Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (review)

Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten is an effort by one of our most renowned Civil War historians to explain how, and to a lesser extent why, the war has been interpreted in recent cinema, paintings, and sculpture. Gallagher identifies "four major traditions" (p. 2) originally formulated in the nineteenth century which still inform popular interpretations: the Lost Cause, the Union Cause, the Emancipation Cause, and the Reconciliation Cause. The Lost Cause emphasizes Confederate gallantry and sacrifice in a noble but hopeless struggle to establish a new nation against overwhelming odds; the Union Cause the patriotic devotion of northern troops to a virtuous nation which Confederates were attempting to rupture; the Emancipation Cause the humanity of black Americans and the need for the abolition of slavery; and the Reconciliation Cause the common valor, sacrifice, devotion to duty, and American values of soldiers on both sides.

Gallagher finds that the once-dominant Lost Cause has fallen from favor in most films made since the era of the civil rights movement. The Reconciliation Cause has fared somewhat better, while the Emancipation Cause has soared. A recurring theme and lament in the book, reflected in the title, is the extent to which the Union Cause has been forgotten by post-Vietnam filmmakers who sneer at nationalism and American exceptionalism, and who delight in negative portrayals of the military.

A point which deserves greater emphasis than Gallagher gives it, though certainly he recognizes it, is the extent to which presentist attitudes influence historical movies. The 1986 comedy Sweet Liberty, in which Alan Alda plays a historian whose book is distorted outrageously by filmmakers to appeal to sensation-craving teenagers (most of the movie-going public), makes this point humorously, but explicitly and cogently. The Civil War on film often tells us more about ourselves, and especially about Hollywood, than it does about history. Gallagher views the demise of the Union Cause as an ironic triumph for the Lost Cause, but the truth is that both have suffered partly because today's Tinseltown seldom exalts honor, patriotism, faith, family, or sacrifice for any cause larger than self.

Of the four interpretive traditions, Gallagher is most critical of the Lost Cause—even though he concedes that "Lost Cause themes" (with the important exception of minimizing the importance of slavery) are based on historical truths (p. 46). Confederate soldiers were often outnumbered, ragged, and hungry, southern civilians did endure much material deprivation and a disproportionate amount of bereavement, U.S. forces did wreak havoc on southern infrastructure and private property, and the like, yet whenever these points appear in films Gallagher considers them motifs "celebratory" of the Confederacy (p. 81). Apparently in our search for a usable past some truths are more desirable than others.

Turning to painting and sculpture, Gallagher finds Lost Cause themes not merely flourishing but ascendant, in contrast to films. Depictions of Confederates abound and are sold in great quantity, while the market for Union artwork is meager. Interestingly, however, the fourth-most-depicted Civil War personage, ranking just after Abraham Lincoln (Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are first and second), is Union general Joshua L. Chamberlain, little known until glamorized in the 1990s by several widely viewed movies. Here is strong testimony indeed to the power of celluloid in our culture. Gallagher quotes the opinions of various artists on why certain images are more popular than others and offers tentative conclusions of his own.