The historian James M. McPherson (no relation to Yankee cavalry general McPherson) advanced in his civil war history Battle Cry of Freedom the interpretation that there was the revolution of 1860, and that secession amounted to the counterrevolution of 1861.

The Confederacy was conservatism at its very worst, defending the indefensible because it had used to be that way. I’ve no objection to remembering the history of the Confederacy, so long as it is kept firmly in mind that notwithstanding some battlefield heroics and some moments of grace under pressure, the dark cause at the root of it all was just plain wrong. And make no mistake: the confederacy was founded to protect and preserve slavery. (McPherson’s book does a good job of proving that.)

I do have a problem with going from the observation that slavery was wrong to the conclusion that everyone who fought for the confederacy was no damned good. All through history, basically good people have been shanghaied into fighting for wrong causes through misplaced loyalty, their inability to penetrate the mythology of their own time, and the human tendency to groupthink, and see that their cause was not just.

Johnny Reb was an OK fellow the day after Appomattox. Lincoln had it right—with malice toward none, and charity toward all, let us bind up the wounds of the nation etc. etc.

Some day, some Republican will hit the right tone on this, and then we can remember both the awful wrong at the root of it all, and the tragic splendid skill and loyalty of the southern soldier, a skill and loyalty born of a culture that would continue to bring forth new generations of such men when that particular cause had passed into history. We do, after all, need men like that, and while Billy Yanks were fine soldiers too, the fact remains that in our next big war, Sgt. Alvin York was from Tennessee.