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Are We Rethinking Our Civil War Reconciliation?
My family was in Iowa at the outbreak of the Civil War and I have one ancestor that fought for the Union. I grew up in the South but I was always grateful that the North won the Civil War. Slavery was noxious and a great evil in the American experiment. We could have had a peaceful resolution to slavery but the South broke the rules of the game and as they started to lose politically they tried their very, very best to destroy the United States. It was a very good thing that the Confederacy lost the Civil War — and in the long term — it was very good for all the states in the Confederacy that they lost the Civil War.
Having said that, I have always thought that America’s reconciliation after the Civil War is an under-appreciated miracle. The speed at which the country could unite against a common foe during the Spanish-American War — when many Civil War veterans were still alive — is remarkable. Not only that, but the career of Varina Howell Davis is equally amazing, going from being the First Lady of the Confederacy to becoming a celebrated writer in New York City.
Many have talked about the courage of Lee in making sure the Confederate Army did not break up and start guerrilla war against the Union, and rightly so. But equally important was the fact the the South could have just sat out of the American life as well. That would have been disastrous.
There was a brutal and evil price to pay for the quick reconciliation — the Jim Crow regime — and I can’t emphasize enough how much better American would be today if Jim Crow had never existed. Fortunately, we dealt with Jim Crow fifty years ago and, today, the only people that think Jim Crow was or is a good idea are a tiny lunatic fringe.
The best thing about the reconciliation has been the ability of all Americans to celebrate the martial valor of both sides of the Civil War. This has led military tradition of valor that greatly benefits our current military and contributed greatly to our military success as a nation.
When I watch a movie like Gettysburg, I want the Union to win and I would have been proud to make a stand with Chamberlain on Little Round Top. But how could I fail to be moved by the tragedy of Longstreet, or awed by the bravery and sacrifice of Pickett’s division, or not appreciate Lee’s leadership and audacity? I think it is to the nation’s benefit to that I am able to feel and emphasize with the soldiers and military tradition on both sides.
Now, however we have a strong attempt to disqualify that reconciliation to see the all the men of the Confederacy as unremitting evil. To my great disappointment Jason Lee Sterots argues this view at National Review. He thinks we should see all the Confederacy as racist cowards that deserve no respect for their military exploits. I think he writes this, as he writes much else, with little thought to the cultural consequences of his attitude.
I am more on the side of David French who debates Bakiri Sellers here. French takes the view that the reconciliation process after the Civil War is important and the South’s military history is important and distinct enough from the racist cause of the war to be worth keeping. Mr. Sellers who, at one point, uses the word “Sheroes” does not even seem to understand what Mr. French is saying. I pray that “Sheroes” has not become a thing in the United States.
That disturbs me because every great nation has to stand up and fight for its survival at times and its martial culture and courage is a very important ingredient to a nation’s survival. It bears noting that the French had everything they needed to resist the German invasion in 1940 except the will to fight. While many French soldiers fought bravely — as well as a very few French Government officials — it was not sufficient to the task of stopping the German army, whose military élan and determination was in much greater supply.
Whether the Confederate Battle Flag continues to fly anywhere or not, must we jettison the important reconciliation we have achieved after the Civil War? Am I — are we — not allowed to acknowledge that even the best and bravest of men can sometimes fight for the wrong cause? Is that lesson not important for us all to learn? If you throw away an entire tradition of marital valor and courage you do not easily replace it. Do people even bother to pause and contemplate that? I fear they do not, and we could easily lose an important part of American culture as a causality of a lone man’s racist attack.
Published in Culture, Politics
Grant was a decent general, certainly better than the hacks that came before him (eg, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade), but I think it’s hard to say he was a better General than Lee. When Lee took over in 1862, the Union Army was was about to capture the Confederate capital, Richmond. A week later, the Union Army was driven off the peninsula and didn’t get close to Richmond for another three years.
By the time Grant came east, it was a war of attrition. From the Wikipedia entry on Attrition Warfare
Grant lost more men than Lee in almost every major battle *, and that was his plan because the North could replace their soldiers and the South could not. That is not brilliant Generalship in my book.
(*) Grant faced Lee for the first time in the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864.
Fighting the war with what you have is what you do. But I speak of strategy.
Grant knew Total War was the way to win.
That’s fine, and I would not dispute that, but I’m not convinced that winning a war of attrition makes you a better general than your opponent.
For those who think the slavery issue trumps all, my response is here.
Reading Grant’s Memoir pushed me over the edge. It is his concept of what was needed to win the war and executing it.
What Lee was counting on was a strategy not unlike Washington, to keep the other side never quite pushing forward.
Tactics, I think Lee was better. Wars are not won by tactics.
But, Lee was also hampered by politics from back home.
I had ancestors who fought on the Federal side in the Civil War. One family member who died in the Confederate prison camp in Salisbury, NC (equal in its horror to Andersonville, although Federal prison camps were no picnic in May either). I don’t care for the Confederate Battle Flag (or any Confederate Flag for that matter) at all.
But, it should be up to the people of South Carolina to decide if they want it flying over a memorial to Confederate soldiers. Now that they have, the PC Grievance Mongers haven’t even given it a days rest before hounding Confederate merchandise off Amazon and out of WalMart. Next will come demanding that states like Virginia and Mississippi, and Georgia remove their state’s statues of former Confederates from the National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol. Then effacing every Confederate monument everywhere, including plowing up the graves of Confederate soldiers in places like Rock Island Illinois (site of a POW camp for Confederates) and including the ones at Arlington National Cemetary, and dumping the remains in landfills. It will never stop.
Until yesterday some of the most petty, meanest things I can recall in my lifetime were:
Then yesterday I had to add to that list Jason Lee Steorts’ ignorant, mean, and vindictive post in The Corner.
Hope whatever JLS does for the National Review in the back room is worth it because he stuck his finger straight in the eye of a lot of NR donors and subscribers.
I think it depends on the monument specifically. I for one would remove any monument to a dead communist…but has anyone here called for removing the memorials to the confederate dead? I’m sure someone has but I don’t recall reading that here. I do recall a rather vigorous debate as to the merits of the Confederate cause, the display of the Battle Flag, and antebellum culture in the South.
Yeah, Jason Sterots in the link from the OP says:
“And there simply should not exist memorials specifically to Confederate soldiers.”Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/420132/dishonorable-confederate-battle-flag-jason-lee-steorts
So, yeah, National Review has an author calling for it.
So maybe not at Ricochet, but it is out there.
There is a monument to some dead anarchists in Chicago.
Of course, that isn’t that surprising in a city where my congressman accepted an award from the communist party of the USA.
I imagine that Jason Lee Steorts won’t be calling for those to be removed any time soon.
I think it’s safe to say the Valerie Jarrett won’t be calling for their removal and, by extension, neither will Obama.
I read an interesting discussion between strategists from American’s own War Colleges and they were debating who was a better General Lee or Grant. They said if you were fighting a war you would want Grant because he could marshal the resources of the country better and conceive of an over all strategy to win. Lee was a great tactical leader but could sacrifice too much to win one battle. When he invaded North the had no clear plan to win the war he just hoped that events would fall his way and a spectacular victory would win him the war. That is bad generalship.
In the end they said basically if you had to win one battle no matter the cost they would pick Lee as their commander. If they had to win a war Grant was clearly the better choice. I also think they partially make my point because if you think about Lee commanding an army for Grant would be an unbeatable combination. Which is something that we need to keep in mind as people try to destroy the good of Southern Culture with the bad.
The key problem I have with this is that the South wasn’t trying to “defeat” the North, they were trying to fight to a draw. The war really started when the North invaded the South, as the North needed to vanquish the South, not the other way around. When Lee invaded the North, he wasn’t trying to “win the war”, he was trying to force the North to the negotiating table. At Gettysburg, if he had put his Army between the Union Army and Washington DC, he probably would have been successful.
Also, Lee’s “country” didn’t have the resources to marshal, this argument is basically saying that Lee wasn’t a great general because he chose the wrong side.
Fighting the war to a draw was victory. Husbanding their resources fighting long protracted holding actions and helping the Copperheads win the Elections in 1864 would have been a good alternative. No Antietam, no Gettysburg leaves more of the army of Northern Virginia intact and ready for a fight. Launch a larger scale raiding attacks on the North making the best use of the South’s superior cavalry to cause greater economic hardship. There were better strategies for wearing the North out than grand battles with the hope that with a decisive victory the North loses the will to fight. The conversation that I was referencing by the way the men all thought Lee was a great general. There point was that Lee did not pursue a strategy to win that depended on the South’s execution but basically hoped the North would make enough mistakes to lose. Grant’s strategy did not depend on Lee making mistakes. That is a mark of superior generalship.
One last thing it is really, really hard to tell who is actually the better general in any war or battle. So many different factors are in play it is very hard to tell who was really better in any given battle. A General can make the right decision every time but because of troop quality, poor execution among lower ranked officers, a bad break in weather, a lost message or a host of other factors still lose a battle.
In take the second Punic War for instance Hannibal was clearly better than every general he fought until the Scipio and if Carthage had been half the Empire that Rome was he would have won the overall war easily. But he fought for Carthage and did the best he could with what he had on hand and in the end he lost. But he was still the best.
I guess the next target will be the various Forts that are named after Confederate Generals.
http://www.stripes.com/military-life/military-history/poll-should-us-military-bases-named-after-confederates-be-renamed-1.353890
This is exactly the stupid, myopic kind of thing that I hope we can stop before it is too late. Throwing away this military tradition and the valor that it can inspire is so stupid as to be near suicidal. I hope everyone wakes up out of this nightmare before we do something that we will all live to regret.
I thought that ship sailed a couple of decades ago.
This is just the next thing we do that we will likely all live to regret.
The people that supported pulling the flag down, congrats, you did your part to enable the nightmare. Did you guys actually think they wee going to stop if you gave them the flag? You helped grow the wildfire, and now you hope it doesn’t burn anything else? Heh.
No, I disagree. Clowns are largely harmless. Jason Lee Steorts is a cancer, killing the body from within.
The traitorous, Maoist left will eventually be coming for the American flag, too.
“Read the Cornerstone Speech found here if you want to know the unvarnished truth on how the Confederate political leadership viewed slavery.”
Yes, that’s a common point made by historians of the northern position. But it only makes sense as an arguing point if you are looking for a justification for that war (justification being a central project of historians of the northern position). It doesn’t make good sense if you are looking for the best solution to the evil of slavery. Remember, the Confederate leadership, including (I’m pretty sure) V.P. Alexander of the Cornerstone Speech, opposed secession, and did so precisely because they supported slavery. Like the aboloitionists, they knew that maintenance of slavery was a joint project between the North and the South. Without union there are no fugitive slave laws, without fugitive slave laws, slavery would dissolve as assets walked north. This, anyway, is what both slave owners and abolitionists believed. That’s why abolitionists supported and large slave owners opposed seccesion.
Valiuth and others. Yes, the Puritan culture of New England – and of East Anglia in England itself – was and still is one of the most powerful cultural movements in the history of the world. But it’s not all sunshine. They were dogmatic and authoritarian. Even worse, maybe, to Southerners, they were self-righteous and teachy-preachy to the extreme. This is not ancient history, either. In their modern guise – the progressive movement – they are pretty much the same.
Eventually? That didn’t take long.
The South Surrendered in the end, and the nation looked to heal.
It is interesting now, to see Republicans who clearly reject the concept of:
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.
But hey, who was the guy that said that anyway?
Jason Lee Sterots is the editor at National Review that got into the conflict with Mark Steyn that ultimately lead to Mark’s severing his connection with NR. If NR had any guts they would have fired Jason instead…