Document created: 10 December 01
Published Aerospace Power Journal - Winter 2001

Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage by Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson. University of Alabama Press (http://www.uapress.ua.edu), Box 870380, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380, 1982, 232 pages, $15.95.

The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan. Indiana University Press (http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress), 601 N. Morton Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47404, 2000, 256 pages, $29.95.

The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy by William C. Davis. University Press of Kansas (http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu), 2501 West 15th Street, Lawrence, Kansas 66049, 1996, 240 pages, $24.95.

Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War by James M. McPherson. Oxford University Press (http://www.oup-usa.org), 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016, 1996, 272 pages, $27.50 (hardcover), $14.95 (softcover). 

Perhaps no other subject of American history has more written about it than the US Civil War. There seems to be no end to the interpretations, reinterpretations, and re-reinterpretations. Just when an author writes the definitive biography of some general or of some battle, new information becomes available that destroys long-held convictions. Most historians strive to be accurate and to explain “what happened,” but a few deliberately bend the truth for personal or political reasons. The “lost cause” myth is one example of bending the truth. These four histories, which attempt to set the record straight, are a must for any person interested in the Civil War and the lost cause. 

As Alan Nolan eloquently states in his essay in The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, there are two versions of the history of the Civil War. First, there is the truth—the account of what actually happened, when, why, and how. Then there is the Southern interpretation of the truth. The editors have assembled a superb cast of leading historians to write essays that persuasively demolish the elements of the lost-cause myth. Nolan certainly sets the tone of the book and attempts to knock the Southern apologists’ collective noses out of joint. Space does not permit a recounting of each argument. Quite frankly, some are stronger than others. Suffice it to say that Nolan debunks the myths that slavery was not the issue that caused the war, that the South would have given up slavery eventually, that slaves were happy, and that Southern war leaders were without fault. Each of the book’s nine chapters tackles a different aspect of the lost cause. Perhaps the most interesting are Gary Gallagher’s assessment of Gen Jubal Early and his contributions to the creation of the myth; Jeffry D. Wert’s examination of the vilification of James Longstreet for daring to criticize Robert E. Lee in writing; and Brooks D. Simpson’s summary of historical distortions of Ulysses S. Grant in order to explain away his victory over Lee. 

James McPherson’s Drawn with the Sword is a collection of previously published works. On the one hand, it has no true unifying theme. On the other hand, McPherson has synthesized over a decade of scholarship into one compact volume. The author divides the 15 chapters into five parts or themes. The first section, “Origins of the Civil War,” contains three chapters, “The War of Southern Aggression” perhaps being the most enlightening. McPherson outlines the steps taken by the South in general and South Carolina in particular that led to the war. Although it is still popular in the South to call the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression,” McPherson turns that phrase on its head when he quotes candidate Abraham Lincoln replying in 1860 to Southern claims that a Republican administration would lead to war: “You say you will destroy the Union and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! . . . A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters . . . ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ ” McPherson includes a section of four chapters on why the North won. Ultimately, the South lost not out of loss of will, more Yankees, or weak central government but because Union armies defeated Confederate armies and because the North’s first string of leaders was better than the South’s first string. Other themes in the book include “The War and American Society,” “The Enduring Lincoln,” and “Historians and Their Audiences.” Each chapter in the book is thought provoking and sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, destroys an aspect of the lost-cause myth. 

William Davis’s The Cause Lost, like The Myth of the Lost Cause and Drawn with the Sword, is a collection of the author’s thoughts about the Civil War. However, unlike McPherson, Gallagher, and Nolan, Davis writes from a more Southern-centric point of view. In fact, several of the chapters deal more with the strategy and tactics of the war than with lost-cause topics. The Cause Lost’s four sections deal with Jefferson Davis, war on the periphery, excuses for losing, and the Confederacy in myth and memory. By far the two most interesting chapters concerning the lost cause are the one on the South’s lost will to fight and the one that describes the myth and reality of the Confederacy. In the lost-will chapter, Davis argues that the Union succeeded because, even in defeat, it had a stronger sense of nationhood than did the Confederacy. When the South started losing, the will to fight and resist slowly but irrevocably declined. In the chapter on myth and reality, Davis shows that, despite the revisionists’ best efforts to argue that the war was not about slavery, that the North was responsible for causing the war, or, incredibly, that the South simply withdrew from the war, a careful reading of history and an examination of the facts easily bring out the truth.

Attack and Die, although not a lost-cause book, nevertheless supports many of the arguments of the other three books. Its basic theme is that Confederate leaders wasted their chances to win by throwing away their troops in suicidal offensives. All Southern leaders, from Lee on down, receive criticism for not understanding how warfare had changed since the end of the Mexican-American War. Rifles had rendered the massed charge obsolete, and Lee realized too late that he could not compete with the North when it came to manpower. Although conventional wisdom says that the Southern soldier was better because the South suffered fewer casualties, the authors dispel this myth. In a series of very enlightening tables, McWhiney and Jamieson support debunkers of the lost-cause myth, showing that while Lee might have inflicted 134,000 Union casualties while suffering only 121,000, he crippled his own army in doing so. For all his tactical genius, Lee suffered 20 percent casualties while inflicting only 15 percent on his enemy. Grant, on the other hand, suffered 18 percent casualties but inflicted 30 percent on his enemy. The authors argue that the South should have adopted the tactical defensive, forcing the Union armies to attack. After all, one man in a trench was worth three or four attackers. 

These four entertaining books are a joy to read. They shed new light—at least for this reader—on many of the sacred truths of the US Civil War that were not true after all. They deserve a place on the shelf of every Civil War buff and every academic.

Maj James P. Gates, USAF
Los Angeles AFB, California 

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.