Customer Reviews

Southern Invincibility: A History of the Confederate Heart

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

 

 

as a southerner, born in south carolina and an avid civil war reader, i found this book wonderful. it clearly defines the sad, but early belief of most souterner's, that ended in almost ruin of the south. mr. sword's book's are excellent and offer a wonderful, if not debating issue of the south during the civil war. 10 members of my family served in the civil war, and reading their letters, etc., at the start and later as the war ended is quite revealing of changing fortunes of war.

I'll put it bluntly: this book was great. The book flowed extremely well, starting out with the mindset before the war and progressing smoothly until the end. The way Sword brings the reader into the minds (and hearts, as the subtitle mentions) is amazing.

The only drawback was that it seemed from Sword's choice of battles and his method of presenting them that, should the reader be unfortunate enough to know nothing about the Civil War, one reading the book would think that the Confederacy lost every battle. This naturally added at times to the effectiveness of what he was trying to present, and this is a MINOR flaw, but it is literally the only reason I did not rate this book as perfect.

A must read for anyone even remotely interested in the U.S. Civil War. It's entertaining, short, and an easy read.

The historical perspective of this book is awesome. The author has done a very good job of capturing the essence of history. His narratives on the war, military strategies, and home life are just exceptional.

The only criticism I have is the constant "it just couldn't get worse, but it did" followed by "it couldn't get worse, but it did". I understand that losing a war involves multiple negative events but I sometimes felt like quitting the book because it things just got endlessly worse for every person and event involved.

A few happy endings might have lifted this book a bit.

As Garrison Keillor might say (and I have no idea if he even cares about books like this) this is a pretty good book. But it suffers from a number of defects, the most serious of which I'll discuss momentarily. (From the outset, I should point out that a better title would have been, "The Myth [or "Notion" or "Idea"] of Southern Invincibility," but that probably would have limited sales in the South, so I don't really fault it for that.

In this day and age in which the idea of secession seems about as remote in our reality, and even in our history, as the Pony Express, we may ask: What on earth compelled thousands of people (men in battle, women at home) to endure the horrors of 19th century war and the hardships of having almost nothing for the sake of defending "states' rights," or "the southern way of life," or even slavery (which modern southerners don't like to admit) which now, with the benefit of hindsight and 140 years of intervening history, seem like sure-enough losers? By peering into the minds of people at the time, as preserved in their own words, author Wiley Sword attempts to give us an idea. We come away with a much better understanding of why at least some (those that didn't avoid conscription in the first place or desert later) Confederate soldiers were willing to brave bad food, uncertain supplies, and no shoes to submit to tactics that were woefully outdated in the face of technologically-advancing weaponry. As "psycho-history," this is about as good as it gets.

But the book suffers from at least two serious defects. First--and this isn't really the author's fault--from this distance, we are able to look only into the minds of those who left a written record, and who had descendants thoughtful enough to preserve it. In all likelihood, this limits the historical record to a statistically-skewed sampling. Second, and more serious, the author made virtually no attempt to look into the minds of those who dissented--those who did NOT share the idea of an "invincible South." The idea of a monolithic, single-minded South, rising up as one to defend itself from an equally-monolithic North which cared little for the peculiarities of southern life, is at best, simple-minded, and at worst, plain wrong. In some areas, even in the Deep South--the hill country of northern Alabama, for example--as well as in the border states, dissent was so strong that whole regiments of southerners were raised for the Union army, and pro-Unionists were derided as "tories." In Atlanta, Richmond, and New Orleans, there were underground cliques of pro-Union sympathizers, and as the war progressed, even the Confederate government was wracked by doubters and defeatists. As Sword points out, toward the end, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens eventually gave up on Jefferson Davis, labeled him a "tyrant," and when home to Georgia for good. Many came to the same conclusion long before.

In short, although mis-titled, the book serves a useful purpose. But it falls more than a little short of giving us a comprehensive look inside southern minds. It only looks inside some of them, and the most literate ones at that.

Mr Sword attempts to look into the heart and soul of the Confederate spirit in this relatively reader friendly book. The theme is wrapped around the lives of half-dozen or so characters, based on their respective diaries, letters and such.
Not much ground-breaking work here, but a nice peek at some of the philosophy/psychology of the war. Somewhat big print makes the text very reader-friendly.