History of the Southern Confederacy, by Eaton

[p039] A History of the Southern Confede- racy. By Clement Eaton. Collier Books, New York, 11s. 6d. Mr. Clement Eaton follows the aptly named ‘revisionist’ school of interpretation of the American Civil War. To Marxists, who contended that the Civil War was the inevitable out- come of a conflict between two different systems of economic pro- duction, writers of this school who first emerged during the 1940s ven- tured to point out that economics really only constituted a minor factor of historical causation. The real cause of the wars and revolutions of the past was simply that on _par- ticular occasions people were extremely rude to each other, poli- ticians blundered and were tactless, agitators spread their ill-feeling and ‘stirred up the people’, and then, being driven on and excited by ‘a wave of emotionalism’, everybody unfortuna- tely lost control of themselves. It followed on from this that readers should respect and revere ‘the demo- cratic process’, never lose control of themselves, and cultivate the ‘sensible perspective’ of ‘reasonable men’. The above summary is no exag- geration. J. G. Randall, the classic spokesman of the doctrine and clearly a theoretical ancestor of Mr. Eaton, writes that if he were to select one word or phrase to account for the war, it would not be ‘economics’ and ‘class struggle’ but ‘misunderstanding’ or even beiter ‘fanaticism’. For him history is driven by suspended ‘states of emotion’ that swoop on influential individuals from time to time. Point- ing to the title of his work he explains that the whole catastrophe was the fault of ‘ The Blundering Generation’ and the abnormal ‘incompetence’ and ‘irresponsibility’ of the politicians and agitators of the 1860s. Then with some pride he presents his solution. Now that ‘individual processes and behaviour have been elaborately s:udied’ (?) a ‘psychiatry of a nation’ must be immediately deve- ioped and applied to prevent such further misunderstanding and social upheaval. It is surprising that now nearly 30 years later this particular reac- tionary line should still be considered up-to-date by even the most obtuse idealist. But Mr. Eaton is undeterred by time and is an idealist, and what is worse a very crude one, when he treats of the second revolution in American history. Economics was of some relevance, he concedes, but we are only to mention this in passing. He himself is more interested in playing variations on the old theme weaving ‘emotionalism’ . . . ‘popular hysteria’ . . . ‘emotional unbalance’ ‘a high state of emotionalism’ . . . and ‘an inflamed state of feeling’ into paragraph after paragraph, sometimes at full volume, sometimes by a sneaking implication. The point about all this ‘emotional chasm’ is that it completely evades any real analysis. With regard to the inevitability of force Mr. Eaton could well have 117 Book Reviews taken note of William H. Seward’s speech of 1860 which dealt a blow to the illusions of the conciliationists and reformists of his time. Here the Northern industrial and commercial bourgeoisie speaks vividly through one of its individuals. Seward speaks a concrete language. For him ex- president James Buchanan (Demo- crat) was and is a confessed apologist of the slave-owning property class. And with people who hope that slave- owners might reform themselves Seward is straight to the point. ‘How long and with what success have you waited already for that reformation?’ Did any property-class ever so reform itself? Did the patricians of old Rome, the noblesse or clergy in France? The landholders in Ireland? The landed aristocracy in England? Does the slaveholding class even seek to beguile you with such a hope? Has it not become rapacious, arrogant, defiant? ’ The bulk of Mr. Eaton’s book is devoted to the struggle of the dis- integrated slaveocracy during the war. Many statesmen are found to have been unusually irresponsible as well as speculators of ‘the wealthier class’ who made large profits by holding wheat and corn to raise its price. There are detailed chapters on the lack of a centralized agency, on transportation, on the intelligence service, and on the conditions of the Confederate soldiers—their lack of shoes, clothing, food and medical supplies. Military movements and techniques of fighting are quite graphically described. And the organization of the Southern workers,

[p040] 118 their strike action for higher pay, and the general complaint that it was a ‘rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight’ receives some (though very superficial) attention. The short por- traits of the Southern generals Robert E. Lee, ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, Bragg and Beauregard and the descriptions of their general strategy make inte- resting reading. Even a bad book can be informative. Sometimes, Mr. Eaton’s view of the ‘glamour of a soldier’s life’, his sentimentalization, his reactionism and hero-worship burst into verbal bloom. Writing of Forrest, he rounds off: ‘Twenty-nine horses were shot from under him, but he lived to become the Grand Wizard of the Ku-Klux-Klan.’ The material on conference diplo- macy is of interest, if analyzed in terms of the relations between different ruling classes in crisis. On the level of fact the chapter on naval power is informative. The analysis of the South’s ‘economic disintegra- tion’ is, as one might expect, almost totally in terms of taxes. The finale of the book entitled ‘The Sunset of the Confederacy’ brings out the author’s worst. He must conclude with a requiem for the ‘lost cause’ and the ‘ghost of the confederate dead ’. That the Civil War laid the foundations and greatly extended the scope of the capitalist system, such a perspective of the historical pro- cess is not within Mr. Clement Eaton’s ken. While considering him- self not a sentimental man, he secretly finds in the overthrow of the stave-holding feudal planter class something of a sad but beautiful story, impregnated with the rich colours of romance. G.L. Science in history