A Confederacy Of . . . ? - "Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America" - book review

Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America, by William C. Davis (Free Press, 496 pp., $35)

In 1862, as England and France weighed the great question of whether to recognize the fledgling Confederacy, William Gladstone -- then Chancellor of the Exchequer -- proclaimed: "Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more than either, they have made a nation." What Gladstone didn't say -- but could have -- was that this was all being done under the direst of circumstances, in the throes of total war. Consider the objective obstacles alone. In 1861, the South fell short in every precious index of military power: It had less than one half of the North's population and of its crucial railroad mileage, less than one third of its bank capital, and less than one tenth of its manufacturing output. And, upon secession, it would somehow have to create a constitution, come up with a national currency, forge a national government, fashion a viable industrial base -- and then fight a war.

ItIt did indeed. At the height of its power, the Confederacy's accomplishments were, by many measures, remarkable. It would stave off the mightiest army on the planet for four long years; its vaunted general-in-chief, Robert E. Lee, would enjoy fame around the globe; and from the lush, green hills of Virginia to the bayous of Louisiana and the plains of Texas, its geography would stretch some 750,000 miles -- larger than all of France and England combined, as large as all of Russia west of Moscow, and double the size of the original thirteen United States. All this occurred in the face of -- and in spite of -- the fundamental stain of slavery.

Yet, as William Davis goes to great pains to note in his new book -- an account of the Confederate national experience beyond the battlefield - - there was a very different face to the Confederacy as well. It is ththe face of a deprived and rancorous home front: the slaves, farmers, planters, women, and governors all struggling to come to grips with the day-to-day trials of a nascent democracy amid the tribulations of war. And, Davis maintains, the new Confederate nation was not a pretty picture. For starters, consider how he describes some Confederate leaders, particularly the early secessionists and the landed "oligarchs": Some are "outrageous," promulgating "nonsense" or "ridiculous rationalizations"; others are "hyperbolic," "arrogant," and guilty of "hypocrisy, demagoguery, and outright lying"; still others, governors and legislators alike, are men of "puny stature." Davis, a prolific author and editor of some dozen books on the Civil War, a number of them very fine ones, is not one to mince words: His premise appears to be that the Confederacy was at best a half-empty glass, doomed from the outset.

This will continue to be debated, perhaps forever; yet Davis's fundamental point is an important and valid one. Born out of conflict, the Confederate nation was riven from Day One by endless bitter disputes and savage factional fighting. One of the first problems for the South was slavery itself, since the preservation of the "peculiar institution" was interwoven into every part of Confederate society. Davis writes that early in the war, apologists for slavery put a great deal of energy into constructing "a mountain of sophistries," disguised as science, to justify slavery as a positive good. Tracts on the proper care and management of slaves were widely disseminated ("Blacks should be housed under shade trees, close to good water, and with good ventilation"), as were guidelines for overseers ("Working adults must have bacon, molasses, lots of bread, and coffee in the morning"; "The more pride and self respect you can instill in them, the better they will behave"). But as more and more white men left their households to go to war, the institution began to come apart: Many slaves would not work. Some turned to plunder and foraging; others fled behind Yankee lines. And as conscription cleaned out virtually all the white men in a number of communities, fear of slave insurrections became widespread across many quarters of the South.

Davis notes that "one of the rudest awakenings suffered by the Confederates was the disillusionment of discovering just how quickly their slaves could turn on them." But even here, the picture was mixed. Across the Confederacy there were also blacks, slave and free, who wanted to support the new nation -- including a free black descended from one of George Washington's slaves. And by the war's end, in a most stunning twist, the Confederacy sought to turn slavery from its Achilles heel to its savior, undertaking dramatic plans to enlist large numbers of blacks, with the promise of freedom.

Among Davis's more intriguing snapshots of the war are his depictions of the fate of the women, the wives and mothers left behind to manage the households. The image endures, in the national memory, of the defiant southern woman as ardent patriot, her voice buttery and blood- hot ("Mary Lou Byrd is for the ladies fighting," declared one soldier, "she is exceedingly anxious to kill Lincoln!"); less attention, however, has been paid to their sacrifices. And they were considerable: As the war ground on, prices skyrocketed, with a toothbrush costing a whopping $5; shortages of food and other goods were rampant (quipped one southerner, "We are now proving our loyalty by starvation"); petty thieves and marauders preyed on the weak; refugees were widespread; slaves were out of control, or deserted, or became a burden simply because they constituted yet more mouths to feed; and in many parts of the Confederacy, the legal system all but collapsed.