Rebellion, Revolution (or Something Entirely Different)?

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Yesterday (as I am wont to do) I issued a call to those following my Twitter feed to provide Cosmic America with a question of the controversial variety. One that might stir some embers, so to speak.

I got a number of great responses, many of which dealt with cause, emancipation, even the state of the field. But my favorite came from none other than Pete Carmichael, the director of the Civil War Institute. "Was," he asked, "the Civil War a revolution?"

Now this could have meant a couple of things. One, he could have been referring to the revolutionary character of the war itself - were the great issues being decided on the battlefields the makings of a revolution of sorts? Two, he might have meant the questionably revolutionary nature of secession. I have a sneaking suspicion he was referring to the former (perhaps I should have asked) but details notwithstanding, he got me thinking about the latter.

So I will open the floor for discussion. Was secession and the formation of the Confederate States an act of revolution? Without question, plenty of the fire-eating types rang some revolutionary bells during the secession crisis - invoking the oratory of the revolutionary generation and demanding a separation from a tyrannical government many thought was poised to deny white southerners their rights as Americans. On the other hand, cooler heads thought twice about the rhetoric of revolution. After all, in their formulation the southern states claimed the legitimate connection to the founders. The north had gone astray. In this light, the Confederacy was not at all revolutionary but merely carrying on the American tradition under a new government.

What do you think?

Keith

A Letter to Mrs. Lee

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

A significant component of what can be best called the Lee myth is his attitude towards slavery. You hear it all the time at conferences, roundtables, in print, and on the battlefield - Robert E. Lee was opposed to slavery. Much of this part of the overall myth stems from a letter Lee wrote his wife in December 1856 while serving in the U. S. Cavalry in Texas.

December 27, 1856 - I was much pleased the with President's message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?

Alan Nolan argued in his excellent book, Lee Considered, that Lee's words are too often taken as gospel. They are true because he said them. But when examined in context, one could begin to chip away at the myth that rests on this so-called Lee gospel. In regard to the letter. As an abstraction, it makes sense that Lee would find slavery troubling. He was an educated and enlightened individual - and was not alone among other educated and enlightened individuals when it came to moral questions concerning slavery.

But in reality, Lee was perfectly comfortable with the southern institution and felt that Providence would decide when the time was right for slavery to meet its end. Later, Lee even stated that slavery was "the best [relationship] that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country."

Lee belonged to an aristocratic slave-holding family in a society where slavery had long existed and was taken for granted. When northern agitation threatened his society both before and during the war, including threats to the institution of slavery, Lee let his dissatisfaction be known. Only after the war did he claim he was always in support of emancipation.

Peace,

Keith

PS - If you found this and other Cosmic America posts intriguing, please join me on Facebook - we talk about imagery (northern and southern), mythology, the sesquicentennial, and all kinds of fun stuff.

The Charleston Mercury Defends the Fight for Slavery...in 1865!

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

I run across people all the time who try to convince me that the Confederacy was not established to preserve the institution of slavery. Of course I think that is nonsense - so I figured that from time to time I would a post tidbit of primary evidence to illustrate exactly how slavery was the driving force behind secession and war.

So here is a succinct, straight to the point newspaper article. Now I know that one article does not prove an argument. So stay tuned - I will give you lots and lots. This article from an 1865 edition of the Charleston Mercury - the day is unknown but it seems like the CSA is very close to the end - is a good place to start. Sorry, no picture of the actual article - so I posted and old page of the Mercury from 1861.

Pay special attention. The author notes slavery explicitly as the cause of the war and the reason to maintain the fight...despite the severe losses endured by the South. Further, alluding to the proposition that blacks be enlisted to fight for the Confederacy, the Mercury takes a firm stand against arming black people. It would only lead to emancipation, notes the author - thus rendering their secession pointless.

I have quoted the article below in full (in italics). Please note that when I quote primary evidence I leave the language, grammar, and spelling exactly as written. I do NOT sanitize for your protection. Therefore, some of you may be offended by the choice of words. Rest assured, these are the words of the AUTHOR OF THE MERCURY, not mine.

In 1860 South Carolina seceded alone from the old union of States. Her people, in Convention assembled, invited the slaveholding States (none others) of the old Union to join her in erecting a separate Government of Slave States, for the protection of their common interests. All of the slave states, with the exception of Maryland and Kentucky, responded to her invitation. The Southern Confederacy of slave States was formed.

It was on account of encroachments upon the institution of slavery by the sectional majority of the old Union, that South Carolina seceded from that Union. It is not at this late day, after the loss of thirty thousand of her best and bravest men in battle, that she will suffer it to be bartered away; or ground between the upper and nether mill stones, by the madness of Congress, or the counsels of shallow men elsewhere.

By the compact we made with Virginia and the other States of this Confederacy, South Carolina will stand to the bitter end of destruction. By that compact she intends to stand or to fall. Neither Congress, nor certain makeshift men in Virginia, can force upon her their mad schemes of weakness and surrender. She stands upon her institutions—and there she will fall in their defence. We want no Confederate Government without our institutions. And we will have none. Sink or swim, live or die, we stand by them, and are fighting for them this day. That is the ground of our fight—it is well that all should understand it at once. Thousands and tens of thousands of the bravest men, and the best blood of this State, fighting in the ranks, have left their bones whitening on the bleak hills of Virginia in this cause. We are fighting for our system of civilization—not for buncomb, or for Jeff Davis. We intend to fight for that, or nothing. We expect Virginia to stand beside us in that fight, as of old, as we have stood beside her in this war up to this time. But such talk coming from such a source is destructive to the cause. Let it cease at once, in God’s name, and in behalf of our common cause! It is paralizing to every man here to hear it. It throws a pall over the hearts of the soldiers from this State to hear it. The soldiers of South Carolina will not fight beside a nigger’ to talk of emancipation is to disband our army. We are free men, and we chose to fight for ourselves—we want no slaves to fight for us.... Hack at the root of the Confederacy—our institutions—our civilization—and you kill the cause as dead as a boiled crab.

So....there you go. Not enough, you say? Stick around - there is much much much more to come.

Peace,

Keith

Les Tuniques Bleues

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

My Twitter and Facebook friends are constantly sending me interesting Civil War related goodies from all over the world. A few weeks ago - I received a note about Les Tuniques Bleues, a Belgian comic book illustrating the adventures of two Union cavalrymen.

I have learned quite a lot about this comic over the course of the last few days. Originally illustrated by Louis Salverius in 1970, it is now among the top ten selling comics in French. The central characters are quite the pair indeed. We have Corporal Blutch - a sarcastic and reluctant soldier who is highly critical of authority and Sergeant Chesterfiled - a career soldier who thrives on military glory and always wants to be closest to the action.

The original plot had them stationed at a frontier fort until they moved East to join U.S. Grant's Army. Together they fight in several battles and have run ins with actual historical characters including Abraham Lincoln, Matthew Brady, and Robert E. Lee. The series takes a bit of liscense with continuity when it comes to where soldiers of Grant's army would have been at any given time - but seeing that this is a comic meant not only to entertain, but also to deal with historical issues, I'll give them a break.

In short - the two main characters go all over the place - they contend with racism, guerrilla warfare, and spies. All in all, I have to get on board with Les Tuniques Blues - and as I understand, there is an English version (which I will read further until my French improves a bit).

Peace,

Keith