150 years ago word was spreading that on April 12 Confederate traitors attacked the United States by firing upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. By this time on April 13, 1861 folks had just learned or were about to learn that the war had come and that the future of America and its experiment with democracy was on the line. It was a time to decide what side you were on. Ulysses S. Grant spelled out the choice in a letter written a few days later:
Dear Father,
We are now in the midst of trying times when every one must be for or against his country, and show his colors too, by his every act. [snip]
Whatever may have been my political opinions before, I have but one sentiment now. That is, we have a Government, and laws and a flag, and they must all be sustained. There are but two parties now, traitors and patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter, and I trust, the stronger party.
Of course, the traitors had a different view, and so the war came.
What the people who lived through 1861 actually felt and did is very different from our understanding of why they acted. Earlier today on Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed historian Adam Goodheart about his new book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening. Goodheart made the uncertainty of the people who lived through 1861 the focus of his research. The interview is well worth a listen and I’ve put the book on my list.
People in 1861 confronting the news of Fort Sumter understood why the war had come. In the South, it was all about protecting the institution of slavery and notions of white supremacy. For abolitionists and African Americans it was about freedom and ending slavery. And for most Northerners (and quite a few Southerners in different communities throughout the CSA), it was about preserving the union–which was a very real thing and a cause that more than 360,000 (mostly volunteers) were willing to die to defend.
Today we all know how the War ended. It is history and popular culture. And yet, most of what we know about the Civil War has been filtered through narratives that grew up long after the war ended.
The strongest and wrongest of these narratives is the “Lost Cause” narrative–the idea that Confederate traitors were honorable and fighting for a noble cause that was lost because the damn Yankees did not play fair and overwhelmed Confederates with their greed, hired hands and willingness to butcher folks without care.
Only slightly different than the “Lost Cause” bullshit, is the “Reconciliation” narrative. This filter makes North and South equal in honor and courage. In this spin we fought a four-year war where around 620,000 people died, but the reasons why we fought no longer matter. Nobody was to blame–shit just happened. We was just high or something, but now we are all good and cool and stuff. As the 1800s turned into the 1900s the thing that was reconciled between the North and the South was racism–the idea of white supremacy. That is at the heart of the “Reconciliation” narrative and why in many ways it is more odious than the “Lost Cause” nonsense.
It is tragic that the dominant filters for the Civil War are the “Lost Cause” and “Reconciliation” narratives, as these narratives suck all nobility, meaning, value and honor out of the Civil War. Both are mostly haphazard justifications for white supremacy and that is a cause that is always without honor. In their control of our popular cultural narrative of the Civil War from Birth of a Nation to the Ken Burns Civil War PBS series to the upcoming Robert Redford film, The Conspirator, these narratives obscure, twist and erase from history why so many Americans were willing to die for their Country when they learned that traitors had attack the Nation of April 12, 1861.
The Emancipation narrative is pretty much the only noble Civil War narrative that is still remembered from time to time. This casts the struggle as a conflict to end slavery and free African Americans from bondage. There was truth to this narrative in 1861 and there still is today. This was why many folks–especially 200,000 plus black Union troops–took up arms. The Emancipation Proclamation made this a clear goal of the War and casting the stuggle as a fight to end slavery ennobled America, but only to a point. The glory of ending slavery gave way to the all too brief Reconstruction period that was followed by over 100 years of domestic state-sponsored terrorism directed at former slaves and their decedents. Only now is a century and a half of post Civil War racism winding down–and this toxic sludge is by no means out of the American political system (the Birther shit is just one fresh example).
In 1861 there was another noble narrative for the Civil War, but today it has been dismissed, discounted and all but forgotten. When word of the attack on Fort Sumter reached most Americans they reacted like U. S. Grant–they resolved to fight to preserve the Union. Yeah, I know, everybody has heard that phrase before and “preserve the Union” has lost all meaning, but in April 1961 it was something worth dying for. It mattered.
The world 150 years ago was not like the world today. Back then almost every effort of citizens–all around the world–to establish a democratic government had failed. Many have compared the recent push for Democracy in Arab states to what happened in Europe in 1848. There was a series of revolutions–like the revolution of 1776–to put the people in charge of their government. It was exciting, but by 1861 virtually all those efforts had failed and Nation after Nation was governed by either re-established Royalty or a small group of oligarchs who seized power and now controlled everything.
The American notion of Constitutional Democracy was a rarity in the world. It was fragile and in 1861 the Confederate traitors threatened to destroy what Lincoln rightly called “the last best hope of earth”. For many in the loyal States and territories it was clear that Confederate slave owners wanted to establish a Government based on oligarchical power and the kind of rigid economic cast system that existed all around the world. By 1861, America was the place where people came to escape despotic governments and now the Confederates sought to snuff out that beacon of hope. Preserving the Union was worth fighting for and thankfully millions of Americans in the 1860s thought like Grant.
Later this month another Civil War book will come out. It is The Union War by historian Gary W. Gallagher. Professor Gallagher has been researching why the narrative of Preserving the Union has been lost in our understanding of the Civil War. You can watch some recent lectures by him here, here and here. He is quite good and I’m looking forward to this effort to reclaim our understanding of the Civil War from the toxic sludge of the “Lost Cause” and “Reconciliation” narratives. It can’t come too soon IMHO.
What is interesting about the Union narrative of the Civil War is how important the experiment in our Constitutional Democracy was to people in 1861. It was a serious matter and the transgression of the Confederates was their refusal to respect the Constitution. By 1861 the slave owners had been making demands of the rest of the Nation for decades–since the Founding of the Nation really. And every demand was met with compromise from 1776 to 1860. And each time a compromise was met, the slavers demanded more. And each demand of more was met with another effort to compromise. But when they lost an election in 1860 the Confederates decided that they would rather blow the whole American experiment up if they could not get their way. And so the War came.
Today, the descendants of the Confederate Party ironically control Lincoln’s old Party. And once again they respond to set-backs with tantrums and threats to destroy the Nation if they do not get their way. Once again we face a choice between Confederates who seek to end the American experiment and establish oligarchical rule vs those who want to preserve the Union. And once again the future of America and its experiment with democracy is on the line. As Ulysses S. Grant did 150 years ago, it is time to decide what side you are on and to remember his advice:
We are now in the midst of trying times when every one must be for or against his country, and show his colors too, by his every act.
Grant’s call to arms from April of 1861 rings true again today and should be remembered as the neo-Confederates try to convert America from a Constitutional Democracy to a Galtian fantasyland run by “worthy” and “serious” elites.
Cheers
freelancer
Haaaaaaaaapppppppy Birthday to me…and David Letterman, and Tiny Tim and David Cassidy and Claire Danes. It’s always such a weird group that you share it with.
palooza
Great post.
Debbie(aussie)
Great post. As an outsider, your many wonderful posts about the ‘confederate party’ are very illuminating.
I have never been able to understand how the meme stands; that the most patriotic americans (as they see themselves) are actully confederates and are,in any real sense, traitors.
plawless
Sadly quite true. Even sadder is the fact that the modern Democratic party seems to be controlled by the descendents of General George Brinton McClellan.
cyd
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the narrative that the War was fought to preserve the Union. As you noted, many Northerners, especially during the start of the war, fought for exactly this reason, and not necessarily to abolish slavery. And you know what, it’s a good reason! During the 19th century, many people (especially in Europe) believed that republics would inevitably fragment due to internal quarreling, and for a while it looked like the American republic was going to fulfill this prophecy.
The American republic is not a paragon of virtue (as its postbellum treatment of the Indians would attest). But, speaking as someone who believes in the idea of the republic as an alternative to monarchy, I think we’re all indebted to the United States for showing to the world just how much the republican system can endure.
Martin
I think the south just hates the word Union. Maybe we should simply stop using it?
El Cid
It may be obvious, but it’s worth emphasizing that in 1861, the nation hadn’t been around yet for 100 years. Certainly not its Constitution.
At that time, it was still up for grabs whether or not this whole thing was a folly by former colonies which would soon collapse.
If it couldn’t have held out to the century mark, then it really would have been a failed experiment.
That, of course, hasn’t yet been determined. But “it” survived the traitors’ rebellion; and miraculously our nation’s African American population managed to survive victory.
And achieved formal equality by a century after the slavers’ treason.
So much around these century marks.
El Cid
@cyd: Great minds and all.
MikeJ
I’d like to thank Dennis for pointing me to David Blight’s course at Yale, available to watch online or as a podcast so you can take Ivy league quality lecture with you while hiking. Excellent course.
Tom
Fuckin’ Righteous. Preach On.
asiangrrlMN
Beautiful post, dengre. And, as you pointed out, sadly apt in parallel to events that are occurring today.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Cid:
Note, too, that the Brits and the French were decidedly of two minds about the entire “preserve the Union” thing. On one hand, the traitors had the entire slavery thing they were fighting to preserve…which was a plus of the Union. On the other hand, neither the Brits or the French (at the time under Napoleon III) were quite sure about this republic across the pond being a good thing. They had their own self-interested financial reasons to rather support the traitors, as well. The Brits I think, to some extent, sensed a rival to the domination of the planet that was the Pax Britannica which was in full swing at the time.
And, remembering all that unrest in 1848, in part inspired by the US’ example of the possibility of a constitutional republic was fresh in everyone’s mind.
Two things swung the deal the North’s way. One was the victory at Gettysburg. Second was the Emancipation Proclamation, which sealed the deal on any Brit or French recognition of the Confederacy…as in it was not going to happen.
But keep in mind that Lincoln all along was in the “preserve the Union” mode, and the Emancipation Proclamation was just a means to that end…it made foreign support of the Confederacy impossible, and basically was the prelude to the military endgame that followed.
cyd
Blerg, I somehow missed that the second half of Dennis G.’s post was making exactly the point I was trying to make. I read up to the midway point and skimmed the rest; this will teach me.
One thing that DG has not pointed out is why the “Reconciliation” narrative was (and is) so compelling. This narrative began with the extremely generous surrender terms offered to the Confederates by Ulysses S. Grant (based on Abe Lincoln’s previously stated wishes) at the end of the war. Grant and Lincoln were anxious to avoid bad feeling between the Union and the Confederates. As Bruce Catton pointed out, a never-ending guerilla war would have been the one thing that could have ruined America forever. So don’t be too quick to diss reconciliation, either; it may be a lie, but it’s arguably one of the nobler lies out there.
Dennis G.
@MikeJ:
Blight is pretty great. I’ve really been enjoying Gallagher as well. And books on tape are a great way to absorb some of these books. Last year I listened to Battle Cry of Freedom while working on a remodeling project around the house. Ah, good times.
Cheers
Cris
Now that I’m 40, I’m beginning to understand how short a time 100 years is. My grandfather was born 100 years ago. Things that happened a century ago were witnessed by people that I have met personally.
So in 1861, the American Revolution wasn’t shrouded in the mists of time. When Lincoln said “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent…” he wasn’t speaking figuratively. The sense that the Republic was still in Beta must have been palpable.
Linnaeus
I admit that I find it cool that my birthday is also the date of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox in 1865. But that’s the historian in me.
Bustednuckles
Damn, Karl Rove is exempt from this little kerfluffle.
Fucking asshole.
Delia
@Villago Delenda Est:
Of course the French had already tried republics a couple of times already, and seeing as Napoleon III was the most spectacularly incompetent tyrant of all time, they would soon have the opportunity to try one again. There were plenty of French republicans, even if they weren’t in the government at the time.
On the topic of remembering the Civil War: I’m beginning to think that honor is the biggest load of bullshit the human race has ever invented. Or at least we really need to throw out all the bullshit the concept’s been loaded down with to find out if there’s still anything useful left to work with. The “honor” of the Lost Cause. The “honor” with which both sides fought in the reconciliation narrative.
Of course when you question this sort of honor, you begin to question the honor of fighting in any war that’s fought for an unjust cause, and where does that leave you? Poor folks fighting rich men’s wars? I’ve heard that story before.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
That’s the Cavaliers. They started importing slaves so they could have a lower caste. Period. The earliest colonies were not slave societies. Apparently indentured servitude wasn’t enough for these guys.
Dennis, go read Albion’s Seed if you haven’t yet. That’s where my analysis above comes from.
piratedan
well lets not fall into the trap of believing that each side were these monolithic entities. Copperheads were a real threat to the North (after all Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus because of them) and its not as if there wasn’t more than one theme running through the North, there was the immigration issue where rich men were hiring immigrants (usually Irish) right off the boats to serve in the army in their names. It’s not as if the New York riots didn’t require federal troops to quell the looting and fires. Plenty of resentment where the war was being fought by the poor and the yeoman farmers, noting the amount of troops supplied by Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin.
Also to deny the problems that the Southern ideals had on their own survival, where supplies and money being shared by a central government (which they had just decried and left) rankled the governors of the southern states in such a fashion that Davis had the unenviable task of fighting a war and building a nation. Doesn’t mean that I agreed with the Southern take on what the country meant to them, state first, country second and even that was contested by folks in northern Alabama, eastern Tennessee and obviously West Virginia.
Internationally, anyone care to take a guess on how many Republics there were in existence? So with this internal strife, over the internal interpretation of the Constitution and the application of the peculiar institution to it, it’s not exactly as clear as everyone envisions it. You still had Southern Democrats, a few old line Whigs about and the Abolitionists and their influence on the Republicans, remember there were four candidates running for election in 1860.
Lincoln only won with 40% of the vote. Douglas had nearly 30% and Breckenridge had 18% and Bell 12%. Not exactly a mandate or a bully pulpit for Honest Abe.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Tom: I’m with Tom. Your posts have really been a synthesis of a lot of crap going on today tying it back to the ultimate rift from the beginning of this republic. Thanks.
Oh, and the Theft of Labor series hit home when our management decided we were all overcompensated and took away a bunch of our vacation accrual. Just because.
Linkmeister
If anyone’s interested in that post-war period called Reconstruction and why it failed, Eric Foner has written a marvelous one-volume book called Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 about it. It sets out the goals and the failure and the whys of the failure really well.
Linkmeister
Huh. I’m in moderation for a single link to Amazon. Oh well. It’ll turn up eventually.
cmorenc
A great many of us native southerners who graduated from high school before about the early 1970s remember that in school, when we learned state and US history, when we came to studying the Civil War, everyone in our class (including us!) identified with the Southern side, and we couldn’t help indulge “what if” sorts of discussions about if Gettysburg, etc. had come out differently. Robert E. Lee was portrayed as a noble figure in a losing cause, and we admired him greatly. It’s not as if Abraham Lincoln was taught as (or thought of by any of us) as other than a noble, heroic figure himself, nor that it was tragic that the Union won. We were taught to feel unquestioningly patriotic about the United States in a way and to a deep, universal extent that would be difficult to impart to students today. World War II was only a couple of decades past at the time; much more recent than Vietnam is today and about the same amount in the past as the first Gulf War under Bush, Sr.
It sounds like an irreconcilable contradiction to people who grew up in other parts of the country that we at the same time nostalgically sorta kinda wished the South had won critical battles that would have won the war for the Confederacy and at the same time feel sorta glad they didn’t and feel more deeply patriotic about the fully United States than just about any other part of the country. But trust me, we didn’t feel any sense of contradiction at all out of this, even though it seems blindingly obvious to outsiders.
I’m strongly progressive-minded and have long outgrown the native political conservative mindset I (and most others over age fifty) grew up with in our teenage years. Nonetheless, there’s a residual, visceral part of me that cannot give up admiration for Robert E. Lee, no matter what Dennis G. says about his being actually a traitor and failure as a general etc., no matter how rationally he makes his arguments. Now if a southern natives as progressive-minded about political things as myself for the majority of my life has a hard time being convinced to scorn Robert E. Lee, that could be an indication of what a brick wall you’re up against trying to convince all the pecker-heads across the South who haven’t outgrown their small-town southern conservative native mindset that they’re a deluded bunch of fools for supporting regressive bigots like the late Jesse Helms and the (unfortunately all too alive) Jim DeMint.
Elliecat
This morning I found myself seriously shocked to hear an NPR reporter refer to the Civil War as “The War Between the States” in a story about Fort Sumter. Unless I missed something, she did NOT preface it with “What people here in South Carolina call,” or any other qualifier, she simply used it as if it were interchangeable with Civil War. Maybe she thought it was a tomayto/tomahto thing. I hadn’t realized how sensitized I’ve become to hearing that kind of nonsense
Sly
A lot of Southerns supported the Union predominantly out of resentment of the planter class, who they correctly identified as bringing on the war in the first place. Mostly yeoman farmers with very few to (more commonly) no slaves, who resided in the Appalachian upcountry. Eric Foner, probably the most eminent historian on Reconstruction, describes this as a civil war within the South.
This was basically Andrew Johnson’s constituency, and the one of the reasons for Reconstruction’s political failure was that the Radical Republicans couldn’t really account for and adopt this newly liberated class of Southerners. Instead they got swept up into Jim Crowe ideology and were co-opted by the same wealthy interests that dragged them into the war in the first place.
WyldPirate
Talk about some fucking idiots that need to quit fighting the Civil War….look in the mirror Dennis G.
Sly
@Elliecat:
“War Between the States,” though Southern in origin, actually caught on across the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s probably the most popular name for the Civil War other than the Civil War, mostly due to it being heavily popularized by groups like the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Northerners were too busy trying to forget the Civil War to really pay much attention to what people wanted to call it.
Now, if the NPR reporter called it the War of Northern Aggression, I’d start worrying.
Chuck Butcher
I’m just about to end my visit to Bartow, FL and ride back through the deep south. Bartow has some streets named after generals – Civil War types. Names like Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan are conspicuously absent. Didn’t notice any celebrations, though. Yes this is Florida not New York South. Polk County in fact…
Sly
@WyldPirate:
I bet you have your obligatory “don’t you dare call me a racist” reply primed and ready.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Sly: ‘zactly. Not to beat a dead horse, but you’re describing Borderers vs. Cavaliers (Albion’s Seed). Two British cultures duking it out in the USA.
OK, I’ll shut up now … until the next time I see a link.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Chuck Butcher: I toured the Vicksburg battlefield in the late 70s and found it extremely interesting that the roads through the Confederate positions were paved and the ones through the Union positions were dirt.
Joseph Nobles
There you are! I’ve been waiting!
For me, the greatest threat to the Union today is from the modern Confederate Party, all right, but the battleground is abortion and the almost-allergic reaction to any federal funds being within 25 miles to an woman in consultation with her doctor. This insistence on the “fungible money” argument by anti-abortion religious crusaders continues to corrode our Union, and if they are not confronted and silenced, the Union will divide again.
Ironically, they appear to have taken up the robes of the abolitionists’ righteous cause to cloak their attack on the United States today. Carrie Nation and the Prohibitionists would recognize and welcome them as brothers and sisters. They see the high moral ground as theirs now, and they will assert their power over women to the very death of the American experiment. Indeed, they look at the Enlightment ideals on which America was founded as anti-American now.
WyldPirate
@cmorenc:
Thank you, cmorenc. You and I are cut from the exact same cloth.
It was not like there were not efforts to resolve slavery for decades. when the country was founded, the “founding fathers” realized the had made a compromise that likely would not stand (read “Founding Brothers”) by allowing slavery. The were right. Those same people had legitimately differing fews on the dissolution of the Republic as well.
Dennis Green is a broken fucking record raging at least weekly about people that have been dead for well over 100 years while tying himself into knots to tie every political disagreement today to the Civil War and bigotry.
Your schtick is stupid and old Dengre and you are in serious need of psychological help over this issue. Furthermore, anyone that compares what is happening now to the horrors of a war that killed 600K+ Americans and over the enslavement of millions has a goddamned screw loose in their head as well.
The “War” that is being waged today has little to do with the Civil War is of slavery and is one that is far older…the manipulation by the wealthy as they play classes/races off against one another to maintain their dominance.
Here’s an idea, Dengre. Change fucking villians for a while and tramp your ass back to the Middle Ages and pick on the classes of nobility, the “divine right of kings” and the fucking Catholic Church. At least the goddamned characters would change while the REAL theme would be much the same as the Civil War and the same as today–maintaining economic dominance in the hands of the few.
Librarian
I would just like to point out that while in the 1860s Britain was a monarchy, and not yet a democracy, it would be a mistake to lump it in with the rest of the European countries in that it was a constitutional monarchy which was considered to be the freest country in Europe. By the 1860s the British monarchy was already the symbol it is today. The British constitution in which the monarchy was limited by Parliament had been an inspiration to the American founders and was a model for the American constitution. Britain in the 19th century was also a haven for European political refugees including Karl Marx. Britain can’t be dismissed as just another European despotism.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@WyldPirate: Are you as angry in real life as you always are on the Internet? How do you function without spontaneously combusting?
Chuck Butcher
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Oddly enough, I live in Baker City, Baker Co, OR named for US Sen ED Baker who died Col ED Baker at Balls Bluff as a sitting US Senator from OR. I don’t know of any other example of a US Sen in combat or dying in it.
Chuck Butcher
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
WP’a point (minus the vitriol) about the basis of today’s conflict is valid. Now I don’t know if we’re warming up to a bloodbath or not, but the current misery quotient is considerably lower than that. The appeal to the poor southern boys by the planter class were the same that are being made to voters to cut their own throats today by the plutocrats and are the same as always. This is a really old game.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Dengre’s point is not that where we are today is as precarious or as miserable. It’s that we are still fighting over the same core issues. His basis is that the fundamental element of both is that you have a Confederate Party that is devoted to being able to pay employees less than they are worth. He’s never said that they are trying to steal labor as cheaply as they did then, just that there are some very strong ties between the issue of slavery and the issue of breaking the power of workers to negotiate their wages.
Further, we are in a period where the same people that make up the core constituency of the party trying to steal labor today is celebrating the Confederacy in its sesquicentennial. He is correct that there are a lot of viciously wrong perceptions of the Civil War. (And WyldPirate, I think you managed to misunderstand cmorenc’s main point.)
In an American context, the Civil War really is a dominant event. If you want a post on medieval Europe, it appears that you have access to a keyboard, so right it your own damned self. If you don’t like the posts here as consistently as you seem to, then why don’t you just shut the fuck up and go away?
JGabriel
@WyldPirate:
Because the Civil War had nothing to do with the wealthy playing classes and races off one another?
No, wait, that’s exactly what the Civil War was about.
But there’s no correlation between Confederate states and states that now vote Republican … umm, except that there is.
.
Arclite
@freelancer: You share your BD with my son, too. He just turned 4.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@WyldPirate: You know who else thinks the Civil War wasn’t all that important?
The last time I saw you here you were braying that you couldn’t wait to vote for the Republican candidate that runs against Obama. (NEWSFLASH: No one thinks you’re a Democrat anyway)
If there is a god and he hears my prayers, then you and your new gf will be reunited in a voting booth in 2012.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Hornets’ nest. U haz poked it. I r laffing.
Joey Maloney
You mean “descendants”, don’t you?
Ruckus
@asiangrrlMN:
Are they really parallel? I feel that they are more of a continuation. The confederates never really went away or even were hidden. They have been pushed back at times and they have come roaring back at others, like now. But no one has killed the disease.
Joey Maloney
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): IOW, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: I know, I know. I can’t help myself with WP for some reason. It’s the bullying tone. It tickles my reptilian brain.
MonkeyBoy
Growing up I was taught all sorts of nonsense about the Civil War.
Now I realize there must have been some sort of mail problem or something because a bunch of states seceded in December while they only started attacking Union forces in April.
I also wound up with the notion that Ft. Sumpter was attacked because the Union was using it to prevent free trade between the Confederacy and England.
Oh, how you can misinform kids in school.
Anne Laurie
…. Aaand, yes, there’s plenty of well-to-do Americans in gated communities (like Congress) who ask each other “Why can’t we go back to those good old days?”
Thanks for writing this, Dennis.
DBrown
The issue the BJ troll is missing is that Dennis G is pointing out what should be common knowledge but thanks to a lot of falsehoods and intentional misinformation by Southern apologist now isn’t well known – exactly why the Union really fought the Civil war and why the Confederates were simply traitors.
In a similar manner, people (both Southern and Northerners) taught the nonsense of the ignoble cause, they should learn the truth about Lee – the man was a fairly average general sometimes at his best but more often than not, a terrible general (lost every battle he ever fought offensively – everyone!) And never once managed to take any victory at all and turn it into more than a local advantage. This is in total contrast to Grant who was almost always brilliant even when he was at a huge disadvantage against his foe. General Grant always exploited even just limited victories and converted them into strategic victories on the battlefield – something Granny Lee (the name many Confederate’s called Lee at the start of the war) never mastered nor even got close to ever mastering – Lee was a loser spelled with a capitol L (fits his name perfectly.)
See the following link for details: http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/comment/why_grant_won.htm
mark
“what Lincoln rightly called ‘the last best hope of earth’.”
The idea that the United States is “the last best hope of earth” is total bullshit when neocons say it about the United States today (Bill Bennett actually wrote a book with that title), and was total bullshit when Lincoln said it back then. The United States is not nearly as important to the fate of mankind as we would like to think, it is nothing short of embarrassing that you need to be reminded of this.
NobodySpecial
I hate to defend the man, mostly, but this is not a correct view.
In most of his battles, whether offensive or defensive, he was outnumbered heavily and also did not have the logistics necessary to conduct successful military campaigns. Yes, his main saving grace was that the Army of the Potomac was frequently led by buffoons like McClellan and infected by the disease that is a political army, but he still had to do the work to get victories in the face of those two obstacles.
Grant was good, but he was also lucky. Donelson would have been won regardless of almost anything given the strength of the western armies of the Confederacy, but Pillow made a glaring mistake in not marching his army out of there when he had the chance. His Vicksburg campaign only worked out so well because Smith had no calvalry, and could easily have been a disaster marched all the way back to Cairo had he not been able to open a supply line.
Phyllis
I just finished the Rasmussen book, American Uprising last week. I was really struck by something he wrote near the end, regarding the Emancipation Proclamation*. His thesis is Lincoln had to do it, because so many slaves were freeing themselves as Union forces came in. Then attached themselves to the Union forces. It created a quandary for many generals, who certainly did not want them as prisoners, yet couldn’t quite accept them as recruits. I grew up in Florida, so I wasn’t indoctrinated in the Abe=devil meme that folks here in SC got, but I was still mightily misinformed regarding ‘The War’.
*Can’t help but hear Barney Fife’s explanation of this any time I see it/write it. There was these folks. And how else was they gonna get themselves emancipated, unless there was a proclamation.” “So they got themselves a proclamation, and they called it “The Emancipation Proclamation” About what today’s Republicans believe, now that I think about it.
DBrown
Nobodyspecial – then why defend him?
Lee had great Corp commanders and the Union had terrible lead generals (except Grant) and few Corp commanders of talent.
Bringing up should have done or could have done is pointless in any history because this is true of both sides – if that was the case, then the war would have been over when McClellan was just outside Richmond after Lee lost battle after battle against him – please, such arguments are worse than useless and still, in no way effects what Grant or even Lee did so they are irrelevant.
Lee had the unheard of advantage of knowing the military capabilities of every one of his opponents well and yet, utterly failed to get even a single strategic victory – how many generals in history ever had that advantage yet failed so badly? Also, interior lines about every time, too!
As for Vicksburg, Grant never had supply lines during his campaign against forces guarding the areas around Vicksburg – that is, until he laid siege to the place and even then, no one had the ability to meet him in battle (or dared at that point) at that point. As for Cavalry, Grant often operated without it in his early carrier (unlike Lee who had one of the best until later in the war) yet won all his battles.
As for Lee not having supplies of war? Please, that old saw is just wrong – in weapons, the South had similar supplies and never was really lacking – it was clothing and food (yet the South produce plenty but held onto to it or couldn’t transport it) that they were terribly supplied.
Again, read the link then comment.
Of course, this can go on and on and who ever defends Lee is just wrong because you can’t change one absolute fact: Lee LOST EVER SINGLE BATTLE WHENEVER HE WENT ON THE OFFENSE – General Loser of the Confederate Forces – period.
WereBear
Thanks again, Dennis; for explaining.
There’s entirely too little explaining going on these days; people mill around, pawing at things, baffled by why nothing works. And it’s because for quite a long time, there’s been lots of effort expended so nobody knows anything.
As someone with a lot of Southern background, I find your posts so enlightening. The things that don’t make sense at all… are more understandable when we see how history shaped them.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Villago Delenda Est: Gettysburg & the Emancipation Proclamation were rather late in the game. After that point, I think, it wasn’t a matter of which side would win, but when and how. I’m sure historians, amateur and professional, could chime in as to the exact date when ‘the tide turned’, not that outside observers could really tell any better.
What the the French and British realized was that it made no sense to intervene on the LOSING side of a civil war.
Something they seem to have forgotten in Libya in 2011.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I had to do research on this topic for a history class in college, and found out a ton of interesting things. As far as France goes, they seem to’ve been waiting to see what the British did: they took advantage of the Civil War to intervene in Mexico, but wouldn’t intervene in the war directly unless they and the British (who still controlled the Atlantic) were of one mind on it. So it was more or less up to London to take the lead.
Why didn’t London intervene to help the Rebs? Bunch of reasons:
1) Slavery, obviously. Regardless of why the war was really fought, many in Europe did see it as being about slavery, and public opinion wasn’t thrilled with the idea of sending troops to die for the slavemasters.
2) The South fucked up their cotton diplomacy. Early on in the war, the C.S. decided to embargo cotton to Britain, thinking this would shock them into realizing how much they needed it, and so shock them into the war. Instead, the Brits took it as a slap in the face, decided “okay, fuck you too” and started growing their own cotton in Egypt. The South overplayed their hand, lost the only economic tie they had with Britain and also lost all the profit that could’ve been made if they’d sold that cotton.
3) The C.S. needed a major victory to prove itself a worthy investment for a Serious European Power (like the American rebels did for the French at Saratoga). Antietam or Gettysburg could have been that victory, but the South was defeated both times, and that was that.
4) The British had other concerns. In the 1860s, the American Civil War wasn’t a major threat for the British Empire no matter how it turned out. Russian intransigence in the Crimea, and the rise of Prussia, were both more pressing concerns.
greennotGreen
@cmorenc: What cmorenc said, with bells on.
I used to think that if Lincoln and the North had been willing to compromise more, give the South more time to phase out slavery, the war could have been avoided. But then I took a *good* American history class based on original documents and found out, no, the Southern politicians were fucking *crazy*. Nobody could deal with them rationally, pretty much like the Confederate party today.
I do have an issue with the word “traitor.” In every other civil war, we always call the side that wants to break away “rebels” which is what the Confederate soldiers were called at the time. If the southern states had been allowed to secede, would you have called them “traitors”? I imagine most of the Confederate soldiers thought they were patriots – to their state or region, not to the USA. Maybe it’s having been through this terrible, bloody civil war that makes Americans of all regions so flag-waving we’re no. 1 car magnet patriotic today.
Unlike cmorenc, I don’t have any special feelings about Robert E. Lee. I do, however, have great sympathy for all the soldiers who died in the mountains and valleys where I grew up and in the fields around where I live now. Doesn’t matter what side they were on, war was then what it is today: initiated by old men in power and fought by young (mostly) men who aren’t in power.
Dennis G.
@mark:
That neocons misquote Lincoln for their own purposes is not a surprise, but their twisting embrace of some of his words does not prove Lincoln’s view of the American experiment wrong then or now.
Lincoln’s phrase that America was ‘the last best hope of earth’ may or may not be true today, but in 1861 it was a very real and widespread belief–and it was something that millions of loyal Americans were willing to fight to defend. And they did. The notion that people could govern themselves was a shaky idea in 1861 and protecting that idea was why Confederates treason was opposed 150 years ago. Lincoln’s words were quite real to people in his time, even if they are meaningless to you today.
This Nation has always been on a slow hard path to live up to its ideals. Our history is a history of missing the mark and sometimes missing it by a country mile. And yet, our history is also one of perfecting our Union and step by slow step, striving to live up to the ideal.
Over the last 150 years a lot of ground has been lost, but a lot of real victories have been won. Yes, we still have a long way to go, but I still believe in our ability to do so. It is why I am a Liberal and a Democrat.
In our time the notion that people should be able to govern themselves is widespread around the globe. America is no longer the only example of government by the people and many of the other models do some things far better than we ever have. One would be hard pressed to prove that in 2011 America is the ‘last best hope on earth’, but that was not the case in 1861.
No doubt you will disagree with all of this. I take it that your position is that this Nation completely sucks and has failed. And so I wonder–what do you want to replace America with and what is your plan to get it done? Will it rely on you making comments on the internets? Or do you have some deeper thinking on the matter. I wait to hear your plan.
Cheers
Paul in KY
@Delia: Nicholas II was pretty lame, as far as tyrants go.
Chrisd
They still are. We should have let the deep South secede. Slavery would have ended later, but not much later, and the same Black exodus to the urban North would have occurred once farm mechanization made share croppers superfluous.
We’ve never stopped paying to maintain this Union. It isn’t worth it.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: Gen. Lee just looks so classy with that beard & snazzy uniform. He was (to me) a central casting ideal of what a general should look like.
Paul in KY
@mark: We might have been ‘the last best hope’ back then (although, as another poster mentioned Great Britain was a modern democracy by 1861), but now there are 20 or 30 other nations that are everything we’ve hoped to be.
liberal
@Snarki, child of Loki:
I don’t have much knowledge of this issue, but given that the North had much more industrial capacity than the South, I assume the only real issue in the entirety of the conflict was whether the South could have induced the voting populace in the North that the war wasn’t worth it. Apart from that, there’s no way the South could have prevailed.
It’s similar to Japan vs the US in WWII. IIRC Japanese leaders like Yamamoto were aware that they were fated to lose to the US, simply because the US had a much larger economy.
liberal
@DBrown:
ISTR when visiting Gettysburg that some exhibit there claimed that Lee was much more profligate with his men’s blood than others.
James
I have to take issue with the author’s attitude towards Ken Burn’s documentary “The Civil War”. Has he ever actually seen it? I ask because I just finished watching this week and I have to say it is excellent. And while the tone is one of sadness at the tremendous loss of life and the costs of the war, it is quite clear in it’s condemnation of the South. Several of the historians interviewed express astonishment that the South actually thought they could win this war. And repeatedly they go into the horrors of slavery, the insanity of the South’s political system and the repugnance with which it struck many Northerners. But above all, this series attempts to portray the facts of the war as accurately as possible.
Now, maybe that isn’t what the author was looking for. Maybe what he wanted was a documentary that was more overtly hostile. That delighted in the death of the traitors. Ok, that is fine. Just come out and say that. But he shouldn’t dismiss this documentary because it was angry enough for his tastes.
Scott P.
Lee won the Seven Days Battles. Lee won Second Bull Run. Antietam is generally agreed to be a tactical CSA victory. Lee attacked Hooker at Chancellorsville and won. Lee won a victory at the Wilderness. The only offensive battle Lee lost was at Gettysburg.
I rank Lee ahead of Grant in terms of military ability. I can see why folks would do otherwise, but I disagree. This has nothing to do with the side he was fighting for.
dmbeaster
Great stuff here about why the Civil War was fought. An important wrinkle on this theme that I was taught while getting my degree in history. It makes perfect sense for the mindset of the time to be fighting a war to preserve the union (and later also about ending slavery) while not being about bringing rights to blacks. That is one of the reasons why reconstruction failed and blacks slipped into a racist misery for another 100 years – the motives never quite reached that far (though they clearly did for some).
As the nation started to transition into a more modern type of economy (from purely agrarian to a nascent industrial base), slavery just had no place. It was one thing for the founders to make compromises for slavery in an agrarian world (and with the belief, later proven wrong, that is was an institution that would naturally end), but another to find a way to make it compatible with a growing industrial one. There was a reason why the South was so behind in industrialization as of 1860. Slavery made the South a profoundly different place that did not fit into the country’s development, and northerners knew it. That is one of the reasons why the issue of slavery in new territories was so hot – it was one thing to tolerate its continuance where it had always existed, but another to allow it to spread.
Still, even Lincoln would have accommodated the slavers had there been a way to do so and preserve the union. He delayed making Emancipation a war goal for a considerable period of time, and then did so in a quirky way (only freed some of the slaves – only those in the area of rebellion). The feeling that the war should also be about ending slavery grew during the war and made more sense over time to people since its existence had so much to do with the root cause for the split in the union. If you were sacrificing so much to preserve union, you came to the realization that you could no longer accommodate the slavers. But sadly it never also grew into a strong movement to provide full rights for blacks.
JR in WV
My Grandmothers were both from old Southron stock, and my Grandfathers were German (family arrived about 1890) and PennsyDutch (arrived about 1776). My G-G-Grandma actually wrote a self-published book titled “Southern Life in Times of War” with happy darkies (sorry, historic accuracy going here) helping around the farm.
But I was raised in the only state to secede from the Confederacy, WVa, which left Virginia officially in 1863, and actually just a few weeks after the “battle” of Ft. Sumter when a reorganized government of Virginia was set up west of the Allegheny Front in Wheeling.
So I was always confused by the p-up trucks with the starts and bars here in WV, and disappointed by those in other states, esp northern states and states created after 1863.
Speaking of poor education, my wife once had a co-worker with a graduate degree from an Ivy League school who didn’t understand the analogy “went through like Sherman’s March to the sea!” After being told that was the burning city in “Gone with the Wind” the New Yorker told her, “Well, you know I’m from NY and we didn’t have anything to do with the Civil War…”
No draft riots, no death rolls, no statues, no Grant’s Tomb, what Civil War?
No wonder we’re doomed, we’ve forgotten history and are destined to repeat it. Arrgh!
mclaren
Meanwhile, in 2011:
Source: “Civil War Still Divides Americans.”
dmbeaster
Lee as a general.
The guy was a very good defensive general. In part, his genius was forced on him by desperation since he was frequently outnumbered, and had to take big risks (repeatedly dividing his forces in the face of a larger army, and making local and risky counterattacks that succeeded brilliantly). Chancellorsville is probably the best example of that, and is properly seen as a brilliant defensive battle. Part of what made a good general at that time was a sense of knowing what was happening and what should be done despite very limited information available to the general, and Lee was very good with that on the defensive. And Lee did benefit hugely from having great corps commanders. To those unschooled in military matters, what that meant was that Lee could formulate sometimes complicated maneuvers and plans, and provide general orders to his subordinate commanders (Jackson, Longstreet, et al.), who could be relied upon to understand the complications and carry them out effectively in the face of unknown and changing circumstances, and without the ability to communicate further once things started to happen.
On the offensive, Lee struggled like all Civil War generals, which foreshadowed similar difficulties in making effective offensive plans 50 years later in WWI. At the time, the defense enjoyed a big advantage – frontal assaults just could not work. It took changes in technology (and a corresponding evolution in military doctrine) to shift the balance. (mechanization, airpower, more effective artillery, and the mobile fluid warfare based on that).
Chris
@JR in WV:
Yeah, seriously. If you’re a Yankee and a hardcore conservative, wear the Don’t Tread On Me stickers like everyone else – but stars and bars, fucking seriously? Where’s the national pride?
@mclaren:
Very interesting: I expected it to be the other way around.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Shorter version from “1066 and All That”
Roundheads — Right but Repulsive
Caviliers — Wrong but Wromantic
PTirebiter
@cmorenc
My entire family was from the South so I understand how hard that imagery dies. It took some original source reading, like Lee’s letters, to finally kill my illusions. I think my new understanding is, oddly, now more respectful of his life.
@ WyldePirate
You know, if you bagged the attitude, you could add something valuable to the conversation.
@James
I became fascinated with Civil War after watching the first broadcast of Burns’ documentary. Having just watched it again, with a broader background this time, I agree with Dennis regarding the narrative. Had Burns found someone as compelling as Shelby Foote to provide the counterpoints it may not have seemed so jarring to me the second time around.
However I do agree with you that the series is an absolute treasure.
Upper West
@JR in WV: Isn’t “Gone with the Wind” responsible to at least some extent in perpetuating the “honor” and “lost cause” myths.
What does it say about this country that two of its landmark films were “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind?”
Dennis G.
@James:
Like you I just re-watched it when it was on PBS last week and I had watched it last year as well.
The trouble is that Burns relies very much on the “Reconciliation” filter as his central organizing principle. Second to that is just a ton of Lost Cause nonsense. The use of Shelby Foote as our guide to understanding the conflict meant that Lost Cause frame was always there. Burns did, to his credit, include some aspects of the Emancipation understanding and a little bit about African Americans being active in their own liberation, but even that ultimately was in the service of the “Reconciliation” filter which was in the service of the “Lost Cause” filter.
Missing from his documentary was why fighting for the Union mattered. In fact, not only is it missing, the cause of Union is discounted as something not worth fighting for at all. Still, the voice of the Union cause comes though when the voices of folks who fought for it from Lincoln to Sullivan Ballou are quoted:
The Burns doc is an important work, but it is flawed by what it intentionally left on the cutting room floor.
Paul in KY
@liberal: Do the walk up to cemetary ridge as Gen. Pickett’s men did (imagining 150 cannon & a shitload of rifles trained right on you) & you’ll see why he had that reputation.
themann1086
@JR in WV: Treason In Defense Of Slavery flags in the South are bad enough; in the North they drive me up a wall. I’ve gotten into shouting matches with people over it.
Mike in NC
@Upper West:
I read a book a few years ago (name escapes me) that was all about movies based on the American Civil War and why they were overwhelmingly pro-South. The author concluded that Hollywood loves the underdog!
mark
@Dennis G.:
your naive belief in the inherent goodness of America is so cute!
“That neocons misquote Lincoln”
They’re not misquoting him, they’re quoting him (accurately).
“Lincoln’s phrase that America was ‘the last best hope of earth’ may or may not be true today, but in 1861 it was a very real and widespread belief—and it was something that millions of loyal Americans were willing to fight to defend.”
The numbers of people who die fighting for an ideal are completely and totally irrelevant. If we measured ideas by the willingness of people to fight and die for them, then (purely by the numbers) Stalinist totalitarianism would be history’s greatest idea and German militarism would be preferable to American democracy.
“And so I wonder—what do you want to replace America with and what is your plan to get it done?”
I don’t have “a plan,” and never said I did. I just laughed at your ignorant and idiotic pimping of the savage, laughable, and idiotic idea that America is (or has ever been) “the last best hope of earth.”
I have no time for meaningless and vacuous moralizing and nationalist posturing. Apparently you do
PTirebiter
@Mike in NC:
That’s hard to buy considering the absolute underdog status of African-Americans throughout our history.
We forget how segregated Hollywood, and the whole nation has been since the Civil War. If Woodrow Wilson could screen Birth of a Nation in the White House and give it two thumbs up: it safe to say there was precious little love for the underdog if they were Black. I’d suggest the always nostalgia for the good old days, romance and racism are more likely explanations.
Chris
@Mike in NC:
That’s especially true in Westerns, where if they’re done after the Civil War, the main character has very good odds of being a Confederate veteran. (The Searchers, Vera Cruz, True Grit…)
I think the Wild Wild West series is probably the first one I’ve seen where the main characters actually fought for the Union, but even that tended to portray Rebs according to the honorable-enemy-that-it’s-almost-a-shame-we-PWNd model. You’d have to wait until the 1999 movie adaptation to get a Confederate villain who was a power-mad racist.
Funny enough, when I started watching Westerns as a teenager who still liked Republican ideology, I thought the pro-Southern slant confirmed what Republicans said about Hollywood having an anti-American bias.
Took me a little while to realize that the people who whine about Hollywood bias are the same people who cry tears of nostalgia over Gone With The Wind.
JR in WV
@Chris:
Don’t Tread on Me, or Live Free or Die? Which is best? Or least bad…
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@cmorenc:
Well written.
Origuy
BBC History Magazine March issue has an article about the 1961 centennial celebration. Alongside the Fort Sumter re-enactment, the Civil War Commemoration Commission was scheduled to meet in Charleston. They were surprised when New Jersey demanded that one of its delegates, a black woman, be housed in the same segregated hotel as the other delegates. They had to move the meeting to a nearby Navy base, as it was the only unsegregated place in town with space.
The head of the CWCC was Ulysses Grant III. His deputy, Karl Betts, was quoted, “A lot of fine Negro people loved life as it was in the old South.” Kennedy had them replaced by respected historians.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Chrisd:
I disagree. They needed to be defeated utterly. Prior to the Civil War, the Southerners were very agressive in their efforts to enlarge their slave empire. If they had been allowed to secede we would have had a very hostile and aggressive power to the South of us who would have been determined to assert that power. I assure you war would have come no matter what.
Ol Froth
In each of those (except Antietam)battles, Lee was on the strategic defensive. Every time he went on the strategic offensive, the Federals ate his lunch. I wouldn’t call Antietam a tactical CSA victory either. The only reason why Lee’s army wasn’t completely destroyed in Maryland was McClellan’s failure to throw the third of the Army of the Potomac that was unengaged during that day across the “Burnside Bridge” after it was taken and Burnside was on Lee’s right flank.
Chrisd
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I don’t doubt they wanted their country to extend into Mexico and beyond. But wanting something and getting it are two different things. And that’s not even taking into account the feasibility of extending plantation slavery in areas of marginal arability or after machines made the whole institution pointless.
honus
@freelancer: and Thomas Jefferson
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Add to the list Kevin Phillips’ The Cousins’ Wars. It’s a slog at times, getting bogged down in the data related to immigration demographics, but makes a great case that the causes of the Civil War can be traced back through the American Revolution and the Glorious Revolution back to the English Civil War, Roundhead Republicans in the North, Cavalier Royalists in the South, supported by the Borderlanders.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Ol Froth:
I’ll go ya one further and posit that Lee didn’t win the Seven days- McClellan, always thinking the Confederates were at twice the strength as they were, just decided that he was outnumbered and staged a fighting retreat. That is, McClellan gave away the ground.
Comparisons of the day couldn’t have been more wrong. Mac was no Napoleon, I or III.
Berial
I’ll admit I just skipped the comments but wanted to point out the really fun little blog of ‘The Long Recall’. It is a retelling of the civil war 150 years later ‘in real time’.
Basically it takes the news and knowledge of the day 150 years ago and posts it as if it has just happened.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@cmorenc:
I’ve done the same thing with the Union side many times.
What if Thomas had been allowed to move on Knoxville following Mill Springs? What if Sherman had prepared defenses at Shiloh? What if Burnside had committed more troops to the left at Fredericksburg, where Meade nearly cracked Jackson, rather than to the obviously futile movement up Marye’s Heights on the right? What if Hooker’s right flank had been refused at Chancellorsville? What if Sherman, then in Mississippi, had allowed Thomas to attempt an early maneuver through Snake Creek Gap?
Less Popular Tim
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
@Chrisd:
Interesting discussion. I’m with Chris, seems to me that to the extent the South has grown and developed it’s largely because we built so many military bases down there. That, and their oil.
I always assumed if the South had seceded, it would be Mexico North, with a-lot of people that want to sneak into the Northern-European-style liberal democracy of the United States, where all the jobs, money, and social safety nets are.
I don’t see the South developing a stronger position to attack the North than they had in 1861, unless they got significant help from some European power that was trying to get at the U.S., like Germany explored with Mexico during WWI. But I’m only a casual student of history. Well, off to find some legit “What If?” scholarship…