Confederate Remembrance: Senator Webb, the Confederate Soldier and the Lost Cause

"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago...."

-- Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner, 1948

"Four years and six hundred thousand dead men later the twin issues of sovereignty and slavery were resolved. A hundred years after that, the bitterness had vented itself to the point that we can fairly say the emotional scars have healed. We are a stronger, more diverse, and genuinely free nation. We are also a different people. As we gather here to commemorate the most turbulent crisis our country has ever undergone, it's interesting to note that a majority of those now in this country are descended from immigrants who arrived after the war was fought.

And so those of us who carry in our veins the living legacy of those times have also inherited a special burden. These men, like all soldiers, made painful choices and often paid for their loyalty with their lives. It is up to us to ensure that this ever-changing nation remembers the complexity of the issues they faced, and the incredible conditions under which they performed their duty, as they understood it."

-- Sen. James Webb, 1990

Recently, the past statements of Senator Webb, especially those made at the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in 1990, have come to light, and have been used by some writers as a topic of debate as to the senator's commitment to civil rights. I felt compelled to write, as a fellow Southerner of Irish descent, a descendant of both Confederate and Union soldiers, and as a fellow combat veteran, on what I believe is the basic misunderstanding of what the meaning of the Civil War is to those who are descended from the survivors of that terrible conflict.

When I first read Faulkner as a teenager, I was struck by the juxtaposition of what his novels said about the soul of the rural, poor Southern whites, and the "Lost Cause" mythology so greatly propagandized by Gone With the Wind -- the glorification of the exploiters of human suffering in glorious Technicolor, fluttering in their lovely gowns, directing nicely obedient house servants, and surrounded by dim but helpful field hands, whose idyll was destroyed by those "dirty Yankees." During my own upbringing in rural Arkansas, where in the 1960's and 1970's, many of the economic, social and political scars of the Civil War were still evident, I began to understand that there were two competing visions of the American Civil War in the South. I call them "Lost Causers" and "Sacrificers."

The Lost Causers dominated discussion of the Civil War for nearly a century. To summarize, the entire argument was something like "We were right. Everything was perfect. All of us rich, white, God-fearing slave owners were quite happy, as were our slaves and the poor whites, until the Yankee Army came and beat our outnumbered and saintly General Lee." By the time of the Civil War Centennial it had begun to fade; the Civil Rights movement dealt it a body blow from which it never really recovered. Today, modern scholarship has dissected and eliminated the Lost Cause mythology. Few of them are left, thankfully. I don't see Senator Webb in that group at all; I know I am not.

The second group -- the Sacrificers -- are the people who trace their heritage back to the Confederate soldiery of the Civil War. Their focus is on the sheer magnitude of the sacrifice of the common Southern soldier in the war. As has been noted by Senator Webb and a legion of historians, the vast bulk of Confederate soldiers did not own a single slave and many from the most rural areas had never even seen a black man or woman in their lives. Yet that begs the question: Why did these men, who had no direct benefit, in general, from slavery, fight so hard to uphold it? Why did, to paraphrase a military historian speaking of the German Army of World War II, such a great army fight for such a reprehensible cause?

The simple fact is that the individual Confederate soldier -- from the lowest economic rung and in many cases disenfranchised as the slaves were -- fought for a variety of reasons. Localism and tribalism, which we in happily accept being a part of the modern Middle East, but for some reason can't understand as a normal part of antebellum American culture, played an important role. The nationalistic spirit of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which we are still seeing today, was invented to heal the breach of the Civil War... because it really didn't exist before 1861. Soldiers were organized in local companies and state regiments. Go to any battlefield of the war, and you can see hundreds of monuments from the Northern and Southern states, and with a handful of exceptions only a few to the Regular U.S. Army. To the men of that era, New York or Virginia was their country. Tied closely to this is the nature of how men went to war in 1861 -- you fought with your neighbors, relatives and friends in your local regiment. Peer pressure was a major part of why the individual fought. There was, of course, a not-so-honorable side as well, as the vilest of racial fears were encouraged, out of fear that the Yankee Abolitionists would not only overturn slavery, but put white Southern womanhood at risk as well. Others, while not the majority as reflected by the States Righters, believed that the issue was individual freedom and State's Rights == a flexible and nearly mystical idea as diaphanous as that of "Union." The reasons for each man who joined the armies of either side are as complex as each individual.

These men died in droves. I recommend, if you have never done it, take a one hour drive from DC to the battlefield at Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Go to the Cornfield and face north. In the area the Park Service has replanted with corn, between 3000 and 4000 men were killed and wounded in two hours. In other words, imagine taking everybody who died in the Towers on 9/11 and dumping their bodies in a 2 acre x 2 acre field. And that was just the start of the battle.

Such sacrifice, regardless of the cause, was the mold by which generations of Southern men measured themselves. It was devastating to the South -- entire small towns vanished by 1865, as every single man who joined in 1861 had been killed in the war. I recall my own grandmother, born in the first decade of the 20th century, referring to it "The War" -- as if there were no other wars that really mattered (she was two generations separated from her relatives who had fought for the Confederacy), and complaining that her grandchildren "talked like Yankees."

For some Southerners, like myself, and I believe Senator Webb, the cost of war to the common soldier becomes the focus. This is what separates us from the Lost Causers. It is not just the sacrifice of the Confederate soldier in the end that matters to most; that respect carries over to the Union citizen soldier who answered the call as well, and died in numbers that would stagger the modern imagination. I've seen adult men, from hardened combat veterans to college professors, some of whose ethos and culture tell them that a man only cries when his mother or his best friend dies, break into tears at the story of the last stand of the 5th New York at Second Bull Run, or the tale of how a college professor and 250 Maine lobstermen and lumberjacks saved the Republic at Little Round Top at Gettysburg. I have seen them stand in humble awe at the stone wall at Fredericksburg and at the open field where Pickett's men charged on a hot July afternoon. For me, and others who respect the sacrifice of the common Confederate soldier -- teenagers mostly, who did their duty in a bad war, who fought for the wrong reasons, who saw their friends and relatives torn apart by shot and shell, who were used and lied to by a morally corrupt government -- the fact of their sacrifice is a reminder of what good men will give when called, and the responsibility of a government to ensure that they are fighting for the right cause.

Comments

[showme54]

Thanks Mr. Mackey for opening up the subject for discussion and opinion.

[showme54]

Reading about a woman's biracial grandchild prompted my research/comments. A teacher in a grade school history class, singled out the child (evidently the only child of color) as people that were slaves- the remaining students were people that owned the slaves. The teacher's attempt to simplify (probably w/o intended malice) a very complicated, complex, horrid time in this country's history, puts a young child & his peers on a very shaky path in their future interactions & historical understanding of the event. Such lessons from adult to child can have detrimental effects no matter what race or what region of the country. Children are cruel to each other especially when handed 'ammunition' by those in authority/affecting interactions as they age. The Civil War was a struggle between powers of political influence/­greed/weal­th/human rights and ideologies, with regional influences from all sides coming together in conflict w/ lasting economic/social effects on a region of this country. Selective historical recounts have been used as political and/or racial tools to instigate division, ignite hatrid & bigotry, justify racial injustice/ intolerance by black & white. There are attempts now to simplify the future pages of history as to reasons/ju­stificatio­ns/actions­/ consequences and future of Iraq. I doubt citizens of Iraq who have lived it will write their history in agreement w/those of sponsors/promoters of this war, w/those merely viewing the conflict from afar or with the same perspective as those who are generations removed from the era?

[Robert Mackey - Huffpost Blogger]

@showme54: excellent point. first, any teacher who would single out a student based on race to "make a point"...I don't know what to say about such crass insensitivity and stupidity. You also make an excellent point on the current war in Iraq, and those who are/were responsible for it. We will never know the full story for decades. That, sadly, is the nature of history and government secrecy imposed to protect the guilty.

[seawolf77]

The Civil War was an idiotic war that should never have been fought. I , like Ron Paul, agree that slavery would have died a quiet death since industrialization and machines made slave labor obsolete. Why did we fight? Who knows and who cares. Ancient freakin history. You do-gooders find another cause. The Union would have come together on it's own without that idiot Lincoln killing off 1/2 of America. AND FOR WHAT?????? The Emancipation Proclamation. Puke!

[jgaines7]

"Whites" (rich or poor, young or old) were beneficiaries of power and privilege over "blacks," especially in the south, and you only have to go back to the 1960's to witness how hard it was for the majority of "whites" to let go of that power and privilege. If the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil Rights Laws had not been passed, telling "whites" to leave "blacks" alone, I would not be free today.

[mstew99]

Great article, nearly perfect. There's just one tiny thing that bothers an old farm boy like me: what do you mean by '2 acres X 2 acres'? Acres are a measurement of area, so this doesn't make any sense (assuming you weren't trying to describe a cube). If you meant to describe an area roughly 413 feet by 413 feet, that would be 4 acres. Sorry, but I just couldn't let that go . . .

[Robert Mackey - Huffpost Blogger]

LOL. Fair enough; maybe I should have said "about 4 square acres".

[wbramh]

Senator Webb has written with authority on the Civil War and the socio-economic roots of the South. Of course, The GOP “Dirty Tricks” class of 2008 has been parsing these and other writings to leave their slime trail of fabricated controversy. The Republican Attack Machine’s greatest allies remain the abject ignorance of the American voter - and the sheer stupidity and spinelessness of the American press.

Historian James McPherson's "The Battle Cry of Freedom" is one of the best books ever written on The Civil War. In three memorable words he summed up its cause as a "preemptive counter-re­volution."

In 1860, the South was an Isolationist, Feudal Slavocracy in a World rapidly embracing the Industrial Revolution. Civilization had passed them by, and for what they believed to be self-preservation, the South responded with the preemptive attack on Fort Sumter.

If poor whites had any commonality with other Southerners it was with the slave population. Both were dirt poor and both had bleak futures. Jim Webb correctly argues that poor whites and blacks have been artificially pitted against each other for centuries, first by the white Slavocracy and later by their power-broker descendants. Slavery and States Rights were not causes of war, but rather, symptoms.

When Gore Vidal was researching his epic book on Lincoln, he asked a Hollywood producer why no major and historically accurate film on the Civil War had ever been produced. The producer responded, "Because we're still fighting it."

[Robert Mackey - Huffpost Blogger]

You make a wonderful point in your next-to-last paragraph. One of the great fears of the ruling classes, both North and South, in the decades after Reconstruction was that poor whites and poor blacks would discover that they had everything in common but skin color. One of the reasons that race-baiting and Jim Crow went wild beginning in the late 1880's was the desire by big business (espeically the railroads and agribusiness) to make sure that a cross-racial Populist movement would not form. And they succeeded.

[Durango]

Which was one of the strengths of Huey Long. With one exception he avoided race baiting. And tried to help the poor, both white and black.

He was successful. But you can see what happened to him.

[showme54]

I too learned history from the writings of those famous authors & the movies of Gone With the Wind & the abbreviated accounts in schoolbooks. Recently in trying to understand more...I decided to actually read historical accounts. These are a few of the facts that I didn't know that may open the conversation up a little further.(very simplistic version)

Slavery was accepted & practiced in ALL the states. Importation of people as slaves became illegal in 1808. Anti-slavery voices were being raised by many citizens in all states for many years. Southern states were agricultural, with a higher number of slaves. Northern states had slaves but the region was industrial and found it easier to use local farm women, girls & children as factory workers. Louisiana was a state w/high numbers of free persons of color. Expansion west was a catalyst for the growing divide. Lincoln's election was on the Repub platforms of -'tariffs, a federal railroad into Western territories & affirmation for each state to control their own institutions, ie slavery but denied Congress to allow the expansion into new territories'. They were not seeking to END slavery but to not allow the expansion in any new states. Southern states said that the North was not abiding to the Constitution (tariffs& Congress intervention) and began to secede. The term 'Confederation' was taken from the 'Articles of Confederation, 1781' which was drafted not long after the Declaration of Independence( pre-Constitution).

[showme54]

cont'd..The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) freed slaves ONLY in Conferderate States as a tactical war move against the South. It was not until the 13th Amendment (1865) freed slaves in all remaining states, giving the right to vote & hold office to MALES (excluding 'Indians & foreigners') The Union Army was not issued provisions, they were under the Confiscation Act (Butler) that granted them the right to take any provisions, property & goods from any Confederate or Confederate holding and to make sure that nothing would be left for the Confederates to use...EVERYTHING. So, you have 8 Million people in the South, w/383,000 (give or take) that are actual slave owners. That leaves over 7 and a half million people who lost crops, property,livestock, money, family,etc. to an invading army. Union armies literally burned & ravaged the southern states. After the surrender, Martial Law was imposed in states of Louisiana, Mississippi & others- military gov't was imposed & carpetbaggers flocked in. Confederates were not allowed to vote, hold certain jobs, hold property & many imprisoned. Citizens treatment was callous. After Lincoln's murder, the haphazard Reconstruction, promised to the South was abandoned, leaving the states in economic ruin with infrastructure in tatters and an disasterous upheaval in society that has contributed to the lasting effects on these states & their citizens.

[jgaines7]

Wasn't terrorism the major reason reconstruction was abandoned?

[knighthowl]

I am sorry, but you have only fragments of truth in your post. A glaring falsehood is the claim that the Union Army was not issued provisions. Do you seriously believe that any army could long survive without provisions? No doubt the troops were allowed to seize goods from the Confederates, but they were not compelled to do so. The burning and ravaging of the southern states that you refer to was primarily confined to Georgia, as in Sherman's March through Georgia. The truth is a sad enough tale to tell. Please do not embellish needlessly. You leave out Andersonville - a Confederate prison camp that rivals any German camp in WWII. There is blame enough to go around.

[mstew99]

At the time of Lincoln's election slavery was NOT accepted and practiced in all states. Do you really think anyone could legally own a slave in 1859 Massachussetts or Ohio?

[showme54]

mstew99, as I stated before, I am no expert but my understanding as I read it, at some point, all states at some point in their history allowed slavery. And as Ohio and Mass were 'Northern' states, under their state laws (not federal laws), they were 'free states', from my understanding, a person of color could 'buy' their freedom or leave the state. The 13th Amendment just made it a Federal Law against slavery in all states. You could probably find out for sure by checking your state's history.

[Durango]

By 1800 slavery was abolished in most of the North and through out the Northwest Territories.

Slaves gained their freedom in Massachusetts by going to court. Rulings by "judicial activists" freed slaves.

Rulings that no doubt still rankle Scalia and Bork.

[showme54]

I am not from the South, so I was 'taught' the same as you. It has only been in recent years that I have read the historical records and it surprised me how much info is left out. It is my opinion that this 'conveniently over-looked history' is what allows the 'extremes' to use it for political, racial, regional and bigoted causes and allows old wounds to be opened conveniently with a little encouragement.

It was news to me that New York was the 'Capitol' (historical society's word, not mine) of American Slavery for more than 2 centuries (1600-1827), according to their records.

In 1862, Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act to abolish slavery in D.C. (It was signed 9 months before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation) This Act was the only one where slave-owners were compensated. $1 million was appropriated to pay slave-owners. $100,000 was set aside to pay for district slaves that wished to immigrate to countries outside of U.S.

In 1864 Maryland slaves were emancipated by state constitution. One other note, though slavery was illegal in Northern states, as with most 'illegal' acts, there are always those that are willing to break the law.

[RumiSouth]

"Why did these men, who had no direct benefit, in general, from slavery, fight so hard to uphold it? Why did, to paraphrase a military historian speaking of the German Army of World War II, such a great army fight for such a reprehensible cause?"

I will answer your question with some lyrics from "The Southern Thing" by the Drive-By Truckers:

My great-great granddad had a hole in his side
He used to show to the family every night
Got shot at Shiloh, thought he'd die alone
By a Yankee bullet less than thirty miles from home

Ain't no plantation in my family tree,
He didn't believe in slavery,
Thought that all men should be free.
But who are these soldiers
Marching through his land?
His bride could hear the cannons
As she worried about her man.

Don't get me wrong, it just ain't right
I may be dumb, but I ain't afraid to fight
Proud of the glory, stare down the shame
Duality of the Southern Thing

http://www.drivebytruckers.com

[ceti]

You just have to listen to the "Night they Drove Old Dixie Down" which was written by Robbie Robertson (who himself is half Jewish and half Mohawk).

Lincoln also enacted the Homestead Act during the Civil War that led to the massive colonization and invasion of the remaining Native Nations in the American West. Not many people talk about that, nor how after the war, the Northern industrialists took over, replacing chattel slavery with wage slavery.

Sadly, the trauma of the war, and efforts of the landed gentry to victimize African Americans for their defeat ensured that the South would remain under the control of a backwards, anti-union, and thoroughly racist elite who drove the culture into the dead end of confederate nostalgia.

The south however remains the key. If unions could organize whites and blacks together as Martin Luther King hoped, then the strangehold of Dixiecrat/­Republican politicians could be broken, not just in the south, but all over the country.

[popecorvo]

And we scoff at Iraqis refighting wars of the Middle Ages.

If we refight a war only 150 years old, it's only because we've been around for far less time than they have.

[john456]

An interesting aside is that during the 4th of July celebrations in 1913 the US Army hosted a 50 year reunion at Gettysburg. They reenacted Pickett's charge with the remaining Union and Confederates of those brigades taking the same positions they did 50 years earlier in pitched battle. In the process of the reenactment the Confederates and Union veterans broke down weeping with Confederates and Union Veteran soldiers embrassing one another. Both sides in a kinship uniting as one nation. If one listened carefully to Obama's Philadelphia speech on race relations and both whites and blacks consider what he said, perhaps we have the opportunity to embrace one another as those Confederate and Union Veterans did and heal the wounds of the nation.

[RRonin]

One thing about Jim Webb is that he's not a knee-jerk Southern "Lost Causer". He really tries to understand his roots and cultural history. Kinda like Obama.....

[keriheb]

I do believe when trying to explain one's pain negates another's pain, conversation is futile. Their pain is their reality until that person learns to transcend it himself because out of the pain only comes more pain, but out of transformation comes a new understanding a new reality.

Considering motivations for actions, what was the motivation for African's selling other African's into slavery. They contributed to their own condition and then cried foul.

All people have had a hand hurting someone else regardless of the issue, Slavery, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland, persecution of Jews, oppression of women, ad infinitum. It is what humans do.

I do believe it could be a powerful statement for Obama to pick Webb as a partner for his campaign. They don't have to always agree except to agree to make this country a better place, health care for all, educational opportunities for all, job opportunities for all, reinforcement of the family structure, rebuilding the U.S. infrastructure i.e. bridges, roads, industry. These are things we all want and both can fight to ensure their core groups are not disenfranchised without offending anyone else.

Obama and Webb can demonstrate through the art of negotiation a way for all people to get along, and can work to reform congress so all people are represented not just corporate interest.

There is no definitive answer to the human condition, especially when you consider white people are black people - contemplate that!

[rudyinbama]

Have you ever noticed whenever Confederate memorialists tallk about The South - opinions of The South, sacrifice of The South, heritage of The South - the really mean WHITE SOUTH.
Even today, blacks, their ancestors, and their struggle for the same rights we enjoy, just don't count as part of The South.
Pathetic.

[Robert Mackey - Huffpost Blogger]

Rudy--you are right. That is why I said as much in my posting. I would never, ever, think I could speak for the plight of African-Americans in the South. While much of the culture I grew up in is shared among both blacks and whites (foods, for example--a meal in a poor rural white household is much like that of a poor black rural household, especially in the days before mass-packaged foods. Corn bread, beans, collard greens, fried chicken and so forth), there is a huge gulf there.

Not understanding that is what is pathetic, as is not trying to overcome it by not belittling one group or another but understanding the differences and going forward.

[Readbetweentheelevens]

Ask yourself why do some people fly the stars and bars today? Where did they learn that idea? Didn't they learn it from their parents? And didn't their parents learn it from their parents? Aren't we really seeing the ideas that were current at the time of the civil war? Where is the states right crowd today? What issue motivates them today in 2008?

Sure it was about money, but how do you get the poor to point a gun at a stranger?. In my opinion, it was a religious war and every war is sold that way. The two sides fought over their version of the bible. When you pull back the layers of "racism" you'll find a core belief in us vs. them based on some "religious" belief.

Didn't Reagan show a different side of himself in honoring the fallen soldiers of the German army? Is it different here? Why? For what cause was the common German soldier fighting?

Germany has laws against the display of World War II era flags and such; they also have laws against speech that discredits the memory of the innocent dead.

The Civil war was fought over slavery, and to say otherwise discredits the memory of those who defeated it. In the end it was a victory for the entire World.

[DelvinMcGee]

Really? Not according to Abraham Lincoln.

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery". First Inaugural Address

"I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District (of Columbia)." To Horace Greeley

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it". To Horace Greeley

[Readbetweentheelevens]

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress, 12, , 1862.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." Lincoln's 'House-Divided' Speech in Springfield, Illinois, 6,16, 1858.

"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, "Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment" (3, 17, 1865), p. 361.

"You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Letter to Alexander H. Stephens" (12, 22, 1860), p. 160.

[theblueAmerican]

For me, the bottom line is Senator Jim Webb a racist? I think not. He would be a great vice presidential candidate for Senator Obama. The eye on the prize for me is that Senator Obama and the Democrats take back the White House. We need to fix the problems the Bush/Cheney have wrought. Not to mention, do you want a Republican in office who will have the opportunity to place more people on the Supreme Court?

[SEQUOIABISON]

There was not the least bit of confusion regarding the reasons for the civil war among the people who were being enslaved.

You only have to read Fredrick Douglas to truly understand not the barbarity of the civil war but the barbarity of enslaving fellow humans for financial gain.