Post War Southern Mentality

Matthew

HIST 4315

Book Review

Post War Southern Mentality

Thomas L. Connelly and Barbara L. Bellows’s God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause And The Southern Mind effectively examines numerous characteristics within the mental process of southerners and their leaders before, during, and particularly after the Civil War. This text successfully investigates the ideas of southern politicians, generals, novelists, and journalists who all in the face of defeat combined to form a Lost Cause generation who attempted to justify and explain the Confederate experience. Connelly and Bellows offer the reader a unique perspective regarding two different definitions of this lost cause phenomenon; The Inner Lost Cause and the National Lost Cause as they both respectively originated to capture the opinions of a defeated Confederacy and to interpret the situation of the south within the nation. Essentially, this particular text clearly stresses an appreciation and understanding of the influence that these Lost Cause opinions had on the former defeated Confederacy and modern day southern society.

Connelly and Bellows explain that southerners of the Inner Lost Cause such as Jefferson Davis and Jubal Early possessed a harsh anger and created a one- dimensional approach in dealing with such a heavy defeat. Regarding some of the initial writings after the war, Connelly and Belows explain that, “Confederates of the Inner Lost Cause wrote more to appease their own frustrations and fears than to convert a national audience” (p.8). Moreover, some light is shed on the idea that many former rebels didn’t care about northern opinions of their efforts but valued how the rest of the world viewed the Confederate cause of 1861. As vindication and redemption were both key aspects in the mindset of the extreme inner lost cause artist, Connelly and Burrows explain that the organization of the Southern Historical Society in 1869, which sought to collect war records and publish southern accounts of the war, directly reflects these ideas.

It’s made clear that the original architects of the Lost Cause strove to recapture basically anything from the strong sense of estrangement and tragedy throughout the south. The sheer loss of life, physical destruction, and social disruption within the south all combined to form an overwhelming sense of calamity for southerners. Connelly and Burrows provide valuable insight regarding the southern mindset and key facts that in no doubt led to a Confederacy defeat. C&B deduce that the south in 1861 was indeed caste conscious, and placed its faith with the political leader or the military chieftain. With this in mind, C&B refer to the fact that of the 425 Confederate general officers, only 125 were professional soldiers, whereas 260 came to service after careers in politics and law or as jurists, planters, or businessmen (10). In relation to this, as almost a fourth of the South’s general officers, who were also community leaders, perished in the war which strongly effected the management and control of reconstruction in the south.

In terms of the south’s mindset leading up to and during the Civil War, Connolly and Burrows present the idea that southern confidence in victory stemmed from the fact that the south was an “agrarian society isolated from the realities of the growing industrial might of the American nation” (13). Also, there were significant popular beliefs among southern minds that were often combined in an attempt to justify the actions of the confederacy. C&B present the idea of the strong religious dynamic prevalent throughout the south where the idea that God was on the Confederacy’s side played a major role in creating a false sense of superiority. As C&B discuss the southern notion that redemption would one day be delivered, they refer to Robert E. Lee in the winter of 1863( when he saw the tide turning on the eastern front) as he said, “ We do not know what is best for us. I believe a kind God has ordered all things for our good” (15). As the generation of former confederates found comfort in their religious devotion, they quickly developed a one dimensional approach as the main concern would become, “What can I do to be saved?”. C&B feel as though one may argue that the rise in evangelical practices did not prepare southerners to handle the defeat in the Civil War. Also, Connolly and Burrows support the notion that it was difficult for southerners to deal with Appomattox because, “ There was an awareness of being denied the American dream of success, of finding oneself alienated from the Calvinistic belief that God blesses the righteous” (21).

As the postwar generation of southerners relentlessly asserted