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-

[4CJ]

Of course, that's not all Douglas had to say about Lincoln, but your selective quotation is quite inventive.

What was "invented"? Douglass was glad that slavery was eneded, but he was honest about Lincoln's motives.

[Restorer]

I was intrigued by your posting of the quote from Douglass' speech. It did not seem to jibe with what I remembered of his attitude towards Lincoln. So I looked up the speech in question.

Here are some more typical quotes from it:

Oration In Memory Of Abraham Lincoln, Delivered At The Unveiling Of The Freedmen's Monument In Memory Of Abraham Lincoln, In Lincoln Park,

we are here to express, as best we may, by appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high, and preeminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln. we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a figure of which the men of this generation may read, and those of after-coming generations may read, something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.

he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.

under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln ... penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States.

we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, ... and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen.

Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate--for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him--but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.

When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.

[GOPcapitalist]

Re: LS' statement:
Of course, that's not all Douglas had to say about Lincoln, but your selective quotation is quite inventive.

It is odd to see 4CJ accused of selective quotation for simply excerpting a lengthy passage that criticizes Lincoln in response to a thread where Douglas' association with the president has been presented as a case of mutual adoration. I have little doubt that you would complain if somebody were to post only the good stuff that Douglas said about Lincoln. You would likely react as if its absence did not merit notice and would certainly never consider accusing its poster of being "selective" or "inventive." It is only when a lesser known but equally important critical component of the speech is publicized that you complain. Why is that if not for the fact that you seem to dislike its inclusion along what has otherwise been presented as unconditional praise for Lincoln?

Re: Restorer's statement:
Here are some more typical quotes from it

Exactly what is "more typical" about those statements? The fact that they compliment Lincoln instead of criticizing him like the other sections do? While it is certainly accurate to note the presence of praise in the speech, to quote it, and to publicize it to your heart's content, the sections 4CJ quoted were no less an important component of its message than your own. When considered in full that speech contains a mixed message: one that sees Lincoln as praiseworthy to a certain extent but also one that recognizes him as a very flawed man, and certainly not the secular saint of democracy at whose feet ex-slaves should kneel to kiss his rings of emancipation.

[LS]

Douglass was far more positive about Lincoln than the selective quotation indicates. You can read any number of books on either L. or D. to find his more balanced appraisal.

[LS]

He had a much more sophisticated understanding of Lincoln's "motives" than what you reflect here.

[4CJ]

Douglass admired Lincoln for the results of his actions. But Douglass didn't wear kneepads, and worship Lincoln like many seem to do. I admire Douglass, he seemed to be an intelligent man, with a keen insight and understanding of the times and politics.

[Mamzelle]

The director of Cold Mountain also did "The Talented Mr. Ripley"--one of those exercises in "Why should I care about what happens to all these icky people?"

In the school of storytelling, you have to root for the home team. You have to hope for the protagonist in some way--modern storytelling is like an episode of "LA Law"--you just want awful, bad things to happen to all the characters.

I loved the book "Cold Mountain"--but I don't see how an essentially American story with a geographical location as one of its main characters (a wonderful section of the Blue Ridge) should film in Romania, with Aussies in the lead roles...I suspect it's so strongly Euro that I'll hate it.

[4CJ]

It is odd to see 4CJ accused of selective quotation for simply excerpting a lengthy passage that criticizes Lincoln in response to a thread where Douglas' association with the president has been presented as a case of mutual adoration.

One can't win either way, can we?

[4CJ]

When considered in full that speech contains a mixed message: one that sees Lincoln as praiseworthy to a certain extent but also one that recognizes him as a very flawed man, and certainly not the secular saint of democracy at whose feet ex-slaves should kneel to kiss his rings of emancipation.

The dims think he walked on water as well. He had already admitted that he could not legally free the slaves, and the US Supreme Court court had previously ruled that private property could not be taken as a war measure:

Our duty is to determine under what circumstances private property may be taken from the owner by a military officer in a time of war. And the question here is, whether the law permits it to be taken to insure the success of any enterprise against a public enemy which the commanding officer may deem it advisable to undertake. And we think it very clear that the law does not permit it.
Chief Justice Taney, Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. 115 (1851)

Heck, Lincoln didn't even want to pay black soldiers the same as the whites.

[Restorer]

I disagree. You quoted two paragraphs that were somewhat critical as showing Douglass' opinion of Lincoln, whereas his actual speech had dozens of paragraphs that were laudatory.

[Restorer]

Douglass admired Lincoln for the results of his actions. But Douglass didn't wear kneepads, and worship Lincoln like many seem to do. I admire Douglass, he seemed to be an intelligent man, with a keen insight and understanding of the times and politics.

Douglass was a great man. He was also correct in his assessment of Lincoln.

I think Lincoln's critics on these threads get confused. I don't worship Lincoln, and I don't know anybody who does. Of course he was a flawed man. But he was a tremendously great and good flawed man. It is highly likely that if anybody else had been President in 1861 the US would have split permanently, which I believe would have been a very bad thing, for the US and for the world.

He was forced to do many bad things. But he was fighting a war, and bad things happen in war. Probably most of those who bitterly criticize Sherman and Lincoln for destroying southern property would enthusiastically support our nuclear attacks on Japan. This is more than a little inconsistent.

Somebody point out to me any theory of warfare that would justify our military conduct in WWII and Vietnam, while simultaneously condemning Union actions during the WBTS. There is no such theory. If you condemn one, you must equally condemn the other. If Lincoln was a genocidal monster, Truman and Nixon were much worse. Their death toll of civilians was thousands of times higher.

[ccmay]

The irony is that by the time of the Red revolution those Serfs were producing entrepreneurs which stayed loyal to the crown while the city folk sided with the Reds.

They paid dearly for this under Stalin, too.

-ccm

[4CJ]

Probably most of those who bitterly criticize Sherman and Lincoln for destroying southern property would enthusiastically support our nuclear attacks on Japan.

Not me. I am on record that waging war on civilians is wrong. It's one thing to bomb a munitions factory, another to level a city, or send 400 innocent Roswell women and their children north, never to be seen again.

[CobaltBlue]

We are told over and over that Lincoln fought to free blacks

I think pretty much everybody knows that Lincoln fought to preserve the Union, in a fight that he did not start, but was determined not to lose.

The counterfactual is, what would have occurred if the South had not seceded? Slavery most certainly would have continued in the United States in some form for some time, but it was abolished almost everywhere else by 1865, anyway, so the time could not have been long.

For example, Mexico abolished slavery in 1822, which was eventually the impetus for the American secession in Texas - they wanted to keep the right to slavery. Kind of makes it hard for me to root for them in the Alamo.

[CobaltBlue]

BTW, re secession, take a look at how Andrew Jackson handled the attempt, by South Carolina, to secede over tariffs.

It would have been insane to co-exist soft underbelly to soft underbelly with an armed foe and rival. Manifest destiny was driven by US desire and need for dominance of the North American continent.

The US had bought much of the South (Louisiana purchase) and paid for the rest of it with blood - no way was it to be given up without a fight.

[4CJ]

The US had bought much of the South (Louisiana purchase) and paid for the rest of it with blood - no way was it to be given up without a fight. >

[D Rider]

The Dems of 1864 were. Even down to their anti-war ex-general candidate for president: McClellan. Lincoln should have had the B****** hung.

[D Rider]

Slavery most certainly would have continued in the United States in some form for some time, but it was abolished almost everywhere else by 1865, anyway, so the time could not have been long.

I believe that the slavery of Europeans by the Ottoman Empire continued well into the 1880's. And in fact exists in the Muslim world today. The rejection of slavery is a phenomenon of the last 2 and a half centuries. Prior to that, I don't think that it was considered wrong or immoral by any culture.

[4CJ]

Slavery most certainly would have continued in the United States in some form for some time, but it was abolished almost everywhere else by 1865, anyway, so the time could not have been long.

Slavery ended in Puerto Rico in 1873, Cuba in 1886, Brazil in 1888.

Slavery still exists in the Sudan.

[CobaltBlue]

Prior to that, I don't think that it was considered wrong or immoral by any culture.

Do a google search using as search terms

slavery pope

which may open your eyes. Slavery has been condemned by the Catholic Church for centuries.