Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War

[HIM Dogson]

Maybe, but to be blunt I was very directly drawing a parallel between postwar Germany and the postwar South. One of the reasons the "clean Wehrmacht" myth got legs was precisely because Germans wanted to absolve themselves of responsibility for the crimes of Nazi Germany and convince themselves that the ordinary people around them who were in the military were in fact perfectly fine and not war criminals, a form of willful blindness needed for society to function without throwing most of the men in German in prison. The same will probably be true here, everyone will simultaneously understand that the Confederacy was bad and doomed and had bad beliefs and that there needs to be some form of cleansing the people who fought for it so that they can rejoin society because the alternative is impossible.

I mean, look, if in the postwar South the attitude is 'this was horrible, which is why we're pretending our loved ones weren't directly involved with it' thats a really fucking good place to be. If the idea that all poor whites were just as oppressed as slaves by the evil elites and were not complicit in slavery is the white lie needed to bind the Union back together as a society ready to move towards racial equality, then three cheers for the clean Confederate Army myth. The history books can problematize it after integration is achieved; for now we can be happy if the average southerner views fighting for slavery as something they need to absolve grandpa for, rather than defend him for.

Edit: it does, actually, remind me of a bit from the History of US textbooks by Joy Hakim (idk if anyone else read those as a kid) but basically to get them to be accepted in Southern schools they had to throw the Lost Cause a bone. The books take the tack that slavery was horrific, blacks were absolutely not happy in slavery, and that the civil war was about slavery, but that Robert E. Lee was a good man who was simply misled about the evil he was fighting for. I think at one point it even said (paraphrasing) "Robert E. Lee, brave and heroic as he was, could not comprehend the true depth of the evil of slavery". And you know what? I grew up knowing that slavery was vile, that there was no happiness in slavery, and the South fought for slavery, and if the price I had to pay for that was that Robert E. Lee was the one good apple then I'm glad for it. I was able to learn later that Robert E. Lee was as bad as the rest; the South can learn later that it wasn't all the planter elites. The South will hopefully already know all the important parts.

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

it does, actually, remind me of a bit from the History of US textbooks by Joy Hakim (idk if anyone else read those as a kid) but basically to get them to be accepted in Southern schools they had to throw the Lost Cause a bone. The books take the tack that slavery was horrific, blacks were absolutely not happy in slavery, and that the civil war was about slavery, but that Robert E. Lee was a good man who was simply misled about the evil he was fighting for. I think at one point it even said (paraphrasing) "Robert E. Lee, brave and heroic as he was, could not comprehend the true depth of the evil of slavery". And you know what? I grew up knowing that slavery was vile, that there was no happiness in slavery, and the South fought for slavery, and if the price I had to pay for that was that Robert E. Lee was the one good apple then I'm glad for it. I was able to learn later that Robert E. Lee was as bad as the rest; the South can learn later that it wasn't all the planter elites. The South will hopefully already know all the important parts.

A friend of mine in church, a direct descendant of Lee, takes almost exactly that position Hakim lays out; easy to understand with him being related. Although even he will admit that Lee didn't do enough after the war and praises Longstreet. He's smart enough, I get the idea that he knows why Longstreet gets such a bad rap from the Lost Cause people and doesn't like it one bit.

 

[naraht]

Question in terms of the "Good Confederate"... iOTL were their any Confederate Generals or any who served in the Confederate congress who didn't own slaves?

 

[xxmagex]

Question in terms of the "Good Confederate"... iOTL were their any Confederate Generals or any who served in the Confederate congress who didn't own slaves?

The only one that comes to mind real quick is Patrick Cleburne. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/patrick-ronayne-cleburne-339/

 

[DanMcCollum]

It strikes me that one major way to cut down on Lost Causism is to provide an alternative narritive that Southrons can use to show pride for their region. Needless to say, no one likes to feel negatively about their own culture and homes - and so creating a different set of stories and identities that they can latch onto will pay dividens in the future. Now, this most certainly can't be done by the government for a number of reasons, and will have to rely on artists who came of age during or after the war. But I think it would be highly beneficial

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

It strikes me that one major way to cut down on Lost Causism is to provide an alternative narritive that Southrons can use to show pride for their region. Needless to say, no one likes to feel negatively about their own culture and homes - and so creating a different set of stories and identities that they can latch onto will pay dividens in the future. Now, this most certainly can't be done by the government for a number of reasons, and will have to rely on artists who came of age during or after the war. But I think it would be highly beneficial

Right, it must come fromt he individual level. Although the government could possibly sponsor writing contests as they increase education in the South, and maybe one student winner goes on to become an author.

I mentioned the LoneRanger long ago, and a possibility they would have a black man alongside him, or at least far more blacks in the series. I wonder if there could be a Southern version of him?

Something like "Dukes of Hazzard" could work - they likely wouldn't have anyone driving a car named "General Lee: anyway, and certainly wouldn't have it with a Confederate flag TTL, but if you keep the whole motif of poor, white mountain family against the rich, corrupt establishment it could work. (again, too early for TV but you might have it start as a radio drama like "The Lone Ranger" did. And, as I said, you *could* have someone develop radio a bit earlier. And there was a radio station in Northern California in 1909. (Wikipedia lists a few earlier "broadcastgrs," so Red has some thigns to play with her if he chooses.)

Basically, what will help is anything where they're saying "our society had lots of evil people before, but now we are on the side of good in the battle agaisnt corruptiona nd evil." Hey, you could easily have their version of The Lone Ranger be the last survivor of a group of pro-Union men who were killed in an ambush by a Klan-like group after the war. (You could possibly have the Dukes be another family that fought such Klan-like groups early, too.

 

[DanMcCollum]

Right, it must come fromt he individual level. Although the government could possibly sponsor writing contests as they increase education in the South, and maybe one student winner goes on to become an author.

I mentioned the LoneRanger long ago, and a possibility they would have a black man alongside him, or at least far more blacks in the series. I wonder if there could be a Southern version of him?

Something like "Dukes of Hazzard" could work - they likely wouldn't have anyone driving a car named "General Lee: anyway, and certainly wouldn't have it with a Confederate flag TTL, but if you keep the whole motif of poor, white mountain family against the rich, corrupt establishment it could work. (again, too early for TV but you might have it start as a radio drama like "The Lone Ranger" did. And, as I said, you *could* have someone develop radio a bit earlier. And there was a radio station in Northern California in 1909. (Wikipedia lists a few earlier "broadcastgrs," so Red has some thigns to play with her if he chooses.)

Basically, what will help is anything where they're saying "our society had lots of evil people before, but now we are on the side of good in the battle agaisnt corruptiona nd evil." Hey, you could easily have their version of The Lone Ranger be the last survivor of a group of pro-Union men who were killed in an ambush by a Klan-like group after the war. (You could possibly have the Dukes be another family that fought such Klan-like groups early, too.

Exactly! Save that it also needs to celebrate the positive aspects of the regional culture and identity - so actually crushing a Southron identity (or trying too) would probably undermine the efforts to root out the Lost Cause and such. You need Southrons to basically be able to create a story and an identity which they can be proud of, and which celebrated their culture and uniqueness - without, you know ... what happened in OTL

 

[BrockSampson]

Right, it must come fromt he individual level. Although the government could possibly sponsor writing contests as they increase education in the South, and maybe one student winner goes on to become an author.

I mentioned the LoneRanger long ago, and a possibility they would have a black man alongside him, or at least far more blacks in the series. I wonder if there could be a Southern version of him?

Something like "Dukes of Hazzard" could work - they likely wouldn't have anyone driving a car named "General Lee: anyway, and certainly wouldn't have it with a Confederate flag TTL, but if you keep the whole motif of poor, white mountain family against the rich, corrupt establishment it could work. (again, too early for TV but you might have it start as a radio drama like "The Lone Ranger" did. And, as I said, you *could* have someone develop radio a bit earlier. And there was a radio station in Northern California in 1909. (Wikipedia lists a few earlier "broadcastgrs," so Red has some thigns to play with her if he chooses.)

Basically, what will help is anything where they're saying "our society had lots of evil people before, but now we are on the side of good in the battle agaisnt corruptiona nd evil." Hey, you could easily have their version of The Lone Ranger be the last survivor of a group of pro-Union men who were killed in an ambush by a Klan-like group after the war. (You could possibly have the Dukes be another family that fought such Klan-like groups early, too.

I got images of “Blazing Saddles” but decades earlier. A hilarious black sheriff in an area that were distrustful of him at first due to his race until he wins them over alongside his white deputy.

 

[Athelstane]

Question in terms of the "Good Confederate"... iOTL were their any Confederate Generals or any who served in the Confederate congress who didn't own slaves?

1. Re: Confederate Generals: More than you might think, though it can be a little tricky because often their wives may have had slaves, or they came from slaveowning families even if they owned no slaves themselves. Joseph Glaathar has done the most in-depth work on this question, I think; see his 2009 monograph, General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse. In his Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture in the Journal of the Civil War Era (September 2016), he noted how this played out among soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia:

Certainly one of the most powerful pieces of evidence for motivation among soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia was slaveholding. Southerners seceded largely to protect their property rights in slaves and their right to take that property (slaves) into the territories. Mississippi, for example, officially justified secession with the words “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery–the greatest material interest of the world.” Slaveholding had a powerful grip on Robert E. Lee’s army. While one in eight soldiers was a slaveholder, personal and family slaveholding essentially doubled the statistic for the slave states in general–totaling thee in every eight (37.2%) soldiers compared to one in five (19.9%). Four in ever nine soldiers (44.4%) lived in slaveholding households. Add to that those who had family members who were slaveholders, those who worked as overseers, and those whose business derived largely from slaveholders, and well over half fell into that category of attachment to slavery. Because of the overwhelming percentage of enlisted men compared to officers, 89.7% of all personal and family slaveholders in Lee’s army served exclusively as enlisted men–privates, corporals, and sergeants. Even poor whites supported slavery. Emancipation would result in economic competition from newly freed blacks. Racism reinforced that hostility by elevating poor whites and suggesting that someday, they, too, might be able to own slaves. [pp. 320-21]​

​

To look a little more at the ANV, we find this:

Army Commanders:​

Joseph E. Johnston NO​

Robert E. Lee YES​

​

Corps Commanders​

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson YES​

James Longstreet NO​

A.P. Hill YES​

Richard Anderson NO​

John B Gordon YES​

Jubal Early YES (surprisingly, only owned one slave in his life)​

J.E.B. Stuart YES​

Wade Hampton YES​

I haven't looked at the division or brigade commanders, but my rough sense is probably at least half of them, too, were slaveowners.

But again, I think you can't stop with whether they themselves owned slaves; it's worth looking at their wives and families, too. Consider James Longstreet, since we have been talking about him. Longstreet never owned any slaves, and neither did his wife; but his father, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (a judge), owned dozens. I would certainly count Old Pete as a non-owner, but of course it remains true that he came from the slaveocrat class, or at least, the lower end of it.

2. Confederate Congress: A pretty good source on this is Beringer, Richard E. “A Profile of the Members of the Confederate Congress.” The Journal of Southern History 33, no. 4 (1967): 518–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/2204474. Beringer did a fairly deep dive into who the 267 members of the Confederate Congress were, what they did for a living, etc. This was an especially helpful chart:

So, 58% is a good starting point - but just that, a starting point. This doesn't mean that congressmen in the other professions did not own slaves, though some certainly did not. But it becomes evident pretty quickly how unrepresentative the Congress was in regards to slaveowning, even among slaveowners. As Beringer notes, in 1860 only 12% of slaveowners owned more than twenty slaves, but 40% of the congressmen owned at least that many.

Beringer notes the difficulties he encountered in determining slaveowning data for the congressmen. The biggest problem was in regards to the men whose slave property was outside their home county. So aggregate numbers he generates have to be treated with caution: But it appears, Beringer reports, that 22 congressmen owned no slaves at all. Another eight had one each.

For the record, in case you are curious, the largest slaveowner in the Confederate Congress was Duncan F. Kenner of Louisiana, who had 473, one of the largest holdings in the country.

​

 

[Athelstane]

Exactly! Save that it also needs to celebrate the positive aspects of the regional culture and identity - so actually crushing a Southron identity (or trying too) would probably undermine the efforts to root out the Lost Cause and such. You need Southrons to basically be able to create a story and an identity which they can be proud of, and which celebrated their culture and uniqueness - without, you know ... what happened in OTL

As the adage goes, "culture" is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Who we are. Who we have been.

There's always room for some myth in culture, and also too for past crimes. But there is a limit to how much. If the stories you tell yourselves about you and your forebears say that you're nothing but unredeemable monsters, you very quickly wouldn't have a culture at all: people would very quickly seek some new identity. This, by the way, could have presented an interesting dynamic in a timeline where the Allies break up Germany after WW2: you certainly make it far less of any future threat, but I have always thought that this would manage to make memory-holing the past much easier for many Germans. You can now identify as a Bavarian or a Saxon or a Thuringian: all that horrible Third Reich stuff, that was another country, another society, that used to occupy the land where you are now.

Breaking the American South up into multiple new countries is obviously not on the cards here, so one has to think about how you would allow white southerns to shape a new postwar culture in this timeline: a culture in which they can still tell themselves positive stories about themselves and their forebears which is compatible with the larger self-understanding of postwar America.

 

[Ironshark]

okay two relevant since we're going discussing building a "better" southern myth

and the fun facts sounds lost Causey but there true

1 every ehtnic group expect african Americans had people fight for the south willingly


2 there was a total of ONE legit abolitionist Confederate officer. His name escapes me but he was a captain and wrote a poem about John brown after the war


I don't know but perhaps these facts can be helpful to the discussion going on now

 

[Knightmare]

It strikes me that one major way to cut down on Lost Causism is to provide an alternative narritive that Southrons can use to show pride for their region. Needless to say, no one likes to feel negatively about their own culture and homes - and so creating a different set of stories and identities that they can latch onto will pay dividens in the future. Now, this most certainly can't be done by the government for a number of reasons, and will have to rely on artists who came of age during or after the war. But I think it would be highly beneficial

And the local Elites are gonna let that vs rallying up the Lost Cause to avoid them clamoring for economic reforms that would defang their power?

 

[Tertius711]

And the local Elites are gonna let that vs rallying up the Lost Cause to avoid them clamoring for economic reforms that would defang their power?

They won’t have a choice once the Union is done with them

 

[DanMcCollum]

As the adage goes, "culture" is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Who we are. Who we have been.

There's always room for some myth in culture, and also too for past crimes. But there is a limit to how much. If the stories you tell yourselves about you and your forebears say that you're nothing but unredeemable monsters, you very quickly wouldn't have a culture at all: people would very quickly seek some new identity. This, by the way, could have presented an interesting dynamic in a timeline where the Allies break up Germany after WW2: you certainly make it far less of any future threat, but I have always thought that this would manage to make memory-holing the past much easier for many Germans. You can now identify as a Bavarian or a Saxon or a Thuringian: all that horrible Third Reich stuff, that was another country, another society, that used to occupy the land where you are now.

Breaking the American South up into multiple new countries is obviously not on the cards here, so one has to think about how you would allow white southerns to shape a new postwar culture in this timeline: a culture in which they can still tell themselves positive stories about themselves and their forebears which is compatible with the larger self-understanding of postwar America.

I think there's a few different ways to go (and likely, all of them can and will be explored)

1) Focus on Southron Unionists, of which they were more than a few. They were the good American heroes who saw through the bluster and lies of the Southern Elite and who held up the dignity of the South during it's darkest hour of deceit and treason. Think of the Free State of Jones, or Winn Parish.

2) Look for those figures who, even if the fought for the Confederacy, sought redemption. Unlike OTL, I highly doubt there are gong to be many leading figures in the Confederacy who go on to nice, long, post-war careers in state or national government. But there are going to be a few who actually do seek redempton in some form. Much of this is going to be somewhat self-serving and attempting to clean up their legacy, sure - but there will also be some cases of true conversion. Good on them. They may not be Senators or Governors, but everyone loves a good redemption arc, and they provide examples of paths forward for the people.

3) Focus on the class element. This is going to be the closest to the "clean wehrmacht" myth, but I think it's still going to be very potent. The Civil War was a rebellion by the sickly rich who conscripted and hoodhinked the poor workingman to do his bidding - why they sat around spitting treasonous venom, it was the poor man who was asked to fight and die. And yeah, we got deceived, but we opened our goddamned eyes by the end! This story is interesting because it can be crafted to create a feeling of solidarity between the freedmen and poor white southrons, by painting both as victims of the planter elite. Yeah, there's a lot of problems here - it conveniently glosses over the racism of workingclass southrons, and paints them as unwilling or unwitting actors in the war. But its a good story, a powerful one, and its one which can be very politically useful (the Republicans will likely use it in the post-war, and I see it being just as useful for labor and farm activists later on in the century, and even a southern Socialist movement).

4) *Blank. I ran out of ideas as I didn't sleep well last nght. But I know there has to be a few different threads that I'm missing*

 

[NedStark]

Focus on the class element. This is going to be the closest to the "clean wehrmacht" myth, but I think it's still going to be very potent. The Civil War was a rebellion by the sickly rich who conscripted and hoodhinked the poor workingman to do his bidding - why they sat around spitting treasonous venom, it was the poor man who was asked to fight and die. And yeah, we got deceived, but we opened our goddamned eyes by the end! This story is interesting because it can be crafted to create a feeling of solidarity between the freedmen and poor white southrons, by painting both as victims of the planter elite. Yeah, there's a lot of problems here - it conveniently glosses over the racism of workingclass southrons, and paints them as unwilling or unwitting actors in the war. But its a good story, a powerful one, and its one which can be very politically useful (the Republicans will likely use it in the post-war, and I see it being just as useful for labor and farm activists later on in the century, and even a southern Socialist movement).

One problem is that the GOP cannot be a Robber Baron party and at the same time empower labor/working class/socialist movement in the South.

That's why you would need someone else instead of Ulysses Grant as President. Apart from Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade who were too radical, Henry Wilson is your best bet here given his pro-social reform outlook IOTL.

 

[Workable Goblin]

And the local Elites are gonna let that vs rallying up the Lost Cause to avoid them clamoring for economic reforms that would defang their power?

The whole point of this timeline is to engineer the conditions whereby those local elites will be destroyed and lose their power to begin with.

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

One problem is that the GOP cannot be a Robber Baron party and at the same time empower labor/working class/socialist movement in the South.

That's why you would need someone else instead of Ulysses Grant as President. Apart from Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade who were too radical, Henry Wilson is your best bet here given his pro-social reform outlook IOTL.

Wilson as VP at the start instead of Colfax for one term would at least acknowledge the existence of that that reformist segment of the party, And the need to balance the ticket. I'm not sure how much of a reformist Garfield was but he is young enough to be worked with. If Lincoln can be radicalized so can he. Especially because Garfield is a general who will have seen quite a bit in the Civil War to make him realize the need for such action.

 

[Ammonios]

Hello,

Can it be said that the next chapter is now in development? There is no rush to see it as soon as possible on my part.

 

[Athelstane]

2 there was a total of ONE legit abolitionist Confederate officer. His name escapes me but he was a captain and wrote a poem about John brown after the war

Now I'm intrigued

 

[bill clinton01]

Now I'm intrigued

patrick cleburn i believe. I read a comic about him