Southerners and the downfall of the Confederacy

By MARY JANE PARK

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 25, 2001

Neither industrialization above the Mason-Dixon line nor being outnumbered by Union soldiers nor even the utter wronghood of slavery cost the American Confederacy the Civil War.

In The South vs. The South, historian William W. Freehling posits that the ultimate Lost Cause, as it is sometimes known, was exactly that because white men in border states and black slaves in the South did little or nothing to support the rebels; many joined the Union army, in fact.

Freehling describes three Souths: the Border South, comprising Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri; the Upper South, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia; and the Lower South, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.

In the border and middle states, the number of slave holders had dropped by the time the Confederacy was formed in 1861; neither region depended heavily on slave labor or cotton, sugar and rice crops.

"In thickly enslaved areas, fancied racial dangers united white classes and sexes," Freehling writes. "Whites in black belts shared horror images about freed blacks as rioters, rapists, arsonists and cannibals. . . .

"Many southern whites rarely saw a slave. In almost lily-white portions of the South, whites had little economic interest in slave ownership to protect, little prospect of free blacks to fear, no slaveholders to ask for a loan. . . . It was almost like living in the North, with the important exception that the slavocracy lived closer."

Had large numbers of white men in the border and middle states joined with the Confederate army, it may well have prevailed. President Abraham Lincoln's role in preserving the Union, from the "soft war" he sought to wage to the all-out assault that he knew would be costly to all sides, cannot be understated.

Freehling is a professor of history at the University of Kentucky, and The South vs. the South is heavily annotated and attributed. It is not, however, daunting; he writes with clarity and energy that help speed the reader along.

He offers no pat summary of how the Union prevailed and further suggests that there is no single answer, but his conclusion offers insight:

"Some might dwell exclusively on slavery's moral rather than its physical blight," Freehling writes. "Some might even see the Civil War as an epic morality play, with Providence directing the more moral North to victory. Not this native son of the North, who has spent most of his adult life in the South. With regard to democracy, slavery and racial justice, neither my native nor my adopted region's Civil War record inspires moral pride.

"It was the physical blight from the U.S. version of slavery, not the moral one, that finally made the Confederacy crumble, when emancipation applied the final lever. Once an invading army replaced local patrols, the taproot of slavery could be extracted with one arm tied behind the back, if Lincoln, Grant and Sherman maximized their advantage. And so they did."

With this new book, Freehling has used detailed research to add significantly to our understanding of the American Civil War. It is destined to become a classic reference.

- Mary Jane Park is a Times assistant newsfeatures editor.

The South Vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War

By William W. Freehling

Oxford University Press, $27.50

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