The Confederate War: ,

by Gary W. Gallagher

Book Overview

If one is to believe contemporary historians, the South never had a chance. Many allege that the Confederacy lost the Civil War because of internal divisions or civilian disaffection, others point to flawed military strategy or ambivalence over slavery. This book argues that we should not ask why the Confederacy collapsed so soon, but rather how it lasted so long. The book re-examines the Confederate experience through the actions and words of the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067416055X
• ISBN13: 9780674160552
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A bold challenge to Civil War conventional wisdom

Success in war is as much related to the will of the people to endure hardships as it is to capable leadership or the dedication of troops in the field. In "The Confederate War", Gallagher seeks to disprove the notion Southerners did not support secession or the Confederate government or that they wavered in their support, especially when the war turned against the Confederacy. Gallagher argues civilian support for the war effort never wavered and in fact remained generally resolute through to the surrender at Appomattox and in some cases beyond, giving rise to the commemoration of the Confederacy in the decades following the war. In Gallagher's opinion "...Confederates believed they had been beaten on the battlefield rather than undone by internal divisions." While Gallagher focuses on civilian support for the war as part of his central premise, a great deal of military history does manage to creep into his work and sometimes distracts attention away from his argument. The reality is that the broad civilian support for the war serves to bolster other historians' argument as to the centrality of focusing on the military aspects of the Civil War as to why the Confederacy ultimately failed or could have succeeded. While Gallagher does look at the sociological aspects of Southerners he doesn't delve very deeply into economic issues or issues related to diplomatic recognition by foreign nations; items that likely were of great importance to Southerners and their cause. Why Gallagher didn't pursue both of those issues more fully is something of a mystery, especially considering the massive amount of correspondence he researched listed in the notes for each chapter. In the end Gallagher makes a compelling and persuasive argument that historians looking to find fault with Southerners support for the Confederate military and civilian leadership should look elsewhere.

The South was resolute

Gary Gallagher, an eminent history professor at the University of Virginia, argues convincingly that the will of the southern people held out to the very end of the Civil War. The reason they lost was not due to a loss of will to fight on or due to a loss of national pride in the Confederacy. Rather, they were overwhelmed by a superior force that had better industrial resources and a larger population. Gallagher cites numerous primary sources including diary and journal entries. Of course, entries in journals are anecdotal but, he cites sources voluminous enough to support his premise. Gallagher also examines military strategy to determine whether the South failed in that regard. He concludes that the Confederate forces faced insurmountable odds and its defeat was not due to its failures. The strategy was not flawed but rather, the South had only Lee to counter Grant and Sherman. There were not enough military leaders, in the South, capable of leading it to ultimate victory. Who knows? If Stonewall Jackson had not been killed and James Longstreet had not been wounded at a critical time, perhaps the leadership would have been stronger. In short, it was more an inevitable defeat by overwhelming forces than its own shortcomings that led to the ultimate defeat of the South. It is important to note that Gallagher recognizes that among some, there was a lack of will. Also, it is well documented that there were Unionists in the South. However, to a very large extent, national will and a sense of southern nationalism remained resolute until the very end. I have been a fan of Professor Gallagher for a long time. His contributions on television, such as the History Channel, have increased my knowledge and understanding of the Civil War. I happened to be in Charlottesville, a while back, visiting UVa. I stopped over at Prof. Gallagher's office to meet him and have him autograph this book. Regrettably, he was not there that day and I missed the opprtunity to meet him. Nontheless, even unsigned, this book holds a prominent place in my personal libray.

Bold and persuasive

Among historians, the dominant view of the Confederacy since the 1960s was the "lack-of-will" thesis, which offers the vision of a failed CSA collapsing under the weight of its own internal contradictions. A Southern government abandoned by its people, rejected and repudiated by every non-slaveholding white person, fighting with an army of disgruntled draftees: That is some people's estimation of the CSA.Since the early 1990s, however, this fixation with Southern "lack of will" has been questioned by some of the most active and able historians, who believe we have replaced one unbalanced view (the old "Lost Cause" thesis) with another.Such questioning invites a charge of "neo-Confederate," or worse, from people who have some political or personal investment in the prevailing paradigm. Yet this questioning is not the work of "moonlight-and-magnolia" sentimentalists. Many of them are not Southern-born; many have no ancestors who fought the war.Gary W. Gallagher is among them. This handsome little book, engagingly written, summarized the work that has been done to date in correcting the historical view of the South's war effort.Gallagher, in an interview, has said, "Common sense should play more of a role in historical evaluation than it often does. To be able to wage war, the Confederacy was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of its young men and suffer the destruction of its economy. In terms of military casualties, Confederates sacrificed far more than any other generation of white Americans in U.S. history. Yet the South still fought. This would suggest broad popular support for the war." Among the points he makes: The battle losses the South took would translate into six million U.S. battle casualties in World War II (instead of 961,977, the actual figure); nearly a million in Vietnam, instead of 201,000. Yet the "lack-of-will" partisans call the Confederacy a failed society. Gallagher points out that there's a danger of circular reasoning in this, because it sets the bar of "commitment to the cause" awfully high. Is total victory or total annihilation the only proof of "commitment"? Half of the Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. How many more would have had to take a bullet to qualify as "commitment"?

Cutting edge and superb.

Gary Gallagher has written an excellent and insightful book that presents novel interpretations and raises insightful questions; this book should be required reading for all Civil War historians. In The Confederate War, Gallagher discusses the historiography and different interpretations of important themes in Confederate history--popular will, nationalism, military strategy, and ultimately defeat. One of Gallagher's main contentions develops the idea that Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia were the rallying point for nationalism and the support of the Confederate people, yeomen and slaveholder alike: he writes, "As the war progressed, Confederate citizens increasingly relied on their armies rather than on their central government to boost morale, and Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia eventually became the most important national institution." Gallagher also contends that the Southern people had a strong sense of nationalism prior to the war, and he cites numerous letters, diaries, and other written documents of the time to illustrate this Southern concept and identity. In addition, by presenting evidence of Southern support from the home front throughout the war and the unique problems surrounding Confederate desertion (fear of Yankee threats to loved ones at home and not lack of support for the war effort), Gallagher masterfully illustrates that the war was not lost because of internal divisiveness or strife within the Confederacy. He says that the Confederacy "waged a determined struggle for independence," and argues that the South could have won the war. Working from the beginning of the war, and not backwards from the defeat, Gallagher argues the Confederacy lost because of a flawed military strategy. He discusses the issues of supplies and men, as well as guerrilla warfare tactics and conventional tactics, which proved too costly for the Confederacy. Gallagher ends his book by discussing the defeat, and restating that "the Confederacy capitulated in the spring of 1865 because northern armies had demonstrated their ability to crush organized southern military resistance." Continuing, he comments, "persevering despite great adversity, they surrendered only when their pool of manpower had been ravaged, Union armies stood poised to smash opposing Confederate forces, and much of their country literally lay in ruins."This book is an excellent read and should be included in every Civil War historian's library.

An excellent, needed revision, but it still leaves doubts.

I can generally subscribe to Gallegher's premise that The South was defeated because it was defeated, period. Though I admire his somewhat iconclastic view of conventional historical wisdom, I cannot accept that will was not decisive. This is particularly the case in the industrial and agricultural powerhouses of Georgia and North Carolina. Both these states were at times as much at war with the Confederacy as the United States. There is simply too much truth to the notion that The War was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. Greed, opportunism, and ambition doomed the CS though the Army of Northern Virginia's courage and self-sacrifice gave it a far longer life than its political leaders deserved. I have ancestors in gray or butternut planted in virtually every battlefield from the Seven Days to Petersburg so it is with some pain that I largely reject Gallegher's thesis. But, from the distance of 130 years the best thing one can do to preserve one's Southern heritage is be truthful about it.