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-

[CobaltBlue]

"Grew and changed" makes Lincoln sound like a Democrat.;^)

I would say, "he learned." He was from Springfield, Illinois, out on the frontier. He came to Washington, and for eight years he learned new things every day.

I think it is a wonderful facility, to be able to learn new things. It is a sine qua non for great men and women.

Lincoln was like the fox, who knows many things. Neoconfederates are like the hedgehogs, who know one big thing.

[Hacksaw]

What I think is weird is that if you spent that same amount of energy tearing down George Washington or Thomas Jefferson for being flawed, and not abolitionists, most Freepers would think you were a nut case. I'll just say that I think your obsession is potentially unhealthy. Lincoln died almost 140 years ago. Get over it. It's a topic worthy of study, but you need to get a grip.

Yeah, pretty strange Lincoln would repeatedly come up on Civil War threads.

I've noticed that you have gone out of your way to be rude to people with your smarmy comments. "I'll just say" that you seem to be an all-around unpleasant person, from the posts I have seen here and other threads. Your behaviour and presentation is anythng but convincing - like thinking you have made a huge point by adding up the number of times a judge was quoted on a legal database (for example).

[CobaltBlue]

But I do like the argument that neoconfederates want to freeze Lincoln.

My husband is from Illinois, and one of his ancestors was General Emory Upton, a Union general, although he did have one Confederate ancestor who switched sides rather than remain in captivity.

He reads Southern Partisan, which I've looked at, and think is blather, all about the Lost Cause. I grew up in Louisiana, and have lived in the Deep South all my life. I've been studying Louisiana history all my adult life, including a lot about slavery.

Slavery is nothing to romanticize. If I were to admire any way of having slavery, it would be the Spanish laws, which had a legal provision called coartacion, which allowed a slave to purchase his or her freedom by paying the master the slave's own fair market value.

If the master refused to deal, the slave could petition the court for a hearing, and even a lawyer, and an appraisal, and the court would set a price, and if the slave could raise that much money, the court would give them a certificate of freedom.

After Louisiana became a United States territory, this was abolished.

The system of coartacion encouraged slaves to become small time capitalists, and work during their time off, and save money. It was far from ideal, but there was a great deal of humanitarianism that no other system had. It derives from the Roman system.

Neoconfederates buy the Reconstruction myths about moonlight and roses and white pillars and happy darkies frolicking in the quarters. They like living in a fantasy world.

[CobaltBlue]

The argument was whether St. George Tucker was as important an influence on the rulings of the United States Supreme Court as Joseph Story.

If you know a better way to get at that than how many times he's cited, you're free to suggest it.

[CobaltBlue]

"How it could be at once eradicated" meant abolished -- and Clay knew, as Lincoln knew, that, as a practical matter, abolition would lead to civil war.

Which is why he did not want to start a civil war, and why he said he would not start a civil war, and why he did not start the Civil War.

Lincoln was not an abolitionist. He wanted to contain slavery in the South.

[CobaltBlue]

Can you really deny that Lincoln was prophetic in his concern that failing to separate the white and black races would lead to "perpetual race conflict?"

Ah, the leopard reveals its spots.

Yes, I do deny that the white and black races are engaged in perpetual race conflict. I think that argument is risible.

[CobaltBlue]

Some blacks wanted to go back to Africa, some didn't. There is no "black race," only black individual human beings.

[Restorer]

You can also look up all the various state resolutions in support of the Union after Sumter. Not a word in any of them, I believe, about tariffs.

As I believe you pointed out in a previous post, the theory that the war was about tariffs was floated after the war to obscure the fact that the root cause was slavery. Thus the losers could claim they had not fought for slavery.

What I find truly bizarre is that just about every national institution in the country broke apart in the two decades before 1860, including every religious denomination except the Catholics. In each case, the proximate cause was disputes over slavery. Finally, in 1860 the political parties broke over the same issue, which resulted in Lincoln's election.

Yet when the southern states seceded, breaking apart the nation itself, that somehow was unrelated to the issue that had broken every other institution.

Very strange logic there.

Another thing I find odd about The-South-Will-Rise-Again boys is their taking present day attitudes and institutions and projecting them into the past. They speak of (in 1860!) an overwhelmingly powerful federal government, or of irresistible presidential power.

In 1860, by today's standards, the federal government was barely there. Lincoln could not lead an unwilling Union into war to prevent secession. He didn't have the mechanisms to do any such thing. The vast majority of Union soldiers were volunteers, and without support from Union states the federal government could have done little, especially in the first year or so.

[Restorer]

Yes, I do deny that the white and black races are engaged in perpetual race conflict. I think that argument is risible.

It's funny? I don't think so.

I do not believe that any such conflict is built in. I do believe that the concern that it is by Lincoln, Jefferson and many, if not most, thoughtful Americans of the 19th century was not without basis.

We were in the process of ethnically cleansing the continent of its original natives. Why should thoughtful men not worry that similar actions would be carried out against blacks if slavery, which regularized the relations between the races in a way comfortable for whites, was removed?

I don't believe this. I just don't think concern about it at that time automatically made a man either racist or illogical.

[CobaltBlue]

Agreed. The ironies are overwhelming. I don't believe in historic inevitability, but I think the Confederates knew that the end of slavery was inevitable.

Cotton depletes soil, and in those days before chemical fertilizers, and before mechanical farm equipment, it was becoming increasingly difficult to make a profit raising cotton in places with thin soil.

[CobaltBlue]

My own study of slavery suggests to me that Southerners were justified in fearing that slaves, like all men, want to be free, and would resort to violence in order to achieve it.

But in truth, freedmen copied white society to the best of their ability.

In Louisina, which had a sizeable component of freedmen, contemporary commentators noted that the more blacks formed societies similar to that of whites, the more many whites hated and feared them.

I think that many - certainly not all - whites hated to think that blacks were human beings just like they were, because that would be too horrible. Dehumanizing them was the only way. If you believe that the person you mistreat is little more than an animal, then you can look at yourself in the mirror, or pray to God in church, without hating yourself. Frances Kemble, a plantation owner, for example, did not believe that slave women had family feeling for their children, and did not suffer when they were sold.

Yes, that's human nature.

But I've collected dozens of stories sympathetic to blacks, freedmen and slaves, written by Southern whites in the ante-bellum period, so I know that many whites knew that blacks were human beings just like them except for the color of their skin.

It's also human nature to fear revenge and God's judgment.

[Restorer]

It is also only fair to point out that southerners (and northerners) constantly had the object lesson of Haiti before them. There really had been a race war and incredible atrocities on all sides, although southern whites understandably focused on the atrocities committed by blacks on whites.

The end result was that Haiti, in the 18th century probably the wealthiest spot on Earth, was by mid-19th century about halfway to its present hellhole condition. Not a good example of how to free slaves without a race war resulting.

Lincoln sympathized strongly with slaveowners, as do I. They were trapped in a society that they had not themselves designed.

What I have little patience for is those who, rather than agreeing that slavery was an evil that it was difficult to get rid of, tried to turn it into a positively good thing. Any such attempt is as close to pure evil as I can think of. And this philosophy was increasingly dominant in the South.

BTW, S.M. Stirling wrote a series of alternate history books in which the "slavery is a good thing" philosophy is carried to its logical conclusion. It's called the "Draka" or "Drakon" series, or something like that. They're quite interesting, although horrifying.

[Restorer]

it was becoming increasingly difficult to make a profit raising cotton in places with thin soil.

Which was why they felt slavery had to expand to survive. The big-thinkers among them envisioned a conquest of all Latin America, which would be converted into a giant plantation system.

[CobaltBlue]

In point of fact, the slaves in Haiti freed themselves, and the only way to do it was by starting a war, in 1789, five years before the French National Assembly freed the French colonies in the Caribbean. They were armed by colonials who sided with the French revolution against monarchists on the island. In 1791, the slaves turned against their masters.

I would not call the colony "rich" - it was a wonderful source of capital for the continental French, but little of the money remained in the colony.

By contrast, in Spanish Santo Domingo, the practice of coartacion led to a very large population of freedman, in fact, the majority of the population of Santo Dominogo was freedmen.

It is true that Haiti is a hellhole, but the Dominican Republic isn't doing so bad for a Caribbean island. I have no idea what the difference is but assume that government has a lot to do with it.

[4CJ]

Neoconfederates buy the Reconstruction myths about moonlight and roses and white pillars and happy darkies frolicking in the quarters. They like living in a fantasy world.

Why not see what the ex-slaves said?

'Why, Miss, the only thing I can remember right off hand that we children done was fight and frolic like youngsters will do when they get together.'
John F. Van Hook, Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, Georgia Narratives, Vol. IV, Pt. 4, p. 73

Now Missy, how come you wants to know 'bout dem frolics us had dem days? Most of 'em ended up scandlous, plumb scandlous. At harvest season dere was cornshuckin's, wheat-thrashin's syrup-cookin's, and logrollin's. All dem frolics come in deir own good time. Cornshuckin's was de most fun of 'em all. Evvybody comes from miles around to dem frolics. Soon atter de wuk got started, marster got out his little brown jug, and when it started gwine de rounds de wuk would speed up wid sich singin' as you never heared, and dem Niggers was wuking in time wid de music. Evvy red ear of corn meant an extra swig of liquor for de Nigger what found it. When de wuk was done and dey was ready to go to de tables out in de yard to eat dem big barbeque suppers, dey grabbed up deir marster and tuk him to de big house on deir shoulders. When de supper was et, de liquor was passed some more and dancin' started, and sometimes it lasted all night.
Paul Smith, Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, Georgia Narratives, Vol. IV, Pt. 3, p. 334.

We had plenty of amusements in those days, such as corn-shuckings, dances, running, jumping and boxing contest. Saturday was the big frolicking time, and every body made the most of it. Slaves were allowed to tend little patches of their own, and were often given Saturday afternoons off to work their crops, then when laying by time came, we had more time for our patches. We were allowed all we could make over and above our certin tasks.
David Goodman Gullins, Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, Georgia Narratives, Vol. IV, Pt. 2, p. 85.

We would sing and pray Easter Sunday and on Easter Monday we frolicked and danced all day long! Christmas we allus had plenty good sumpin' to eat and we all got togedder and had lots of fun. We runned up to the big 'ouse early Christmas mornin' and holler out: 'Mornin', Christmas Gif'!' Then they'd give us plenty of Sandy Claus an we would go back to our cabins to have fun twel New Year's day. We knowed Christmas was over and gone when New Year's day come, kazen we got back to wuk that day atter frolickin' all Christmas week.
James Bolton, Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, Georgia Narratives, Volume IV, Pt. 1, p. 100.

[Restorer]

Are you trying to say that these excerpts are representative of the Slave Narratives?

If so, that is just plain wrong. You do realize there is a tremendous amount of material in those documents showing the other side of slavery? Sure the slaves occasionally had good times. Humans throughout history have managed to sometimes enjoy themselves even under the most horrendous imaginable oppression.

Doesn't make the oppression any less horrible.

[4CJ]

Are you trying to say that these excerpts are representative of the Slave Narratives?

Did you think so? There are thousands of narratives, and many are similar. I simply searched for 'frolic'.

Doesn't make the oppression any less horrible.

I guess I shouldn't post the one by Aunt Charity Andersen, where she wished for the old days of slavery? Or the ones where the slaves talk about their love for their masters, or the ones where they earned monies?

[eleni121]

Although not one at first, Lincoln certainly evolved into being an abolitionist.

[Restorer]

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

A. Lincoln, March 17, 1865

[CobaltBlue]

Yep, slavery was a thrill-a-minute. I hear that white children are considered special treats, so maybe you can sell your kids overseas and let them enjoy the wonders of slavery. /sarcasm