Film romanticizes the Confederacy

Tallahassee Democrat ^ | 5-March-2003 | Issac J. Bailey

[stainlessbanner]

I squirmed for almost four hours watching "Gods and Generals," the latest film about the Civil War.

I was unnerved as two of the South's most recognizable figures, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson, were portrayed as though they were flawless.

Their words were poetic. Their love of God evident with every breath.

But I'm having a hard time determining if my squirminess resulted from the blind spots of the director - who skimmed over the issue of slavery as though it were nothing more than background noise - or if it was because I wasn't mature enough to allow myself to see the humanity in those whom I've long wanted to despise.

That's the hard part, finding the willingness to look beyond one's own point of view when everything in you demands that you don't bother, that you be satisfied with what you know - and more importantly - only what you want to know.

I thought I had effectively dealt with that dilemma, because intellectually, I can acknowledge that there were good people who fought and died on both sides of that war.

I understand those Americans made choices that could have seemed right then but horribly wrong now, or that Africans sold Africans into slavery, or that there could have been slaves who loved their master.

I squirmed for much of that movie because I didn't want to see Lee and Jackson making nice with children or riding stoically on horseback as bullets and bombs whizzed by their heads.

I wanted to deny them their full human complexity. Made it easier to hate them.

I've tried to understand, tried to listen more intently to the words and passions of those wanting to preserve the honorable memories of the Southern soldier.

I've tried, the South Carolina native that I am, to find reason to be proud of the South during those five years, tried to remember that many of the poor white farmers who took up arms never owned a slave, tried to equate the two sides in order to reach a quiet peace.

But I can't.

And what's more, I'm not supposed to.

Lee and Jackson may have been brave and noble men, but what's that to do with their wrongheaded loyalties? They were supposedly principled men - but they took up arms to preserve one of Earth's greatest evils.

It wasn't as though they didn't know.

Those who signed the declaration of secession in states such as South Carolina and Mississippi wrote clearly they were leaving the union because Northern legislators were slowly choking the life out of slavery.

Even the editors of the Jackson Mississippian then wrote that slavery was "one of the principles that we started to fight for." And it wasn't about states' rights - unless you count the right to own human beings - because even Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, denounced states' rights shortly into the war.

Why? Because thousands of Southerners were crossing war lines to fight for the North, to get behind a cause that made sense.

So excuse me if I don't get teary-eyed over the discovery of the Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, or stand in awe strolling along the grounds or in the halls of the South Carolina State House, virtual shrine to the Confederacy that it is.

Excuse me if I don't buy the line that the Ku Klux Klan has somehow soiled the image of the Confederate flag when it was ex-Confederate soldiers who founded that organization.

And one of those brave, noble men, Nathan Bedford Forrest, according to historian James W. Loewen, during the war "crucified black prisoners on tent frames and then burned them alive, all in the name of preserving white civilization."

Excuse me if I'm a bit squeamish watching a movie that paints a rosy picture of men who may have been God fearing, but not God following.

How else do you explain them finding the righteousness to protect the sovereignty of a state while finding no resolve to fight the evil of slavery? Gen. Lee, we are told constantly by those who revere him, knelt down beside a black man during a church service while others refused.

Presumably that was his way of showing that dark-skinned men were just as human, that it was time for true freedom in America.

It's a touching tale of a Confederate soldier leading by example after the Civil War.

Too bad he didn't show that kind of leadership before the war began.

[stainlessbanner]

Excuse me....for puking on this review.

[what's up]

Lee didn't agree with slavery.

But he felt that it would die a natural death if left to run its course.

[Ceebass]

Move over! REEETTTTTTCCCHHHHHHh!

[sauropod]

This man is a twit.

[Maedhros]

Ten bucks says The Last Full Measure will romanticize the Union.

[IncPen]

I'm planning on seeing this movie this weekend.

Totally (well almost) off topic... some on (poster or article) on FR in recent weeks made the point that abortion will one day be considered as slavery is today.

_{Realizing that the Civil War and abortion on the same thread are like matches and gasoline, IncPen exits the thread}

[ArneFufkin]

Stonewall Jackson was damn near flawless.

[TexConfederate1861]

Brother:

Why in God's name did you post this POS Yankee Propoganda Crap?

Any minute the Lincoln-Loving WLAT Brigade will begin their BS session....

Yuck....throw up indeed!

[Redbob]

Contrast Robert Lee, a man of honor, with Lincoln - the man who really initiated the long downhill slide of the Constitution.

[uncitizen]

Ah, maybe you've hit upon Ted Turners alterior motive. Get us hooked with the "Southern Generals are perfect". Then give us the North's side. We're used to "the Union are the good guys" story anyhow.

Once Grant gets in the picture, the story gets good. A fearless, horny drunk is just what this story needs. Any thoughts or rumors on who would play Grant or Sherman?

[stainlessbanner]

My only intent in posting this was to let ya'll shoot holes in it. Fire Away!

[Revolting cat!]

Every Hollywood film romanticizes something or other, period! That's how it works!

[LiberalBuster]

When one holds a view inconsistent with reality, it's not uncommon to have one's conscience "pricked" when one is confronted with reality. What this writer experienced was perfectly natural. There is a great deal of propoganda surrounding the "Civil War." That some might become a little uncomfortable when their status quo/establishment views are challenged is not the least bit surprising.

[rose]

Excuse me my dear, while you are welcome and free to profess your view and opinions, you are sooooo misguided by comparing todays standards to those 200+ years.

Those men were honorable men, and not everybody was fighting for slavery. The war did not begin with slavery as the main objection, IT WAS PLAINLY AND MAINLY STATES RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!

The beginning of the movie was correct, Lee could not turn his back on Virginia and fire on his homeland. He was asked to fire and kill his own neighbors, relatives, etc. The Constitution gave States the right to secede, President Lincoln was not correct to fire on America.

The matter could have been handled differetly and with time. A lot of blood could have been saved. I am 65 years old, my great great grandfather fought in that war.

People from the south were not evil, and the majority were not slave owners. People in the north owned slaves till it became financially not to their advantage, not from some great morality. The cotton fields in the south took them away from the north. And by the way some blacks actually owned slaves in this country too.

Owning slaves was wrong, north and south are guilty, the country who sold them to us was guilty, including the blacks who rounded them up.

My husband has been a student of history all of his life, he has related to me a lot of civil war history and the portrayal of these two men was more correct than any other that we have seen.

[Conservative til I die]

Yankee Propoganda Crap?

Dude, you're about 138 years behind the times. Get with it.

[Verginius Rufus]

I suspect Mr. Bailey doesn't feel nearly as passionately about the Germans who fought in the German army during WWII. Lee was a Virginian who felt duty-bound to follow his state and defend her; the abolition of slavery was not even on the horizon when he made that decision. If he had remained in the U.S. army and accepted the command he was offered, the war might have been over much more quickly--but with slavery still legal in the South.

[rwfromkansas]

I feel like heaving.

This man writes in the article that he can't even respect those farmers who did not have slaves, yet fought the north anyway out of love for the south. What a loser!

Of course, he never mentions how Mr. Grant had his own slaves, now does he?

[Arkinsaw]

And one of those brave, noble men, Nathan Bedford Forrest, according to historian James W. Loewen, during the war "crucified black prisoners on tent frames and then burned them alive, all in the name of preserving white civilization."

If he's not going to read books about the subject, the author needs to, at least, go to Fort Pillow, Tennessee itself and see the Tennessee Park Services film on this battle and learn the actual facts before posting these particular myths as fact. I don't begrudge him his opinion, but these are just wartime rumors picked up by the Senate investigating committee while the war was still going on. Bad research.

[rose]

P.S. By the way President Lincoln brought the matter of Slavery in later with his Proclomation. And he gave instructions to destroy the south, to harm all, including women and children if need be, to pilfer and leave us nothing. Read the book called "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, recommended by Walter Williams, for an enlightment. He turned the constitution on its head. We are supposed to be a Republic, he promoted Federalism. WE are more Federalist now than a Republic.