Confederates In The Attic: Dispatches From The Unfinished Civil War

Horwitz states earlier in the book:

Historians are fond of saying that the Civil War occurred in 10,000 places. Poke a pin in the map of the South and you’re likely to prod loose some battle of skirmish or other tuft of Civil War history. (18)

Horwitz and Hodge undertake an almost religious pilgrimage to as many Civil War sites as they can manage within a short timespan. As mentioned previously, the goal of this exhaustion is to recreate the feeling that must have been present within the soldiers, who were forced to endure quite a lot during their service time. However, more than this, Chapter 10 marks Horwitz’s transition from mere observer of the Civil War to fully-fledged participant in its recreation and remembrance. At this point, it is apparent that Horwitz is no longer just a journalist attempting to understand other people’s relationship to the Civil War; instead, he has found his own place inside of it.

Moreover, the trip through the Civil War’s eastern theater of battle also highlights the way in which some of the battlefields have been lost to the march of time and to the advancing of commerce, something that is often spoken about by Southerners, who are saddened by the loss of the land and their way of life. This is especially true for Hodge, when upon seeing a golf course that used to be a battlefield, he loses his usual grace and charm, and becomes radically angry, saying “I should go bloat in one of those trenches...I’d like these rich fucks to have to look at me every time they tee off” (234). This, once again, strikes to the heart of the divide within the South of rich and poor, with the latter always worried that something from the outside will come in once again and finally fully devour their way of life and the places and customs that they hold dear.

Furthermore, like Chapter 7, where Horwitz interviews Shelby Foote, Chapter 10 is one of the rare instances when Horwitz has an extended interview with a singular character, thus using them as a mirror to hold up his own questions and curiosities about the Civil War. Hodge proves a telling and interesting character. In a way, he is the go-between that connects Foote with the more average Southerner and Civil War enthusiast. For Hodge, the Civil War is something to be venerated: “I think the Confederacy’s a great story about men who did incredible things” (246), but this is where he stops. He does not believe that the “politics that come with it” (246) should be idolized and even recognizes the problematic nature that accompanies Confederate remembrance. Here, like with Foote, we see the mixed nature of the War’s history. For those “liberal Confederates” like Hodge, the idea of loyalty to place and land win out, and the ideas of politics is not at the forefront of their thinking when they reenact. To use the example of Wallace Faison, “For me it’s not political at all…The South—we lost. I feel like I lost, too. Monument Avenue is like that last Valhalla, that spiritual place I can go” (252). Still, unlike the more radical groups, like the CCC (see Chapter 4), these men seem to understand how polarizing certain aspects of Confederate remembrance can be to certain groups of people.

In addition to this, the aspect of Chapter 10 that sees both Horwitz and Hodge on Richmond’s Monument Avenue showcases the way in which some white Southerners see the love of the war as a strange, self-harming, and backward way of thinking: “To me, having the principal Richmond monuments dedicated to the Lost Cause is like saying we’re dedicated to no hope, no future. It’s like having a monument to unrequited love” (252). Again, Horwitz manages to clearly bring out the separate mentalities that surround the War, and that keep its discussion a main focal point in Southern culture.

What must also be noted is how this chapter deals with the legacy of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and Lee in particular, as Horwitz describes the post-Civil War Lee as a man more in tune with making peace with the North than finding ways to continue on fighting for the Southern Cause (269). This paints a starkly different picture of Lee than that of the eternal fighter and Southern crusader that has informed much of the popular imagery for many of the people Horwitz has interviewed prior to this point in the book. Once again, through little moments like this, Horwitz shows how the truth and the legend of the Civil War continue to differ in various and often massive ways.