Born Fighting
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7. As quoted in www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist122/Part1/DouglassRecon.htm
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8. Cash, The Mind of the South, pp. 121, 134–35.
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9. Ibid., p. 51.
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10. Norman Pollack, ed., The Populist Mind (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967), p. xx.
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11. George Brown Tindall, ed., A Populist Reader: Selections from the Works of American Populist Leaders (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 60.
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12. Pollack, The Populist Mind, pp. xxiv, xxviii.
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13. Thomas E. Watson, “The Negro Question in the South,” The Arena, VI (October 1892), pp. 540–50, quoted in Tindall, A Populist Reader, pp. 118–28.
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14. Cash, The Mind of the South, p. 251.
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15. Ibid., p. 219.
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16. Ibid., p. 283.
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17. John A. Lejeune (LA), Wendell C. Neville (VA), Alexander A. Vandegrift (VA), Clifton B. Cates (TN), Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. (VA), Randolph M. Pate (SC), Leonard F. Chapman Jr. (FL), Louis H. Wilson, Jr. (MS), Robert H. Barrow (LA), Carl E. Mundy, Jr. (AL), James L. Jones, Jr. (MO), and Michael W. Hagee (TX).
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18. The Congressional Medal of Honor (Forest Ranch, CA: Sharp & Dunnigan Publications, 1984), pp. 504–42. These numbers discount double awards (army and navy) for the same action, and also one incident that occurred outside of combat.
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19. William Manchester, American Caesar (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1978), p. 24.
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20. Congressional Medal of Honor, p. 542.
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21. Country Music Association statistics, October 2002.
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22. For a concise analysis of the issues as well as a bibliography that covers both sides of the religious debate, see Christopher Armstrong and Grant Wacker, “The Scopes Trial,” published by the National Humanities Center, October 2000. Available online at http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/tserve/tkeyinfo/tscopes.htm
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23. George M. Marsden, Religion and American Culture, p. 185, quoted in Armstrong and Wacker, “The Scopes Trial.”
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24. Armstrong and Wacker, “The Scopes Trial.”
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25. H. L. Mencken, “In Memoriam: WJB,” quoted in Alistair Cooke, ed., The Vintage Mencken (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), p. 166.
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26. H. L. Mencken, “The Hills of Zion,” quoted in Cooke, The Vintage Mencken, p. 154.
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27. Mencken, “In Memoriam: WJB,” quoted in Cooke, The Vintage Mencken, pp. 165, 167.
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28. Ibid., p. 165.
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29. “Report to the President on the Economic Conditions of the South,” July 25, 1938 (Library of Congress Document), pp. 1–2.
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30. Ibid., pp. 53–55.
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31. Ibid., pp. 58–60.
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32. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1953), p. 507.
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33. “Report to the President on the Economic Conditions of the South,” pp. 5, 7, 8, 19, 26–27.
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34. Ibid., pp. 22, 46.
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35. Ibid., p. 46.
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36. Ibid., pp. 49–51.
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37. Ibid., p. 26.
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38. This battleship visit is memorialized at Roosevelt’s former summer home in Campobello, off the coast of Maine along the Canadian border.
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39. Manchester, American Caesar, pp. 156–57.
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40. “A Valley in the Shadow of Debt,” The Economist, July 19, 2003, p. 23.
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41. Dates and figures on the World War II mobilization impact on military bases are taken from the command histories of each military base mentioned.
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42. U.S. Census Bureau figures. Arkansas’ population in 1941 was 1.97 million. By 1956 it was 1.7 million. In 1970 it was 1.92 million. West Virginia’s population in 1940 was 1.9 million. By 1950 it had risen to 2.0 million. By 1970 it was 1.7 million. Today it is 1.8 million.
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43. See www.pattonhq.com
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44. Walter Russell Mead, “The Jacksonian Tradition,” National Interest (Winter 1999–2000), pp. 11–12.
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45. Ibid., pp. 8–9.
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46. Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, p. 506.
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47. “My How You’ve Changed,” The Economist, July 5, 2003, p. 28.
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PART SEVEN: REFLECTIONS: THE UNBREAKABLE CIRCLE
1. David M. Halbfinger and Steven A. Holmes, “Military Mirrors Working-Class America,” New York Times, March 30, 2003, at www.nytimes.com
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2. Michael Lind, Vietnam: The Necessary War (New York: Free Press, 1999), p. 109.
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3. Portions of this narrative first appeared in an article written by the author in American Legion magazine, September 2003.
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4. Presidential news conference, April 21, 1961, at www.jfklibrary.org/jfk_press_conference_610421.htm
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5. Portions of this narrative first appeared in an article written by the author in American Enterprise magazine, August 2000.
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6. Harvard magazine, September–October 1995, p. 47.
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7. The numbers are for members of those undergraduate classes who died while serving in the military, according to telephone inquiries with the registrar’s office of each university, 1986.
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8. Harris survey, August 1972, Survey Collection Harris / 2234, available online from the Odom Institute at http://cgi.irss.unc.edu/tempdocs/20:52:35:1.htm
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9. As published in Andrew M. Greeley, Ethnicity, Denomination and Inequality (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications), Series Number 90-029, 1976.
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10. Ron K. Unz, “Some Minorities Are More Minor Than Others,” Wall Street Journal editorial page, November 16, 1998.
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11. Ken Ringle, “The Celt Belt,” Washington Post, July 3, 2003, p. C1.
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About the Author
JAMES WEBB is the author of six best-selling novels, including Fields of Fire and The Emperor’s General. He is also a filmmaker (Rules of Engagement), an Emmy Award–winning journalist, and has taught literature at the university level. One of the most highly decorated Marines of the Vietnam War, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration.
ALSO BY JAMES WEBB
Fields of Fire
A Sense of Honor
A Country Such as This
Something to Die For
The Emperor’s General
Lost Soldiers
Praise for Born Fighting
“A tour de force . . . just as Webb stood up to the elites who peddled falsehoods about the Vietnam veteran, he now takes them on about this important group as well.”
—National Review online
“James Webb has written what may be the first of its kind: a scholarly book that polishes the tarnished image of America
’s bubbas and rednecks . . . provocative.”
—Houston Chronicle
“James Webb reveals the all-but-invisible ethnic group that has created the core beliefs of democracy American-style: our rights come from God, not the Government; all of us are born equal, and ‘born aristocrats’ don’t exist; and tread on either of those two truths, and we’ll fight you down to the last unbroken hyoid bone. The Scots-Irish, for such is their name, have fought all our wars for us, including Vietnam. James Webb was there, and he can count. He has written not only an engrossing story but also an important work of sociological history in the tradition of the great James Graham Leyburn.”
—Tom Wolfe
“Pugnacious, bibulous, restless, pious: the Scots-Irish have fueled stereotypes and filled the White House, to say nothing of the ranks of the military . . . Webb does a fine job of tracing the Scots-Irish . . . from antiquity to the American Revolution . . . There’s plenty of good information and interpretation, amplifying David Hackett Fischer’s indispensable Albion’s Seed (1989) and Arthur Herman’s How the Scots Invented the Modern World.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“James Webb writes like Scots-Irish warriors take to the battlefield—with power and purpose, with courage and clarity. Born Fighting delights and inspires; in reading it I learned more about my nation, my family, and myself. James Webb is a Warrior-Poet, and he has written an extraordinary book.”
—Randall Wallace, author of Braveheart and Love and Honor
“In telling the story of the Scots-Irish in America as a robust and passionate tale, novelist Webb writes a straightforward, no-nonsense, readable history that clips right along while it is also very personal and highly idiosyncratic . . . popular history at its finest.”
—Booklist
“Webb does an admirable job of separating the Scots-Irish from both the British and the Irish, while outlining the profound impact they have had on American history.”
—Irish America
“Born Fighting not only dispels many of the myths surrounding the Scots-Irish but helps this disparate group understand its own contributions to America. Through Webb’s engrossing depiction of Scots-Irish history, the reader gains an understanding of how they, through their acute individualism, disdain for aristocracy, and strong warrior traditions have come to shape America’s military, working class, and even our peculiarly unique form of populist democracy. In short, Webb has shed new light on what it might mean to be a redneck.”
—San Antonio Express-News
“Webb’s book serves as a vigorous contribution to the debate on American and Southern history.”
—Charleston Post and Courier
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2004 by Broadway Books.
BORN FIGHTING. Copyright © 2004 by James Webb. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit our website at www.broadwaybooks.com
First trade paperback edition published 2005.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as:
Webb, James H.
Born fighting : how the Scots-Irish shaped America / James Webb.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Scots-Irish—United States—History. 2. United States—Ethnic relations I. Title.
E184.S4W43 2004
973'.049162—dc22 2004045741
eISBN: 978-0-7679-2295-1
v3.0