April is Confederate History or Heritage Month in six States. Virginia used to recognize the month as well, but no longer.
Many Americans tend to believe that “Southern history” is nothing more than “Confederate history.” That would relegate the history of the region to a failed four year attempt at independence. Drew Gilpiln Faust, former President of Harvard University and current Board Member of Goldman Sachs, argued in her The Creation of Confederate Nationalism that slavery offered the only unifying factor in Southern history. In other words, Southern identity was strictly intertwined with the institution–“Southern” culture would not exist without it–and that South was just like the other sections in America except for the “peculiar institution.”
That makes Confederate history little more than a study of slavery and treason.
I asked Google Gemini to identify what Americans can learn from the Confederacy, not directly, but because I was attempting to find any article on the topic. Here is what it provided:
The Confederacy teaches the dangers of prioritizing systemic oppression—specifically slavery—over human rights, highlighting how ideologies based on white supremacy and the “Lost Cause” narrative can endure. It serves as a study in failed rebellion, the high cost of disunion, and the lasting necessity of challenging sanitized history.
Key lessons from the Confederacy include:
The Centrality of Slavery: The Confederacy was explicitly established to protect, preserve, and expand the institution of chattel slavery.
The Danger of Narratives: For decades, “Lost Cause” textbooks intentionally rewritten history, glorifying the South to shape educational standards and creating false, enduring narratives about the war’s purpose.
The Role of Symbols in Power: Confederate statues, often erected from the 1890s-1920s, were intentionally used to enforce white supremacy and intimidate Black citizens.
The Danger of Internal Disunion: The conflict illustrates the severe consequences of extreme regional polarization and states holding more loyalty to local identity than to the federal union.
Military and Strategic Failures: The Confederacy demonstrates the danger of hubris, such as prioritizing tactical, offensive action over a necessary war of attrition and ignoring strategic advice.
The Consequences of Dehumanization: Society can learn the necessity of acknowledging the atrocities of slavery and resisting the temptation to sanitize or sentimentalize a cause built on forced labor.
Different Perspectives on Duty: The conflict shows that individuals can be motivated by the defense of their homes even when fighting for a fundamentally unjust cause.
And we wonder why young Americans are so lost. Remember, AI pulls from whatever online sources it can find and then regurgitates what it clips from the Internet.
But if you listen to people like Faust or Heather Cox Richardson or Karen Cox–I’m noticing a trend–the South actually won the War. That would be news to them and of course news to anyone who has paid attention. They create a straw man, in this case the “Lost Cause” bogeyman, and then claim that it must be defeated to save history.
I don’t know what courses they took, but the Google AI response is the dominant narrative in American schools today, both in K-12 as well as higher education. And it has been so for decades. Any narrative that offers an alternative view is cast aside as “Lost Cause” revisionism or “whitewashing.” Google used sanitized, but the meaning is the same.
But what can we really learn from the Confederacy?
I’ll offer five suggestions.
1. Self-determination is the central topic in the American experience, North and South.
2. Decentralization of power was designed to prevent tyranny and the imperial presidency. The Confederate Constitution included checks to that effect. Abraham Lincoln proved their point.
3. Men defending their home and hearth from a foreign invader while vastly outnumbered and outgunned are heroic and should be celebrated by all Americans.
4. American Constitutionalism reached its zenith during the debates over the Confederate Constitution in 1861.
5. Most American historians are as stupid as Google AI.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the point. Google AI suggests that nearly everything about the Confederacy was negative while also offering two points on the post-bellum South, both of which are also false.
We would do well to critically examine the Confederate experience. Those men have much to teach American society on constitutionalism, power dynamics, and decentralization. We would also do well to consider the Confederate solider as an important part of American military history. They were respected by their foes for decades after the War. If Union men, those who were literally shot by Confederate soldiers, could recognize their heroism, we should, too. Anything less is “dehumanization.”
AI is nothing more than programming personal bias into software. Yet contemporary society continues to be awed by it. I once put AI to the test. I asked it about Lincoln and whether or not his actions (I sited specifics) should have resulted in his impeachment. AI hemmed and hawed but could not bring itself to definitively state, he should have been impeached. AI regurgitated the righteous cause myth and that what Lincoln did, while not really legal, was for the greater good. I continued to press, turning each AI statement against itself. The AI program literally stopped answering. Just like a leftist. So I recon computers are programmed to be Marxist ideologues now. In so far as your comments on our Confederate ancestors is concerned, for me, the bottom line is; 260,000 Confederate soldiers died trying to prevent the government we have today. My family and I honor that with great joy and Southern pride. Deo Vindice.
I love this. Blessed Good Friday and Happy Easter.
“260,000 Confederate soldiers died trying to prevent the government we have today. ”
So well put. Thank you.
Well said. Among those 260,000 that died were several of my ancestors, not to mention those of my bloodline that were wounded. We know what secession was for and what it wasn’t for, and we know who the tyrant is who actually caused the war. The best thing we can do is challenge others and their lazy opinions. AI is wrong, the damn Yankee textbooks are wrong. I can only imagine how much better off we would have all been had we won the war. I am sick of Washington DC and their bully of an empire. Trump has killed his own presidency with this uncalled-for war with Iran. No action like this is done and over quickly, this will linger and the US economy will continue to suffer. I suspect Republicans will lose big time this fall.
And, finally…..I’m sick of all corrupt politicians both left and right for doing the bidding of the small hat country overseas that has way too much influence on our country. It’s a betrayal and outright treason.
Beyond the troubles of this world though….Happy Easter to all – and thank you Jesus for saving me.
I honor your ancestors Sir. On Saturday, the 29th of March, I had the great honor of working with a small group of great South patriots in the Oakwood Cemetery in Richmond, VA. We spent a beautiful, cool spring day placing military headstones on Confederate graves. It was my first time helping out. Confederate heroes from every State in the Confederacy are known to be buried there. While I do not know where your people lay Sir, I just want you to know that they are remembered by this unreconstructed Native Texan, who lives in Virginia. Deo Vindice
Excellent article Dr, ‘M’ and thank you. It logically follows that AI gets history wrong since Yanks appear to have written the AI algorithm to only access Yankee sources for ‘history’. The Yanks KNOW so much about us that isn’t so. What kind of culture produces people so arrogant that they think they know all about another culture and ignore documented real history while ignoring their own real historical flaws that are equally as ”bad’ as the culture and history they never stop getting wrong. Just the other day I read a comment stating that the South started the war [fired the first shot] and as proof the writer alleged that the proof was some AL militia group had fired on some group of Yanks in AL before Ft. Sumter happened. No dates, or citations were offered or specific location. Just this unsupported allegation. Even if it happened neither Lincoln nor any historian for the last 160 years noted the alleged event so it could not have started the war. That people go to such lengths to justify their war of aggression deserves genuine psychological analysis, IMO. We live rent free in the thick skulls of these folks. It probably has to do with the Puritan Yankee personality trait like Dr. Wilson and Dr. McClannahan have noted, along with others.
Sir, the war, IMHO, didn’t begin at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. It began the day before with the Yankees invading Fort Pickens in Florida on April 11, 1861 so I see what you’re saying. Yankees can’t even get their wrong take on history right.
“And we wonder why young Americans are so lost.”
Reaction videos are very popular on YouTube. Recently, a young couple were watching and reacting to a “Twilight Zone” episode. The episode was called: “The Passerby,” about “a widowed woman in a ruined Southern mansion meeting a crippled Confederate soldier.”
There was a moment in the episode when the the widow was lamenting the day the Yankees came, like “blue locusts” she said. In response to that the the reactor, the young man said: “Lady, your side was fighting to keep slavery.”
So, yes, in trying to learn, inquire, understand history, especially mid 19th century American history, many “young Americans are so lost.”
But perhaps some will do some considering. I did. Born and raised in the north. Due to the military, I ended up in Virginia in 1980 and here I still am. I wanted to learn what happened then in the 19th century. I don’t recall learning hardly anything about the War Between the States up north. So, then, I read extensively. “The South Was Right” (Kennedy twins).
Drew Gilpin Faust – a human lost cause.
In terms of what kind of culture produces people so arrogant – the utter absence of Culture
Which pretty much sums up all things New England.
Great to hear about Confederate History month. For some reason, news like this travels slow up here in Chicago.
I’ll celebrate our victory all month long!
I do not believe that Drew Faust is a reliable guide to the Confederacy. She is a nice person– I was her roommate at concord Academy. Maybe the Concordians thought these two Southerners should room together. I appreciated her book on James Henry Hammond. But two people could hardly be more different. I felt great loyalty and appreciation for my Southern heritage. I detested feminism. Drew seemed to swallow the feminist line, and wow, she became president of Harvard. I wrote to her when my book Stewards of History was published–by Abbeville– and clarified what I felt was the main difference between us. She had argued that the confrontation of honor–the practice of duelling–was a way for Southerners like James Henry Hammond to maintain power. I said no. The duel has to do with non-utilitarian values–honor is a supernatural virtue. This to me is the essence of the Southern identity–and it helps to illuminate, by the way, why the South has been the essential backbone of culture in America.
Hello from England, I’ve always believed that the south and the confederate history have so much to offernnot the Americe but the world.
I also believe that the confederacy was not a failure, just because it was destroyed by a far superior force who had to resort to war crimes to end the war. It’s people the way they worked together to preserve there traditions and despite being smashed to pieces by superior forces ( in numbers and equipment but not in skill) they still earned the respect of there enemy who especially in the case of the army of northern Virginia if they hadn’t been given good terms to stop fighting would have become a gorilla force and potentially could be still fighting today. And as for the statues they were as much for the families of all those boys that went to war to fight to preserve there way of life and ended up dying and being buried in a mass grave never to have a headstone and a place for the family to visit and pay respects to
Dear Steve Your comment is spot on.
In his correspondence with General Lee, your countryman, Lord Acton, echoed your sentiments.
However, may I strongly suggest that before you or any of us submit anything here or anywhere else that you check spellings and meanings one more time before submitting, especially if something just feels wrong. Sorry, but an irregular who attacks his enemy in raids is a ‘guerrilla’ not a gorilla and ‘there’ is a place. ”Thelr’ shows possession. This weakens your words. Checking gives your comment more weight and meaning, and that is why you wrote it
Regards to Britain. If only you could have joined us…..
Chris McLarren
Just spoke in church last Sunday about why I fly the stars and bars, and we should honor those in the South who fought and suffered. I mentioned also how the CSA’s constitution was a very good one and ought to be studied. Lastly I thanked God from the alter that we still raise brave God fearing men who are willing to put principles first and are willing to battle where many of us cannot and do the hard dirty work many will not.
Ooh wee did I get some heads to nod in affirmation and thumbs up as I returned to my pew.
Praise God and pass the ammunition.
Love it
Besides Europeans, the two other significant American groups of people were the Africans and the Indians. The Confederate Constitution specifically mentions both of those groups. Although it was in reference to slavery, Blacks still received a recognition in the Confederate Constitution, that the US Constitution didn’t give them. With the eventual abolition of slavery, that constitutional recognition of Blacks as a unique people would have remained. The Confederacy also recognized Indians as a unique people destined to have Oklahoma territory. It wasn’t just the uniqueness and autonomy of States and states rights that the Confederacy recognized. They also recognized Indians and Blacks as unique peoples in a way that the US didn’t do. That seems it would be an important lesson to learn from the Confederacy.
Thank you Brion. The five points you make are succinct enough to place in the mind of students and citizens today as they can’t tolerate any more complexity than this.
Excellent work, Professor McClanahan!
Just today 08-April-2026 while listening to a talk radio show, Sen. Rick Scott (FL) said this to the hosts, “If these same Democrats were in office, Sherman wouldn’t have gone through the South because by then, Lincoln would be impeached.”
Of course, Rick Scott is a carpetbagger from Illinois serving the people of Florida.
The first problem I have with any discussion of the Confederacy is that “SLAVERY, SLAVERY, SLAVERY” is drooled out as the cause of the invasion. Actually money is the cause of all wars but it is disguised of course. The next is that the Constitution of the USA was thrown out the window by Lincoln for his political life. Also the Morrill Tariff was the final straw for many in the South. The federal government was being used to enrich one section of the country. The whiskey tax was the only other source of funds before the war and until Prohibition 70 years later. Lastly the South is doomed as the Puritans are descending upon us in droves and destroying our culture because they know everything.