A Short History of the South, Part 3

Originally published at Reckonin.com

The War for Southern Independence, 1861-1865 

Americans generally miss the point in considering the great war of 1861-1865. The simple fact is that it was an unprovoked war of invasion, conquest, and exploitation of some Americans by a minority party in control of the federal machine. The invasion does not fit any of the requirements of a “just war.” It destroyed, probably forever, the founding American principle of “consent of the governed,” Despite all the noise about saving a vaguely understood “Union” and freeing the slaves, it did not begin with the intention of emancipating slaves and it replaced “Union” with unappealable centralized authority. Ending or preserving African American slavery was not the primary motive of either side and Americans did not kill each other over them.

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this period in American and especially Southern history. Warfare was waged almost entirely on Southern soil. Let’s think of it in terms of the experience of the Southern people. In the Confederacy Southerners mobilized nearly their entire manpower to a degree no large group of Americans has ever done. They fought harder and longer, most often outnumbered in men and materiel, and took more casualties (nearly a fourth of the white men dead) than any large group of Americans has ever done, saw much of their territory overrun and civilian lives and property threatened and destroyed on a vast scale unknown in modern warfare at that time.

Supposedly backward Southerners carried out miracles of innovation and industrialism – ironclad ships, torpedoes, submarines, blockade runners, production of cannon and gunpowder. Northern victory depended on things the South did not have – a blockading fleet, gunboats to control the rivers, and a large industry (although it was shot through with corruption). A suppressed aspect of the War is that Northern opponents were always much stronger and more respectable than is assumed. Lincoln had to resort to illegal arrests of his critics, suppression of newspapers, army control of elections, military coup and occupation of the Border States, to fielding an army with 1/4th of its men foreigners, and total war against civilians. The Confederate people were as unified as was possible under extreme conditions.

The Southern people fought a defensive war against a power with four times the population and resources. The party in control in Washington regarded the Southern states as conquered provinces to be exploited. The invading Union army did not treat black Southerners with friendship or equality. Many thousands were driven from their homes and means of living and others forcibly recruited as labour or soldiers. It has recently been estimated that a million African Americans died of disease, hardship, and starvation in the disruption of war, an astonishing revelation about what Americans boast of as a holy crusade.

The struggle of the South for independence is a heroic epic in human history, admired by civilised people over many generations. Despite masses of false history by the victors, The Confederate epic and its outstanding leaders are permanently admirable symbols for the world, not just for their descendants.

Here is a comment on the history of the war by an honest Union General, Don Carlos Buell. Here is what he told Northerners to keep in mind when tempted to boast about their victory:

“It required a naval fleet and 15,000 troops to advance against a fort, manned by less than 100 men, at Fort Henry; 35,000 with naval cooperation, to overcome 12,000 at Fort Donelson; 60,000 to secure victory over 40,000 at Shiloh; 120,000 to enforce the retreat of 65,000 after a month’s fighting and maneuvering at Corinth; 100,000 were repelled by 60,000 in the first campaign against Richmond; 70,000 with a powerful naval force to inspire the campaign which lasted nine months against 40,000 at Vicksburg; 90,000 to barely withstand the assault of 60,000 at Gettysburg; 115,000 sustaining a frightening repulse from 60,000 at Fredericksburg; 100,000 attacked and defeated by 50,000 at Chancellorsville; 85,000 held in check for two days by 40,000 at Antietam; 70,000 defeated at Chattanooga, and beleaguered by 40,000 at Chattanooga to Atlanta; . . . and finally 120,000 to overcome 60,000 with exhaustion by a struggle of a year in Virginia.”

​When the war was over, they had to face the reality of defeat despite having exerted such effort and sacrifice in what they believed to be a very American struggle for liberty. Forty per cent of the value of property was gone, not counting slave property. They were under military occupation—meaning all civil law and rights could be disregarded by any army officer. Far from a restored “Union,” the States were now occupied territories under military dictatorship and their people without citizenship.

Most Confederates never felt that they had been wrong. Richmond editor and historian Edward Pollard observed that Southerners surrendered in good faith, but still believed that they were the better men.

The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.

Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews and is co-publisher of www.shotwellpublishing.com, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books.

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