Well into the final months of the Civil War, countless Confederate
soldiers earnestly believed that victory lay just around the
corner. How could this be? Jason Phillips reveals the deeply
ingrained attitudes that shaped the reality of these diehards not
only during the war but in the subsequent era, when the myth of the
Lost Cause was born.
Much is known about what Confederate soldiers fought for; far
less is understood about why they fought on despite long odds and
terrible costs. Drawing on soldiers' letters and diary entries from
1863 to 1865, "Diehard Rebels" explains how religious dogma and
perceptions of Union barbarity and ineptitude affirmed in many
soldiers a view of an indomitable South. Within the soldiers'
closely circumscribed world, other elements reinforced convictions
that the South was holding its own against great but surmountable
odds. Close comradeship and disorienting combat conditions were
factors, says Phillips, as well as conclusions drawn from images
and experiences contradicting the larger reality, such as
battlefields littered with enemy corpses and parade-ground
spectacles of Confederate military splendor.
Troops also tended to perceive the course of the war in far-off
theaters, the North, and overseas in positive ways. In addition,
diehards were both consumers and conduits of rumors,
misinformation, and propaganda that allowed them to envision a war
that was rosier than the truth but still believable. Instead of
crippling diehards after defeat, old notions of southern
superiority helped them uphold southern honor. The central elements
of Confederate invincibility fueled white southern defiance after
surrender and evolved into the Lost Cause.
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