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If you read enough you are very likely to run across some less than stellar books. I took the time to read one this past week hoping it would be better than it was. Edward H. Bonekemper III's new book The Myth of the Lost Cause has the fairly straight forward goal of tearing down the details of myth that dominated Southern thinking about the Civil War from the end of the war for over a century, and conservative Southern thinking up to today. One would think that such a book would be unnecessary today. But a few months ago I read a book called Lost Triumph: Lee's real plan at Gettysburg, which showed clearly some of the delusions that Bonekemper wanted to destroy.
I'm pretty sure I still have Lost Triumph somewhere. But I've tossed it in a pile somewhere with other books that should be donated or better yet recycled and I could not find it today. I actually had to confirm the title by looking it up on the net.
Tom Carhart's Lost Triumph puts forward a theory of how Robert E. Lee actually had a winning strategy for the last day of the battle of Gettysburg that was barely thwarted by none other than temporary general George Custer. According to Carhart what Lee wanted to do, and never came out and explained, was to send J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry out on the Confederate left flank from where at the critical moment they were to sweep around the Union Flank and attack the end of the Union fish-hook-shaped line at virtually the same moment that Pickett's men would go forward to attack the Union center. The flaws with this 'plan' are pretty glaring. That kind of temporal coordination is difficult in modern times, impossible in the 19th century. Put simply Lee like every competent general since Alexander the Great knew that the place for cavalry in a mass infantry battle is on the flanks. One end of the Union line was anchored in rugged hills, poor country for cavalry. So like any self-respecting officer since at least 300 B.C. Lee put the bulk of his cavalry on the flank where he could be fairly certain the bulk of the Union cavalry would be. If the two forces skirmished and the Confederates won so much the better for Lee. They'd be in position to do all kinds of harm, say, to routed infantry fleeing from Pickett's advancing troops. But as for cavalry attacking entrenched infantry, even on a bad day, and the 3rd day at Gettysburg was a very bad day for him, Lee would have known the idea was insane. Carhart completely ignored the fact that the Union's reserve of infantry happened to be precisely where he thought Stuart's cavalry could maneuver around the Union line, making the Union cavalry and Custer essentially the first line of defense, but far from the last. Tom Carhart simply cannot believe that Robert E. Lee could have blundered at Gettsyburg by sending Pickett's troops forward without adequate support. Why? Because Robert E. Lee was Robert E. Lee!
The deification of Robert E. Lee, obviously continues today. For people like Carhart, Lee could do no wrong, end of story. Thus the need for a decent book like The Myth of the Lost Cause is real. Unfortunately, the current book isn't a worthy foil to that kind of thinking.
Bonekemper addressed seven major issues in the Lost Cause theory: 1. The Civil War was not about Slavery. 2. Slavery was not the primary cause of secession. 3. The South had no chance in a noble war. 4. Robert E. Lee was the greatest general in history. 5. General James Longstreet was the primary reason why the South lost at Gettysburg and thus the war (Yes this contradicts #3! But it's all part of the Lost Cause mind set.) 6. General Grant only defeated Lee because he was a butcher, who didn't care about his troops. 7. The Union only won because it waged total war against the south.
Bonekemper does a reasonable job of dismissing the first two issues with writings and speeches from the eve of the War by the very Southerners who would create the myth after the war. If anything he doesn't stress strongly enough that the idea that secession was not about slavery came first from Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party in a blatantly political ploy to keep as many slave states in the union as possible. The states with the highest populations of slaves ignored the ploy. Many anti-Republican forces in the north didn't buy it either. But it was a convenient talking point once the war was over. 'See, what Lincoln said about it!'
Point 3 is just as wobbly for Bonekemper as it is for supporters of the Lost Cause. He tries to show the South had considerable economic resources, but then spoils his own argument by elsewhere demonstrating that the great mass of Southern economic investment was in slaves, and nothing particularly useful in military terms. The South had friends in Europe especially in France and Great Britain. But with the philosophical tide going against slavery in Europe, the friendship was more of an open desire for the United States to fall apart than to see the South become a power equal to the North.
On Robert E. Lee, Bonekemper becomes as rabid against his memory as any Southerner is positive about it. I have little problem with Bonekemper pointing out Lee's faults as a general, but he does seem to forget when Lee lived and ignore the fact Lee didn't have the 20th century to look back on when he was making his decisions. Lee was a fine general. The fact the South might have done far better with a top general like Ho Chi Minh is what Bonekemper is pointing toward without actually allowing himself to get in that deeply.
The vilification of James Longstreet is as much about what he did after the war as it was what he did during it. Like most of the southern generals, Longstreet had plenty of friends among the northern generals. Unlike most southern generals he quickly wanted to put the war behind him and had no problem going to his friends, including U.S. Grant himself for help getting his family back on its feet. Longstreet made the unforgivable sin for a southerner to take a job with the Federal government during Reconstruction. He was lucky that the worst that happened to him was outright slander about his war record. The book The Killer Angels and Ted Turner's film of it, Gettsyburg, should have done most of the work dispelling this part of the myth in the South.
Bonekemper's weakness of argument comes to the fore when he talks about Grant. It's clear he's as much a fan of Grant, as any Southerner was or is of Lee. He uses statistics to properly show that Grant wasn't as much of a butcher as his reputation has him. He gives plenty of examples of Grant's real successes, but he does pretty much ignore the flaws in Grant's very flawed personality. In short Grant was not as horrible a general as the myth would have us believe, but he wasn't the divine figure Bonekemper would like to make of him either.
The last point in Bonekemper's book is an exercise in semantics in which Bonekemper would like to use a late 20th century definition of 'total war,' where his opponents would naturally be more interested in a mid 19th century version. It's kind of pointless.
The book is full of redundancy, Bonekemper using the same words for the same arguments on different issues without actually acknowledging he has done it, as if it's a collection of separate essays gathered together with no editing. Bonekemper's worship of Grant really spoils what is already a flawed book. It's an unnecessarily clumsy approach to a subject that definitely needs discussion and discussion by more talented minds than Bonekemper's.
I'm pretty sure I still have Lost Triumph somewhere. But I've tossed it in a pile somewhere with other books that should be donated or better yet recycled and I could not find it today. I actually had to confirm the title by looking it up on the net.
Tom Carhart's Lost Triumph puts forward a theory of how Robert E. Lee actually had a winning strategy for the last day of the battle of Gettysburg that was barely thwarted by none other than temporary general George Custer. According to Carhart what Lee wanted to do, and never came out and explained, was to send J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry out on the Confederate left flank from where at the critical moment they were to sweep around the Union Flank and attack the end of the Union fish-hook-shaped line at virtually the same moment that Pickett's men would go forward to attack the Union center. The flaws with this 'plan' are pretty glaring. That kind of temporal coordination is difficult in modern times, impossible in the 19th century. Put simply Lee like every competent general since Alexander the Great knew that the place for cavalry in a mass infantry battle is on the flanks. One end of the Union line was anchored in rugged hills, poor country for cavalry. So like any self-respecting officer since at least 300 B.C. Lee put the bulk of his cavalry on the flank where he could be fairly certain the bulk of the Union cavalry would be. If the two forces skirmished and the Confederates won so much the better for Lee. They'd be in position to do all kinds of harm, say, to routed infantry fleeing from Pickett's advancing troops. But as for cavalry attacking entrenched infantry, even on a bad day, and the 3rd day at Gettysburg was a very bad day for him, Lee would have known the idea was insane. Carhart completely ignored the fact that the Union's reserve of infantry happened to be precisely where he thought Stuart's cavalry could maneuver around the Union line, making the Union cavalry and Custer essentially the first line of defense, but far from the last. Tom Carhart simply cannot believe that Robert E. Lee could have blundered at Gettsyburg by sending Pickett's troops forward without adequate support. Why? Because Robert E. Lee was Robert E. Lee!
The deification of Robert E. Lee, obviously continues today. For people like Carhart, Lee could do no wrong, end of story. Thus the need for a decent book like The Myth of the Lost Cause is real. Unfortunately, the current book isn't a worthy foil to that kind of thinking.
Bonekemper addressed seven major issues in the Lost Cause theory: 1. The Civil War was not about Slavery. 2. Slavery was not the primary cause of secession. 3. The South had no chance in a noble war. 4. Robert E. Lee was the greatest general in history. 5. General James Longstreet was the primary reason why the South lost at Gettysburg and thus the war (Yes this contradicts #3! But it's all part of the Lost Cause mind set.) 6. General Grant only defeated Lee because he was a butcher, who didn't care about his troops. 7. The Union only won because it waged total war against the south.
Bonekemper does a reasonable job of dismissing the first two issues with writings and speeches from the eve of the War by the very Southerners who would create the myth after the war. If anything he doesn't stress strongly enough that the idea that secession was not about slavery came first from Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party in a blatantly political ploy to keep as many slave states in the union as possible. The states with the highest populations of slaves ignored the ploy. Many anti-Republican forces in the north didn't buy it either. But it was a convenient talking point once the war was over. 'See, what Lincoln said about it!'
Point 3 is just as wobbly for Bonekemper as it is for supporters of the Lost Cause. He tries to show the South had considerable economic resources, but then spoils his own argument by elsewhere demonstrating that the great mass of Southern economic investment was in slaves, and nothing particularly useful in military terms. The South had friends in Europe especially in France and Great Britain. But with the philosophical tide going against slavery in Europe, the friendship was more of an open desire for the United States to fall apart than to see the South become a power equal to the North.
On Robert E. Lee, Bonekemper becomes as rabid against his memory as any Southerner is positive about it. I have little problem with Bonekemper pointing out Lee's faults as a general, but he does seem to forget when Lee lived and ignore the fact Lee didn't have the 20th century to look back on when he was making his decisions. Lee was a fine general. The fact the South might have done far better with a top general like Ho Chi Minh is what Bonekemper is pointing toward without actually allowing himself to get in that deeply.
The vilification of James Longstreet is as much about what he did after the war as it was what he did during it. Like most of the southern generals, Longstreet had plenty of friends among the northern generals. Unlike most southern generals he quickly wanted to put the war behind him and had no problem going to his friends, including U.S. Grant himself for help getting his family back on its feet. Longstreet made the unforgivable sin for a southerner to take a job with the Federal government during Reconstruction. He was lucky that the worst that happened to him was outright slander about his war record. The book The Killer Angels and Ted Turner's film of it, Gettsyburg, should have done most of the work dispelling this part of the myth in the South.
Bonekemper's weakness of argument comes to the fore when he talks about Grant. It's clear he's as much a fan of Grant, as any Southerner was or is of Lee. He uses statistics to properly show that Grant wasn't as much of a butcher as his reputation has him. He gives plenty of examples of Grant's real successes, but he does pretty much ignore the flaws in Grant's very flawed personality. In short Grant was not as horrible a general as the myth would have us believe, but he wasn't the divine figure Bonekemper would like to make of him either.
The last point in Bonekemper's book is an exercise in semantics in which Bonekemper would like to use a late 20th century definition of 'total war,' where his opponents would naturally be more interested in a mid 19th century version. It's kind of pointless.
The book is full of redundancy, Bonekemper using the same words for the same arguments on different issues without actually acknowledging he has done it, as if it's a collection of separate essays gathered together with no editing. Bonekemper's worship of Grant really spoils what is already a flawed book. It's an unnecessarily clumsy approach to a subject that definitely needs discussion and discussion by more talented minds than Bonekemper's.
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