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You couldn't disagree more about what?
That the books were well written? That Foote's admiration and affection for the Southerners does not come through? And I do not know which point you are referencing when you write "the very point."
Could you be more specific?
Sorry.
I disagreed with the following:
"Foote's personal affection for all things Southern shines through and imparts a romantic hue upon the rebels which the Northerners do not enjoy."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto
... because when you it comes to popular culture and history the Confederates seem to be disproportionately glamorous and gallant which of course just ain't so. .
I might have agreed with your statement 20 or 30 years ago, But not today. Up until the late 80's or 90's the south was portrayed as proud, brave, loyal, and decent. Movies like the Horse Soldiers with John Wayne portrayed them as such even as an enemy... The Stars and Bars were a symbol of Southern Pride.
Now the South is usually portrayed as shoeless beggers, ambushers and racists. THe Stars and Bars are a flag of hate..... Today's popular culture paints the Confederacy with a different brush than it did in years past, just as it does with Custer, who went from a hero of the past to an idiot today.....
"Foote's personal affection for all things Southern shines through and imparts a romantic hue upon the rebels which the Northerners do not enjoy."
I've read the trilogy twice and fail to see how you could not have noticed this. It wasn't a matter of Foote disrespecting Northerners who merited admiration, he had favorable opinions of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Stanton. When writing of those men, his respect was evident. When writing of Nathan Bedford Forest, Jubal Early, Bishop Polk, Jeb Stuart and Robert Lee, his affection was evident. The tone of the writing is different, more folksy when treating some of the rebel leaders.
I do not charge him with bias in overall narrative or selective use of facts to rehabilitate the Southern cause, I merely state that his personal attachments were easily distinguishable from those he was treating otherwise fairly.
That affection was what shaded the Southerners with an aura of greater romance in his books.
Basically rebels are always protrayed that way. No matter what we have a born love of the individauls against great odds.If you look the rebel flag is the symbol even now of individaulism and being a rebel from society.We still love the old don't thread on me flag also for the symbolism.
... because when you it comes to popular culture and history the Confederates seem to be disproportionately glamorous and gallant which of course just ain't so. Take for example Pickett's Charge vs the assaults on Mary's Heights or the Lookout Mountain? What say you? What other under under appreciated Union moments took place during the war.
It may be partly due to the writers (Foote as was mentioned), but part is reality - For at least the first 2/3 of the war the south was winning against the odds. The cause of this? - The martial tradition of military leadership resided in the southern states. That was a fact. The US military lost its best military leaders to the rebellion.
Combine that with the illusion of the "lost cause", and the one identifiable beloved general throughout most of the war - Robert E. Lee (as opposed to the everchanging list of US generals on the eastern theater, until Grant moved east), and you get a situation that just makes for better story telling.
Well, I think one thing that is being overlooked in this thread is that Southerners tend to be better storytellers. They tend to be mindful of place and personality. They seem to walk through life with a constant awareness of its rhythms and always are aware of their roots and the culture in which they live. Plus they seem to have an almost erotic love of the language.
I say that as a resident of the South but not a native of it. For some reason, whatever the heck it is, Southerners have a natural gift for storytelling and a flair for language that runs very strong. I'm not kidding. Go to any coffee shop, church social, or any other gathering of more than two or three people, and you're likely to find someone weaving an incredible yarn almost effortlessly. In that sense, Southerners are almost as skilled as the Irish--something that I just never encountered with my midwestern roots. Heck, in my mid-sized Southern city, I personally know three Pulitzer winners who came from here. I don't know. It might be something in the water.
Hell any assault against a fortified position during the Civil War was lunacy, equally.
I would have said that a few months ago - Foote said, on the Burns documentary, that P's charge was the price the South paid of Bobby Lee, IIRC. But I read Trudeau's book on Gettysburg, and he makes the case that the charge was not hopeless - that had the movements been better organized, timed, etc they could have broken the Cemetary Ridge position. He does not, IIRC, place blame on Longstreet or any other one individual for that - more a sequence of things, bad luck, etc. But the bottom line is that Lee was not foolhardy for ordering the charge - it was a gamble, but so had been many of Lee's successes, and it was not an impossible gamble.
Hell any assault against a fortified position during the Civil War was lunacy, equally.
But that doesn't answer the question as to why in popular culture then or now that confederates are portrayed in an overly romanticized manner rather than the Union considering ample examples to do otherwise.
I am not making myself clear I guess. What I am trying to say is that even BEFORE the war, in the 1850s, the South had a self image as gallant, romantic, etc that was not the case in the North. To some extent this was rooted in social reality. What was seen in the early 19th century english speaking world as romantic, glamourous, gallant, etc was in large measure the values and behaviors associated with being rural, aristocratic, feudal, etc. Sometimes accurately associated, sometimes not. There was a turning to those values by artists, writers, etc for many reasons - a revolt against the enlightenment and the French revolution - later a revolt against industrialization and its side effects.
The south was more rural - it had social systems that to some extent resembled feudalism (large farming communities headed by a paternalist landowner with unfree farm workers - the closest equivalent in the north would be the Dutch patroons of the Hudson Valley - and the tenants there were free, and the patroons didnt have the same aristo culture) It had a politically dominant class that was in some ways like a landed aristocracy. Free poor whites were more likely than their opposite numbers in the northeast to included hunting as part of their way of life (given settlement patterns) IIUC. So southerners tended to emphasize their "cavalier" origins, BEFORE the war.
They also, I think generated more cavalier style officers. A Jeb Stuart for example. There were Yankees who were brave, and there were Yankee officers who were effective - but were there Yankee officers who had the kind of personal style of a Stuart? I suppose there were, but I doubt they were as many or as prominent.
It may be partly due to the writers (Foote as was mentioned), but part is reality - For at least the first 2/3 of the war the south was winning against the odds.
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I disagree; the rebellion was losing territory and men from very early on. The loss of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland to the Federals, the Federal drives down the Mississippi and up the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, the Federal gains along the Atlantic coast and the losses of Nashville and New Orleans come to mind. The war didn't go well in the east but went fairly well in the west and along the coast. And I don't see any time that the south was actually winning except maybe a short time during Bragg's invasion of Kentucky.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dd714
The US military lost its best military leaders to the rebellion.
I have to disagree again. The Confederacy was never able to supply enough talented commanders for it's armies and only had one man capable of commanding a large army well (Lee) and only a handful of excellent corps commanders (Longstreet and Jackson may be the only ones). Whereas the Federals brought forth several very capable army and army group commanders (Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Ord, Sheridan, McPherson and Meade) and an entire bushel of excellent corps commanders--not counting those who moved to army command we had Griffin, Wright, Stanley, Wood, Reynolds, Davis, Hancock, Parke, Logan, Dodge, Humphries, AJ Smith. Why even ole Joe Hooker was a good corps commander.[/quote]
Last edited by Irishtom29; 10-01-2010 at 12:27 PM..
I cannot think of any reasons as to why Jackson would not have made an excellent army commander, perhaps even better than Lee.
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