4 - Confederate Identity and the Will to Fight

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Comparative history is extraordinarily difficult. Any two cases that might have enough similarities to encourage comparative study will also have enough differences to cast doubt on the effort. Thus, we should note one of the fundamental differences between the German Wars of Unification and the American Civil War that makes comparison difficult. In Germany, independent political bodies moved toward agreement. It was a voluntary unification. The wars of unification were fought against the foreigner (Ausldnder). In the United States, on the other hand, consensus broke down; the war was waged against one's own to secure an involuntary unification. Looking at the world today, it would seem that it is much easier to destroy unions than to create them. Presumably the Southern task in 1861-65, being divisive rather than unifying, was easier than the Northern task. How, then, do we account for the result?

This chapter will attempt to answer that question. My remarks will be more suggestive than conclusive. I would like to buttress a hypothesis for further consideration at other times and places, for one cannot present an entirely convincing argument even within the generous limits allowed here.

In brief, my hypothesis is that during the American Civil War large numbers of Southerners, a significant minority if not a majority, did not identify themselves primarily as Confederates, except in a geographic sense. Southerners in general lacked the nationalistic identification to be expected in an emotional, in-group sense of distinctive, shared history, culture, and nationality. The few true Confederate nationalists did not comprise a positive reference group for many Southerners. Instead, they served as a negative reference group for those who looked to their personal safety, their localities, their families, and the old Union for guides to appropriate behavior and loyalty.