Confederate Nationalism Underrated In Civil War

11-6-97
University Park, Pa. -- The South lost the Civil War because it lost the key battles, not because of a lack of will or because it collapsed under the weight of class, gender and racial tensions, according to a Penn State historian in a new book.

"Scholars today often say that class, gender and racial divisions within Southern society doomed attempts to sustain military resistance to the North," says Dr. Gary W. Gallagher, professor of history at Penn State and author of "The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat," published by Harvard University Press. His analysis involved the study of 300 letters and diaries from people in the armies and on the home front.

"The question to be asked is not why the Confederacy fell so soon, but why it held out so long. The answer is: Confederate nationalism was strong enough to mobilize widespread support for the war despite the presence of internal differences," Gallagher notes.

"Common sense should play more of a role in historical evaluation than it often does," Gallagher adds. "To be able to wage war, the Confederacy was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of its young men and suffer the destruction of its economy. In terms of military casualties, Confederates sacrificed far more than any other generation of white Americans in U.S. history. Yet the South still fought. This would suggest broad popular support for the war."

This is not to say that every Southerner agreed with secession. The upper South, including Virginia, did not want to secede from the Union and only did so after Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers after the fall of Fort Sumter, Gallagher notes.

Southern nationalism existed before the war and was converted into Confederate nationalism as large Northern armies invaded the South, devastating the country and killing Confederate soldiers, according to the Penn State historian.

Many Southerners were unhappy with the Confederate government, the draft and the shortage of supplies due to the war effort. Most Southerners, however, including nonslaveholders, were loyal to the Confederacy and were willing to endure these hardships.

"Many, if not most, Southerners viewed their struggle as identical to that of the colonies during the American Revolution," Gallagher says. "They honestly believed they had a right to secede from what they perceived as a despotic central government bent on destroying the institution of slavery. They knew that the early Republic had slaves and that the Constitution at that time protected slavery."

For many Southerners, Robert E. Lee was almost another George Washington, also a Virginian, says Gallagher.

Many Northerners were likewise moved by a staunch nationalism that some today would find incomprehensible. Preserving the Union was important to them because they had grown up reading the rhetoric of Daniel Webster and other political theorists. Northerners accepted their view that America was the great democratic experiment in a world still mostly ruled by authoritarian governments. Thus, it had to be defended if world democracy were to survive.

"Even at that, massive draft riots took place in New York City and other places, and Northern soldiers deserted in significant numbers," Gallagher notes. "There was probably less resistance to the draft in the South."

For Confederates, the main symbols for the war came to be Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee commanded only a part of total Confederate forces, yet when he surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, Southerners accepted the war as a lost cause.

"Lee was a model for the South because he won battles and won them the way Southerners liked to see battles won, by being aggressive, striking hard and taking the offensive into Northern territory," Gallagher says.

"Furthermore, Lee was a model of how white Southerners liked to see themselves," Gallagher adds. "He had a substantial ego and liked the competition and excitement of war, but at the same time he was devoutly Christian and humble and gentlemanly in manner. The chief reason for his popularity, however, was his ability to win battles."

Would a victorious South have freed the slaves anyway?

The Penn State historian notes, "No one can answer that question but this we know. For most of the Civil War, apart from a few conspicuous exceptions, blacks served Confederate armies only in noncombatant roles such as laborers and wagon-drivers. Toward the end, however, the Confederate Congress authorized the enrollment of black soldiers into the Confederate army and a tiny number did actually train, though they never saw combat."

Lee urged that blacks be allowed into the Confederate army and that those who served be given their freedom. The Confederate Congress hedged about the liberation part.

"Ironically, while the Northern army was rigidly segregated, toward the close of the war, white and black Confederate soldiers drilled together in Richmond," Gallagher says.

"The Civil War itself changed to some degree the institution of slavery," he adds. "Most young Southern men were off fighting the war and left management of slaves to women and old men. This resulted in a loosening of control over slaves. Slavery in the South would almost certainly not have been the same after the Civil War."

**pab**

EDITORS: Dr. Gallagher can be reached at (814) 863-0123 or at gwg3@psu.edu by email.

Contacts:
Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 (office) (814) 867-1126 (home) pab15@psu.edu
Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (office) (814) 238-1221 (home) vyf1@psu.edu