PhD Comps done.

On 12 May 2011, I passed PhD comps at the University. 
The process of oral comprehensives was interesting.
I had six professors (only five were required by the Graduate School Regulations): George Rable (US to 1877), Larry Kohl (US to 1877), Kary Frederickson (US since 1877), Andrew Huebner (US since 1877), Harold Selesky (Military), and John Beeler (Naval History). Each professor got 15 minutes to ask questions (and most appeared to run out of time). Then we had a half an hour to talk about the dissertation proposal.  The bottom line of this was that the committee felt I should drop any attempt to measure the effect of violence and violent rhetoric on secessionist sentiment, but merely to record that secessionists in the various states noted the issue.
Larry Kohl disagreed with the selection of states (I had chosen South Carolina, Texas and Virginia).  SC is always an anomaly, he said.  Texas and Virginia experienced the violence directly.  A better place to look to explore the thesis would be Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  Interesting take, which I shall explore.
Now on to dissertation.