The Collapse of the Confederacy (review)

The Collapse of the Confederacy.Edited by Mark Grimsley and Brooks D. Simpson. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Pp. 201. $47.50.)

The six essays of this volume make for splendid, provocative reading and, cliché as it has become, make a significant contribution to the historiography of the fall of the Confederate States of America. By presenting the view of the Civil War generation as they experienced events from fall 1864 through spring 1865, the writers avoid the determinism that has robbed the end of the Civil War of its vitality. What emerges is a powerful set of portraits of how the Union triumphed and the Confederacy failed in March and April 1865, an "interplay among popular expectations, national strategy, performance on the battlefield, and Confederate nationalism and will" (5).

In his study of the abortive attempts to negotiate peace, Stephen Woodworth suggests that Confederate morale was strong well into 1865 and shows that Southerners preferred continued war to a negotiated peace, if such "meant union and emancipation" (35). Mark Grimsley makes a compelling case for Joseph Johnston's critical role in ending the Civil War, despite Jefferson Davis's desire to continue the struggle. That some 175,000 Confederates eventually surrendered suggests that fighting was a possibility, not a chimera. Grimsley shows Lee and Johnston taking opposite positions: Lee believed the war was lost in February but continued to fight; hence, it is the dutiful soldier Lee who is remembered and not Johnston "who defied his government and refused any longer to fight a lost war"(75). Brooks Simpson illustrates Grant's and Sherman's role in bringing the war to an end. Not only did the two generals blur the lines between civil and military spheres of operation, but also their destruction of Confederate military power and articulation of surrender terms clarified basic postwar relations between Confederate soldiers, their leaders, and the Union. Grant himself did not think the Confederacy would collapse, even if Richmond fell, unless Lee's lines of retreat were cut, and thus took personal charge of pursuing Lee on April 3, 1865. William Feis offers a subtle argument that Jefferson Davis's call for a "new phase of struggle" urged renewed patriotism by supporting regular Confederate Armies and was not an endorsement of guerilla war. George Rable asserts that "wishful thinking" (130) sustained a resilient morale that sustained the war effort and lay the foundations for the Lost Cause. Much of the criticisms leveled against Davis were lamentations about a floundering, but just, cause and not defeatism. Jean Berlin asserts that women, especially poor women, experience the impact of the war differently from men and, in many ways, hastened the end of the war.

The first five essays make a strong case for human agency and contingency that concluded in Confederate surrender. The Confederacy could have continued resistance longer than it did and Jefferson Davis strongly supported that option. At the very least, the Confederacy could have exerted more control over the terms of capitulation. Confederate policy decisions, such as the botched furlough policy in the Army of Tennessee in early 1865 and the decision to hold on to Augusta and Charleston in hopes of presenting a strong front at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference, cost the Confederacy a chance to concentrate against Sherman in the Carolinas. But, as Jean Berlin asserts, the home front was collapsing and a society "based upon the household" (187) could not continue to sacrifice with its women believed they had sacrificed enough. There was a definite limit on the length of potential Confederate resistance.

Taken as a whole, these essays make a compelling case for the interconnectedness of events and beliefs at the war's end. There were no single factors driving inevitably toward a predetermined end. Sherman's capture of Atlanta helped Lincoln win the 1864 election, which permitted Grant to replace political generals with competent officers who could better direct a hard war. These realities made Confederate military mistakes...