Lost on 'Cold Mountain': The anti-'Gods and Generals'. (Busting the Dixie myth.)

National Review ^ | January 7, 2004 | Mackubin Thomas Owens

[quidnunc]

2003 was a big year for Civil War movies. Gods and Generals, based on Jeff Shaara's novel of the same name hit theaters in the spring. Gods and Generals was a paean to the Old Confederacy, reflecting the "Lost Cause" interpretation of the war. This school of Civil War historiography received its name from an 1867 book by Edward A. Pollard, who wrote that defeat on the battlefield left the south with nothing but "the war of ideas."

I know from the Lost Cause school of the Civil War. I grew up in a Lost Cause household. I took it for gospel truth that the Civil War was a noble enterprise undertaken in defense of southern rights, not slavery, that accordingly the Confederates were the legitimate heirs of the American Revolutionaries and the spirit of '76, and that resistance to the Lincoln government was no different than the Revolutionary generation's resistance to the depredations of George III. The Lost Cause school was neatly summarized in an 1893 speech by a former Confederate officer, Col. Richard Henry Lee: "As a Confederate soldier and as a Virginian, I deny the charge [that the Confederates were rebels] and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels, we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes."

Cold Mountain, based on Charles Frazier's historical novel, was released on Christmas Day. It too is about the Civil War but Cold Mountain is a far cry from Gods and Generals. This is the "other war," one in which war has lost its nobility and those on the Confederate home front are in as much danger from other southerners as they are from Yankee marauders. Indeed, Cold Mountain can be viewed as the anti-Gods and Generals.

-snip-

[LS]

I do. He never once indicated that allowing "free men of color" to vote in some northern states was either unusual or undesirable. Therefore it stands to reason that he would expect at least some of the freedmen to attain this same level of political equality.

[Captain Kirk]

Lincoln certainly had no objections to states deciding this issue. For that matter, a lot of Southerners probably agreed that individual states could do this, at least in theory.

The question is this: did he support a federal requirement that the Southern states give blacks the vote? All the evidence I have seen (such as his approval of the Louisiana readdmission plan shortly before his death) indicates otherwise. Perhaps you have evidence that I don't know about....if so, I'd love to see it.

[Captain Kirk]

By the way, you said he no objection to black voting in Illinois. This is somewhat evasive. Did he ever go on record supporting voting rights for blacks in Illinois?

[Leatherneck_MT]

Older'n Dirt :)

[Ciexyz]

I'm willing to entertain the views of both sides on the Civil War. However....I saw "Cold Mountain" recently and found it to be HORRIFIC, detestable, a smelly rotten film where EVERYONE was either brain dead or over-the-edge. I actually felt dirty after I left the theater, and the film weighed heavy on my mind for days afterward.

A nasty, dirty little film. Surely, surely, the ethics at that time were higher than what is shown in the film. I'd say that the film is a Hollyweird rewrite of history. Like every calvary officer from the old West has to be like Tom Cruise, haunted by his evil comrades who massacred Indians. No balance in this viewpoint, methinks.

[4CJ]

Moreover, Lincoln's race views---and these have been extensively commented on by historians---moderated substantially every year after 1858.

Lincoln has a Commissioner of Emmigration, one James Mitchell, during his administration. In 1862 Lincoln stated, 'the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family; and it is not well adapted for two, or more.'

In April of 1865, Lincoln told Gen. Butler, 'I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes.' (Benjamin F. Butler, Autobiography & Personal Reminiscences of Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co., 1892, p. 903).

Some moderation.

[Leatherneck_MT]

No, I'm not off base. Slavery is wrong wherever it is practiced. Just because Americans had slaves doesn't mean that we are above all others special in history and thus are required to pay reparations.

Wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong. If one race pays, we all pay. No difference. If one race does NOT pay, then nobody pays. Constitution doesn't enter into the right or the wrong of it here. This is a plague on mankind, not a uniquely American sin.


The Reconstruction Congress didn't realize how stupid we would become as a nation. I'm sure that's why they didn't take that simple step. If they had realized it, they may have forcibly shipped all former slaves to Liberia.

[Naspino]

I would imagine that in a war in which your nation is being invaded no society is as free as it would be outside of the war. I don't see how his review could have been honest in that respect.

[billbears]

CK: By the way, you said he no objection to black voting in Illinois. This is somewhat evasive. Did he ever go on record supporting voting rights for blacks in Illinois?

But in 1853, under the leadership of southern Illinois Democrat John A. Logan, the General Assembly adopted the draconian "Black Law" of 1853. For the most part, the law simply brought together in one place several existing laws. Under this law, no black from another state could remain within the Illinois borders for more than ten days. Beyond ten days and he or she was subject to arrest, confinement in jail, and a $50 fine and removal from the state. If unable to pay the fine, the law directed the sheriff to auction the offending African-American to the bidder willing to pay the costs and the tine and to work the "guilty" party the fewest number of days. If the convicted man or woman did not leave within ten days after completing the required service, the process resumed, but the fine was increased $50 for each additional infraction. Although most newspapers opposed the measure, there is but little doubt that it reflected the views of much of the state's population.

Here

Interesting that in the seven years before this most worthless man became President that he couldn't speak out very much against the own laws within his state. Must not have cared much. Either that or he was too involved in the colonization push

[LS]

No, it is not just an "American sin." Actually, in the historical perspective, the U.S. had relatively little slavery, and of a fairly benign type, compared to most other areas.

What DOES/DID make the U.S. different was that we are a nation of laws, and those laws were, as Lincoln said, "dedicated to a proposition." When it was determined that slavery was wrong, restitution should have been made right then. I agree that the Reconstruction Radical Republicans had no clue what would happen 100 years down the line. To have declared slaves "equal" as regards the Declaration, then "forcibly shipped them to Liberia" would have been both unconstitutional and politically stupid, as it would have degenerated into blacks fighting for their rights to remain at the same time the ex-slaveowners were out there trying to kill them. In short, it would have extended the Civil War by years. Moreover, it ignored the PRECEDENT in most northern states whereby ALL previous manumitted slaves could become citizens if they met the requirements.

[CobaltBlue]

Free people of color were a vital economic and cultural force in antebellum Louisiana. I just came across and earmarked an article about a free black community in antebellum Florida. I am presently reading about free people of color in Louisiana who bought their own freedom and bought the freedom of family members.

The difference may have been religious - this is just a hypothesis since that is one of the major cultural differences between French and Spanish vs. British. Or it may go deeper than that - freedmen were also a vital element in the Roman empire. The French and Spanish consciously modeled their colonies after the Romans.

On the other hand, the French had no problem with free people of color moving freely through many levels of society in France. Alexandre Dumas, for example, was a quadroon.

[LS]

Again, you can pluck out whatever statements by Lincoln you can drum up, but the bottom line is that most Lincoln scholars agree he moderated significantly. Read some of his discussions with Fred. Douglass. This "anti-black" had Douglass to the White House.

[LS]

There is a big difference between saying L. thought blacks "political equals" and his supporting a FEDERAL law requiring voting rights for freedmen. No, he did not do the latter. He certainly did, however, think that some blacks already were "political equals" and that with education all blacks would be political equals capable of full citizenship. As you say, he thought this best left to legislatures and to the states.

[LS]

I am not aware of him either going on record for or against "free men of color" voting in Illinois.

[LS]

Ummm, the NORTH was invaded, too. Twice. Didn't cause them to change their laws. And one might justify some local emergency measures, but not nationalization of the salt industry in Flordia.

[LS]

This was almost certainly a continuation of "fugitive slave laws," which were already proving unenforcable because northern populations wouldn't enforce them.

If the north had the views that the newspapers suggested, the FSL would have been easy to enforce. Easy.

This "worthless man" was simply the greatest president in history. I enjoy seeing all the "haters" come out on these threads.

[billbears]

From the Illinois link:

Although most newspapers opposed the measure, there is but little doubt that it reflected the views of much of the state's population.

Put down the Koolaid

[CobaltBlue]

Surely the explanation is nothing more revelatory than the fact that drama has to have conflict, otherwise it's not drama. The villain in Cold Mountain was given a "back story", that his family had once owned the entire mountain and he dreamed and schemed about getting it back.

Do such villains exist? And does evil prosper when all the good folk are otherwise occupied? Does power corrupt?

I suggest to you that the film weighed heavy because you'd never before confronted, in your mind, the total desolation that the war caused in the South. When you say that hundreds of thousands of men died or were crippled for life, it doesn't mean much. When you see family after family that has lost their main breadwinner, it is, indeed, a heavy thing.

And for what? I grew up in New Orleans, the richest city in the country before the war. Afterwards, the economic devastation was horrific. What was achieved by that horrible loss of life and property?

Yes, you were right to feel saddened.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Restitution could have been made then, but it wasn't. It cannot be made now. You will start a new Civil War if you try.

[CobaltBlue]

Why is it important to you to establish negative feelings by Lincoln towards blacks? Does dragging him down to some particular level make you feel better? I don't get it.