Their Tattered Flags: The Epic of the Confederacy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Their Tattered Flags: The Epic of the Confederacy. By Frank E. Vandiver . (New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1970. Pp. 362. $10.00.) Few historians would find it possible to bring forth a scholarly book while pinch-hitting as president of a major university. But Frank Vandiver , as every one knows, is no run-of-mine historian; and in Their Tattered Flags he has produced a work that is both good history and good literature. It is not that there is much new information in the book, for it is not that kind of history that the author is attempting here. But in analysis and in evaluation of men and events there is much food for thought for both scholar and general reader. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the book is its conciseness. In short, crisp sentences and in rich dramatic detail Professor Vandiver has packed a panoramic view of the entire life of the Confederacy into slightly more than three hundred pages of text and twenty-five of notes. Starting with the background of secession he moves swiftly but coherently through the establishment of the Confederacy, the formation of the executive government, and a discussion of the great problems facing it: the raising of an army, the difficulties of supply, the gaining of foreign recognition, the establishment of a sound currency. With all but a few of Vandiver's conclusions most students of the Confederacy will not quarrel. Fort Sumter was a "symbol" of sovereignty of greater import than its strategic worth. Confederate diplomacy failed largely because of the ineptitude of its early diplomats. Confederate finance was a makeshift not only because of the lack of specie but because the administration failed to grasp the fundamentals of finance. He pays due homage to the traditional heroes: Lee, Jackson, Longstreet , Forrest. He is high in his praise of the competent Chief of Ordnance Josiah Gorgas, and few will dispute the low mark he gives Commissary Chief Lucius Northrop. He gives approval to Jefferson Davis's "offensive-defensive" strategy, and in general his evaluation of Davis is more positive than that of most students of the Civil War. Many, for instance , will question his assertion that Davis possessed "an unexpected capacity to grow with the presidency," and that he became "a modern chief executive" (p. 33), especially in view of the author's citation of case after case of important executive decisions influenced by personal prejudice, partiality, pique, or just plain stubborness. Eyebrows will also be raised at his characterization of General Earl Van Dorn as a man of "competence," at his naming John Hunt Morgan as perhaps "the 260 finest independent commander in the western army" other than Bedford Forrest (p. 122), at his assertion that Beriah Magoffin was "the head" ofthe Kentucky Unionists in 1861 (p. 48). But these are minor points in a general history of so large a subject so well conceived and so brilliantly executed. Vandiver is at his best in describing the military operations he knows so well. But he devotes precious few pages to battles in this book. With all he has to tell there is no room here for detailed maneuvers. Yet, in a brief page or two he somehow sets the stage of battle; and then, with dramatic prose, he makes the scene come alive with dogged men locked in mortal combat. One has the feeling he is an eyewitness. It is not only battle scenes that come alive. The reader is taken on a conducted tour through the embattled Southland, and he sees it all: war refugees crowded into Richmond, inflation, bread riots, "cold-water" parties, art, literature, music, the theatre. The Trans-Mississippi Confederacy is given adequate treatment and so is soldier life: disease, hard work, no pay, short rations. Politics, cotton diplomacy, commerce raiders , the Trent Affair, inflation, produce loan, tax-in-kind, impressment, problems of supply, inadequate transportation, blockade running, suspension of habeas corpus, the arming of slaves—nothing is neglected. The reader comes to the end of the book with a sweeping overview of life in the Confederacy—the war, the suffering, the exhilaration of combat and victory, the agony of final defeat. Through...