From The Daily News RecordBy George Wead
After 1865, influential Southerners constructed myths of noble Confederate warriors who fought to maintain their courtly traditions.
This helped Southern whites deal with their defeat and impoverishment in a war they had been sure they were going to win. Southern historians gave the cause a professional gloss, and the myth was encapsulated in D.W. Griffith's movie "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), which now looks ridiculous.
The basic premises of the Lost Cause are: (1) Southern independence, not slavery, prompted the war; (2) we were betrayed by Lincoln, who wrote his Emancipation Proclamation to win an election; and (3) we were beaten down by the overwhelming numbers of Grant and Sherman, who burned and raped our homeland.
Ritchie and Price make these arguments because, like me, they were raised on them. And they’re right: it’s time we all did more reading. Try "This Mighty Scourge" by James McPherson, a Pulitzer-prized historian who brings a terrible weapon to bear on the myth of the Lost Cause: facts.
The existence of slavery was not an issue of the war; expanding slave territory was. If Lincoln could have stopped war by letting slavery remain as it was, he would have. But that wasn’t enough. Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice-president, echoed other Southern leaders when he said that "slavery, subordination to the superior race, is (the negro’s) natural and normal condition," and the South wanted that "moral truth" expanded into new territories. Lincoln wrestled with the political wisdom of emancipation until inspired by the Union’s victory at Antietam.
The war started at Fort Sumter, as we’re aware. But we may not know that when Lincoln advised Jefferson Davis he was sending an unarmed fleet with supplies for the besieged fort, Davis ordered the Confederates to open fire before the fleet arrived. Thus, Southern arrogance started the war and cost us mightily. It was Lee’s army, not Grant’s or Sherman’s, that had the highest casualty rates.
In "The Hard Hand of War," Mark Grimsley's careful research makes it clear that the killing or rape of white civilians in the South by Union soldiers was extremely rare. Of course, Sherman burned crops and houses. He was trying to win a war that the South had started.
We should lay aside desperate beliefs and consider the results of cooler research. Unfortunately, some research suggests that this isn’t our way. American psychologist James Garabino proposed to a conference in England this month that Southern culture has been influenced by a large population of Scots who are quick to bear long grudges.
In 1861 Scots were more than half our population. Garabino’s theory, which is contested, of course, would explain why to this day we keep rising up in bitter anger over the Civil War.
Maybe it’s time to let up. Admit it. We lost. Accept the fact as our forefathers accepted the horses Grant let them keep after Appomattox.
The Yankees whipped us fair and square. The Union won. Time to go home. Be Americans.
George Wead is a resident of Bridgewater, Virginia.
I do not count one of my functions as fact checker for the Daily News-Record. Additionally, my lot as a revenue producer for the Commonwealth and federal government allows me little time for other activities. Please forgive me.
The aforementioned is indeed filled with factual error and common propaganda. If Phil Stone is a Southerner, he is genuinely reconstructed, which is the purpose of this missive. You see, even a rudimentary investigation of history reveals the piece inaccurate in every way.
First, even a cursory investigation reveals that Mr. Lincoln was most probably the progeny of Abraham Enloe of western North Carolina. Abraham Enloe’s legitimate son Wesley and Mr. Lincoln bear such similar paternal resemblance as to be almost twins. Is it not often affirmed that the fruit seldom falls far from the tree? Civilized students do not fear where the facts lead.
Additionally, in mouthing Mr. Stone’s hagiographic views of Mr. Lincoln, the DN-R does a great disservice to the citizens of this Commonwealth. Virginia was the first Western Christian nation established upon this continent and created the first elected representative legislature. The collective wisdom of Virginia’s leading citizens created our Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, as well as the Bill of Rights. Virginia is the mother of presidents and statesmen.
Additionally, lands west to the Mississippi and north to include Michigan and Wisconsin were unselfish gifts to the central government, hard won in the French and Indian War by Virginians. Virginians have a rich heritage of virtue, which includes diligence toward duty and honesty toward heritage. Virginia did not wish to secede until she was requested to furnish troops to violate her Southern sisters.
Mr. Stone opined that “Lincoln should be admired and respected…” I should hope not! Every contended evil of modern culture may be traced to his administration as the following quotes reveal.
It was stated he was the emancipator of the slaves. Historical fact reveals that his Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, just as King George’s proclamation failed decades earlier during our first secession from Great Britain.
If the federal army invading sovereign states was about freeing slaves, why did its most acclaimed commander, Ulysses S. Grant, possess slaves in his Washington household until December 1866? It is quoted that he saved the Union. My inquiry is, was it the union as formed by our founders? Of course not! He saved a Hamiltonian consolidated union of servile political districts.
The sovereign states of the Confederacy were no threat to their northern brethren. The Declaration of Independence clearly encourages and proclaims a people’s right to a government of their choosing.
It was further quoted that Lincoln was the protector of core values “and as a model for the office of the presidency.” I must admit that this is finally a truthful statement. Because his wife, law partner and secretary affirm that he was never a Christian and because he and his Cabinet ushered into Washington the procedure and system of political plunder and demagoguery, he does correctly fit the modern presidency.
The burial of our Constitutional Republic in 1865 does not grant my permission for the publication of shoddy, plagiarized history. I value my Commonwealth and its historic reputation too much to allow such maleducated statements to go unchallenged.
I am neither a government-paid academic or government-schooled journalist, but I do possess common sense and the rare ability to read. I sincerely implore Mr. Stone to avail himself of both, as in spite of the organs of government propaganda, the truth is available.
I am shocked and chagrined that the president of a presumably Christian university would parrot the transcendental humanist views of Jacobin revolutionists.
Should Mr. Stone wish to refute my remarks I encourage him to contact me at his earliest convenience so we might share mutually beneficial information.
Mr. Miller lives in Timberville, Virginia.
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