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-

[what's up]

I wasn't actually thinking of the Democrat of 2004. I was thinking of the Dems in terms of those that held the majority for so long...say FDR thru LBJ and slightly after.

It seems to me that the racism of southerners (which in Civil War times were Democrats) mirrors the racism of the Democrats during the entitlement buildup. The Democrat in both cases fails to look at minorities as individuals and both find a way to get political power thru taking advantage of the blacks.

[nutmeg]

read later

[Burkeman1]

It seems to me that the racism of southerners (which in Civil War times were Democrats) mirrors the racism of the Democrats during the entitlement buildup. The Democrat in both cases fails to look at minorities as individuals and both find a way to get political power thru taking advantage of the blacks.

Excellent post.

[Little Bill]

I don't know about that, my family went West in 1831 and many still hold land under the North West Settlement, the rest went west with the Mormons and hold land De Novo, under the Mexican American Treaty, land law is a strange thing.

[Clemenza]

2) The movie "The English Patient" was good.

I wholeheartedly disagree, although I have never cared for Ralph Fiennes as an actor. I did not find it as "slow" as other people and enjoyed film.

[DoctorMichael]

I can say that I've never seen "The English Patient" because I rented it when it came out on video and turned it off halfway through. It was a TERRIBLE movie!

This alone may keep me from 'Cold Mountain'.

[CobaltBlue]

Just took a break from researching slave ownership in Louisiana circa 1720-1820, and logged onto Free Republic, only to find that there's no escaping it. Nothing like a thread about the Civil War to bring out the apologists for slavery. Boggles my mind.

There was plenty of mistreatment of slaves and breaking up of families. Sure, slaves were valuable and it's stupid to mistreat valuable property, but there were plenty of old and sick ones, too. Some were worth many thousands, some only a few hundred, some not even worth selling.

Anyway, how much mistreatment can you stomach before you'll stop apologizing for the old bastards? What they did was wrong.

Anyway, I feel no desire to apologize for them nor castigate them. The facts speak for themselves.

[Porterville]

I thought Gods and Generals was mainly about Jackson and Jackson's faith??? What the hell does some worthless fu-fu rip off of the Iliad have to do with with a great man with real/historical human emotions, and not some made for Hollywood fantasy??

[KC_Conspirator]

That is a good point, but the Irish and a whole lot of other people rioted in the north. I think there were like 3 or 4 of them in New York alone.

At any rate, I could easily see people grab power while their enemies were away at war.

[KC_Conspirator]

2) The movie "The English Patient" was good.

It was a good movie, but it was basically a new Casablaca where most everyone does the wrong this whereas Bogart does the right thing. Different times my friend...

[Paul Atreides]

LOTR didn't make me believe in hobgoblins; it was seeing Kucinich that did it.

[LS]

OK, well, be warned it's not "light reading" but an academic book that seeks to prove a point through references. Still, very good.

Also, if you are interested in different slants on the CW, take a look at "Attack and Die" by Jamison & McWhiney (or McWhiney and Jamison . . . could be Jamieson). This book says that Confederate over-aggressive tactics, based on the Celtic heritage of herding and the head-on attack, caused the South to suffer relatively higher casualties at every major engagement except F-burg.

[LS]

I don't think so. If you look at the Confed Constitution, everything about it was designed to eliminate checks on Jeff Davis, while at the same time make sure that NO ONE ever did away with slavery. The document was a pure slave document if there ever was one.

The thing the lost cause guys don't get is that every time the Southerners had a chance to raise another issue as the main "sticking point," it always came back to slavery---because Lincoln was right: the country couldn't be half and half. Sooner or later, either slavery was right and had to be right everywhere, or it was wrong and had to be abolished everywhere.

[LS]

Well, there are a lot of ironies. I would argue that they "won" because after a few years of Reconstruction, they basically got all their racist, segregationist governments back in place.

As I argue in my new book, "Beacon of Liberty," even the near-permanent presence of Federal troops wouldn't solve the problem: the failure to give the free blacks "40 acres and a mule" so that they would be economically (and therefore politically) self-sufficient was the biggest mistake of the war.

[Burkeman1]

Thanks. I will read "Yankee Leviathon".

To give you something to read from a different conservative perspective I recommend "The Illusion of Victory, America in World War I."

[buwaya]

Chancellorsville ? Antietanm ? This does not sound right at all.

[buwaya]

Wan't the Confederate Constitution adopted in the midst of war ?

[Maria S]

"Anyway, I feel no desire to apologize for them nor castigate them."

Maybe a misunderinterpretation on my part...but it sure seems from your statement that there's some castigating going on.

My only point was to offer up my opinion on what is considered one of the best books about the Civil War ever put together. No intent to apologize ["for the old bastards"]. BTW...I love dogs; I reeeeally don't like cats.

[Petronski]

FYI Ping

[Leatherneck_MT]

Oh yeah that would work. Just like it's working in Africa right now.

/sarcasm off

You sound like your typical New York Liberal so basically you and I have nothing to say to one another.

Your Liberal bullshit about the south getting it's racist segregationist government claptrap is just more bullshit that I don't care to see.