Customer Reviews

Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Caravan Book)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Civil War is one of the most important events in American history, generating tons of books, magazines, memorials, paintings and statuary. The day the war ended, participants seem to have started books on their experience. Publishing has not stopped and seems to be more active now than 100 years ago. Any large complex event is subject to interpretation. This interpretation creates opportunities for additional interpretations. In time, what happened is subject to various interpretations that are the history of the event. Starting in 1865, the American Civil War was interpreted to fit the needs of groups of people. This created what the author calls the four traditions of our understanding of the war.
Lost Cause; created by Southerners to come to grips with the results of the war.
Union; was what motivated Northerners to fight to maintain one nation.
Emancipation; developed after the war and cast the war as the finial act in the great struggle to end slavery in America.
Reconciliation; is the view that both sides were honorable and fought bravely for deeply held ideals emerging as a stronger united nation. This tradition grew after reconstruction ended and veterans started to establish the National Battle Parks.
Working with these four traditions, the author shows how movies and art portrays them. This can be unsettling. All the more so, if you have seen the movie and viewed the art. The book is similar to looking into a mirror. The reader's tradition(s) can be unsettling as you see their reflection.
The author makes few judgments, trying to be fair to all sides. He has strong feelings about some of the traditions. However, Gallagher refuses to condemn or applauded trends. What we get is an intelligent, very readable account of how we look at the American Civil War.
I have given this book five stars. I am an avid reader of ACW histories and very interested in the traditions on how we view the war. For an avid ACW person less interested in these traditions, this might be a four star book. For those interested in the impact of movies and TV on history, this might be a three star book. This book is an excellent companion to "The Legacy of the Civil War" by Robert Penn Warren. Many of Warren's ideas are supported and expanded on by Gallagher.

This book is one of the most entertaining Civil War books I have ever read, and that includes the hilarious Confederates in the Attic. As a woman going into her last year before getting a BA in History and with plans to go for a graduate degree in the Civil War and American Studies, I am surprised at the dry-as-dust reviews this book has generated so far. All five reviewers pat themselves on the back for explaining the four main interpretations of the Civil War in the media, apparantly without realizing that this information is clearly spelled out in the Product Information section. I am hoping that a person who reads this review will see how much fun this book is. In once instance, the author describes the politically correct view of the Civil War (which he clearly does not agree with) in saying that a better name for The Last Samurai would be Dances With Wolves Goes To Japan. In describing the anti-war, feminist approach Cold Mountain takes, he wonders how such a Confederacy as portrayed in this movie could possibly LAST for four years. And in the begining of the book, in his description of the mini-series North and South, author Gallagher thinks the principle TV direction was probably "A little more over the top, if you please."
Aside from witticisms such as these, Gallagher is a first rate scholar of the Civil War and probes deeply into what the movie going public thinks it knows about the Civil War. The part about Southern feelings about affirmative action and the increasing secularization of America fueling a Lost Cause dominated artwork was particularly rewarding.
For a reader looking for either how popular culture affects what the majority of Americans think about the Civil War, or else just a highly entertaining and thoughtful study of the Civil War as reflected in film, this is a can't-put-it-down volume.

Different periods and different constituencies "remember" the past to be what they need it to be, and collective memories especially try to infuse a meaning into past events that are traumatic. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are a number of ways in which the Civil War, surely our single greatest national trauma, has been "remembered" by succeeding generations. In Causes Won, Lost, & Forgotten, Civil War scholar Gary Gallagher focuses on four filters through which we've remembered the Civil War and examines how popular film and art have expressed those memories.

Gallagher argues that the going four interpretive traditions when it comes to the Civil War are the Lost Cause (the Confederate army fought honorably against overwhelming odds), the Union Cause (the war was fought to preserve the American experiment in democracy), the Emancipation Cause (the war was fought to end the egregious injustice of slavery), and the Reconciliation Cause (the war, although tragic, brought together all Americans, northerners and southerners, each of whom had fought honorably). Three of these attempts to read meaning back into the Civil War--the Lost Cause, Union Cause, and Reconciliation--tend either to ignore or to trivialize African Americans.

Gallagher traces the presence of these four interpretations in both film and artwork that have the Civil War as their theme. Early cinema focused almost entirely on the Lost Cause filter, but more recent films move toward Emancipation and Reconciliation. The Union Cause seems not to resonate deeply with viewing audiences, although it was the paramount motivation for northern enthusiasm for the war. Traces of the Union Cause can be found in cinema--Gallagher especially notes its presence in Ron Maxwell's films--but it's certainly not dominant. In fact, post-Vietnam Civil War films tend if anything to portray Federal soldiers and anything smacking of nationalism in a harsh way.

Even as films have backed away from the Lost Cause romantization of the war, popular artwork--prints and statues--remains focused squarely on it. Confederate generals are the rage (with Lee head and shoulders above all others). An especially popular motif combines Christian and Confederate themes: Lee and Jackson praying with a couple of kids on either side of them, or Lee reading the Bible to a child. The Confederate battle flag is a favorite image in the prints, and Bedford Forrest is depicted more often than one would suspect (given his unsavory reputation). Hollywood may feel uncomfortable in touting the Lost Cause (although Maxwell's aesthetically abysmal "Gods and Generals" is an exception). But given the popularity of Lost Cause-themed artwork, it's a safe bet that this memory filter is alive and well.

A fascinating discussion by one of the nation's most respected Civil War scholars. Readers interested in the Civil War in popular memory might also find David Sachsman's Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Cold Mountain (2007) and David Blight's Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001) helpful. Gallagher's earlier books and essays on the Lost Cause are also invaluable.

How we remember the past doesn't reflect on historical events as much as it reflects on the persons remembering them, individually as people, or collectively as a community or a nation. Studying how we choose interpret and remember the Civil War, and how our interpretations of it have changed over time, tells us where we've been, where we are now and how far we've come. Gary Gallagher, in his book, "Causes Won, Lost & Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know About the Civil War," has given us just such a study.

Mr. Gallagher has chosen to focus his study to the last twenty-five years or so in films and the last forty years in popular art. Before he tells us where we are in our remembrances on the Civil War he tells us where we've been, and to do that he defines the four narrative traditions that emerged after the Civil War: 1.) "The Lost Cause," The Confederacy fighting against overwhelming odds 2.) The Union Cause, 3.) The Emancipation Cause and 4.) The Reconciliation Cause. Of the four narrative traditions The Union Cause, popular both during and immediately after the war has fallen by the wayside in modern times, in part because it is not so easily depicted.

To be able to tell us where we are as a society in our remembrances of the Civil War, Mr. Gallagher first briefly tells us where we've been by taking a look at how motion pictures have portrayed the Civil War from the development of the medium until the mid 1960's. Though he briefly mentions many movies, two stand out far and above the others, "The Birth of a Nation" and "Gone with the Wind." Both films rely heavily on their "Lost Cause" foundations. Other films of the era focus to a greater or lesser degree on The Lost Cause and Reconciliation traditions. Films dealing with the Civil War practically vanished during the Vietnam era. But starting with the observances of the quasiquicentenial of the Civil War in the mid to late 1980s and Ken Burns' 1991 PBS documentary "The Civil War," the war itself has made a comeback in American memory.

For his study, Mr. Gallagher looked at 14 films: Glory, Dances With Wolves, Gettysburg, Sommersby, Little Women, Pharaoh's Army, Andersonville, Ride with the Devil, Gangs of New York, Gods and Generals, Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, The Confederate States of America and Seraphim Falls. With the notable exception of Gods and Generals the Lost Cause tradition has fallen by the wayside in film to join its brother The Union Cause. And in its place the Emancipation and the Reconciliation causes have taken root and blossomed.

In popular art however, Mr. Gallagher has observed just the opposite. Looking at advertisements for works of art in Civil War magazines over the last forty years, Mr. Gallagher has noted that pictures with a Lost Cause theme or featuring Confederate Army and its leaders by far and away out sell artworks featuring Union themes, the Federal Army or its leaders.

So why would the Lost Cause be in decline in films and be on the rise in art? Films are a greater reflection of the public in general, while works of art are often a personal choice and not displayed in public, but rather in the privacy of ones home or office. So while the Lost Cause may be vanishing from public view it certainly is firmly imbedded in our private psyches.

I have reviewed quite a few Civil War books before. This is another of the genre--but with an interesting difference. This is not so much about the conduct of the war itself as about how Hollywood and popular art have treated the Civil War and how their portrayals might be related to what people know about the Civil War. The methodology of this study is pretty straightforward: Gallagher explores a limited number of movies about the conflict--from "Birth of a Nation" and "Gone with the Wind" to "Gettysburg," "Glory," "Red Badge of Courage," "Cold Mountain," "The Horse Soldiers," with passing references to other movies such as "The Outlaw Josie Wales." In addition, he examines the art of such well known Civil War artists as Dan Troiani.

He begins by positing four images of the Civil War--(a) The Lost Cause (the Confederacy as doomed by superior Union resources, while fighting for Constitutional purity; (b) The Union Cause (the attempt by the North to preserve a national republic in the face of secession); (c) The Emancipation Cause (an interpretation of the Civil War as attempting to end slavery); (d) the Reconciliation Cause (emphasizing the common traditions and values of both parties in the struggle). In addition, he notes how coverage sometimes emphasizes heroes/actions that may overplay some actors and underplay the work of others.

This is an interesting book to consider. Gallagher does a nice job examining each of the movies that he discusses (and the art that he considers, many pieces of which are displayed in the penultimate chapter). He also makes a strong case that the recent focus on Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain may be explainable by three events: Ken Burns' PBS series on the Civil War, the book "The Killer Angels," and the movie "Gettysburg." He suggests that there were other Union units facing even more difficult circumstances at Gettysburg--and did not get half the acclaim as the stand of the 20th Maine. Indeed, there are those who claim that Chamberlain did a nice job of self-promotion with his various books and speeches after the Civil War (personally, given his entire body of work as an officer, I think he had an estimable record--but I do understand the argument very well, exemplified by his rather churlish response to his opponent, Colonel Oates, years later).

Still, how much can one claim based on a small set of movies? What is the evidence that these selected movies and objets d'art have had much impact on our view of the Civil War? I think that Gallagher raises important issues and questions. I'm not so sure that he attains the goals he set for himself. Nonetheless, an interesting view of the Civil War through the prism of popular art.

This is an excellent book. What Dr. Gallagher does is outline how works of art, fiction, movies and so on shape modern perspectives of Civil War events and personalities. His meticulous study is demonstrated page after page as he reviews countless works of modern art, movies and other images. He particularly emphasizes how Ken Burns' DVD series "The Civil War," Shaara's Trilogy and Turner Pictures "Gettysburg" and to a lesser extent "Gods & Generals" have shaped modern consciousness about events and characters of the CW era. And I was a victim. I have seen lots of movies, including those mentioned previously and read Shaara. What I think Gallagher does is to expertly remove some of the glitter and shine of these modern works and compare those images to what really occured. I found it an eye-opening book and one I'd recommend to others.

Gary Gallagher sets out to question how and why the various justifications for the Civil War have come to dominate the popular conception of what this war was fought over as portrayed to the American public through modern film and popular art. Using a broad range of films since the 1980s and a solid base in Hollywood classics from the bygone era of Clark Gable, Gallagher concludes, that of the four major schools of thought, the Union Cause tradition has been left to the dusty archives for historians to find while the three remaining paradigms of Civil War thought have all been used with some critical effect by the popular historians of Hollywood. The world of modern art offers no solace to Gallagher in his quest for Union either it seems. Much like the film portrayals, the Union Cause seems to lack that certain panache that would lend itself to the canvas; however, one finds that the howling visage of Nathaniel Bedford Forrest (an obscure cavalry general during the war, but early member of the KKK after the war) and the "iconic" image of the St. Andrews Cross translate readily to profitable artwork.

In laying the groundwork for his arguments about film and popular art conceptions of this war, Gallagher does a fine job of explaining what each of the four traditions is and where they evolved from. The Lost Cause is the cause of the romanticized old South and their noble attempt at nation building. This idea seeks to highlight the constitutional high ground from which Confederates sought to act, mute the role of slavery in the formation of the Confederacy, emphasize the logistical advantages the Union had and shine a light on the hardship that Confederate citizens and soldiers alike voluntarily put themselves through in the name of Confederate patriotism. Gallagher does a strong job of hammering home how successful this tradition has been in shaping the history of this war.

Beginning with the Civil War generation, we see that the Lost Cause paradigm would be the one that would historically be the most powerful. Confederate generals turned writers, like Robert E. Lee and Jubal A. Early, sought to justify their own cause so they would not be the villains of history. How successful were they? Reflect on the Robert E. Lee for a moment. What are your immediate thoughts? Is he a villain, a traitor? Or is he a thoughtful, reflective gentleman of honor and chivalry? Gallagher's point is taken it would seem. One of the major focuses of the Lost Cause was to turn Lee and Stonewall Jackson into heroes, while vilifying men like Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. So too, the Western theater (the place where the South was humiliated from day one) would be forgotten, and all emphasis would be placed on the Eastern theater of operations where Confederate Armies held their own for much of the war. Gallagher is able to show how two of the other three traditions come along to attempt to counter the influence of the Lost Cause, but it was the Lost Cause that has always been successfully promoted and the Union Cause that has faded away.

The Union Cause tradition holds a special place for Gallagher even if it seems to have faded from the notice of the general American public. This tradition represents the noble if anachronistic goal of preserving the union. This idea lessons any role that manumission of the enslaved may have had in the War, and looks to develop a sense that the experiment of free people governing themselves through their own consent was at stake in this war. Should the Confederacy be able to break the Union, then the fate of all representative governments would be the same. Gallagher makes a salient point when he claims that the modern American would have trouble digesting the Union Cause on film. How does one translate the idea of Union to film? It is so natural to Americans today that they do not think about it, and trying to tie the Union Cause to the work our Founders in 1776 and 1789 may be even more difficult. This does belie the fact though that the Union Cause certainly was important to the Civil War generation itself. In 1865 Walt Whitman would write "From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird" in which Union Cause themes are clearly visible:

To Kanada till I absorb Kanada in myself, to Michigan then,
To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are
inimitable;)
Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs, to Missouri and Kansas and
Arkansas to sing theirs,
To Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Carolinas and Georgia to sing
theirs,
To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted
everywhere;

Here, in just part of one stanza, Whitman manages to roam the entire breadth of America with an eye towards "Kanada" for good measure. Slave state, free state and border state are all included in what Whitman and Gallagher would consider the actual cause for the Civil War: Union. It was not only Whitman championing this cause. Lincoln's first inaugural, Daniel Webster's famous speech of 1850 and some of Herman Melville's works all do justice to the Lost Cause tradition, and are all shown in their proper light by Gallagher.

Equally important to the Union Cause's downfall in modern film, and the capitulation to Lost Cause themes has been Hollywood's treatment of the Union solider since the Vietnam War era. In film after film Gallagher shows how Hollywood has chosen to paint the Union solider as a racist, sexist, stupid and wantonly cruel animal with no regard for the human suffering they caused. Only in the films Gods and Generals and Glory were there any redeemable qualities to Billy Yank; however, it should be noted that it is only the black soldiers of the 54th that are worthy of respect in Glory. Clearly, men like Lee and Early who began the Lost Cause tradition would smile today if they could watch Hollywood's depiction of their foes.

Coming to some prominence in the modern film era, the Reconciliation Cause tradition can be called the capitulation of the North to the Lost Cause. This cause exalts the restored nation, extols the virtues of both sides, and mutes the roles of blacks in the Civil War. Perhaps the natural evolution and amalgamation of the Lost Cause and Union Cause traditions, this is clearly the most modern interpretation of the Civil War. Shown best in the related films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals this tradition would seem to show a victory for the Lost Cause. If the South is to be ultimately remembered as a place of chivalric generals, impassioned patriotic ladies and overwhelming odds, what does that say about the popular historiography of the Civil War? It should be noted that both of these films personifying the Reconciliation Cause tradition focus exclusively on the Eastern theater of operations. How different would the gallant Southern gentlemen be if a movie of the Vicksburg campaign was made?

Of the four major traditions, Gallagher shows how one has come to dominate the modern film industry as the Lost Cause had dominated until the modern era. Of course, this is the Emancipation Cause. With such films as Glory, Cold Mountain, Little Women, Pharaoh's Army and a number of others Gallagher shows how the Hollywood machine has either directly or indirectly accepted slavery as the motivating factor of the war in each film. Troubling to the discerning viewer though should be continued strength of Lost Cause themes even in these Emancipation Cause films. The continued hatred of Hollywood for any solider with white skin and blue uniform is a triumph for the Lost Cause that cannot be overlooked, and the homage continually paid to Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson subtly undermine any message of emancipation. The total dismissal of the Western theater as a venue from which to tell a Civil War story is another victory for the Lost Cause, and dismisses the scenes of the all of the Union's most important victories outside of Gettysburg and Appomattox.

If one finds themselves troubled by the popular film history of the civil war, one may not want to even look into the popular art of the civil war. In this venue Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jackson and Nathaniel Forrest have become gods, while U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, and Phil Sheridan are all but forgotten. It seems only thanks to Ken Burns' documentary series and the movie Gettysburg that the Union has a portrait subject worth depicting at all. That person, of course, is Josh Chamberlain who held the flank at Gettysburg (apparently the only Union victory of the war). With an overwhelming does of statistics and photos, Gallagher shows the utter dominance of the Lost Cause tradition in popular Civil War art that is just about incontrovertible. As troubling as the Lost Cause's dominance is in film, the more overtly racial twinge of the popular art should give people some pause. St. Andrews' Cross flags fly proud in this modern art (these flags were not nearly as prevalent in earlier Civil War art) in a reflection of the modern struggle over public displays of the Confederate flag, and even some displays of indifferent to happy slaves now appear in Southern art. For what it's worth, a niche market for the Buffalo Soldiers has always remained strong among current black officers and NCOs in the modern military, and paintings of Gettysburg and Irish Brigades have maintained some popularity as well, but nothing seems to touch the dominance Gallagher shows the Lost Cause paintings to have gained.

Gallagher's work is well done and well received by this reader, but it most likely lost on the public at large. As an academic text, its audience is not meant to be the general public per se, but clearly they represent the object of his variables. Does he strive too much to exhume the Union Cause from the dust bin of history? Probably so, but it is a noble cause. Given the way that Union soldiers are portrayed in film and popular art, it is also a sorely unheeded cause as well.

Ever get lured off the main highway into one of those quaint little towns that bills itself as "historic"? They were once real communities, and now they're for tourists, and they're typically overloaded with antique shops, tea rooms, and galleries. In the galleries you may notice prints and paintings that won't make it to any show in New York, or even Baltimore. And you'll search in vain for them in big city museums. And don't wait for the hammer to come down on them at Sotheby's or Christie's. The smug, urbane connoisseur is in another dimension now; one that's neoreal, photohistorical, and really high testosterone.

These are not the pictures, painted with iced tea and lemonade, that grace the walls of your hotel room. Nor are they the canvases you might see for sale at the beach, on the boardwalk, in a store that advertises "genuine oils." This is, if you will, the Spinal Tap of the art world, and measured in units of visual assault, it, too, "goes up to eleven."

Don Troiani is the Meissonier of the crowd; every button on every uniform is copied from an original in his own collection. Just like Alma-Tadema painted Antiquity. An online bio describes him as "a soul lost in time." Mort Kunstler (he umlauts the "u") isn't as much of a detail man. His oeuvre is frequently inspirational, like the iconic "The Generals Were Brought To Tears", which eerily depicts Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson in prayer, maybe soliciting Divine Assistance in reclaiming their slaves. Behind them hangs a colossal Confederate battle flag: Their pew is bookended by a little girl and boy, devout, eyes shut, hands piously steepled.

A half-dozen other painters produce similar work. Just what art historians will make of this "school" a century from now is anyone's guess. If you haven't seen this stuff, by all means do so. There's dozens of online galleries just brimming with it. Just prepare yourself for a unique combo: oodles of Norman Rockwell wannabe brushstrokes, lots of retro-Victorian salon history painting, a dash of 'fifties action comics, and a heavy dose of Total War computer games. Odd bits of Magritte, Dali and Robert Crumb get worked into the mix. What it boils down to is: "Terminator Crossing The Delaware."

Grotesque? Maybe. But this stuff sells. And like a traffic accident, you can't help but look. The redoubtable Thomas ("Painter of Light") Kinkade, is one cracker-jack businessman, and these boys aren't far behind him in marketing savvy. Please don't confuse them with Andrew Wyeths you might see hung in the dining room. These pictures are virile, manly, and they belong in the den. To the untutored eye, they are at once voyeuristic revelation and neurogenic shock.

The book is more-or-less a transcribed lecture series given up at Penn State some years back. Skip through the Hollywood chapters, and then get ready to respect the author's forbearance, tact, and restraint. "Overwrought" is how this master of understatement describes some of the weirdest pictures ever. In Mr. Gallagher, one experiences the storied objectivity and distance central to the historian's craft. You can get through this book in an hour, and it's a lot of fun.

This is a careful review of Garry Gallagher's most recent work, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War.
It is not out of place in this section, for it is a study of Hollywood's version of the Civil War.
It was one of the most disapointing works of Civil War study that I have ever read. Even the most ardent of Northern students echoed my disgust towards the very biased and opinionated rage of revisionist rant found cover to cover.


The following is a review of all the facts and lack there of that Mr. Gallagher left out of his book. If you ever do choose to read it, you'll notice that it is less of a review of Hollywood's Civil War and more better related to a blog of a 9th grader writing a thesis on the subject.
Biased aside, no student of the CW should be subjugated to such a misleading study of the most tragic conflict in American History and Hollywood's depiction of it.

It is easy to come to the conclusion that Gallagher's work in studying the role of Hollywood and its portrayal of the Civil War is a misleading trump. Like for example, in his work, he joyfully encourages the reader to notice his reoccurring subject of historical inaccuracy in many films. However, notice that he brands this charge upon nearly every Southern movie or scene from GWTW to Gods and Generals. While on the other hand he speaks NOTHING of the dozens of Civil War films that feature Union cavalrymen in yellow bandanas

What about the more recent and semi-popular film series, Blue and Gray? In it the Siege of Vicksburg did not end on July 4th but rather sometime after Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The battle portrayals alone were embarrassing to watch! Alas, even this fails to cross Gallagher's critical judgment.
You can see, by now, if you have not already read this book, that the author is more of a manipulator than an educator.
It is too obvious that this published writer on Hollywood's Civil War fails to notice that in the second most popular Civil War movie EVER, Gettysburg, several very obvious contradictions to the true history of the battle are there.

One example is the scene where Colonel Chamberlain addresses the 2nd Maine. There is no historical evidence that suggests that he ever spoke to them as a group. Not to mention that there is no mention that he had ever uttered the following words from the film Gettysburg,
"We are fighting to make other men free,"
or anything like it. Interestingly enough, in Gettysburg's 2003 prequel, Gods & Generals a similar speech made by Chamberlain to his brother, Tom, actually never took place. In fact, it is one the film' rare moments of pure fiction.
In regards to Gettysburg again, the later scene where members of the 20th Maine aid and comfort a runaway, again never took place. At least there is not a scratch of evidence to support it.

However, there were African Americans at Gettysburg. We look to the written accounts of Lt. Colonel Arthur Fremantle, a netural observer from England. In his memoirs titled, Three Months in the Southern States, Fremantle gives us one of the most detailed and interesting accounts of the battle of Gettysburg anywhere.
It is a wonder that none of the honest records of the true "African American" actors at Gettysburg were never included in the movie or anywhere else.
For example, about meeting two African Americans behind Confederate lines, Fremantle remembered,

"I overheard two "African Americans" discussing affairs in general; they were deploring the war, and expressing their hate of the yankees for bringing sufferment on us."

This event, however true, would seem out of place in both Gallagher's mind and the movie, Gettysburg.

There is another authentic scene from the Gettysburg battlefield that further challenge the fiction story of the runaway slave. (To many, thanks to revisionists like Gallagher, what more is a Union camp but a santonary for runaway slaves from the Confederate Army?)
Aside from other accounts remembered by Confederate, Union, and civilian witnesses of the battle, Fremantle offers us yet another glimpse into race relations within the Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
"I saw a most laughable spectacle this afternoon, an "African American" with a rifle, leading along a barefooted white man.
General Longstreet stopped the pair and asked the "African American" what it meant. He replied, 'The two soldiers in charge of this here yank have got drunk, so for fear he should escape I have took care of him, and brought him through that little town.' The consequential manner of the "African American", and the supreme contempt with which he spoke to his prisoner, were most amusing. This little episode of a Southern "African American" leading a white yankee soldier through a Northern village, alone and of his own accord, would not have been gratifying to an abolitionist."
Lastly, upon the rosters and in several photographs from the events, during both the 50th and 75th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg, there is dozens of written and photographic accounts that show evidence that hundreds of "African American" Confederate veterans were in attendance. Because the battle of Gettysburg happened before Meade's army actually included "African American" soldiers of their own, no "African American" Union veterans attended either event.

The plight of the 20th Maine on the left flank of the Union line at Little Round Top was hugely exaggerated in the film. First of all, Chamberlain held the high ground and secondly his lines were formed in two right angles against each other that prevented a flanking movement. The two wings supported each other through the course of the battle. The 20th also not only the strength of Vincent's brigade attached to their rear but Bearden's US sharpshooter battalion as well.

The truth is that the Union defenders on Little Round Top were no match for the Confederates of the 15th Alabama from the start.
-They had marched more than twenty-five miles on that hottest day in July.
-During the last ten miles and through the rugged terrain of the battlefield south of Gettysburg, the men did not have any water supply. The canteen detail had been captured!
-While ascending the highest point in Adams County and marching through the very rugged terrain around it, the 15th Alabama was constantly deployed and being hit by the full strength of Bearden's US Sharpshooters.
-By the time the 15th, broken off from the main part of Law's brigade reached Chamberlain's rested and digging in troops, it was half strength.

Though I must give Oates' boys of South Eastern Alabama props for coming close to breaking Chamberlain's formable lines, despite how the scene is portrayed in the movie, the 20th Maine enjoyed a confident victory.
Another false moment is found at the very same scene in the film Gettysburg. In difference to Colonel Jeff Daniels mounting the crest of a dramatic charge into a panicked mass of men in gray, the true version is less theatrical. Chamberlain's later tales to throngs of fans and family following the war didn't always resemble the description of the battle's events in his official report. In fact, when Chamberlain's made his bayonet charge claim public, Colonel Oates was not the only participant of the battle to protest against it. Several of Chamberlain's own fellow officers, including Captain Ellis Spear, strongly disagreed with their former commander's fabrications.
The most common version of the end of the battle of Little Round Top, as was written by officers of both sides, included no bayonet charge at all. Rather, it presents an image of Colonel Oates ordering his surviving officers to get their men to collect the wounded that could be moved and start a retreat. The mortal wounding of Oates' brother, John Oates had been a turning point in his brave attempts to turn Vincent's Brigade.
Just as Oates had started an orderly retreat in motion, the Union defenders of the hill decided to advance for the purpose of gathering their wounded, moaning and wailing. The last Confederate charge up the hill had been the most costly for the 20th Maine. There had been several minutes of hand-to-hand combat. Now, many of their wounded comrades lay beyond their own lines.
The Union advance stumbled upon dazed groups of Confederates tending to their own wounded. The sight of so many of the enemy advancing out of their earth works and down the hill started a panic that spread faster than their brogans and bare feet could carry it. The retreat, though not sort Oates had planned, began. Like a hound catching a sent of fleeing prey, the 20th Maine swept forward. With most of them having little or no ammunition in their pouches or boxes, the confused Southerners were further unnerved by the appearance of Company B of the 20th.
Company B was a fresh and strong unit emerging like magic on their rear right flank. I have always been suspicious of the gallantry of the 20th's Company B who was not present during most of the battle but was near by. It sustained no casualties.
Though by all records and accounts the 15th Alabama was completely routed by Chamberlain's Mainers, there is little to suggest except in the controversial post-war accounts of Chamberlain himself that a bayonet charge had been ordered against the Confederates below Little Round Top.

And why did Gallagher fail to mention this or several other conflicts with historical accuracy including those that I did not mention from this film or many others? The answer to both, clearly, appears to be motivated by pure hero worship. When is sacrificing historical accuracy to glorify one side okay in a film? Certainly not one that many consider to be educational as well as entertaining. When is ignoring these historical mishaps of Hollywood justified? Certainly not during a serious study of Hollywood's take on the Civil War!

When you take a moment to imagine how this would offend you, understand then, why I feel that the Gallaghers of the world are apaulling to those of us that feel compelled to defend our heritage.

This is an interesting study of how graphical images, espcially motion pictures, have effected our collective impressions of the American Civil War. However, Gallagher makes at least one glaring factual error which calls into question the thoroughness of his research.

When discussing the 1996 television mini-series "Andersonville" he states that the film follows the narrative of MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. This is not true. The film is not based on Kantor's novel, but Gallagher seems to casually make this assumtion because both book and film have the same title. Although both the book and the movie contain some of the same historical charactors and follow the same historical timeline, they are both seperate properties.

Perhaps calling out this mistake is a quibble, but it does a disservice to David W. Rintels who wrote the original screenplay which was based on his own research, not on the research of the late great MacKinlay Kantor. While Kantor did sell the film rights to his novel soon after it was published in 1955, it was never filmed.