The Myth of the Lost Cause

The Myth of the Lost Cause by Edward Bonekemper

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Back in the 1980s, I read John Keegan's “The Masks of Command.” I was stunned to read Keegan describe U.S. Grant as the only military genius to come out of the American Civil War. That casual statement – backed up by the observation that Grant's Vicksburg Campaign was studied in War Colleges – flipped my view of Grant from an unimaginative plodder, a “butcher,” to that of a military strategist.

How did I form the belief I held? I had never read anything on Grant's campaigns. Was it just that there were references and offhand comments about Grant that added up to poison my opinion?

Or was it the Lost Cause Tradition that poisoned my mind?

This book is an eye-opening dissection of the Lost Cause Tradition that has seemed to hold sway over the American mind since the Civil War.

The Lost Cause Tradition (“LCT”) basically presents, or invents, a noble South where the Civil War was fought purely over issues of States Rights without regard to the fact that the State right in question was slavery against overwhelming odds, led by the genius of Robert E. Lee against the single-minded barbarity of U.S. Grant. In the LCT, the South would have won but for the error of General Longstreet at Gettysburg and the unfair material advantage of the North.

The author, Edward Bonekemper, does an effective job of dismantling the presuppositions on which the LCT is based. For example, Bonekemper destroys the claim that the South did not secede over the issue of slavery by marshaling the statements and arguments of Confederate leaders and emissaries, who made it very clear that their concern was over the abolition of slavery. He also shows that the states with the largest proportion of slaves in the population seceded first with the states less dependent on slavery seceding later or not at all. Finally, the argument that Southern slaves were happy with their condition is belied by the masses of slaves that fled toward Union forces.

Bonekemper also presents a strong argument that Lee was a general who made substantial mistakes, lacked the skills necessary to win the war, particularly against Grant, and misunderstood the strategic objectives that the South should have been pursuing. The South did not have to defeat the North, it only had to avoid being beaten. Lee's invasions of the South and his focus on the Virginia theater at the expense of other regions expended limited Southern manpower and lost vast Southern regions.

Bonekemper also exonerates General Longstreet of the loss at Gettysburg. The myth that Longstreet was ordered to attack at dawn was never given. Longstreet had the better argument that the South should fight a defensive war and preserve its limited manpower.

Grant's military genius is also presented in a way that remains eye-opening:

“As Grant approached Vicksburg, he could look back on the past eighteen successful days with satisfaction. He had entered enemy territory against a superior force and with no secure supply-line, fought and won five battles, severely damaged the Mississippi capital, driven away Johnston's relief force, driven Pemberton's army back into Vicksburg, inflicted over seven thousand casualties (killed, wounded, and missing) on the enemy, separated Loring's seven thousand troops from the main enemy army, and reduced Pemberton's army by fourteen thousand troops. Grant's own casualties were between 3,500 and 4,500.”

In addition, Grant inflicted more damage and suffered fewer losses than his opponents, including Lee:

“Lee's strategic and tactical aggression while commanding a single army in a single theater cost him 209,000 casualties (see the table of Lee's casualties below)—a loss the South could not afford. Almost incomprehensibly, Lee's single army suffered fifty-five thousand more casualties than the five armies commanded (victoriously) by Grant in three theaters. Lee's willingness to incur such devastating casualties might be explained, in part, by his religious faith. Richard Rollins speculates, “Perhaps, most importantly, Lee believed the results would be best for all concerned, and if a man died he would be in a better place. It was this faith that allowed him to pray that ‘our merciful Father in Heaven may protect & direct us,' and then to add, ‘In that case I fear no odds & no numbers.”62 In any case, if a single statistic explains the outcome of the war, it is those 209,000 casualties. On the other side of the ledger, Lee did impose 240,000 casualties on his foes, for an advantage of thirty-one thousand.63 But the South could not afford or compensate for Lee's overly aggressive and offensive style of fighting. Grant, on the other hand, was able to capture Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Vicksburg (along with their defending armies); save a trapped Union army at Chattanooga and drive the Confederate Army of Tennessee into Georgia; and come east to defeat Lee and finish the war in less than a year—all while incurring a reasonable 154,000 casualties (see the table of Grant's casualties below). By inflicting 191,000 casualties on his opponents, Grant achieved a favorable margin of thirty-seven thousand. Considering the breadth and depth of Grant's successes in a necessarily offensive mode, even a negative balance of casualties would have been militarily acceptable.”

People like underdogs and the South was the underdog. However, Bonekemper demonstrates that the South was fighting for an ignoble goal which it could have won but for the appearance of a truly admirable military commander. This is a engaging book made all the more engaging by its solid argument against the converntional wisdom.