The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat.  Gary W. Gallagher.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.  218pp.

            Gary W. Gallagher’s monograph derived from the 1995-96 Littlefield endowed lecture series at the University of Texas at Austin, presents an opening challenge to the more recent historiography concerning Confederate defeat in the American Civil War.  More specifically, Gallagher takes issue with the widely accepted notion that Union victory is attributable to a decline in support for the war among Southern citizens, a lack of cohesion and union across the South, and a poorly construed military strategy among Southern leadership.  Through a careful and thorough use of Confederate newspapers, soldier and civilian diaries, memoirs, and narrative accounts of the war period, Gallagher effectively punches holes in the argument among historians that the Southern home front and Confederate military strategy accounts for Confederate defeat.  The author’s research illustrates the presence of a distinct consciousness of a Confederate national identity among the citizens of the South, a palpable determination among Southerners to sustain the war effort in order to achieve independence, and a Confederate generalship whose strategy and tactics were sensible and effective.  In the end, the Confederacy ceased to exist due to a resounding military defeat by the Union, a fact widely accepted by Southerners. 

            Gallagher’s examination of popular will among Southerners begins with a simple question: Why did the Confederacy fight for so long?  The current historiography suggests that pervasive disillusionment toward the war, as well as class conflicts, and religious and moral doubts about the institution of slavery, enervated the South to the point of inevitable defeat.  The author points to the almost incredulous hardships suffered by the Confederacy, both in manpower and material, as well as to the resiliency and tenacious optimism found in Southern newspapers and personal diaries, in order to refute the absence of popular will and to explain the longevity of the Confederate struggle for victory.  Furthermore, religious revivals continued unabated throughout the course of the war and Southerners never discarded the belief in divine sanction of slavery and divine support for their cause.  Finally, the author alludes to the scholarship of other historians, notably Eugene and Elizabeth Genovese, to demonstrate the wide variance and diversity of opinion within classes in the South.  The positing of a unified yeomanry class against a unified class of plantation owners falls short of any accurate depiction or explanation for division within the Southern home front.  Gallagher admonishes other historians for continually explaining Confederate defeat by working from Appomattox back and for equating an understandable weariness of war among Confederates with a lack of will among Confederates.

            The author continues to challenge modern historiography by arguing for the demonstrable existence of Confederate nationalism.  The Confederacy should not be perceived as a loose collection of contentious states but rather as a unified, centrally structured entity.  The source for Confederate nationalism is grounded in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.  The Army’s victories, the loyalty of its troops to General Lee, and the symbolic force of Lee himself, all functioned as catalysts for the emergence of a Confederate national identity.  The author repeatedly underscores the need to look to Confederate troops, rather than the Confederate government and its citizenry, for evidence of unity and purpose.  Confederate soldier diaries are replete with references to “our country” and “our nation.”  Other threads that helped weave Southern nationalism were the religiosity and sense of righteousness felt by Southerners, as well as a new generation of slave-holding officers who correlated the institution of slavery with Southern independence.  Finally, the hardships, losses, and disruptive life under Union occupation in various parts of the South strengthened the resiliency of the population and the support for the war rather than weakening the Confederate cause.

            Much of the remainder of the text is devoted to military strategy.  For Gallagher, the sentiments of the Southern people, reflected in newspapers, memoirs, and diaries, illustrated a desire for clear, obvious victories on the battlefield.  Such victories would increase popular will in the South while decreasing Northern support for the war.  The author points to several Southern victories, and the subsequent flagging of Union morale, as successful evidence and support for Southern strategy.  Also, the author confronts the arguments that the Confederates should have been strategically defensive, and incorporated guerrilla (or at least Fabian) tactics from the onset of war.  Gallagher’s rebuttals point to civilian expectations, the officer culture among Southern leadership, the larger losses in manpower resulting from defensive strategies, the fears of racial war, and the need for foreign recognition (hence national armies), in order to demonstrate the unrealistic nature of a defensive or guerrilla strategy of war. 

            In sum, the author admirably confronts the current historiography that disparages the Confederate home front, and re-opens the historical discussion of Confederate will and strategy.  His utilization of primary documents, and the inclusion of photographic essays, adds noteworthy weight to the arguments presented.   

Bryan Cupp