What’s so Civil about War Anyway?
Posted on April 4, 2008
by: Big Jar
I’ve recently been watching Ken Burn’s epic documentary on the Civil War. As I’m nearing the end, I consider the following two impressions to be the biggest lessons that I have learned so far:
1. The Union’s leaders were not the visionary geniuses we sometimes consider them to have been. Lincoln was a great president, but at the time he was mired in a constant state of doubt and insecurity. The public received his Gettysburg Address with confusion and disinterest, and he was convinced that it had been a failed speech. The Emancipation Proclamation nearly backfired on him as well, when thousands of northern civilians rioted in response. He was unpopular towards the end of his first term, and he did not expect to return for a second. Union generals such as Ambrose Burnside and George McClellan made innumerable tactical blunders and provided despairingly poor leadership. Their cowardice and inept battle plans often resulted in thousands of deaths with no gain and no explanation save misjudgment. The Union’s eventual victory is quite astounding, and in some ways seems almost accidental. The people who lived through the conflict certainly did not anticipate or even expect the eventual outcome.
2. Aside from the whole “we-believe-black-people-are-property” component of their ethos, it’s pretty difficult not to fall in love with the Confederate cause. There is something incredibly romantic and compelling about the way in which secessionists spoke about their culture and their land. In a way, they sound almost like a band of Robin Hoods defending their Sherwood Forest against President Nottingham Lincoln. Colorful characters like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest seem almost as if they had sprung from the pages of an ancient Homeric epic poem. The common rebel soldier possessed a roguish wisecracking demeanor that made him considerably more likeable than his stoic but bland Union counterpart. Confederates also had an extensive spy network, which included Southern Belles who would ferry arms under their hoop skirts. There was even one woman, a debutante living in D.C., who regularly extracted secrets from the Union’s secretary of war via seductive methods!
This is very strange to me: to see, on one side, a dislikable bunch fighting for a just and righteous cause, opposed on the other side by a charismatic group of heroes defending the most vile and reprehensible chapter in American history. This is a much more complicated conflict that we often make it out to be.
This was a war about slavery from start to finish, and I suspect that the Confederate’s romantic aura was in part a deliberate construction to conceal that ugly truth. Southern officers never spoke to their men about defending the institution of slavery: they spoke instead about upholding state’s rights, defending their homeland against marauders, protecting Southern women and the right to live freely without incursion from a foreign government. After all, the men risking their lives didn’t actually own slaves, and didn’t stand to gain anything from the institution’s preservation, so the rebellion’s survival depended on mythologizing the cause. It was a powerful myth that very nearly succeeded in carrying out its objective, and it continues to entrance people in the present. For example, the Confederate flag is incredibly popular, even in states that didn’t secede, because the Confederacy succeeded in transforming their banner from a symbol of hate and repression into a symbol of cultural pride and autonomy. Of course, there are those of us who see through this trick.
On the Union side, I see something that gives me hope for the present. The Civil War was a very dark time in American history, much like the first decade of the twenty first century. It was a time when the public was frustrated with its leaders and exhausted by an unending war. The country’s state of affairs seemed so hopelessly wrecked that many believed it would never recover.
The constant failure, pervading ignorance, and government ineptitude didn’t end once the war was over. It carried itself well into Reconstruction and into the First World War, the Depression, and beyond. Slavery ceased to exist as a legal institution, but its legacy persists to the present. When a country is in a state of turmoil, it can’t miraculously get better. But it can survive, it is possible to continue existing in a state of extreme duress, and it is possible, despite all portents and signs to the contrary, for logic to slowly-excruciatingly slowly, sometimes-win out over other priorities.
This is why I love history: the past is inescapable, and it matters even in a context which makes it seem as though it couldn’t possibly be relevant.
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6 Responses to “What’s so Civil about War Anyway?”
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mythologizing the cause. What a crock of proproganda you have internalized. Google the ten causes of the War. Google the CORWIN amendment signed on by lincoln to make slavery legal forever.
Quote p. 201 Red Republicans; “it is rather difficult for modern Americans to understand that the struggle against communism and socialism has been an ongoing effort since the early part of the nineteenth century. Dr. James H. Thornwell stated in 1862: “The parties in this conflict are not merely Abolitionists and Slaveholders; they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on one side and friends of ordered and regulated freedom on the other.”" (Thornwell pps 405-406).
Hi Cajie,
I’d love to begin a discussion with you here, but you haven’t really put forth an argument. I googled the Corwin amendment, and while it appears that Lincoln endorsed its passage, he certainly did not sign it. After all, if he had signed it, it would have become an amendment to the Constitution, and it obviously isn’t one. Other than that, I’m not really sure where you’re going with that one.
I did google your name, along with ‘Civil War’, and your name popped up on a lot of Civil War discussion boards. It seems safe to assume, based on your comments, that you are the same person. You appear to be a neo-Confederate. I hope you come back to our website and respond to this comment and elaborate more on your position–and what exactly it is that you take issue with in my post–because I would love to have a discussion with you about this. Until you do, I can’t muster much of a response to what you’ve written here because I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to say.
Great post Jar… I still need to check it (the documentary) out myself. There’s a reason why southerners don’t want to give up that flag, and you’ve got the “romanticism” that goes on in some people’s minds spelled out there… People should also check out “The Confederate States of America”, which is a historically accurate alternate history(to the best of the film makers abilities) of what would have happened if the south had won the civil war… Entertaining watch to say the least…
And now for something completely different…
I’ll let Jar be the considerate one here Cajie, and while we would like to discuss some of your concepts on the blog here, I’m not sure what portion of the inter-web blog-o-sphere you think you’ve stumbled into..
Considering that you’ve seen fit to quote from someone’s work, who sounds a lot like the neo-conservatives I’ve heard rant in the past 20 years, in which atheists are lumped in with Communists and fucking Jacobins, I’m not sure what to think. I’m with Jar on this one, and would like some clarification.
I’m all for good conspiracy theories, but you’ve gone too far down the rabbit-hole somewhere, with no coherent threads coming back up when you tell people about this “propaganda” we’ve all “internalized”… At least Alan Watt makes his shit interesting…
And allow me to just say one more thing about this lumping of Atheists in with any other category of belief to scare the Jebus crazies…
Atheism is a single position on a single issue, the existence of a god. One may be an Atheist and a Communist, but atheism is not synonymous with Communism or any other belief system…
I still can’t tell what Cajie’s position on Lincoln is… Does he/she like Lincoln? Because we can debate Lincoln’s religious views as well… Atheism/Free-thinker was attributed to him by some of his friends at different periods of his life… Anyways, just wanted to clear up my anger at the lumping of Atheism in with any other belief… Blah..
I’m guessing that Cajie is not a fan of Lincoln. Perhaps what he’s trying to say is that the Civil War wasn’t fought over the issue of slavery, since at one point in time Lincoln endorsed the passage of a law that would make slavery permanently legal in states where it existed.
This is a totally preposterous argument that hardly even merits a response, but since Cajie doesn’t seem like he’s making a return visit, I will comment on that line of reasoning.
It’s true that Lincoln’s first priority in sending Union troops to fight in the South was not to abolish slavery, but to instead preserve the Union. Lincoln is famous for saying that if he could have preserved the Union by not freeing any slaves, he would have done so.
However, this cannot lead any reasonable person to conclude that slavery was a non-issue in the Civil War. It doesn’t matter what Lincoln’s motives were because he did not initiate the conflict. The Southern states seceded before Lincoln took office, and Southern forces fired the first shots in anger. Why did they do this? Because Lincoln’s Republicans opposed the expansion of slavery.
This is the point where I have to prove what I am saying, and this is why Cajie is wrong. When you make a historical argument, you cannot support your claim by quoting contemporary scholars (see his douchebag testimony from Thornwell) or directing someone to “google” something. I can google “The earth is 5,000 years old” and I will get lots of stuff supporting that argument. That doesn’t make it true.
The best way to make a historical argument is to refer to primary sources (people who were alive at the time). So, this is why the Civil War was indeed fought over slavery:
From John Townsend, a South Carolina politician and plantation owner:
“our enemies are about to take possession of the Government, that they intend to rule us according to the caprices of their fanatical theories, and according to the declared purposes of abolishing slavery.”
From the South Carolina declaration of secession:
“A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
There you have it, straight from the source.
Lies lies lies!! All damnable lies I tell you Jar… Stop with your incessant “sources” and your “primary” so-and-so… I, in matter of fact, did google “The earth is 5,000 years old” and have realized that I have always been a Young Earth Creationist… I was just denying the truth inside myself… You must see reason and stop this attack upon people who believe things different to your own “reason”…
Cajie has great personal faith and belief that the south was trying to preserve our union against communists, jacobins and atheists, and damn it if hundreds of millions of people haven’t died since the end of the civil war, and for what…
I ask this of you “sir”… REPLY!!