The Confederate battle flag can be stripped from the flagpoles, but the cause for which it waved will never be erased from the slates of history. Whether it was for the cause of states’ rights or for slavery may never be fully determined to the satisfaction of all factions involved.
But for the men and women who fought the battles on both sides it was a war of rights with honor and dignity. And the generals who commanded their troops — both blue and gray —were men of high esteem, of knowledge and wisdom, men who did their duty to both God and country as they saw fit.
In his book, “Confederate Generals, Life Portraits,” (Taylor Trade Publishing, $29.95), historian George Cantor delves into the lives of 16 of the South’s commanding officials.
Cantor, a resident of Bloomfield, Mich., is the author of more than 20 books. He is a consultant to the History Channel and a columnist for The Detroit News.
Of Robert E. Lee, he writes “An American aristocrat and among the most revered figures in our national history.”
Cantor goes deep into the lives of each of the generals who headed the Southern cause, from birth into their last years. He highlights their Civil War campaigns and in some cases their activities in the earlier war with Mexico.
War in Mexico
For example, he points out that the turning point in Lee’s military career, as with so many other Civil War leaders, was the outbreak of hostilities with Mexico in 1846. His performance in the Mexican War was acclaimed by his commander, especially Winfield Scott.
“Lee discovered in himself a genius for reconnaissance work, and he developed the firm conviction that the critical advantage always belongs to the general who knows his territory best.”
As for slavery, Lee is quoted as saying in 1856: “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. I believe it is a greater evil to the white than to the black race. This emancipation will soon result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storms and tempests of controversy.”
Cantor says that Lee was concerned that “secession is nothing but revolution” and that “he had no sympathy for those who wished to dissolve the government made by Washington, his model of the great man.”
Yet, the author points out, how could Lee assist in the invasion of his home state? To Lee this would be “a sacrifice of honor, a betrayal of his heritage. For that he was unwilling to go, even to save the Union.”
Cantor paints Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson as “the greatest military leader this country ever produced. His campaigns are still studied for their near perfection of their execution. The Shenandoah Valley, Second Manassas, Chancellorsville are pored over by military historians as pinnacles of the art of war.”
Jackson, the writer says, was an inspirational leader to his men, a loving husband and, too briefly, a father.
“His stern Presbyterianism seemed to belong more to the era of the great religious wars than the War Between the States.”
Jackson’s view
Like Lee, Jackson graduated from West Point. The war with Mexico, however, was already in progress. But he was sent there. After 15 months, Cantor says, Jackson was promoted to captain and then to major for gallantry on the battlefield.
Jackson, however, was no opponent to slavery. “He felt it was part of the Divine order, and it was not for him to question the designs of Providence. He owned some slaves himself but felt that humane treatment was an imperative.”
Jackson regarded war as “the sum of all evils and that a crisis could be avoided if inflammatory debates about states’ rights were avoided.”
Of Joseph E. Johnston, Cantor writes: “He was the commanding general at the first great battle of the Civil War, and he was the commanding general at the last one. He was the only man to head both the eastern and western Confederate armies. Both his subordinates and his opponents admired him as a master of military skill.”
Johnston, like Lee and Jackson, got his baptism of fire in the Mexican War and was wounded twice.
Feeling that he had been betrayed in line for promotion, Johnston and Jefferson Davis had a brief exchange of correspondence that left a bitter feeling between them. The author sums this up on page 32 of his book:
“There was never any question of cordial relations between the two men again. Their personalities were too much alike, each too eager to find and take offense. The hatred between them only deepened as the war went on, with damaging results for the Confederate cause.”
Longstreet a loser
James Longstreet was another tarnished figure to the Confederate cause, according to Cantor, although the author says that through four hard years Longstreet fought the Union army. But the author goes on to say:
“After the war, he made the two greatest mistakes of his life: he became a Republican, and he dared to criticize Lee’s generalship.
“A small group of former military leaders and writers decided that it was Longstreet’s actions on the second and third days of the Battle of Gettysburg that had given away that victory to the North, and with it any chance of an ultimate Confederate triumph.”
In a later paragraph, the writer says that “Only in the 1970s did a few revisionist historians begin to re-examine the record and make a case that Longstreet had done all he could in an offensive that was the greatest blunder of Lee’s career.”
Stuart disappointed Lee
James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart was one of Lee’s greatest disappointments. An officer that had been of most valuable asset to him, Stuart failed to be present when the time was most crucial. The writer says this about him:
“The one flaw in the character of a brilliant and innovative soldier, as if ordained by fate, had risen up at the worst possible time. Stuart’s boyish love of glory, acclaim, and praise had led him on a meaningless raid through Pennsylvania, miles away from where Lee wanted him. In the minds of many historians of this critical battle (Gettysburg), his absence opened the door to the Southern defeat.”
Nathan Bedford Forrest entered the war as a private and left it as a lieutenant general, the author says. He paints Forrest as possibly “the greatest natural military genius in American history. He understood nothing of textbook war or West Point doctrine. Instead, he had an instinctive feel for what to do on the battlefield and how to disrupt and destroy an enemy’s plans.”
John Hunt Morgan’s military career was a “distillation of Southern chivalry, the way the war was supposed to have been in romantic novels and technicolor epics,” the writer says.
After being “too restless for studies at Transylvania University,” Morgan enlisted as a private in the First Regiment of Kentucky Volunteers to fight in the Mexican War.
After the war with Mexico, Morgan settled for a while as a businessman after marrying Rebecca Bruce, but the clouds of Civil War were gathering.
“When war was declared, Kentucky proclaimed its official neutrality,” the author says. “But Morgan did not. He defiantly flew a secessionist flag over his factory. His wife died in July 1861 and Morgan left Lexington to join the Southern army, certain that he would return to liberate his home state within the year.”
Morgan’s raids brought him to the attention of General Pierre G.T. Beauregard. And a few days before the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, he was promoted to colonel.
After Morgan’s successful raids and exploits, he was described to President Davis at a gathering in Murfreesboro, Tenn., as “brilliant and indispensable” and was given promotion to brigadier general.
“Confederate Generals” goes on to describe the characteristics of the other generals who played major roles in the Confederacy.
They include Albert Sidney Johnston, John Bell Hood, Patrick Cleburne, Jubal A. Early, Braxton Bragg, Robert A. Toombs, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, Leonidas Polk and George E. Pickett.
The writer goes into great detail of their lives in public and on the battlefield. He highlights their relations with each other, their idiosyncrasies, and the effect of their actions in the cause for which they fought.
The battlefield engagements were over more than 135 years ago, but the war is still an issue that probably captures more controversy than the total of all other wars combined.
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