Gary Gallagher and Chandra Manning’s Interpretation of the Southern Confederacy

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The era of the Confederate War emerged as a contentious topic. The fact that the Confederate's proposition for independence was unsuccessful has made several commentators reluctant to consider the importance of nationalism. Many commentators assume that if there indeed existed a sense of Confederate nationalism worth debating over, then the Confederacy would indeed have won the battle and created its independence. Moreover, since the reason for the entire undertaking was slavery, and the reason that slavery had fewer absolute defenders since 1865, Confederate nationalism has frequently been distasteful. In the present times, nevertheless, most historians have started to pay much attention to Confederate nationalism. Rather than instinctively assuming that it must have either been spurious or nonexistent, historians such as Gary Gallagher as well as Chandra Manning have commenced examining the Confederacy from various perspectives as this historic event attempts to present the Southern American culture to the world and conceivably to the South American residents. Therefore, to completely comprehend the significance of the Southern Confederacy of the essential happenings in the United States this paper will offer both Gary Gallagher and Chandra Manning’s interpretation of the Southern Confederacy.

Gary Gallagher's Understanding Regarding the Southern Confederacy

Gary Gallagher believes that with the focus on the dynamics of class, sex, as well as human race, supporters of the new convention only confine their conception of the history of the Confederacy (Gallagher, 78). According to Gary Gallagher, it is not surprising that these supporters assume that gaps in the Confederacy brought down the troubled state due to the reason that the revolutionists concentrated on the military aspect of the battle and the home-front issues alone. In Gary Gallagher’s viewpoint, “such assumptions have made historians to lose sight of the point that a substantial number of Southerners-the white folks particularly-steadfastly supported their nascent nation and those Confederate militaries more than once nearly persuaded the North that the price of compelling the rebellious southern states to defeat would be too costly” (Gallagher, 82).

Fetching mostly on primary sources as confirmation of his opinions, Gary Gallagher challenges the principal assertions of the other historians in the series, and mainly convincing in his arguments are the episodes that thoroughly connect facets of nationalism with the popular will. With respect to the issue of nationalism, Gary Gallagher argues that many other historians have become more engaged in the discerning utilization of sources to determine their contention that internal skirmish was the actual cause of the defeat of the Southerners (Gallagher, 84). Also, according to Gary Gallagher, other historians have merely overlooked the indispensable and colossal body of evidence indicating that a substantial portion of the white southerners, notwithstanding of their sexual category, class, or the human race, maintained the combat for their independence until their military armies were forced to surrender (Gallagher, 94). In addition, Gary Gallagher finds unsubstantial validation for the assertion that an enormous populace of the white Southerners underwent sentiments of guilt with reference to enslavement or that the Southern women were withdrawn from their defiant spouses as argued by some of the other historians (Gallagher, 98). The author states that “this interpretation of the Confederacy exclusively reflects the politically interrelated fantasy and not the historical certainty” (Gallagher, 108). With respect to the above arguments, I believe that the magnitude of evidence provided by Gary Gallagher reiterates his suggestion that the Union capitulated as a result of the Northern militia breaking their military resistance and not because of internal battles. In Gary Gallagher’s proposition, the South’s ultimate consent of defeat was not only rational but also realistic. Additionally, I believe the Civil War is a significant and thought-provoking history to the present-day body of Civil War manuscripts.

According to Gary Gallagher, other historians assumed the fact that “the Southern Confederates by large numbers represented a solid sense of identification with their state “and that “these individuals accepted defeat since the Union militaries had invaded their land and obliged their armies to surrender” (Gallagher 117). These declarations are all that Gary Gallagher provides as evidence; he is “supposing that solid national identity was present within the Civil War” (Gallagher, 126). However, in my opinion, Gary Gallagher does not convincingly explain what led to his postulation. He argues that “the assumptions in his book were derived from the letters of approximately more than three hundred women and men” (Gallagher 131). However, in my view, this is hardly a definitive sample size to reach such conclusions.

Gary Gallagher furthermore considered terminologies such as “our country” to serve as evidence of Southern Confederate nationalism (Gallagher 133). In my view, this is flimsy reasoning because it is impossible to detect how deeply the Confederates felt or detect if they were communicating in a technical logic. Besides, it is easy for an individual to admit nationalism within a letter; however, this leaves a fundamental question answered, which is: what actions did such people take when the circumstance became challenging? Moreover, Gary Gallagher depends on the diaries and letters, but in my opinion, these materials so profoundly fail to capture an individual's behavior, which I consider to be the essential aspect of detecting people’s honest emotions. The perfect example of this controversy is that of a female autobiographer who inscribed that “slaveholders will not quietly generate their assets and hopes and permit a sullied race to be positioned at one stroke on a level with them” (Gallagher 141). She further emphasized that by “faith in the cause we can never be defeated” (Gallagher 149). The lady expressed some sense of nationalism; however, when individual sacrifice was needed, she would not behave by supporting freedom. The only one instance where Gary Gallagher makes a comprehensively documented symbolization for Confederate nationalism exclusively applies to a small section of the population, “slaveholding traders who attained maturity throughout the 1850s” (Gallagher 157). To what degree these people’s feelings can be generalized to the whole population is, however arguable.

Chandra Manning’s interpretation concerning the Cause of the Confederate War

Within her book, “What This Cruel War Was Over,” Chandra Manning seeks to explore the manner in which the soldiers (Union, Black, and Confederates) perceived the Civil War, as well as the reasons why they participated in the battle. In Chandra Manning’s point of view, the obvious answer is because of slavery (Manning, 226). Within the Union troops, Chandra Manning contends that soldiers viewed themselves as part of the U.S. historical mandate to protect condescending principles of self-government and freedom- a perception commonly marked with millennialist implications of improving the community. In this philosophical framework, slavery was a disfigurement in that system (Manning, 228). Chandra Manning also asserts that the northern army settled on slavery as the reason for a battle far earlier than most politicians and the broader northern population did and that they tremendously backed the closure during the war. Chandra Manning is cautious to note that anti-slavery attitudes and sentiment towards racial equality were not synonymous since the white soldiers were much vaguer in attitudes towards racial equivalence throughout the war period (Manning, 229).

In the South, serfdom was simply fundamental to the Confederate armies' perception of combat. Chandra Manning also claims that Confederate nationalism took a less philosophical preference as compared to that of the Union patriotism; it instead focused on a more individualized self-interest that emphasized the protection of their family members (Manning, 231). For the Southern soldiers, serfdom was critical for themselves as well as their families as it served as the basis of their social world order and assured white southerners (slave owners) power via mastery of the black folks (Manning, 234). Through this lens, the closure was perceived as a treacherous threat to everything that was vital to them as well as to the safety of the white family members (Manning, 236).

In Chandra Manning’s view, revisionists of the Confederate War have for an extended period of time discussed the minds and lives of the Civil War common soldiers; nevertheless, they have differed on the degree to which patriotism and ideology stirred these armed forces (Manning, 238). In contrast to these historians, who are champions of the stance that group and communal unity exhilarated the Civil War soldiers and not ideologies, Chandra Manning reasons that the soldiers were “profoundly philosophical” (Manning, 240). Chandra Manning additionally argues that both soldiers from either side demonstrated an ardent sense of nationalism in the letters they wrote for their families, but then again, she demonstrates the extensive variations amidst the Confederate and Union logic of nationalism.

For instance, Chandra Manning disproves Gary Gallagher's suggestion that the passion for the Confederacy surpassed class exclusions. Rather, she proposes that the armed forces’ obligation to the Confederacy was bound by a strong sense of opinion or belief that the Confederacy could better be formed by their household, which in return depended upon preserving the Southerner’s slave-based and classified social order (Manning, 241). For this reason, Chandra Manning believes that “slavery served as the core drive which put the Confederate together, even amongst the non-slave-holding Southern whites who bore an exceedingly deep commitment to serfdom” (Manning, 245). Despite becoming profoundly dissatisfied with their regime, militaries confirmed their longing to support the Confederacy so long as it could end the Southern white folks from being subject to a state power overseen by an antislavery frontrunner (Manning, 238). In short, Chandra Manning considers that the Confederacy was a union bound together by a strong self-interest against serfdom (Manning, 249).

Chandra Manning backs her assertion with a substantial magnitude of first-person testimonies recorded in that period rather than the usual erratic after-the-fact diaries. As most Civil War records lean overwhelmingly on men, Easterners, and officers who fought in Virginia, Chandra Manning chronicles a much more comprehensive detail of the Civil War. For instance, Chandra Manning takes account of the Western fighters, African-Americans, and immigrants in order to “estimate cross sections of the real Confederate and Union ranks” (Manning, 307). Based on her exposition, the book "What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers" lacks any jargon and appeals to the general audience, even though Chandra Manning’s cruel criticism of the white Southerners insights vis-à-vis slavery as well as her overpowering admiration of Union military commitment to liberation takes a step beyond other historian’s clarification.

Manning’s conclusions can be termed as a reductionist way of thinking because of the manner in which she interprets a scope of what appear to be particular reasons for joining the defenses as an extrapolation of one crucial motivation. Chandra Manning, for instance, claims that while both the Northerners and Southerners alleged to be fighting for independence and their comprehension of the Revolution, Confederate concepts could not be separated from “personal interests, or from slavery” (Manning, 312). Manning offers sufficient proof of the manner in which several opinions can be comprehended within the framework of slavery. According to Manning, “Servitude played numerous roles which non-slave proprietors believed to be essential for themselves and their families” (Manning, 316). Chandra Manning constructs her contention atop a historiographical system that rarely enters her account; however, it can be easily followed within her footnotes. She is most persuasive concerning slavery's centrality to the Confederate and Union armies’ comprehension of the Civil War.

Conclusion

In light of the above facts, it is clear that Gary Gallagher strives to craft the fact that the southern Confederates characterized a solid logic of nationalism. To explain his argument, Gary Gallagher considers terminologies such as our country to act as evidence of Southern Confederate nationalism. Garry further argues that declarations such as “the Southern Confederate as a whole characterized a solid sense of identification with their state “and that “these individuals acknowledged defeat from the time when the Union militaries had attacked their land and compelled their armies to surrender” indicates the aspect of nationalism. However, as aforementioned, I believe this as insubstantial reasoning for the reason that it is difficult to discover how deeply the Confederates felt or detect if they were communicating in a technical sense.

On the contrary, Chandra Manning disproves the argument that the Southern Confederacy was bound together by intense feelings of nationalism; instead, she believes in the case that the Confederate's participation in the battle should be understood ultimately as the defense of slavery and not nationalism. Chandra Manning supports her declaration with a substantial magnitude of first-person confirmations chronicled in that period, instead of the common inconsistent after-the-fact records, which makes her more convincing vis-à-vis slavery’s significance to Confederate and Union armies’ conception of the Civil War.

Works Cited

Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War. Harvard University Press, 1999: pp. 68-326.

Manning, Chandra. "What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers." Slavery, and the Civil War (New York, 2007) 12 (2007): 221-494.

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