Lost Cause interpretation pervades the public's memory of the Civil War

LEE AND HIS ARMY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, by Gary W. Gallagher. The University of North Carolina Press, 295 pages. Illustrations, maps, chapter notes, index.

GEN. ROBERT E. LEE and the Army of Northern Virginia are inseparable from the history of the Confederate States of America. If this review were somehow translated into the kind of "proof of a theorem" that we all remember from high school geometry, that statement could be accepted as "given."

What Gary W. Gallagher has in mind in "Lee and His Army in Confederate History" is something a little different from a geometry proof. At bottom, Gallagher accepts the primacy of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia as the foundations of Confederate power. Having determined that the keel of the interpretive ship is sound, he wishes to eliminate the bad wood in the hull that might allow a sea of criticism to sink an otherwise seaworthy vessel.

Gallagher explains that shortly after Lee's death, the way in which the history of the Southern Confederacy was written came under the influence of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early. Lee's "bad old man" interpreted the South's defeat in terms of a Lost Cause that deserved victory, but was overwhelmed by Federal numbers and material abundance.

The Lost Cause version of Confederate history asserted by Early and others held that not slavery but the struggle for states' rights had caused secession. Secession was constitutionally correct, and President Abraham Lincoln wanted war with the South in order to ensure the passage of tariffs and other legislation favorable to Northern industry and interests. Gen. Lee and Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson were officers above approach.

Most of Lee's other subordinates (except those who became Republicans after the war) were the Confederate equivalent of the knights of King Arthur's Round Table. The men of the Army of Northern Virginia had been Lee's willing instruments in the Confederate struggle to expel the Yankee hordes from the South's (especially Virginia's) sacred soil.

After Early and the other original defenders of the Lost Cause passed away, along came Douglas Southall Freeman, the great biographer of Lee and Washington and the author of "Lee's Lieutenants," to revive the Lost Cause interpretation of Confederate history for new generations. The Lost Cause interpretation thus prevailed through the Civil War Centennial. Finally, in the 1970s, the basic premises of the Lost Cause interpretation underwent a review in which it became clear that if slavery had not existed in the South, there would have been no war.

At this point, a number of revisionist historians began to voice doubts as to whether Gens. Lee and Jackson deserved the seats that Early had reserved for them in the pantheon of demigods. Gallagher chooses to examine the writings of Thomas L. Connelly and Alan T. Nolan in this regard. In the end, Gallagher concludes that Early was right about Lee and his army having been overwhelmed by Yankee numbers and materiel. However, elements of the Lost Cause interpretation of Confederate history (i.e., slavery was not the cause of the war) should be eliminated because they weaken an otherwise sound interpretation. Gallagher would thus create a consensus interpretation of Confederate history that includes the best of Lost Cause, revisionist and other ways of explaining this aspect of the South's past.

What Gallagher does not do (but gives the attentive reader cause to consider) is link the development of revisionist interpretations of Confederate history to the rise of the Civil Rights movement and the African-American struggle for equality that began in the 1950s, peaked in the 1960s and remain very much a part of the American scene today. Those familiar with the recent congressional edict that all National Park Service sites relating to the Civil War must address the question of slavery in their interpretive materials may wish to take note.

"Lee and His Army in Confederate History" consists of three sections containing a total of eight Gallagher essays. The first section, on Lee's campaigns, contains the essays on the Antietam (Sharpsburg), Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and Wilderness campaigns that appeared in the collections of essays on those campaigns edited by Gallagher and published by the University of North Carolina Press.

The second section, on Lee as a Confederate general, contains the essays that Gallagher produced for his collections of essays on the Spotsylvania and Chancellorsville campaigns, plus a piece that appeared in the December 1999 issue of Civil War History.

Only the one essay that comprises the third section, on Lee and his army in the Lost Cause, was written specifically for this volume.

The four essays in the first section all deal with public reaction to those campaigns as expressed in the Confederate press and in contemporary letters from soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia and in the diaries of astute female observers on the home front. From these pieces, we learn that the men in Lee's army regarded neither Sharpsburg nor Gettysburg as a significant defeat. Many regretted Lee's failure or inability to crush the Federal forces that remained on the south side of the Rappahannock for two days after the Battle of Fredericksburg. Also, Lee's army was far from demoralized at the start of the 1864 campaigning season.

More can be gleaned from these essays, but the prospective reader should be warned that more than half the book is given over to this record of public opinion, not military history.

The three essays in the second section are more substantive, with Gallagher successfully demonstrating that Lee was not an old-fashioned general, but was familiar with aspects of modern warfare that eluded his contemporaries (among them President Jefferson Davis). The essay on Lee at Spotsylvania Court House focuses on the lack of competent corps commanders after Lt. Gen. General James Longstreet was wounded in the Wilderness Campaign. The piece on Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early's performance at Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church makes it clear that Lee considered Early one of the few subordinates capable of functioning independently of the main army. Of course, all three essays appeared in earlier works.

Gallagher's one new essay deals with how the public's memory of the war was shaped first by Lee's pronouncements, then by Early and his Lost Cause coterie, and finally by Douglas Southall Freeman. As noted above, Gallagher concludes it by rejecting the inaccurate or imprecise aspects of the Lost Cause interpretation, but retains his admiration for Lee and Jackson and agrees that the Confederacy lost because Lee and his army were overwhelmed by superior numbers with more and better equipment and supplies.

Without venturing to differ from Gallagher's conclusion, which, geometrically speaking, one may also take as a given, it might be useful to view "Lee and His Army in Confederate History" from an ecological perspective. If seven of the eight essays included here were already in print elsewhere when UNC Press decided to release this book, why not beef up the one new essay with salient points from the published seven, include the enriched essay in a collection of other new work, and spare a few trees?

In short, if you already have the six books of essays edited by Gallagher, you might want to read the two essays you're missing in a library.

DANE HARTGROVE of Stafford County is editor of Drum & Bugle, newsletter of the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round

The "slavery had nothing to do with the war" interpretation IS unsound. But that does not mean that causes other than slavery were unimportant. The causes of the war include political differences, differences in Constitutional interpretation, cultural differences, concepts of honor, economic conflict, religious differences, assorted demagoguery in the north and the south, and yes slavery.

I've found that in many cases you end up with partisans from one side promoting one cause and dismissing all others and those from the other side doing the same. In reality, the most complex event in American history cannot realistically be explained with one simple cause. Anyone who claims to explain it in one sentence has an agenda other than rationally explaining the causes.

Believe it or not I went to a Catholic school up here in NY and I remember even though they taught us it was necessary for the Union to win, General Lee was portrayed as one of the greatest American Generals of all time. He was afforded a certain amount of respect, unlike foreign opponents.There's no such glorification of British generals during the Revolutionary War for example. It was us versus them.

This is the crux of the matter. To harnass Civil War History to their ideological program, they have to broad-brush southerners as mint-julep drinking slave drovers. Aren't they getting a little tired of it? I sure am.

The way they have it, the war's greatest accomplishment was kicking-off the Civil Rights movement. I don't think, however, that the Civil Rights movement is diminished if we recognize that the war was to sustain the integrity of the United States Government. It amazes me how many people now overlook this simple fact.

just if anyone's interested, Jubal Early was a delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention and voted no to secession.
It's surprising how many southerners voted or were against secession, but then served the Confederacy loyally.

One more aside. When Lee was at Gettysburg Pennsylvania, he had 1 of every 12 adult white men in the south with him. What an awesome responsibility that must have been.

Reality: the CSA was the first "national-liberation movement" or "self-determination movement" to stand up to Washington's colonialism - long before the Vietcong revered by the hippies of the Sixties.

It was motivated by a determination to preserve our values and civilization - in a region where very few could afford slaves. It was fought overwhelmingly by people little better off than slaves.

The flag of freedom!

It was understood that the Brit's had a significantly better army than our revolutionarys. It is a fact that the best commanders in the civil war were predominantly Confederate. Is it incorrect to say that? I don't understand why Dixie is so demonized.

I don't think, however, that the Civil Rights movement is diminished if we recognize that the war was to sustain the integrity of the United States Government.

There's been a lot written about Lincoln and how he fought the war to ensure the passage of tariffs, that he was a dictator and a communist etc ad nauseam. If Millard Fillmore were president at the time of secession there would have been a war.

No president would have allowed one state to secede under any condition. Not Andy Jackson, not George Washington, not any of them. It was a war to preserve the union. The civil rights movement a 100 years later would have happened regardless, it was a matter unrelated to the war other than it produced some symbols for the movement to rally against, like the Confederate flag. If it wasn't that, they would have found something else I'm sure.

Is it incorrect to say that?

Not at all. I think it's understood by everyone the South had better generals.

But the textbooks, at least in my school were going beyond the technical points of that fact to imply that even though Lee fought against the Union, he was still an American, part of the family. History writers could have demonized him, but chose not to, and I think it was done intentionally as a way of bringing the country back together. Things are probably different in schools today given the pc world we're living in now.

They need someone or some region to blame for their own inadequaces. Therefore it was the South. They then inacted reconstruction which hurt the poor Black people more than slavery. During the 1850's Black slaves of the South were better fed, housed, and clothed than the white factory workers of the north.
Yet they try to put the South on a guilt trip to take eyes off the North where Black people are still treated worse than they are in the South today. WeSoutherners are not proud of slavery but resent hypocrits who keep pointing fingers at us.
We are doing a pretty good job in the South in treating people equally.

Thank God for Dixie! It's noteworthy that the south has maintained a much closer walk to faith and the constitution.
The northern liberals naturally look down upon anything to do conservatism and traditional values. I think Gary Becker
from The U.of Chicago ,economist, studied slavery and found in fact that salves were very precious to salve holders. They were not so brutalized and abused as contemporary history books claim. This does not condone slavery but it's one of those pieces of that history which will never be revealed. I met a Russian who had a good grasp of our civil war and how it differed from the French and Russian revolutions. It's one of the most studied wars why is the average American so uninformed?

In high school I did'nt pay attention to American history as I do now. I do remember that the civil war was taught in sketchy terms. However my impression was that the North and Lincoln were the good guys and Lee more than Davis were on the wrong side. No comparison was put forth. My teacher was too lazy. I am a Lincoln person. He is my hero. But I realize that some of his decisions are questionable.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.