David Forbes

Some of this, no doubt, has to do with the multiple ideals, lofty and oppressive, involved in the war. Some of it involves the basic, continuing questions of power that it raised. Some of it involves the fact that it has been placed at the center of ill-fitting packs of glamorized lies (ìGone With the Wind,î to name just one) distributed on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line in its aftermath.

But some of it also has to do with the sheer, bloody ferocity with which it was fought. It is that ferocity, particularly the tenacious fighting spirit displayed by the Southern troops, that is at the center of historian Wiley Swordís superb ìSouthern Invincibility,î (St. Martinís Press, 432 pp. $27.95), a detailed breakdown of exactly why the South fought so long, so bitterly and against such long odds ó and how the same spirit has continued today.

Sword (from Michigan, by the way) forms his tale from the primary sources: letters and stories from selected soldiers and their loved ones. He juggles these narratives convincingly and heís chosen his ìcastî well. There are aristocrats and tenant farmers, belles and servants all within these pages.

They all thought the Confederacy would win, Sword shows, even as he builds an ominous strand through their respective narratives (this is a war, most donít turn out well). As the war nears its end and half-starved soldiers march on frostbitten feet, theyíre still convinced that one good fight is all it will take to drive their enemies back, even as they find ìitís hard to maintain patriotism on ashcake and water.î

There is dangerous delusion in this, as Sword quickly points out. The zeal behind this pride helped pull the country into war in the first place. In a book full of heart-wrenching stories, one in particular stands out. A young Confederate officer marches straight towards enemy lines. The attack is futile. He and his men, courageous as they are, end up getting cut to pieces for nothing. He dies on the battlefield just short of his twenty-fourth birthday.

At the same time, the incredible morale some of the Southern soldiers possessed played a large role in Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jacksonís amazing string of victories.

But that is only half the story, as Sword follows the few remaining members of his initial band into the desperate years after the war. It was that zealous spirit that gave Southerners a very beneficial and practical ability to go home and rebuild, a belief that somehow tomorrow would be better.

Sadly, the delusion continued as well, encouraging no small number of lost-cause types, even to this day, to yearn for a return of the Confederacy, people who viewed pride in terms of subjugation instead of dignity and endurance.

History is the antidote to lies on all sides of the Civil War, of course. It is worth remembering that for every honorable Lee or James Longstreet among the Confederate leaders, there were scumbags like Nathan Bedford Forrest (who later founded the KKK) or corrupt idiots like Braxton Bragg. It is also worth remembering that the devastation caused by the Unionís scorched earth tactics resulted in poverty that the region is only finally recovering from. For all that it is made out to be a shining crusade, the Civil War is actually one of Americaís dirtiest and most morally ambiguous wars. Sword grasps this and that gives this book its real punch. Forget the old fables; there is little nobility in a pile of amputated limbs.

In the end, he sees that the South did rise again ó not in some demented Confederate comeback, but in choruses of ìWe Shall Overcome,î in an ability to face past demons, in cities rebuilt and in its thriving culture. In that respect, the South can teach the rest of the country a thing or two.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was imprisoned in the Birmingham jail. By 1979 Birmingham had an African-American mayor. Thatís Southern invincibility.

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David Forbes, who writes book reviews for the Daily Planet, may be reached at marauderAVL-at-hotmail.com. Suggestions and comments are always welcome.