished. Often, troops would simply take whatever they wanted after a victory. Often, the defeated land was absorbed or exploited for its resources or geographically advantageous position. In ancient times, going into battle for spoils was a more open motivation. The Romans would often seek out wars so that the soldiers could be properly compensated and would not be tempted to revolt against their leaders or the state. In modern conflicts, this may be a motive, but the aggressors usually deny it, and it is impossible to prove. Recently, many Iraq War opponents stated that the U.S. went to war for oil. Who can determine how much this played into the conscious or subconscious motivations for the war. Many people reject the premise offhand, because they tell themselves that it would be a dishonorable thing to do. On its face, it is an entirely stupid reason to fight, because war disrupts oil production and distribution.

However, history has often shown people to be overly optimistic about their chances in a conflict. History is thick with examples of people stating how quick and easy a war will be, partly as a preventative to those reluctant to start the war, and partly because people often believe the war will be quick and decisive. General Sherman was judged to be insane early in the Civil War when he said it would take 60,000 men to drive the rebels from Kentucky and 200,000 to win the war. These numbers ended up being very low, but were so far in excess of the estimates at the time that no one believed them. Consider the Iraq War again. This was a war we were supposed to be able to win very quickly, and it was supposed to pay for itself with oil revenue. Instead, it dragged on for 6 years and cost a fortune. The Iraq War is not unique in this respect, the only thing that would ever be unique about a war is if people were honest about it or came up with accurate estimates of the cost in time, money, and manpower at the onset of war.

No one ever expects what the eventual truth about a war will be when the war is just beginning. Before the Greek Civil War, the Spartans did not believe the war would be fought the way the Athenians said they would fight it. The Athenians were no match for the Spartans on an even battle field, foot soldiers against foot soldiers. They had an impressive navy, and had never developed large land forces that were strong and skilled. Their plan when they elected to go to war, put forth by Pericles, was to stay in their walled city, let the Spartans do what they wanted to the countryside, and outlast them with their wealth and huge navy. Neither the Spartans or the Athenians believed the war would be costly or long. Athens, goaded by honor and no longer persuaded by Pericles, abandoned their strategy later in the war, insuring that it would be a long drawn out affair which left both sides so weakened that they would eventually be ripe for takeover by other forces.

So, despite the lessons of history, people seem to forget that war often leaves them weakened and fails to achieve the goals they strive for at the beginning of the conflict. This does not mean that sanity should prevail and war will end any time soon, it just means that the voice of reason is often drowned out during the march to war.

The Best, Not the Brightest

I've been listening to an audiobook of the Civil War lately, and there is a theme running throughout the narrative. The smartest man does not always win and intelligence does not guarantee success.

I was thinking about it in particular when they went over General Hood's part in the battle of Atlanta. General Hood was not all that intelligent, but he was bold. This had served him well earlier in the conflict, where boldness and aggressiveness were more important than sound tactics, but fell apart when he reached Atlanta and was put in charge of the Confederate forces after General Johnston was relieved.

However, often, other Civil War leaders prevailed despite their low academic standing at West Point. Shelby Foote often noted in his book The Civil War, A Narrative, what the class ranking at West Point was. If the person was near the bottom of his class, he typically did poorly, but often, those at the top of their class didn't do very well (the premier exception being General Robert E. Lee). Those that were in the middle or lower third tended to do better.

When you look at General Ulysses S. Grant, he was not great in his class and not noted as a particularly spit-polished soldier during peace time. However, he was persistent and dogged, and not much given to fear. In contrast, General McClellan was touted as a brilliant leader, visionary and adored by his soldiers. But, with the exception of his Antietem victory (which, to be fair, he had a copy of the enemy's battle plan) did not reflect his record as a commander. In fact, he was quite reluctant to commit his troops to battle and often would not move forward even under intense prodding from President Lincoln. Some considered him a coward, but you have to wonder if sometimes too much awareness is a bad thing. The more you know about what might go wrong, the more freaked out going into battle should make you.

I believe that this illustrates that deep thinkers do not always lead or succeed. Often, over thinking a situation can be harmful, because it can confuse the issue or bog down the simple process of quickly acting when the need arises.

When you look at our recent past Presidents, it seems to me that the smart ones are the less successful ones. Carter, Clinton, and Obama are not short of intelligence, but they were unable to work together or get the public to understand and agree when they were doing something correctly. On the other hand George W. Bush, who few would argue is an extremely intelligent man or a deep thinker, had a single minded unity of purpose and a dogged persistence that worked very well for him. Few should argue that his Presidency was not successful, despite the shortcomings in his mental abilities.

Drawn to Carnage

What is it about human nature and violence?

You often hear people talk about war being inevitable or how humans are inherently violent. People that clamor or peace on some level seem ridiculous because they are advocating a position that would make them defenseless against anyone that disagrees.

People definitely like violent movies. The more gore, the better the box office appeal. Sitting safely in an air conditioned theater, it's fun to watch a bang-'em-up beat-'em-up flick while munching popcorn. When it's over, you go home or go get something to eat and pretty much forget about it. Real violence that inflicts real injuries is very different, and there's no "let's go get a burger" moment afterwards. Physical injuries take a long time to heal, and often include some kind of loss of ability or at least integrity of your body. Mental injuries are even more insidious because they are not obvious or readily apparent. The recent wars have a high percentage of post traumatic stress victims, which we are finding out is just a normal response to experiencing combat. It is possible to survive this affliction without treatment, as most combat veterans throughout history have, but you wonder how many walking wounded have woven their way through the aftermath of war with complete turmoil in their heads as they attempt to behave normally in serene social situations.

From a Darwinian perspective, we are violent because that's what helped us survive. But why are we so casually violent? Why are we fascinated and fixated by it? I would almost say that some people are in love with violence for violence's sake.

I know from my own experience that there is no denying that violence appeals to us, it calls to us somehow. I have been re-listening to the book The Civil War, A Narrative, by Shelby Foote, and there is something compelling about the battles and the scale of the carnage. I find myself very drawn to it. You hear about days where tens of thousands of people die, most in horrible ways, and in the back of your mind you're thinking, "I wonder what that was like to be there?". It's fine to be fascinated about this as long as it's in the abstract, if you actually had to experience it, it wouldn't be as good. However, each war or conflict has a strange romanticism about it, with no shortage or eager young men signing up and shipping out. The new soldier, the combat virgin is often full of zeal, ready for action, eager to experience "the elephant" as Shelby Foote calls it. Once experienced, they are not so eager. There is a scene in Band of Brothers where a replacement soldier shares guard duty with a grizzled veteran and is chewed out for his overzealousness. The man that has seen violence has had enough, the one that hasn't is itching for it.

Many cultures glorify violence, hold those that are good at it in high esteem, foster it in their young, and leap eagerly into the first situation that promises the chance to fight. Some of these cultures remain backward and stunted in their developement, but others produce violent young men from a cradle of privilege and comparative luxury. So there is no correlation between the degree of civilization and the willingness for violence. The violence is just inherent in the system.

GAR

Civil War history is interesting, but people tend to think it does not touch the Kansas prairie. Kansas was frontier during the war, only recently being populated by the white settlers.

But the new and frontier states did contribute troops to the effort. My great great grandfather came from a little town in north central Kansas called Blue Rapids. I visited Blue Rapids in March of 2005 and stopped in to the cemetery. Many of the graves were marked with these star shaped markers, which have GAR on them.

GAR stands for Grand Army of the Republic. During the war, there were various armies, and they were usually named after the geographical region they came from. During the grand review that took place at the close of the war, the first gathering of the Union soldiers took place in Washington D.C. and then the whole organization was disbanded and the war was over. I thought this is where the concept for the Grand Army of the Republic came from, a description of all that served. There was the eastern army of Grant and the western army of Sherman, each given a full day to pass in review.

However, in 1866 a fraternal organization was put together that was called the Grand Army of the Republic. These Civil War veterans designated the precursor to Memorial Day, called Remembrance Day, in order to make sure that those served were properly remembered.

So today when you visit old cemeteries, you sometimes see these markers, placed on the graves of the soldiers over the next 70 years as the veterans of the war died off. Blue Rapids is a particularly good example of a cemetery with a lot of GAR markers. You can tell they are very old. They look like they are made of iron and painted black, and a few have bent or fallen over. I would guess the cemetery has 300 to 400 graves in it and maybe 40 of these markers.

My great great grandfather grew up there and left his mother and father on the farm to join and serve in Sherman's army. He participated in the march to the sea, the famous (or infamous, if you are from the south) overland sweep of the union forces from Atlanta to Savannah. After the war he came back and settled down, and many veterans moved west and settled on the Kansas Prairie. So many in fact, that the towns and counties of Kansas are mostly named after Civil War heroes like Sherman, Grant, Sedgwick, and McPherson, to name a few. These "immigrants" for after the war are probably the bulk of the people buried in the cemetery (rather than people that were there before the war like my family).

This isn't where my great great grandfather is buried. He ended up in Manhattan Kansas, some 40 miles to the south of Blue Rapids. My mother studied genealogy and found the graves in the Sunset Cemetery, just across the street from the fraternity house that many of the men in the family joined in college. George and his wife Mary Cheney purchased a plot and are buried beside each other. My mother discovered that the plot had spaces for 3 more graves that were never used. She was able to transfer the title and now my father and her are buried alongside our veteran ancestor. There is no GAR star marking his grave. I wonder if you can still get them?

Civil War Immunity

The human body as 10 trillion cells in it. We carry around 100 trillion non-human cells, microbes, mostly bacteria. They work for us, helping us with digestion mostly.

There is also an effect where our colonies of friendly bacteria help protect us against harmful infections. Their own defenses help fight off new invaders. We've known for a while that antibiotics have a defense stripping side effect. You've probably heard about eating yogurt (a bacterial culture) in order to help your intestinal cultures.

There is an interesting discussion on the Scientific American podcast from May 2, 2007. The guest was David Relman of Stanford who is studying the subject. He talks about how babies pick up their microbiota in the first weeks and months of life. Each person has their own unique bacteriological content.

Here's the theory I came up with from listening to this information. I believe that Civil War soldiers that survived the war carried a unique superbiota that imbued them with super immune systems.

I've always wondered why so many of the Civil War veterans lived so long. So many of them survived into their 90s in a time when the average life expectancy was around 55. I assumed that the constant marching and hard physical exertions put them into a superb physical shape that carried them on through later life. That may have something to do with it. You could also argue that the war would have weeded out the mentally and physically weak people, an accelerated survival of the fittest.

Most people that died in the Civil War died of disease, not injury. Camp conditions were atrocious. Sanitation was usually non existent, and when it was employed and enforced, as when General Hooker took over the Union forces, it was noted for it's extreme contrast to usual conditions.

Civil War soldiers were in intimate contact with each other. They probably ate out of the same containers, often using their fingers. They often slept tightly packed together for warmth (it was called "spooning"). It is reasonable to assume that much of their microbiota was passed around and shared.

It stands to reason that survivors of the various diseases that swept through the camps would have an immunity of some kind. It also stands to reason that humans with the right mix of internal bacterial stew that happened to confer protection for the various diseases would naturally develop.

The war was a massive mix of humanity under extreme conditions and accelerated development. My theory is unprovable, there would be no surviving cultures, no way to get them. Perhaps a study of medical records of veterans that survived to old age would yield some points of commonality, but the records are spotty, and they are nowhere near complete. So it simply remains an intriguing possibility.

Of course, massive movements of people are also a formula for rapid spread of a microorganism with devastating effect. Many speculate that the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 was spread worldwide so quickly from the returning soldiers from WWI. But that is another subject.