Member Review The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates by Edward Pollard

To give the poor guys Pollard is criticizing a little credit:
1. Its harder to fight the war in the field, then in the newspaper

2. Pollard is repeating reports he's got, not first hand knowledge, and there could be factors he's not aware of.
 
Which is odd, because a few reports were printed in his paper, and in his Richmond competitors papers. So either he was unaware of those articles, or he didn't believe them, or the mass enlistment of slaves was something he considered quite different from a few black men put to work on artillery at Manassas or on picket duty.

Chapter 40 - Pollard returns to Sherman at Savannah, and the discussion with Grant about how to bring the army back north. Pollard quotes some of Grant's correspondance, so once again we have at least one source for his information. And of course it was decided that Sherman would march north through the Carolinas and join with Grant's army in Virginia to defeat Lee. Sherman chose his routes so as to confuse the few Confederate military forces as to his true destination. And according to Pollard, his army was fond of burning. Georgia hadn't fared too badly, but South Carolina did.

In reaching this important line of communication, Sherman's march had been tracked by fire. The well-known sight of columns of black smoke attested its progress. In Georgia not many dwelling-houses were burned ; in South Carolina the rule was the other way, and positively everything was given to destruction and pillage. The country was converted into one vast bonfire. The pine forests were fired, the resin factories were fired, the public buildings and private dwellings were fired. The middle of the finest day looked black and gloomy, for a dense smoke arose on all sides, clouding the very heavens. At night the tall pine trees seemed so many pillars of fire.

The scenes of license and plunder which attended these conflagrations were even more terrible. Long trains of fugitives lined the roads, with women and children, and horses and stock and cattle, seeking refuge from the pursuers. Long lines of wagonr covered the highways. Half-naked people cowered from the winter under bush-tents in the thickets, under the eaves of houses, under the railroad sheds, and in old cars left them along the route. Habitation after habitation, village after village, sent up its signal flames to the others, and lighted the sky with crimson horrours.
Pollard is particularly scornful of Sherman's bummers, calling them "brigands", "cut-throats" and "thieves", and he quotes New York Times reporters that accompanied them in describing how they operated. Sherman takes his army to Columbia which was lightly defended, due to the few Confederates still operating trying to cover other possible routes of Sherman's approach. Wade Hampton and his men retreat, despite wanting to fight, and Sherman promises the mayor his town will be safe. But, says Pollard, the pillaging had already begun. Pollard quotes from the local newspapers, so here at the end of the war we at last get an idea of his sources.

Stores were broken open, and the contents strewn on the side-walk ; citizens were robbed in the street ; no one felt safe in his own dwelling.* Robbery was going on at every corner in nearly every house. It was useless to complain. Crowds of escaped prisoners, soldiers, and negroes, intoxicated with their new-born liberty which they looked upon as a license to do as they pleased, were parading the streets in groups. The reign of terrour did not fairly begin till night. In some instances, where parties complained of the misrule and robbery, Federal soldiers said to them, with a chuckle : " This is nothing. Wait till to-night, and you'll see h—11."
Columbia burns all night, and the devastation is terrible. Pollard discusses attempts to lay the blame, which were already controversial in 1866, a year after this happened.

An attempt has been made to relieve Gen. Sherman of the terrible censure of having deliberately fired and destroyed Columbia, and to ascribe the calamity to accident or to carelessness resulting from an alleged order of Gen. Hampton to burn the cotton in the city. This explanation is a tardy one, and has come only after Gen. Sherman has observed the horrour which this crime has excited in the world, and realized some of its terrible consequences. To the imputation against Gen. Hampton, that chivalrous officer, whose word friend nor foe ever had reason to dispute, has replied in a public letter : " I deny emphatically that any cotton was fired in Columbia by my order. I deny that the citizens 'set fire to thousands of bales rolled out into the streets.' I deny that any cotton was on fire when the Federal troops entered the city.

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The burning of Columbia was but of a piece with Sherman's record, and the attempt to exculpate him in this particular is but little consistent and plausible in view of his general conduct from the moment when he entered South Carolina. He had burned six out of every seven farm houses on the route of his march. Before he reached Columbia, he had burned Blackville, Graham, Kamberg, Buford's Bridge, Lexington, and had not spared the humblest hamlet. After he left Columbia, he gave to the flames the villages of Allston, Pomaria, Winnsboro', Blackstock, Society Hill, and the towns of Camden and Cheraw. Surely when such was the fate of these places, the effort is ill-made to show that an exception was to be made in favour of the State capital of South Carolina, the
especial and notorious object of the enemy's hate and revenge, and which, for days before the catastrophe, had been designated as " the promised boon of Sherman's army."
Pollard switches to the evacuation and fall of Charleston.

Charleston came into the enemy's possession a scarred and mutilated city. It had made a heroic defence for nearly four years ; for blocks not a building could be found that was exempt from the marks of shot and shell ; what were once fine houses, presented great gaping holes in the sides and roof, or were blackened by fire ; at almost every step were to be found evidences of destruction and ruin wrought by the enemy. After a display of heroism and sacrifice unexcelled in the war, this most famous city of the South fell, not by assault, or dramatic catastrophe, but in consequence of the stratagem of a march many miles away from it.
The chapter switches to the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington in North Carolina. Once again, numbers tell the tale, and the Confederates are unable to prevent the loss of the fort and the surrender of their forces there. Pollard then returns to Sherman's march through North Carolina. Sherman began to have to actually fight, and Pollard is clearly glad that Joe Johnston was back in command. It appeared a decent sized army would be gathered to face Sherman, but....

...this army, which appeared so imposing in the enumeration of its parts, was no match for Sherman. When the enemy's campaign in South Carolina commenced, Hardee had eighteen thousand men. He reached Cheraw with eleven thousand, and Averysboro with about six thousand. Eleven hundred State troops left him between those places by order of Gov. Magrath of South Carolina ; but the balance of his great loss was due, almost entirely, to desertions. These figures are from an official source, and show without the aid of commentary how low had fallen the military organization and spirit of the Confederacy. '​

The battle of Bentonville takes place. Pollard assesses it thus:

The battle—known as that of Bentonsville-— although it had failed to fulfil what was probably Johnston's purpose, to cripple Sherman before he could effect a junction with Schofield, had been a most creditable affair for the Confederates. "With fourteen thousand men they had encountered the 14th and 20th corps of the enemy and Kilpatrick's cavalry, an aggregate probably of forty thousand men.

On the 20th the whole Federal army was in Johnston's front, which was changed parallel to the road. The Confederates were compelled to hold their ground that day and the next, to cover the operation of carrying off their wounded. Sherman's whole army was before them...
The chapter closes with Grant, Sherman and Lincoln looking towards the capture of Richmond.

No sooner had Sherman disposed his army in camp about Goldsboro' than he hastened to City Point, where he had a conference with Gen. Grant, at which President Lincoln was present, and where was settled the final plan of combination against Richmond ; it being intended that Sherman should move to the line of the Roanoke and thence on the Richmond and Danville road, or directly to the front of Petersburg. But this plan was never carried into operation ; Grant saw reason to anticipate it ; and the fate of Richmond was decided without any participation of Sherman in the catastrophe.

So, you are finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Almost there!! Pat, I'm amazed you made it through this book so quickly.

Chapter 41 returns to Lee and the final days of his army around Petersburg. Pollard puts the count at 33,000 versus 160,000 for Grant, which while there was a large disparity of numbers between the two armies, was not quite that large. Lee "had not despaired of the cause", but things were looking bad.

He [Lee] was gravely sensible of the danger ; in frequent conference with committees of the Congress at Richmond, he stated frankly his anxiety, but urged levies of negro troops, held out what hope he could, and expressly and firmly discountenanced any surrender of the Confederate cause by premature negotiations with "Washington. On one of these occasions he made the personal declaration for himself that he had rather die on the battle-field than surrender...
Pollard notes, as he's done before, that the civilian populace were not told how much the army had dwindled through desertion. Pollard blames government censorship for this, and as a newspaper man, he'd no doubt experienced some of this personally.

So reticent had the Government become, that the newspapers were forbid publishing anything of military affairs beyond the scanty doles of information and the skeleton telegrams furnished to the reporters by an official authority, and copied at the desks of the War Department. It thus happened that while there was a general despondency of the public mind, there were few outside the severe official circles of Richmond who knew the real extremities to which the arms and affairs of the Confederacy had fallen.

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While every one affirmed that the affairs of the Confederaey were in a bad way, and while every one appeared to have a certain sense of approaching misfortune, there were very few who knew the real condition and numbers of the armies of the Confederacy, and realized how far had been undermined its system of defence.
It was difficult indeed to believe that the Army of Northern Virginia— that army, whose name had been for four years as the blast of victory had declined to a condition in which it was no longer capable of offensive
operations.
The public still hoped for another upturn in fortunes, they still hoped for independence. Rumors made the rounds, and the public had not yet given in to despair.

Pollard gives an account of the Hampton Roads conference. Francis Blair secured an agreement by both sides to talk. The Confederate Congress prevailed on Alexander Stephens to go to this conference. Stephens, says Pollard, "had blown hot and cold in the war" and demonstrated how hard it is "to distinguish between a real statesman and an elaborate demagogue." In this meeting, Lincoln was happy to discuss "our common country" while Davis "had
the one word, Independence.' " Lincoln himself went, and while the informal conference was polite, it produced no results.

... there being absolutely no basis of negotiation between the two parties, not even a single point of coincidence between them, they separated without effect. The Confederate commissioners obtained only from the interview the distinct, enlarged, and insolent demand of Mr Lincoln, that the South should submit unconditionally to the rule of the Union, and conform to the advanced position of the Federal Executive on the subject of slavery
The peace talks produced nothing, but Davis hoped to use this to "excite anew the spirit and indignation of the Southern people."

It was indeed a powerful appeal to the heart of the South ; it had displayed the real consequences of subjugation ; it had declared what would be its pains and penalties and humiliation ;. it was the ultimatum
of an enemy calculated to nerve the resolution of a people fighting for liberty, and to make them devote anew labour and life for the great cause of their redemption.
There was a public discussion in Richmond about Lincoln's demands, and while it appeared that the public had been angered and galvanized, "it was only the sickly glare of an expiring flame ; there was no steadiness in the excitement ; there was no virtue in huzzas ; the inspiration ended with the voices and ceremonies that invoked
it ; and it was found that the spirit of the people of the Confederacy was too weak, too much broken to react with effect, or assume the position of erect and desperate defiance." Pollard notes Davis made a speech and he was unimpressed by the President's "grotesque" "boastfulness" under the circumstances. Davis was delusional, according to Pollard.

...it was frequently said that he attempted to blind the people as to the actual condition of affairs, and never dealt with them in a proper spirit of candour. But this estimate of President Davis is probably a mistaken one. He was not insincere ; in all his strange and extravagant utterances of confidence he probably believed what he spoke ; and to the last he appears never to have apprehended the real situation. He was blinded by his own natural temper ; in the last moment he was issuing edicts, playing with the baubles of authority, never realizing that he was not still the great tribune ; he was sustained by a powerful self-conceit, and a sanguine
temperament ; and he went down to ruin with the fillet of vanity upon his eyes.
Lee attempts to go on the offensive, but his troops no longer are in any condition to do so. The battle of Hare's Hill "demonstrated to all that the day of offensive movements on the part of the Confederates was gone. The experiment had entailed a loss that could be ill afforded by Gen. Lee ; and one more such disaster might have been irreparable." Grant decides not to wait on Sherman to arrive and moves against Lee's army. His numbers were such that Lee's thin line could no longer hold. Sheridan finishes off Early's army, and the battle of Five Forks is another Union victory. The valiant Confederates try to hold their lines but are unable to do so. A. P. Hill dies during this sequence of events, and Lee finally is forced to advise the evacuation of Richmond. "A small slip of paper, sent up from the War Department to President Davis, as he was seated in his pew in St. Paul's Church, contained the news of the most momentous event of the war." The evacuation came as a surprise to the people of Richmond, who as Pollard noted, had no idea how bad things had become.

The report of a great misfortune soon traverses a city without the aid of printed bulletins. But that of the evacuation of Richmond fell upon many incredulous ears. One could see the quiet streets stretching away,
unmolested by one single sign of war ; across the James the landscape glistened in the sun ; everything which met the eye spoke of peace, and made it impossible to picture in imagination the scene which was to ensue.
There were but few people in the streets ; no vehicles disturbed the quiet of the Sabbath ; the sound of the church-going bells rose into the cloudless sky, and floated on the blue tide of the beautiful day. How was it possible to imagine that in the next twenty-four hours, war, with its train of horrours, was to enter the scene ; that this peaceful city, a secure possession for four years, was at last to succumb ; that it was to be a prey to a great conflagration, and that all the hopes of the Southern Confederacy were to be consumed in one day, as a scroll in the fire !
Richmond becomes chaotic as disorder spread throughout the day, and one imagines that Pollard personally witnessed much of this scene. Pollard describes the evacuation, the attempts to maintain order, and the "mad revelry of confusion" that accompanied all of this. Adding to the chaos was a fire, started by General Ewell's men as they tried to destroy warehouse of supplies. It was a "souvenir" of the Confederacy's incompetent government.

....this mad fire, this wild, unnecessary destruction of their property the citizens of Richmond had a fitting souvenir of the imprudence and recklessness of the departing Administration.​

The Union armies entered the battered city the next day as the fire raged on. The Union troops did attempt to stop the fire, but did not have sufficient men or equipment, and in the end the fire just burned itself out. So many civilians had lost everything they had in this fire, and it was a pitiful scene. As Richmond suffered, the North celebrated the great victory. Pollard mocks the North for celebrating what he calls the "disgrace of this commander", referring to Grant, who should have won months sooner than he did!

...that he should have taken eleven months to capture a position at no time held by more than one third of his forces, having lost in the enterprise in killed and wounded more than double the numbers actually in arms
against him ! This sentence may grate on Northern pride ; but it is founded upon plain, unyielding figures ; it is the inexorable statement of the law of proportions ; it can be no more contested than a mathematical
demonstration. As long as the intelligent of this world are persuaded of the opinion that a great General is he who accomplishes his purposes with small, but admirably drilled armies ; who defeats large armies with small
ones ; who accomplishes great military results by strategy, more than by fighting, who makes of war an intellectual exercise rather than a match of brute force, that title will be given to Robert E. Lee above all men in America, and the Confederate commander will be declared to have been much greater in defeat than Grant in his boasted victory.




 
Pollard mocks the North for celebrating what he calls the "disgrace of this commander", referring to Grant, who should have won months sooner than he did!
Weren't you surprised when he wrote that? I thought that it was really odd. But that became the narrative for the Lost Cause point of view. Pollard is just the earliest and most ham-fisted proponent of it.
 
Chapter 42 covers the aftermath of the fall of Richmond and Lee's retreat and ultimate surrender. Pollard says that some in Richmond still hoped that Lee and Johnston might turn things around, though such homes were "remote". It was hard to give up entirely after four long years of struggle. Davis and his cabinet had reached Danville and tried to encourage the people. But....

...the sequel was to develop and demonstrate all these consequences, and the last hopes of the Confederacy were to be speedily extinguished.
Lee's army retreats, and he starts out at a good pace with 20,000 men. But upon reaching Amelia courthouse, the "bungling" authorities in Richmond had failed to leave food for the army there, and things quickly became desperate.

But it was no longer a question of battle with Gen. Lee ; the concern was now simply to escape. His men were
suffering from hunger ; half of them had been sent or had straggled in quest of food ; soldiers who had to assuage their craving by plucking the buds and twigs of trees, were scarcely to be blamed for courting capture ; and thus with his army in loose order, in woeful plight, diminishing at every step, Gen. Lee determined to try the last desperate chance of escape, and to penetrate the region of hills in the direction of Farmville, hoping to
avail himself of these positions of defence.
The army simply began to disintegrate due to hunger, both of men and animals, and the constant pursuit of the Union army. "Hundreds of men dropped from exhaustion ; thousands threw away their arms ; the demoralization appeared at last to involve the officers ; they did nothing to prevent straggling ; and many of them seemed to shut their eyes on the hourly reduction of their commands, and rode in advance of their brigades in dogged indifference." The old fire was not quite dead though:

But in the jaded, famishing crowd there was yet left something of the old spirit which had made the Army of Northern Virginia famous through out the world, and inscribed its banners with the most glorious names of
the war. Its final retreat was not to be without its episodes of desperate and devoted courage.​

It was not enough to prevent the capture of large portions of what was left of the army.

The true situation was soon apparent to Gen. Lee. In pressing for Lynchburg he had to put himself in a dangerous predicament ; he was on a strip of land not more than seven or eight miles broad between the
James and Appomattox rivers ; and the firing in front indicated that the outlet towards Lynchburg was closed by Sheridan, while Meade in the rear, and Ord south of the Court-house completed the environment and
put Lee in a position from which it was impossible to extricate his army without a battle, which it was no longer capable of fighting.
Lee is down to 8000 men with muskets, and after determining that they simply could not hold back the enemy, a truce was declared. Pollard includes the correspondence between Lee and Grant discussing the terms of surrender, and the terms being agreed to, the two men met to formalize them.

The interview of the two commanders took place at the house of Mr. Wilnier McLean. It was a great occasion ; thrilling and wonderful memories must have crowded upon these two men as they stood face to face. But the interview was very simple ; there was no theatrical circumstance ; there was not a sentimental expression in what was said. No man abhorred anything melo-dramatic more than Gen. Lee. His manner with Grant bordered on taciturnity,, but not so as to exhibit temper or mortification. "His demeanour' writes a Federal observer of the memorable scene, " was that of a thoroughly possessed gentleman who had a very disagreeable duty to perform, but was determined to get through it as well and as soon as he could."

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...and without other question or remark the act that was to put out of existence the Army of Northern Virginia was reduced to form at a deal table.
The army learns of the surrender and there are tears and great emotion at the end of the long fight. Lee's final written farewell to the army is reproduced by Pollard, the Army of Northern Virginia stacks its arms and accepts parole, and the surrender terms are completed. Pollard compliments Grant on his "remarkable delicacy" for not being present at the surrender. Like Davis, Pollard is scathing in his assessment of Grant throughout the book, but will occasionally offer a compliment on those rare occasions he feels it is deserved.

Indeed, this Federal commander had, in the closing scenes of the contest, behaved with a magnanimity and decorum that must ever be remembered to his credit even by those who disputed his reputation in other
respects, and denied his claims to great generalship. He had with remarkable facility accorded honourable and liberal terms to the vanquished army. He did nothing to dramatize the surrender ; he made no triumphal
entry into Richmond ; 'he avoided all those displays of triumph so dear to the Northern heart ; he spared everything that might wound the feelings or imply the humiliation of a vanquished foe. There were no indecent exultations ; no " sensations ; " no shows ; he received the surrender of his adversary with every courteous recognition due an honourable enemy, and conducted the closing scenes with as much simplicity as
possible.​

Lee is cheered when he returns to Richmond, and escapes into his home and retirement as quickly as he can. Lee's surrender is celebrated in Washington and around the North. The chapter closes with Abraham Lincoln as he remarks on the victory in his "characteristic way" by making a joke on what should be a "grand and historic occasion":

A vast concourse of people assembled at the President's house to make the popular congratulations to Mr. Lincoln. There was music, illuminations ; the ground was ablaze with triumphal lights ; and the vast crowd
called impatiently for a response from the President. It was a grand historical occasion ; one of great thoughts and imposing circumstances ; one for noble and memorable utterances. The President of the United States
came forward, and called for the " rebel " song of " Dixie." He said : " I have always thought that "Dixie" was one of the best songs I ever heard. Our adversaries over the way, I know, have attempted to appropriate it ; but I insist that on yesterday we fairly captured it. I referred the question to the attorney-general, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is now our property. (Laughter and loud applause.) I now ask the band to give us a good turn upon it." It was the characteristic speech and last joke of Abraham Lincoln.​
 
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Weren't you surprised when he wrote that? I thought that it was really odd. But that became the narrative for the Lost Cause point of view. Pollard is just the earliest and most ham-fisted proponent of it.

I honestly can't say I was surprised, because it's a statement that is consistent with Pollard's view of Grant as a poor general. "Yeah, he won, but he should have won a lot sooner. Stupid Yankees" seems like pretty typical Pollard after reading 700 pages of his opinions.
 
Chapter 43 - Pollard characterizes Lee's surrender as the decisive event of the war. Lee's surrender made Johnston's position untenable. He and Sherman meet to work out the surrender of his army. Pollard calls the surrender document "extraordinary" and the terms Sherman granted surprising. But Sherman didn't mean it.

There was much, surprise on the part of the Southern people, that a man of Sherman's furious antecedents and incendiary record m the war, should exhibit such a spirit of liberality as contained in the above paper. But further developments explained the apparent contradiction, and showed that Sherman intended the paper only as a snare ; that he was prepared to violate its spirit as soon as it was signed ; that he had made up his mind to disregard the paroles he took, and to refuse to protect thein ; and that lie was performing a part of hypocrisy, the meanest it is possible to conceive.
Sherman, says Pollard, offering congressional testimony as evidence, just said whatever he needed to say to get that paper signed, and that the terms offered no protection from post-war prosecution. Sherman was a liar and hypocrite, says Pollard, still angry.

It is almost impossible to find terms, within the decent vocabulary of history, to characterize the effrontery and self-complacency of this confession of a game of hypocrisy with a conquered honorable adversary, surrendering his arms with full faith in the promises of the conqueror.
The government in Washington did not agree to Sherman's terms anyway, because....

... no plan could be entertained at Washington that substituted the simple idea of a restored Union for
that of subjugation. The Federal Government, as is already apparent in these pages, was not likely to be satisfied with anything short of the abolition of slavery in the South, the extinction of the State governments,
or their reduction to provisional establishments, and the programme of a general confiscation of property.
Johnston's army ultimately surrenders with the same terms given to Lee. The dominoes fall, and one by one the various regions of the Confederacy fall, the armies surrendering. Pollard details the battle of Mobile Bay, and then the surrender of Kirby Smith's army in the Trans-Mississippi. Pollard bemoans the fact that the war did not end in some grand, dramatic contest of arms, but slowly fizzled out as it were.

How far fell the facts below these dramatic anticipations ! The contest decisive of the tenure of Richmond and the fate of the Confederacy was scarcely more than what may be termed an " affair," with reference to the
extent of its casualties, and at other periods of the war its list of killed and wounded would not have come up to the dignity of a battle in the estimation of the newspapers. Gen. Lee's entire loss in killed and wounded^ in the series of engagements that uncovered Richmond and put him on his final retreat, did not exceed two thousand men. The loss of two thousand men decided the fate of the Southern Confederacy ! The sequence was surrender from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The whole fabric of Confederate defence tumbled down at a stroke of arms that did not amount to a battle. There was no last great convulsion, such as usually marks the final struggles of a people's devotion or the expiring hours of their desperation. The word " surrender " travelled from Virginia to Texas. A four years' contest terminated with the smallest incident of blood-shed ; it lapsed ; it passed by a rapid and easy transition into a profound and abject submission.

There must be some explanation of this fiat conclusion of the war. It is easily found. Such a condition could only take place in a thorough demoralization of the armies and people of the Confederacy ; there must have been a general decay of public spirit, a general rottenness of public affairs when a great war was thus terminated, and a contest was abandoned so short of positive defeat, and so far from the historical necessity
of subjugation.​

Pollard spends some time discussing and analyzing the various reasons given for the Confederacy's defeat: demoralization of the Southern population after four years, and the greater numbers and resources of the North. While some accept this, Pollard points the finger at:

.... mal-administration, the defective execution of the conscription law, the decay of the volunteer spirit, the unpopularity of the war, and that these are the causes which lie beyond this arithmetical inequality, which, in fact, produced the greater part of it, and which must be held responsible in the explanation.

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There is no doubt that this superiourity of the North in numbers had great weight ; that it contributed much to the discomfiture of the Confederacy ; that it must be taken largely into any explanation of the results of the war—but the great question, at last, remains, was this numerical inequality, of itself, sufficient to determine the war in favour of the North, considering the great compensation which the South had in superiour animation, in the circumstance of fighting on the defensive, and, above all, in the great extent of her territory. We fear that the lessons and examples of history are to "the contrary, and we search in vain for one instance where a country of such extent as the Confederacy has been so thoroughly subdued by any amount of military force, unless where popular demoralization has supervened.
Numbers alone do not account of the Confederacy's defeat, Pollard says. The Southern public was demoralized, and the government was poor. "...war is an intricate game, and there are elements in it far more decisive than
that of numbers." The Southern leadership knew full well they were outnumbered in 1861 when the war began, but they did not feel that meant defeat was inevitable.

At the beginning of the war in America all intelligent men in the world and the Southern leaders themselves knew the disparity of population and consequently of military force as between the North and South ; but they did not on that account determine that the defeat of the South was a foregone conclusion, and the argument comes with a bad grace from leaders of the Confederacy to ascribe now its failure to what stared them in the face at the commencement of the contest, and was then so lightly and even insolently dismissed from* their calculation. The judgment of men who reflected, was that the South would be ultimately the victor, mainly because it was impossible to conquer space * that her subjection was a " geographical impossibility ; " that three millions of men could not garrison her territory ; that a country so vast and of such peculiar features —not open as the European countries, and traversed every where by practicable roads, but wild and difficult with river, mountain, and swamp, equivalent to successive lines of military fortifications, welted, as it were, with natural mounds and barriers—could never be brought under subjection to the military power of the North. And these views were severely just ; they are true forever, now as formerly ; but they proceeded on the supposition that the morale of the Confederacy would be preserved, and when the hypothesis fell (mainly through mal-administration in Richmond) the argument fell with it.
Pollard's conclusion about why the South lost? The bottom line for him is this:

There is but one conclusion that remains for the dispassionate student of history. Whatever may be the partial explanations of the downfall of the Southern Confederacy, and whatever may be the various excuses that
passion and false pride, and flattery of demagogues, may offer, the great and melancholy fact remains that the Confederates, with an abler Government and more resolute spirit, might have accomplished their independence.
Pollard closes the chapter with the observation that the same argument is likely to repeat itself, and that while the Confederates lost, they still felt themselves right.

The Confederates have gone out of this war, with the proud, secret, deathless, dangerous consciousness that they are the setter men, and that there was nothing wanting but a change in a set of circumstances and a firmer resolve to make them the victors. To deal with such a sentiment, to keep it whipped, to restrain it from a new experiment requires the highest efforts of intellect, the most delicate offices of magnanimity and kindness, and is the great task which the war has left to American statesmanship.​
 
Chapter 44 closes out Edward Pollard's history of the Civil War, written in the year after it ended. He considers some final consequences and looks to the future. The South was devastated.

That war closed on a spectacle of ruin, the greatest of modern times. There were eleven great States lying prostrate ; their capital all absorbed ; their fields desolate ; their towns and cities ruined ; their public works torn to pieces by armies ; their system of labour overturned ; the fruits of the toil of generations all swept into a chaos of destruction ; their slave property taken away by a stroke of the pen ; a pecuniary loss of two thousand millions of dollars involved in one single measure of spoliation—a penalty embraced in one edict, in magnitude such as had seldom been exacted unless in wars synonymous with robberies.
The future was in the hands of Washington. "Restoration" vs "restriction" is how Pollard characterizes it, noting that the party of restriction and revenge was in charge. But that would lead to further division, not healing.

But to men who had read the lessons of history it was clearly apparent that this policy would be destructive of the very ends it proposed ; that it would increase the acerbity of feeling at the South ; that it would deliver the two races over to the most violent discord ; and that it would be the occasion of immeasurable chaos and interminable anarchy.​

The conservative party in the north favored Reconstruction with the States already in the Union, having never left in their view, and punishment exacted against individuals who had "resisted the authority of the Union". Lincoln had taken this view, but...

...the tragical death of President Lincoln, in a public theatre, at the hands of one of the most indefensible but courageous assassins that history has ever produced, the Executive office passed to the Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, the Southern people ignorantly deplored the change as one to their disadvantage, and the world indulged but small expectations from the coming man.
But Pollard praises Johnson for stepping up and taking the right approach. He met the challenges of the hour as he should have, and was "second only to George Washington". He recognized the rights of states, and occupied the middle ground between either group of extremists in Washington.

So how did the future look to Pollard, in 1866? Not so good.

At the time these pages are committed to the press, a series of measures has already been accomplished or introduced by the Radical party in the Congress at Washington that' would accomplish a revolution in the American system of government, the most thorough and violent of modern times. Propositions have been made so to amend the Constitution as to deprive the States of the power to define the qualifications of electors ; propositions to regulate representation by the number of voters, and not of population ; propositions to declare what obligations assumed by the States shall be binding on them, and what shall be the purposes of their taxation. What is known as the Civil Rights Bill (passed over the President's veto) has not only established negro equality, but has practically abolished, on one subject of jurisdiction at least, State laws and State courts. In short, the extreme Black Republican party at Washington has sought to disfranchise the whole Southern people, to force negro suffrage upon the South, to prevent the South from being represented in Congress so as to perpetuate the power of the Radicals, and afford them the means of governing the Southern States as conquered and subjugated territories.
It's "despotism" says Pollard, and the Radicals do not understand the resentment they're producing by their actions. He speaks directly to the Northern people, advising them that the South must be freed from "oppression" and "confiscation", and that the South must recover economically.

It is not by political agitation that this interest is to be promoted ; not under the hand of the Fanaticism that sows the wind that there are to grow up the fruits of industry. When the Southern people obtain political reassurance, and are able to lift the shield of the Constitution over their heads, they will be prepared for the fruitful works of peace ; they will be ready then for the large and steady enterprises of industry.
The loss of state power in favor of national power is clearly a concern for Pollard. The war may have decided some issues, but not all, he says:

He must be blind who does not perceive in the indications of Northern opinion and in the series of legislative measures consequent upon the war the sweeping and alarming tendency to Consolidation. It is not only the territorial unity of the States that is endangered by the fashionable dogma of the day, but the very cause of republican government itself.
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The State Rights put in question by the propositions we have referred to in Congress, are not those involved in the issue of Secession, and, therefore, decided against the South by the arbitration of the war. The Radical programme, which we have noted above, points the illustration that the war did not sacrifice the whole body of State Rights, and that there was an important residuum of them outside of the issue of Secession, which the people of the South were still entitled to assert, and to erect as new standards of party. It is precisely those rights of the States which a revoltionary party in Congress would deny, namely : to have their Constitutional representation, to decide their own obligations of debt, to have their own codes of crimes and penalties, and to deal with their own domestic concerns, that the Southern States claim have survived the war and are not subjects of surrender.
The future peace and security of the nation is at stake, Pollard says. It's interesting to me that a year after the war he's already wondering if another lies down the road.

Has the past war merely laid the foundation of another? The pregnant lesson of human experience is that few nations have had their first civil war without having their second ; and that the only guaranty against the repetition is to be found in the policy of wise and liberal concessions gracefully made by the successful party.​

Pollard offers one last gracious comment about Jefferson Davis, and his prediction about the future. The struggle is not yet over.

There is a better judgment already read by the Southern people of what the war has decided as against themselves. The last memorable remark of Ex-President Davis, when a fugitive, and before the doors of a prison closed upon him, was : " The principle for which we contended is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." It was a wise and noble utterance, to be placed to the credit of
an unfortunate ruler.

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... a great struggle of constitutional liberty yet remains, and that there are still missions of duty and glory for the South.

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The people of the South have surrendered in the war what the war has conquered ; but they cannot be expected to give up what was not involved in the war, and voluntarily, abandon their political schools for the dogma of Consolidation. That dogma, the result has not properly imposed upon them ; it has not " conquered ideas." The issues of the war were practical : the restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery ; and only so far as political formulas were necessarily involved in these have they been affected by the conclusion. The doctrine of secession was extinguished ; and yet there is something left more than the shadow of State Rights,

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It is to be feared that in the present condition of the Southern States, losses will be experienced greater than the immediate inflictions of fire and sword. The danger is that they will lose their literature, their former habits of thought, their intellectual self-asssertion, while they are too intent upon recovering the mere material prosperity, ravaged and impaired by the war.
Pollard is deeply concerned about the future of the Southern people, and that they do not allow the loss of the war to change who they are and what they hold to be important. His pride in the people of the South is on full display, as is, sadly, his racism towards the black man.

Defeat has not made " all our sacred things profane." The war has left the South its own memories, its own heroes, its own tears, its own dead. Under these traditions, sons will grow to manhood, and lessons sink deep that are learned from the lips of widowed mothers.

It would be immeasurably the worst consequence of defeat in this war that the South should lose its moral and intellectual distinctiveness as a people, and cease to assert its well-known superiourity in civilization, in political scholarship, and in all the standards of individual character over the people of the North.

-----------

The war has not swallowed up everything. There are great interests which stand out of the pale of the contest, which it is for the South still to cultivate and maintain. She must submit fairly and truthfully to what the war has property decided. But the war properly decided only what was put in issue : the restoration of the Union and the excision of slavery ; and to these two conditions the South submits. But the war did not decide negro equality ; it did not decide negro suffrage ; it did not decide State Rights, although it might have exploded their abuse ; it did not decide the orthodoxy of the Democratic party; it did not decide the right of a people to show dignity in misfortune, and to maintain self-respect in the face of adversity. And these things which the war did not decide, the Southern people will still cling to, still claim, and still assert in them their rights and views.

This is not the language of insolence and faction. It is the stark letter of right, arid the plain syllogism of common sense. It is not untimely or unreasonable to tell the South to cultivate her superiourity as a people ; to maintain her old schools of literature and scholarship ; to assert, in the forms of her thought, and in the style of her manners, her peculiar civilization, and to convince the North that, instead of subjugating an inferiour country, she has obtained the alliance of a noble and cultivated people, and secured a bond of association with those she may be proud to call brethren !
The book ends with Pollard telling the South to stand tall, and preserve who they are.

In such a condition there may possibly be a solid and honourable peace ; and one in which the South may still preserve many things dear to her in the /past. There may not be a political South. Yet there may be a social and intellectual South. But if, on the other hand, the South, mistaking the consequences of the war, accepts the position of the inferiour, and gives up what was never claimed or conquered in the war ; surrenders her schools of intellect and thought, and is left only with the brutal desire of the conquered for " bread and games ; " then indeed to her people may be applied what Tacitus wrote of those who existed under the Roman Empire : " We cannot be said to have lived, but rather to have crawled in silence, the young towards the decrepitude of age and the old to dishonourable graves."
I'll try to put together a summary, and since it's Pollard's views and when he wrote them that make this particular history of the war interesting to me, that's what I'll focus on. Since I took this book on originally as an attempt to see how much of the lost cause came out of "The Lost Cause", I think that will be a useful approach for me to take.
 
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I'll try to put together a summary, and since it's Pollard's views and when he wrote them that make this particular history of the war interesting to me, that's what I'll focus on. Since I took this book on originally as an attempt to see how much of the lost cause came out of "The Lost Cause", I think that will be a useful approach for me to take.

So, you are finished reading the book!
 
So, you are finished reading the book!

Yes! All in all, it was worth my time to read it in order to get a contemporary southern view of the war and its causes and results. Generally the book moved at a decent pace, though I thought it was a little slow when Pollard stopped to detail some of the longer battles, and I agree with you that the flow is off sometimes in that he often departs from the war to tackle some other subject and then returns to the war.

I wonder if there's an equivalent book that expresses the northern point of view from someone who lived through the war?
 
Part 4:

The delusions of the Confederates were fed by early victories. Manassas, for example, was treated by the Southerners as one of the decisive victories of world history, even though it was a relatively small affair. Southern whites saw it as proof of the superiority of their kind over the Yankees. Instead of following up the victory with redoubled efforts, Pollard claims, the Confederates rested on their cheaply won laurels. The Northerners with their “active and elastic spirit” responded to defeats by rebuilding their forces with “infuriate energy.” The wonder of Manassas was not the Confederate battlefield victory. Pollard says that “[t]here is no more remarkable phenomenon in the whole history of the war than the display of fully awakened Northern energy in it, alike wonderful in the ingenuity of its expedients and in the concentrated force of its action.” Ultimately it was this spirit of the North that led to victory.

Southern morale, on the other hand, suffered with each defeat. Pollard reminds us that early in 1862, the defeats began piling up. These were not caused by “Providence” as Confederate leaders sometimes said. The were caused, Pollard charged, by “mismanagement” by Confederate officials and officers. The Union would administer battlefield rebukes “to the vaingloriousness of the South [which] were neither few nor light. The Confederates had been worsted in almost every engagement that had occurred since the fall of 1861. There had come disaster after disaster, culminating in the fall of Donelson, the occupation of Nashville, the breaking of our centre, the falling back on all sides, the realization of invasion, the imminence of perils which no one dared to name.” These loses would never be recovered.

Of course, the greatest loss for the South was the loss of her slaves. Although the Republicans had assured the world that the object of the war was reunion not emancipation, in fact the fanatics of the Republican Party, Pollard alleges, had always had their eyes set on ending slavery. Lincoln may have said that the Emancipation Proclamation was anchored in military necessity, but it was the really the permanent triumph of political fanaticism.

The Emancipation Proclamation initially hurt the Northern war effort. It mobilized sectors of Southern society that had sat out the conflict in the expectation that the Union could be restored with slavery intact. It also united the Democratic opposition to the Lincoln administration. Its long-term effects, however, would contribute to the revolutionizing of Southern society.
What was being written was a attempt to justify the unjustifiable.If one wants to prove a stand then one seeks that which would support it ,regardless of the intelligence of his/her argument,what matters to him is that he is able to convince enough people who may already view the issues the same way or convenience those who engaged in the acts that there is a logical ,even moral reason for them to have done so.He writes and speaks as a emotional preacher would to a congregation that is ready and trusting in what he says.He the Elmer Gantry of his days.While the South had the Lost Cause the North had their Bloody Shirt speakers and writers who would remind their members that it was the Rebel that began the war and were ready to start another in a political area
 
What was being written was a attempt to justify the unjustifiable.If one wants to prove a stand then one seeks that which would support it ,regardless of the intelligence of his/her argument,what matters to him is that he is able to convince enough people who may already view the issues the same way or convenience those who engaged in the acts that there is a logical ,even moral reason for them to have done so.He writes and speaks as a emotional preacher would to a congregation that is ready and trusting in what he says.He the Elmer Gantry of his days.

Interesting character analysis.
 
Yes! All in all, it was worth my time to read it in order to get a contemporary southern view of the war and its causes and results. Generally the book moved at a decent pace, though I thought it was a little slow when Pollard stopped to detail some of the longer battles, and I agree with you that the flow is off sometimes in that he often departs from the war to tackle some other subject and then returns to the war.
The book is readable. I agree that the really long battle descriptions get tedious.
 
I thought I'd bump this thread since I've had some discussions with a fellow poster about Pollard's book. One of the takeaways I got from reading it is that it seems to have contributed the title "The Lost Cause" to that school of history and little else. Almost none of the ideas commonly associated with "the Lost Cause" are present in this book, or that was what I saw when I read it three years ago. Far from sugarcoating the war and it's causes and effects, Pollard is quite blunt about the cause and the effects, at least as he understood them in 1866. Has anyone else read this book, and what did you think of this question?
 
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I thought I'd bump this thread since I've had some discussions with a fellow poster about Pollard's book. One of the takeaways I got from reading it is that it seems to have contributed the title "The Lost Cause" to that school of history and little else. Almost none of the ideas commonly associated with "the Lost Cause" are present in this book, or that was what I saw when I read it three years ago. Far from sugarcoating the war and it's causes and effects, Pollard is quite blunt about the cause and the effects, at least as he understood them in 1866. Has anyone else read this book, and what did you think of this question?
One aspect of the Lost Cause that is not in the book is reverence for Jeff Davis. Other aspects are in the book.
 
I thought I'd bump this thread since I've had some discussions with a fellow poster about Pollard's book. One of the takeaways I got from reading it is that it seems to have contributed the title "The Lost Cause" to that school of history and little else. Almost none of the ideas commonly associated with "the Lost Cause" are present in this book, or that was what I saw when I read it three years ago. Far from sugarcoating the war and it's causes and effects, Pollard is quite blunt about the cause and the effects, at least as he understood them in 1866. Has anyone else read this book, and what did you think of this question?
The content of The Lost Cause book itself was a springboard for the counterfactual narrative that followed. Jubal Early & The Southern Historical Commission created the “myth” that Gettysburg was the ultimate CW battle. It was Early et al that raised Lee, Jackson & A. S. Johnston to the status of demigods.

Pollard’s book is an artifact of history, not any more of a source for citations than his wartime newspaper is. The book is a secondary source, as such it is an example of writing from its time, not a historical text like a military order would be. If it hadn’t been the rock in the pond that gave its name to the counter factual narrative, nobody would read it today.
 
One aspect of the Lost Cause that is not in the book is reverence for Jeff Davis. Other aspects are in the book.
I haven’t read the book but read through this thread and it seems that Pollard differs from the Lost Cause propaganda in some other key ways:

Pollard clearly identifies slavery as the cause of the conflict and it’s abolition as a aim of the north. The Lost Cause, especially modern proponents, goes out of its way to downplay or outright deny slavery as a cause.

Pollard doesn’t think the rebellion was doomed from the start but rather was doomed from poor leadership, primarily on the part of Jeff Davis. It is this mismanagement rather than the superior man power and resources of the north which caused defeat.

Pollard doesn’t mention so called “black confederates” which is a large component of modern Lost Cause mythology. This is especially odd given that the existence of such would bolster his position that slavery was a benign institution and actually a good thing for African Americans.

Just some observations. I think I’m going to add Pollard’s book to my reading list.
 
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