To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (review)

To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism. By Cecelia Elizabeth O'Leary. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Pp.336. Paper, $17.95.)

Cecelia Elizabeth O'Leary traces the formation of American patriotic culture from its Civil War roots to its maturation during World War I in her ambitious book To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism. After a brief examination of antebellum patriotism, O'Leary explores the impact of the Civil War on patriotic culture. She finds that initially defined as loyalty to the Union, a perspective that held forth at least the possibility of racial and gender equality, patriotism became militarized and more strongly identified with white chauvinism. This martial patriotism gained the ascendancy over an alternative progressive patriotism, which stressed the United States's obligation to promote equality, especially in light of the heroic sacrifice of African Americans during the Civil War. Not surprisingly, African Americans are the main proponents of this progressive view, and much of the book traces the abandonment of the progressive view by their white allies. The progressive view never completely succumbs to its racist alternative, but at the book's close with the aftermath of World War I, patriotism is marked by mainstream conformity.

O'Leary mostly looks to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and the Women's Relief Corps (WRC) to identify prevailing views of patriotism after the Civil War. She builds a credible case for viewing these organizations as the arbiters of good citizenship, and so her focus on them seems reasonable. The passing of time and the evolution of the United States into an imperialistic world power weaken the influence of the GAR and WRC, and O'Leary lessens their importance to her narrative and analysis correspondingly, substituting other suitable exemplars of American views of patriotism. Even after the Spanish-American War, the symbolic value of the Civil War remains, and Civil War veterans retain a place in defining patriotic culture. By the time of the fiftieth anniversary of Gettysburg, however, the veterans have turned into little more than props for North-South reconciliation, a reconciliation marked by its hostility toward African American equality.

Unfortunately, O'Leary's analysis of patriotism during the Civil War is not satisfactory. In making her case for the patriotic fervor of the postwar period, she pays short attention to the state of patriotism at the start of the war, stating, "the political and economic contradictions of maintaining a system of slavery overshadowed any sense of national unity." If this were true, then why did the North fight a war to maintain the Union initially with the avowed intention not to tamper with the institution of slavery? Similarly, Confederates tapped patriotic sentiments in support of secession, but O'Leary ignores these, until later when during the Spanish American War they become incorporated into the increasingly martial view of patriotism. O'Leary also offers unimpressive evidence, including a quote from the Red Badge of Courage for the proposition that the flag took on special importance to Union soldiers during the war. While Stephen Crane's fine novel may have much to say about the state of patriotism when it was written in 1895, its evidential value for understanding the psyche of Civil War soldiers is at least questionable. Certainly, for such evidence to have any value, it must be placed in context, which in this case, O'Leary fails to do. In contrast to her use of Stephen Crane, O'Leary puts John Ford movies made in the 1950s in proper context to nicely flesh out changing attitudes toward Confederates in the 1890s.

It is a testament to the overall strength of To Die For, that one can forget these initial flaws. By highlighting the paradox between progressive and martial patriotism, O'Leary has established an analytical framework that future work on American patriotism will have to acknowledge and build on. It is also to O'Leary's credit that...