Civil War symposium opens inaugural weekend

Gary Gallagher of the University of Virginia discussed the Civil War through the lens of Hollywood, following presentations by Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust and President Ayers.

Three perspectives on the Civil War from three prominent historians opened the inaugural weekend of President Edward Ayers.

Ayers, who discussed Reconstruction, is a Southern history scholar and author or editor of 10 books, including The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

He was joined by Drew Gilpin Faust, president and Lincoln Professor in History at Harvard University. She discussed the enormous number of Civil War deaths and the physical, emotional, spiritual and political toll they took.

The third speaker, Gary W. Gallagher, is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia. He examined portrayal of the Civil War in films, particularly during the past 20 years.

Faust, whose latest book, The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, said the 620,000 Civil War deaths would equate to six million today, “something that’s unimaginable.” The logistics of dealing with that many dead led to mass graves, civilians searching battlefields for loved ones, and no means of identifying soldiers who perished.

Eventually the government stepped in to help identify the deceased, bury them and try to notify loved ones. After the war, the government began a massive search operation, locating and reburying the bodies of some 300,000 Union soldiers in newly created federal cemeteries. 

Ayers acknowledged the “profound confusion” that followed four years of “unimaginable slaughter.” Despite predictions in the South that within 50 years the African-American race would be gone, Southern blacks took the initiative to reunite their families, often searching years for loved ones sold during slavery. They also created businesses, acquired property and “showed a great thirst for learning,” said Ayers.

White Southerners dealt with “almost intolerable” depression and defeat. But against this backdrop of chaos and suffering, Ayers highlighted stories of solace and hope.

Hollywood influences what people believe about the war, said Gallagher, author of Causes Won, Lost and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War.

He said films depict the war as one of four traditions: the Union cause, the lost cause, the emancipation cause or the reconciliation cause.

The lost cause is losing ground in Hollywood after earlier gaining favor in its two most famous films, Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, he said.

The Union cause, an effort to show the war as a means of maintaining a viable republic, is harder to explain in film. Modern movies have typically shown the Union cause, and Union soldiers, negatively, he said.

Since the movie, Glory, the emancipation cause has moved to the forefront, he said.