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3 Enemies Like an Avalanche Yankees, Slaves, and Confederate Identity As the Confederacy willed itself into being, it faced a variety of challenges. Confederates created their identity under constant assault, and that identity was ever changing. As many new nations do, they defined themselves in opposition to others. Yankees and slaves, in particular, threatened Confederates ’ sense of self in different ways, forcing them to think about the meaning of loyalty and, in the case of slaves at the end of the war, the meaning of the Confederacy itself. Confederates in areas under occupation found themselves angry or repulsed by Union soldiers but often drawn into relationships with them—whether out of necessity or circumstance—that complicated feelings of loyalty. Could one take the oath of allegiance to the Union yet still remain Confederate? Many people thought so. Confederates also convinced themselves that their slaves were a source of national strength, not, as we know, a force eating away at the Confederacy from within. But by the end of the war, a significant population of Confederates believed that their slaves could be another kind of asset, that they could help Confederates militarily. For these people, the Confederacy had transcended its origins as a slaveholders’ republic.1 ‘‘they exasperate but do not subdue’’ ‘‘The enemy like an avalanche has spread over our whole country. Disregarding all rights, social, religious, and political,’’ complained Zillah Haynie Brandon, an Alabama woman, in 1864. Such callous disregard for Southern rights, Confederates believed, was not a function of war but its very cause. Many white Southerners felt certain that the sanctimonious Yankees wanted only to exploit the South’s agricultural riches and turn its residents into second-class citizens. The North’s concerns, Confederates believed, were less about the ideals of Union and more about the realities of production and exploitation. Brandon confided to her diary that ‘‘the North has long run the vast machine of our government, drained our treasury and now to glean us out of all our toils they plow our valleys, mountains, cities and even the dark waters are turned out of their course that they may engulf all their hellish passion craves.’’ An essay titled ‘‘War’’ in the Southern Field and Fireside condemned the Union for inaugurating the war, charging hypocrisy: ‘‘Under the magic words of liberty and union they sought to hide their groveling worship of mammon.’’2 Francis Williamson Smith, serving in the Confederate army in Virginia, saw ‘‘no peace & no prospect of peace,’’ condemning the North as ‘‘narrow minded’’ and antidemocratic. Like many of his compatriots, Smith attributed the conflict to ‘‘the apparent difference of interest between the agriculturalist , & the merchant, & manufacturer.’’ He went on, however, to blame the U.S. government for exacerbating rather than ameliorating the tensions. The war that engulfed the Confederate States was not their fault; they were the victims, not the instigators.3 This fear of being subjugated by the North, this image of Northerners as villains bent on ‘‘enslaving’’ the South, echoes throughout the writings, public and private, of Confederates. Demonized even before war broke out, Northerners were increasingly characterized as ‘‘Huns’’ and ‘‘barbarians.’’ Emma LeConte, in Columbia, South Carolina, called them ‘‘vandals’’ and ‘‘fiends incarnate.’’ In Camden, Arkansas, John W. Brown complained about the Union division, ‘‘in other words rogues, robbers, and vagabonds,’’ occupying his neighborhood. William R. Smith doubted the Yankees’ Christianity , and Gertrude Thomas was struck by the ‘‘repulsive’’ appearance of Northern prisoners of war.4 Far from scoffing at this seemingly unworthy foe, however, Confederates feared them. The presence of Northern troops became a nationalist rallying point. Stories of Yankee brutality were legion in personal correspondence and became staples of journalism and oratory. Civilians were unaccustomed to confronting their enemies at home, and they responded angrily to Union attempts to break their spirit.5 Josiah Gorgas marveled at the reported cruelties of Union troops and wondered, ‘‘Has war ever been carried on like this before, among civilized people?’’ Gorgas doubted, however, that their mistreatment would break Confederates’ spirit, noting that the Union soldiers ‘‘exasperate but do not subdue.’’ Months later, he again reflected in his journal that ‘‘the war has now assumed that phase in which no mercy can be shown to the enemy. He burns, robs, murders, & ravishes & this is to be met only by killing all.’’6 Revenge, too, was a powerful motivating factor, and Confederates who had frequent contact with Union troops, or whose famiYankees , Slaves, and Confederate Identity : : : 87 [18...

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