Mr. Sternstein’s Response to Mr. Bellesiles

Click here to read Mr. Sternstein's essay, Are Michael Bellesiles's Critics Afraid to Say What They Really Think?

Click here to read Mr. Bellesiles's Response to Mr. Sternstein.

Over the last eighteen months, a number of historians have presented a great deal of evidence demonstrating that Arming America contains an extraordinary number of scholarly errors and misrepresentations. So far the author of this work, Michael Bellesiles, has failed to support a single challenged part of his book. When one strips away the rhetoric from this response, once again he fails to point to a single error in this piece or successfully refute any of its contentions. Instead, he resorts to argumentation not analysis, and in doing so contradicts himself repeatedly. Most egregiously, the claims he says I make are"false" are those made when I am quoting -- or paraphrasing -- him verbatim.

1. Paragraph #2:

Roth, contrary to what Prof. Bellesiles says, does not claim that all Vermont Court records have been"missing since the early twentieth century," nor do I say so either. Roth said the records for the Vermont Superior Court in Rutland that Bellesiles cited as authority were missing or unavailable for 27 years of the 31 year period for which Prof. Bellesiles asserts there were only 5 murders during Vermont's frontier years, supporting his contention that homicides were"rare in the antebellum period." He uses Vermont's five murders, three of which he says were politically motivated, as a"for instance. . . ." to prove his case.

He cites in his footnote, #145, p. 558,"Vermont Superior Court Records (County Courthouse, Rutland, VT)." That citation is precise. It says nothing about other courts, which might be civil courts, bankruptcy courts, etc. What other specific court records Prof. Bellesiles is talking about that he found has nothing to do with the Vermont Superior Court, where those 5 murders are noted. Has Bellesiles really located Rutland's Vermont Superior Court records for 27 years that never existed or were lost a century ago, or is Bellesiles claiming to have located other records but presenting his claim in such a way that people will think that he is directly responding to Roth's claim? To take one Court's records, that don't exist for 27 out of a 31 year period, and then claim that its records of 5 murders recorded for only 3 years, supports a contention that homicides were"rare" -- over 30 years -- is to use"evidence which does not exist."

2. Paragraph #3:

I didn't quote Prof. Bellesiles's response to Prof. Roth on his use of misleading evidence relating to Plymouth Colony because I didn't mention, in my original piece, how he misuses that evidence. I think his response is inadequate and I could have devoted pages to it. But, on further thought, I've added the following paragraphs to my essay which I think should answer Prof. Bellesiles's complaints that I didn't take his response to Roth into consideration:

Perhaps none of the errors Bellesiles made were more"extraordinary" than his assertion that"in forty-six years Plymouth Colony's courts heard five cases of assault, and not a single homicide" (Arming America, p.82). But as Roth has demonstrated,"The published, well-indexed records he cites . . . actually show that Plymouth's courts heard eleven cases of murder and investigated four additional deaths that may have been murders, not including three trials for multiple murders committed during King Philip's War" (WMQ, p. 234, using a slightly longer period than Bellesiles). Moreover, in the same cited records James Lindgren counted not just 5 cases of assault but over 60, a list of which he has compiled for his forthcoming review in the Yale Law Journal.

In response to Roth's findings, Bellesiles claimed he was only counting white- on-white homicides when he asserted the courts"heard" none (WMQ, p. 253-255). A reading of his specific passage on Plymouth Colony makes no such distinction. Yet even if one accepts his argument that he did, he still misread and misrepresented his sources. For the Plymouth courts"heard" (a word Bellesiles conveniently forgets he used in his book) several homicide cases involving both white accused and white victims, convicting Allice Bishop of murder for killing her own child and Robert Latham of manslaughter for"excessive correction" of his servant John Walker. Also, white-on-white homicide cases"heard" by the Plymouth courts in which the accused were acquitted included John Hawes, indicted for killing Joseph Rogers, and Samuel Howland, prosecuted for shooting to death William Howse (cited in Lindgren's article in the Yale Law Journal).

And if Bellesiles insists that he was only referring to white-on-white violence, how can he explain away the over 60 recorded assaults Lindgren discovered (not 5, as Bellsiles claimed), since virtually all of those 60 were white-on-white acts of violence"heard" by the courts? Whether it be murders or assaults in Plymouth Colony, it is evident that Bellesiles's calculations are, as Roth remarked,"misleading and wrong."

3. Paragraph #4:

What Charlton Heston had to say is besides the point. Prof. Main, not Heston, is the one who raised the question of whether Prof. Bellesiles could have accomplished the probate research he claimed to have done without the help of assistants. It is clear from what Prof. Bellesiles said previously to Prof. Lindgren and what he now says, that he did all his claimed probate research himself. Prof. Main, who has done a great deal of research into probates herself, is the one raising doubts about his research. Prof. Lindgren, an expert on probate research, says it would have taken Prof. Bellesiles over a year to have read the probate records in Philadelphia alone. How long was Prof. Bellesiles in Philadelphia and when? How many months or years did it take him to research probates in 31 of the archives he has claimed to have searched through? Instead of adopting the pose of a martyr, it would be better if Prof. Bellesiles answered the questions that his replicators (Robert Churchill; Lindgren & Heather) have been asking again and again. Exactly which years in which counties did he count in which regional groupings? As Churchill has stated, if Bellesiles is now claiming (as he does in his response here) to have excluded war years that he used in Arming America, exactly which years in which counties did he use? Since he has now repudiated his claim published in Arming America to have used the entire 1765-90 period (Arming America, p. 445), I wish that he would tell us what he now is claiming that he did and when he spent the months and years in particular archives, rather than bringing Heston into the discussion.

4. Paragraph #5:

The flood in Bowden hall took place on April 2, 2000, not in May, as Prof. Bellesiles says. Was Prof. Bellesiles at Emory in April, or did he leave in May, as he appears to indicate? Is he claiming, too, that Emory's custodians threw out his wet probate note pads without consulting with him or any member of he History Department? That is the thrust of his remarks.

Prof. Bellesiles downplays the importance of probate records but almost everyone who favorably reviewed his book emphasized their importance in giving statistical muscle and weight to his claims that guns were rare in antebellum America. Prof. Lindgren, whose expertise on the subject is unmatched, says that there are 13 paragraphs, plus graphs, not a few, as Prof. Bellesiles indicates, in which probate records are mentioned or dealt with. As for their importance, Prof. Bellesiles himself made the comment that without the quantitative evidence he extracted from probates and other sources, his whole argument would become one of"dueling quotations."

5. Paragraph #7:

Prof. Bellesiles says my claim that he"offered several incorrect and varying locations for the probate records he contends he thoroughly examined" is" completely false." I would remind him to reread his interview with Melissa Seckora in National Review Online, NRO, Oct. 15, 2001, an interview in which he does precisely what he claims is"false." His complaint is with her not me. If she incorrectly quoted him, there is no record that he demanded a retraction from National Review about it. I have related what he was reported to have said to her correctly. Furthermore, it has come to my attention that Ms. Seckora sent Prof. Bellesiles the record of his interview with her for correction before publication, and he had none to offer.

Also, the claim Prof. Bellesiles makes that"I had to reconstruct the location of the forty different probate districts I examined from memory, putting them in my bibliography on web site in September 2000 [and] each of those citations has been verified by my critics. . ." is a statement that is erroneous in several particulars. First, the bibliography he put on his website in Sept. 2000 had only 2 locations for his probate research -- Rutland and Bennington. Second, if he was posting a list of 40 locations online where he claimed to have done the research in at least 31 local archives, why would he be writing e-mails to Prof. Lindgren at the same time that he did all his work in the East Point, GA Federal Archive? The fact of the matter is, the 40 county list was first sent to Prof. Lindgren in late November, 2000, after Prof. Lindgren told Prof. Bellesiles that he had the wrong location for his research. Moreover, that list of 40 counties was first posted on his website in Feb. 2001, not in Sept. 2000, after Prof. Lindgren went public with his concerns about Prof. Bellesiles's purported research.

Lastly, on this issue, posting a county list doesn't prove Prof. Bellesiles did any research in those"locations." Such a list simply indicates that probate records exist in such locations. Those"locations" are readily available online at (http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp) All anybody has to do is go to that site and download the information about titles, years, and locations, and say you've"researched" probates there.

Prof. Bellesiles claims that his critics have"verified" 39 of the 40 locations. I would like to know who those" critics" are? Would Prof. Bellesiles please provide their names? Prof. Lindgren, who is the leading critic of his probate research, has checked only a few locations -- and nearly half of those he checked are wrong. It would be interesting to know how other critics could"verify" several locations that are incorrect? Is Prof. Bellesiles claiming that his" critics" have therefore made the same mistakes he did? Again, who are those critics? If Prof. Bellesiles gives me their names I will check whether his claims are correct or not. Until then, his claims that his citations have been"verified" by his critics remains highly dubious.

The further point about"incorrect and varying locations" concerns Prof. Bellesiles's repeated claims in e-mails to Prof. Lindgren that he read, primarily, then all the probates, except for a few wills and other documents at the National Archives, specifically in the East Point, GA depository. He even explained that those microfilmed probates were arranged there by county. But when he learned from Prof. Lindgren that East Point didn't have those microfilms -- nor did other National Archives -- he suddenly remembered he had traveled the country going to 31 county courthouses and archives to read probate records in their original state. Are we to believe that Prof. Bellesiles forgot those extensive time and money consuming travels when he informed Prof. Lindgren that he did all his probate research on microfilm in the National Archive at East Point, GA? Was Prof. Bellesiles lying to Prof. Lindgren? And if he claims he was, why should we believe he is not lying now? ( Click here to read the emails.)

A final point. Prof. Bellesiles, in his response, claims that he brought probate microfilms into the East Point Archive in order to use their microfilm readers rather than those at Emory. What probate microfilms were they? As I have recently discovered, Mormon Family History probate microfilms -- which I assume is what Prof. Bellesiles is referring to -- can't be acquired on interlibrary loan. Only Family History Libraries in Mormon Churches can get them, and individual readers can never take such microfilms outside the building. Only rare serious libraries, like the Newberry, are Family History Libraries. But neither Emory, or the Univ. of Chicago, or Northwestern's library can acquire those Mormon microfilms on loan. Prof. Bellesiles could not have purchased those probate microfilms (and they are very expensive). Emory could (with permission of the counties) but then the microfilms would be in Emory's collection. So the question is: Did Emory purchase the microfilms that Prof. Bellesiles took into the East Point, GA archive? Does Emory have them? And if not -- since there is no record that Emory does -- what probate microfilms did Prof. Bellesiles take into East Point? Could he please tell us?

6. Paragraph #8:

Prof. Bellesiles says"I must note that I have never said that 'the inventories [I] researched were primarily on microfilm in the National Archives.' That is just plain false." Prof. Bellesiles should reread the e-mails he sent to Prof. Lindgren. Here are excerpts from those e-mails in which he makes the very claim he now insists"is just plain false." Is this another"alternative reading" of the evidence?

Editor's Note: Mr. Bellesiles denies that he wrote the emails reprinted below."I object strenulously to your publishing those email messages over my name," he told HNN on April 9, as we went to press."You may certainly print them over Lindgren's name, but I do not recognize those words as mine, nor acknowledge them. They are incorrect and contradict what I have written many other places as far back as 1991, and what I have discussed at many scholarly conferences over the 1990s."

Mr. Lindgren insists that the emails came from Mr. Bellesiles and as proof sent us an email from him dated September 19, 2000. Mr. Lindgren explained,"One of the nice defects in my old email program (Netscape 4.05 for the MAC) is that forwarding is done by attachment. I am not allowed to edit the email being forwarded. Here I am forwarding the email that was automatically forwarded to my home MAC, when it was sent by Bellesiles to me at work. I had no chance to edit it."

AUGUST 30, 2000

To: jlindgren@nwu.edu
Cc: mbelles@emory.edu
From:"Michael A. Bellesiles"

The statistics are in the appendix to my book. But to answer your questions in a general way, let me note that I conducted the probate research before discovering the joys of statistical analysis on computers. The probate records are primarily on microfilm in the federal archives, though I also looked at several counties in their undigested form so as to control for wills and any earlier transfer of guns. All of my note taking was on legal pads. I simply went through each probate record looking for guns, recording each and every occurence of any type of gun or gun parts in any condition. . . .

Good luck, Michael B

SEPTEMBER 19, 2000

To: jlindgren@nwu.edu
From:"Michael A. Bellesiles"

. . . .

Please allow me to explain my research to you. I did all my work alone. I had no assistants and received only a pair of two-month fellowships from the AAS and the Huntington to support my efforts. . . .

The probate records are all on microfilm in the National Archives. I went to the East Point, Georgia, federal center to read these microfilms. The films are organized by county. My sample set is listed in the note on table one. I counted a county as frontier for the thirty years after settlement, then moved it into the regional category. My method was primitive by social science standards. With every new record I put a tick in my total column. If there was any sort of gun or gun-part I counted that. That's it. All done by hand on a legal pad. I also went to several county court houses to look through wills that were not microfilmed to see if guns were listed as already given or to be given. I attempted to err always on the side of the gun being present; thus my counting gun-parts. As anyone who has used probate inventories will tell you, sometimes the writing is dreadful. A"musket" might actually be something completely different, such as a"mop bucket," a"gun" could be"gin." I always assumed it was a gun.

. . . .

Finally, all the original notes from this research are in boxes in my attic, where I moved them after they were damaged by a flood in Bowden Hall at Emory. I do not have the time right now to search for those notes and to lay out the water damaged pages for drying. However, I repeat, the material is easily available at any federal repository. Anyone can spend a great deal of time reading those thousands of pages of lists. I can almost guarantee that their numbers will differ slightly from mine, as they may see a"gun" that I did not and miss several that I counted as"guns" because it looks like a different word. This is why history is not a science. Best wishes,
Michael B.
Michael Bellesiles
Department of History
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322
404) 727-4467 fax (404) 727-4959
mbelles@emory.edu

7. Paragraphs #9 and #10:

It was never my intention to"mock" Prof. Bellesiles's loss of his notes and I regret he feels that I do. Nor do I ever" criticize" him for"hard work." Indeed, if I haven't done so previously, I would like to commend him for it now. But there are questions I've raised about the several stories he has related concerning his notes that he has not adequately addressed. He has addressed one issue, of whether he put in an insurance claim for his destroyed notes. He explains he hasn't, and I will make the necessary change in my essay to reflect that. But he has again stated, in this response, that his probate notes, in a"box of pads," were destroyed by the flood when the office ceiling came down and those"papers" and the chair they were sitting on,"were taken away," presumably by the custodians cleaning up the building. But, I must remind Prof. Bellesiles, again, that in his Sept. 19, 2000 e-mail to Prof. Lindgren he states otherwise. Here is what he says about those probate notes he is again claiming, in this response to my article, were destroyed and disposed of by Emory's clean-up crew:

Finally, all the original notes from this research are in boxes in my attic, where I moved them after they were damaged by a flood in Bowden Hall at Emory. I do not have the time right now to search for those notes and to lay out the water damaged pages for drying. However, I repeat, the material is easily available at any federal repository. Anyone can spend a great deal of time reading those thousands of pages of lists. I can almost guarantee that their numbers will differ slightly from mine, as they may see a"gun" that I did not and miss several that I counted as"gun's" because it looks like a different word. This is why history is not a science.
Best wishes, Michael B.

Similarly, on December 21, 2000, Prof. Bellesiles posted to H-OIEAHC:

My own material is in a sorry state because of the great Bowden Hall Flood of 2000 (the pipes in Emory's History building burst this summer). My original note pads have all been dried out, though many pages are a ruined pulp.

In paragraph, #10, Prof. Bellesiles also states that only"Those papers that had suffered lesser damage I dried out myself at my house in Atlanta." However, let me emphasize, this is not what he said in his e-mails. In them, he talks specifically about"all his original notes" being put in boxes in his attic, not just those that had suffered"lesser damage." And in an email of Nov. 30, 2000, he makes this comment:

I have started separating my original notes, seriously damaged in the Bowden Hall flood this summer. The floor of my garage is littered with these pages right now, and I fear much of the ink has run while other pages are simply useless messes.

Again, he mentions his"original notes" that he is drying out and separating, not those that merely"suffered lesser damage."

Let me take this occasion to tell Prof. Bellesiles that I view those who have attacked him with hate mail, obscene phone calls, and any other means, verbal or otherwise, that do not reflect civilized behavior with as much repugnance as I can muster. Also, I certainly sympathize with him over the turmoil that he has experienced since the publication of Arming America. But despite my sympathies for what he has endured personally, I don't feel that he can or should avoid the serious questions that historians have raised about his scholarship and his misuse of evidence.

Should one of his colleagues at Emory University, Deborah E. Lipstadt, have remained silent about David Irving's misuse of historical evidence to advance his thesis, just because David Irving claimed to have received death threats? Did Prof. Bellesiles caution her against holding Irving to a different"standard" than other historians? I would imagine not, and he would be right not to. Similarly, I don't agree that Prof. Bellesiles's critics are demanding a"different" standard of scholarship from him than they expect from other historians, and that is to present historical evidence in an honest and truthful manner. Unfortunately, those who have read the sources Prof. Bellesiles employed in Arming America have concluded that he is not simply offering an"alternative reading" of the materials, but a reading that violates the norms of scholarship. Is it simply an"alternative reading" to embellish an anecdote, such as that regarding Benedict Arnold, to make it mean and say something it does not? Are the numerous examples of blatant scholarly distortions and errors presented in the William and Mary Quarterly simply"alternative readings"? Is his research into probates and the highly questionable quantitive evidence he supposedly extracted from that research, merely"alternative readings"?

Furthermore, Bellesiles should not engage in ad hominem attacks himself. His chief academic critics (Randolph Roth, Gloria Main, James Lindgren, Robert Churchill, Joyce Malcolm, Eric Monkkonen, and Eugene Volokh) have been very cautious in their public statements, generally stopping well short of where their evidence might seem to take them. Indeed, that was a main point of my original essay. Professor Bellesiles might take a page from their book and conduct himself accordingly. Their criticisms have succeeded in part because they focused almost entirely on the evidence--evidence that has yet to be refuted by anyone, least of all Prof. Bellesiles. I find the remarks that Prof. Bellesiles made regarding Prof. Lindgren to be offensive and unworthy of comment. By attempting to smear Prof. Lindgren, Prof. Bellesiles sinks to the very level of those whom he complains have sent him abusive messages. He is once again doing himself no favor by engaging in personal verbal attacks.

Lastly, Prof. Bellesiles claims that my evaluation of the serious criticism of his book is"politically driven." So that he can rest assured on this matter, I will answer the question often posed to witnesses on another occasion by the House Un-American Activities Committee, by informing Prof. Bellesiles that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the National Rifle Association. I do not own a gun and I've only fired them when I was in the Army -- where, I must confess, I was awarded a sharp-shooters' medal -- and several times when I went hunting for pheasant and quail with other academics from the University of Iowa in the cornfields of that lovely state. Otherwise, like many of his imagined early Americans, I have been gunless virtually my entire life.

More to the point, I support gun regulations, especially in urban areas like New York City, where I lived for decades until recently. Indeed, the congressman in my congressional district was the bete-noir of the NRA, Charles Schumer, whom I supported. The fact is, that all of Prof. Bellesiles academic critics are individuals driven not by politics, as he would have it in order to elicit sympathy from fellow historians, but by the dishonest way he uses evidence to validate his thesis. The questions that Prof. Bellesiles raises in this paragraph certainly are valid, but I hope historians who might seek answers to them in the future will be faithful to the evidence and honest in pursuing the answers the evidence provides and will not, like Prof. Bellesiles, distort, embellish, and falsify sources in pursuit of their private, personal version of the truth.