A new book co-edited by Dr. Chris Mackowski, a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University, now offers readers the chance to explore some of the war’s most popular "What if?" questions.
What if Robert E. Lee had won the battle of Gettysburg? What if the South had won the Civil War?
Civil War buffs love to ask “What if,” and a new book co-edited by Dr. Chris Mackowski, a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University, now offers readers the chance to explore some of the war’s
most popular questions.
“The Great ‘What Ifs’ of the American Civil War: Historians Tackle the Conflict’s Most Intriguing Possibilities,” published by Savas Beatie, is a collection of 14 essays co-edited by Mackowski and Brian Matthew Jordan, Ph.D.
Jordan, a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in history, is associate professor of Civil War history and chair of the History Department at Sam Houston State University.
The book also includes a foreword by acclaimed alternate history writer Peter G. Tsouras.
“Every armchair general loves to ask ‘What if’ about key moments in the Civil War,” said Mackowski, who has taught at St. Bonaventure since the fall of 2000. “It can be a lot of fun to refight the war in that way with your
Civil War friends, but a serious inquiry can spark rigorous exploration, demand critical thinking, and unlock important insights. By looking at what could have happened, we can better understand events as they actually happened.”
What-if questions can be controversial, too, Mackowski said, because it’s almost impossible to extrapolate with any certainty how events might have unfolded.
“It can become an exercise in wishful thinking or out-and-out fiction. People make all sorts of assumptions. In these essays, we don’t try and actually answer the ‘What ifs,’ but instead try to unpack the assumptions people make
when they ask those questions. We really want to illuminate the questions themselves, not try and answer them — because answering them is impossible,” he said.
Mackowski wrote the introduction to the book, which provides its theoretical framework and historiographical context. He also wrote one of the essays, “What if Robert E. Lee Had Struck a Blow at the North Anna River?” It focuses on missed
opportunities during a portion of an 1864 campaign conducted through the heart of Virginia by Union General Ulysses S. Grant against Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The other essays in the volume include:
- “Paths Not Taken: Thoughts of an Alternate Historian” by Peter G. Tsouras
- “‘Persistently Misunderstood’: The What-Ifs of Shiloh” by Timothy B. Smith, Ph.D.
- “The What Ifs of Antietam” by Kevin Pawlak, licensed battlefield guide at Antietam National Battlefield.
- “What If Great Britain Had Intervened in the American Civil War?” by Dwight Hughes
- “What If Someone Else Had Been Offered Command of the Army of the Potomac?” by Frank Jastrzembski
- “What if Stonewall Jackson Had Not Been Shot?” by Kristopher D. White
- “To Go Around to the Right? Longstreet’s Great What If at Gettysburg” by Dan Welch
- “What if Jefferson Davis Hadn't Been So Loyal to Braxton Bragg?” by Cecily Nelson Zander, Ph.D.
- “‘Rally the loyal men of Missouri’: What If the 1864 Missouri Expedition Had Been Successful?” by Kristen Trout
- “‘A New Endorsement of Abraham Lincoln’: Could Lincoln Have Won Reelection Without Sherman’s and Sheridan’s Successes?” by Jonathan A. Noyalas, director of the McCormick Civil War Institute at Shenandoah University
- “What If General Robert E. Lee Had Waged a Guerrilla War with his Army of Northern Virginia in April 1865?” by Barton A. Myers, Ph.D.
- “‘What if Lincoln Lived?’ The Civil War’s Perennial Counterfactual Question” by Brian Matthew Jordan, Ph.D., and Evan C. Rothera, Ph.D.
A second volume, “More Great What Ifs of the American Civil War,” is already in the works.
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