Why the Confederacy Lost (review)

356CIVIL WAR HISTORY Why the Confederacy Lost. Edited by Gabor S. Boritt. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 209. $19.95.) Almost as soon as the Civil War ended, arguments began over why the national government had triumphed. Scores of historians have offered answers ranging from the debilitating influence of state rights on the Confederate war effort, to the secessionists' failure to secure foreign recognition, to supply shortages resulting from the Union naval blockade, to inflation. Most academic historians—prejudiced against things military and oblivious to the coming of winter—have usually ignored the obvious reason for Confederate defeat: Rebel armies lost the key battles. If the secessionists had triumphed at Shiloh, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and/or Atlanta, the Confederacy would probably be an independent nation. None of the items on the traditional list of reasons for Rebel defeat affected these battles in any way. Why the Confederacy Lost is the product of the 1991 Gettysburg College Civil War Institute. The authors of the papers in this welcome collection avoid irrelevant matters and focus on military factors in Confederate defeat. (The institute dealt with Confederate—not Southern—defeat. Many, perhaps most, Southerners did not support the Confederacy.) James M. McPherson skillfully argues the old idea that the Confederates were very close to gaining independence in the summer of 1864. Without the Yankee victories that came that fall, Abraham Lincoln would not have been reelected and a peace party in the North might have abandoned the effort to hold the Union together. At several "points of contingency" in 1862, 1863, and 1864, "superior northern [military] leadership" produced victory. This interpretation of Federal success "seems more convincing than [do] other explanations for Union victory" (38, 41). Archer Jones explores wartime strategy. The superior strength of the defense led Federal generals to reject a combat strategy in favor of a logistic strategy (eventually modified into a raiding strategy) of separating Rebel armies from the infrastructure that sustained them. The secessionists sought to protect their territory to provide support for their armies and to bolster public morale. Both sides adapted military strategy to political reality. Gary W. Gallagher argues that the war's three most important commanders —Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Robert E. Lee— in general made wise strategic decisions. That being the case, Gallagher needs to develop fully his explanation in regard to the book's title. Reid Mitchell maintains that Union soldiers displayed a stronger ideology and morale than did their opponents. This superiority stemmed from love of the Union, a bonding with their comrades, and, for a few, BOOK REVIEWS357 a commitment to abolish slavery. Rebel morale, meanwhile, suffered from "ideological and structural weaknesses, and they were the key to Confederate defeat." These weaknesses stemmed from the fact that the Southern nation was "created as a means to defend slavery" (124). Joseph T. Glatthaar points to the "critical contribution of blacks to the defeat of the Confederacy" (137)—both as Union soldiers and in undermining the Rebel homefront. Blacks who escaped to Federal lines, for example, weakened the labor force supporting the Confederate armies. The essays by McPherson, Jones, Gallagher, and Mitchell would all have been enhanced if the authors had focused on the basic questions: Who? What? When? Where? Could the constant defeats the Rebels suffered in the west have weakened their commitment to the Confederate cause more than did any contradiction between fighting for the freedom to keep slaves? Slavery, as McPherson points out, did not weaken the American cause in the war for independence. The Confederate strategy of defending territory failed in the west, not in the east. Was it appropriate for the west? If not, why not? If so, why did it fail? Which Confederate generals commanding which armies in which battles lost the war? The answers to these questions—adumbrated by both McPherson and Gallagher—is that the war was lost by the Confederacy in the west. The war in Virginia produced a stalemate. Fortunately, historians at long last are turning to the western theater, and we are now beginning to get the detailed studies that should facilitate our understanding of the war's most important armies, battles, campaigns, and generals...