Michael F. Shaughnessy

Eastern New Mexico University

Portales, New Mexico

1) Phil, you have written a book about some of America’s heroes- what led to the writing of this book?

I have long been fascinated with how history is told to us and how the common familiars of our past are often not as we have been taught.  In my previous book, Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids, I wanted to show how the way we are led to assume history unfolds – that the big changes that shaped our past (and thus our present day too) were caused by big events – is often not the case, and that much of where and why we are today is the result of the tiniest of accidents or tricks of fortune. The present book picks up another facet of this same theme that the shared and accepted history that comes down to us is often only partially true. Here we focus on revelations that what we think we know about some of our major historical figures frequently turns out to be a well-crafted edit. We need history to be simple and single-faceted, especially our heroes, which means that a lot tends to be airbrushed out of the story when facts inconveniently run counter to the image that we use the hero for. I put back some of those aspects that have been lost along the way.

2) How well has it been received?

Very well. I think all of us have a secret delight in discovering something previously unknown about a famous individual that really makes you see the person in a different light. One of my country’s heroes – Nelson – is renowned for way he brushed off injury after injury – a lost eye, a lost arm and still he fought on as if nothing mattered. The reputation diminishes a little when records are discovered which showed he exaggerated the loss of vision in his famous ‘lost eye’ to try to claim compensation. Such a tale also makes him a little more human – we can all identify a little better with him now.

3) Let’s start at the beginning—what are some of the lesser known facts about George Washington?

History books cascade the reputation of Washington down the generations as one whose service to the nation was characterised by four virtues – self-denial, sacrifice, patriotism and disinterestedness. As the ‘father of the nation’ it’s an important thread of the foundation story. That he was by far the richest man in all America too is something less emphasised. That he had accumulated through land speculation thousands of acres across five states, some of it illegally in areas which had been decreed off-limits to settlers, is not mentioned as often. That he was disappointed with the quality of food in Philadelphia when serving as president might be well known. Less perhaps was his practice of bringing his negro slave cook Hercules from Mount Vernon. Under Pennsylvania law slaves were automatically freed after six months’ residence, so Washington regularly sent Hercules back to Virginia just before the period was up to stay a few days and then return.

The most celebrated – and well documented, even if less willingly remembered – feature was Washington’s refusal of a salary when appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. He merely asked to be paid his expenses. Had he taken a salary, it would have cost Congress $48,000 for his eight-year service. Instead, they got an expense claim for $447,220. It included charges for a new carriage and imported wines. Doesn’t it make him seem rather more earthy and closer to the modern politicians we know? (He tried the same ruse when he became president, but Congress wisely stipulated a salary (at $25,000, it was worth probably half as much again in modern values – about $600,000 -  as the present presidential salary.)

4) How about Lincoln? What are some unknown facts and where did you procure them?

Lincoln’s reputation was recently cited by biographer Lerone Bennett as ‘one of the most extraordinary efforts I know to hide a whole man and a whole history.’ The single most frequent tag attached to Lincoln is the ‘Great Emancipator’ – yet barely anyone wants to remember that his Emancipation Proclamation formally freed only slaves in rebel territory (over which he had no actual control) but not in the states that were under his control, nor even in Confederate territory occupied by the Union. They were all expressly excluded. One cynic observed that Lincoln ‘freed all the slaves except the ones he could free’. In two State of the Union addresses Lincoln called for the deportation of black people as the solution to the problem. Some of his quotations about the differences between the races and his own solid belief that these differences would ‘for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality’ show a more complicated  - perhaps more realistic – impression of the man than the unqualified hero- worship status that can enfold some of our historical figures. When a historical figure is desperately needed now to serve a current purpose, often the complications of reality get airbrushed out of the picture.

For me, the most eye-opening aspect of many of these cases – perhaps Lincoln epitomises it – is that the historical record is there for all to see. Lincoln’s quotes are well documented. It’s just that those who need to ‘use’ Lincoln need a less mixed picture, so over time the uncomfortable gets forgotten.

5) How do you check to make sure these things are legitimate?

All the material comes from sources I’ve collected over many years. As I say, quite a lot of what I am putting back is actually well documented; the problem is it’s simply not noticed nowadays. Other stories come from recent research by academics which get reported in the quality press or journals. I am an inveterate ‘clipper’ from the press – have been since a teenager which is now longer than I care to remember. I have 35 years’ worth of clippings – over 25,000 items – in my personal archive along with probably 3,000 books, much to my wife’s despair. I don’t festoon the book with academic-style footnotes – it’s not that kind of book – but where the tale is so challenging to the accepted view, I cite the research that has uncovered it. I certainly avoid the Internet for the core of any item; it’s useful sometimes for confirmation, or digging deeper, but as a primary source one has to be very careful.

6) Often , things are a matter of perspective—If I were born in 1776, my perspective would be different than 1876, and 1976–do you take these things into consideration?

Of course. In a way, this is exactly what the book is about. Many of our historical characters serve a purpose in the modern world – look at all the ‘foundation myths’ that American history is littered with that buttress the vision of America’s past and which lend purpose to America’s perception of itself now. Your readers might be amazed to realise how much of the commonly accepted narrative of America’s foundation has been ‘improved’ over the years – the ‘unfair’ taxation that led to the Boston Tea Party isn’t quite what it seems; there’s no contemporary record of anyone using the ‘no taxation without representation’ cry at the time (we only hear of it 60 years after the event) and as for Paul Revere’s ride and the Liberty Bell …

Don’t worry: this is not an anti-American book: I deal equally with the myths of my own country’s history too. For example, a lot of the stories I learned in my youth about the Second World War turn out to be embellishments – but they served a purpose then and since, too.

The book ‘repairs’, if you like, some of the tinkering that subsequent generations have done to the past. If that makes the past more complicated, less clear cut, for me that’s healthy.  I would always be suspicious if stories of the past were clear-cut. Think about it – we today are tomorrow’s past, and our present is far from clear-cut. It’s always been a mystery to me why we should expect the past to be a simpler story than the present.

7) What are some things you have found that are diametrically opposite to the ” common wisdom “?

The most astonishing ones for me were discovering that our image of Father Christmas, which all would assume went far back into the mists of mythology, actually came from a 1931 advertising campaign, and by Coca-cola of all outfits. Amazing to think that my own grandparents would not have automatically conceived of Santa as a red-coated, fur-trimmed black boot-clad, cherubic character; that Karl Marx spent most of his life living the high life off the wealth of others while writing his work condemning the very system that sustained him (and showing no shame for it at all); that Roosevelt, who is usually regarded as the arch-pacifist in the lead up to the Second World War, actually pressed for US action against Japan before Pearl Harbor, ordering a US attack on Japan in September 1941, three months before Japan struck Hawaii. It was signed off by Roosevelt in the July and only the transfer of the bombers to the European theatre to help the Allies there caused the attack to be put off.

Perhaps the most dispiriting one of all, which may well be well-known to Americans but was a surprise to me when I first came across year many years ago, is the provision inserted into the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3) that asserted that in calculating populations for representation in Congress, slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a free person. So clinical … so calculated. It stayed until 1868.  Who now remembers it ever existed?

Where can readers get a copy of your book and do you have a web site?

As they say, ‘all good bookstores’ or online vendors.  I don’t have a website, but any correspondence can be sent via Skyhorse  - www.skyhorsepublishing.com/contact.php I’d really welcome leads or suggestions for future editions.

9) What have I neglected to ask ?

Am I just trashing reputations, because it’s the fashionable thing to do? No, and I haven’t written this with that purpose in mind. I want people who read this to come away with a renewed interest in their history, to think about how their history has got handed down to them, and always to ask – Is it so? What’s missing? Does that sound too good to be true? As a result of the filters of generations, so much of what we think we know about the past – which self-evidently and powerfully frames how we see our present – simply isn’t as clear-cut as we are led to believe. We all should be alive to this, and be always asking why.