By Paul Carrier
You probably didn’t expect to get slapped with a pop quiz today, but here it is anyway. Short notice, but on the plus side, there's only one question. The U.S. Civil War, which began in 1861, ended in: (a) 1864; (b) 1865; (c) 1866; (d) none of the above.
If you picked (b), you’re technically correct; 1865 represented the formal end of hostilities. But if you read Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, you’ll quickly come to realize that the Civil War, aka the War Between the States, the War of the Rebellion, the War of Northern Aggression, the War of Southern Independence, etc., is still very much alive below the Mason-Dixon Line.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a Civil War buff since childhood, Horwitz set out to travel the South for a year, “searching out the places and people who kept memory of the conflict alive in the present day.” He had no trouble finding what he was looking for, and he has shaped his discoveries into an extended travelogue that is lively, thought-provoking, reflective and humorous.
While the so-called New South is blessed with the appearance of racial harmony, the Old South, with its lingering devotion to the Lost Cause, remains a potent force. As an Oklahoman living in North Carolina told Horwitz, residents there "think it’s still half-time" as far as the war is concerned.
Horwitz meets his share of racist rednecks, but he also reels in well-mannered Southern ladies, thoughtful working stiffs, educators, assorted oddballs and intriguing iconoclasts who are almost too good to be true. Like the only surviving Confederate widow (she married an 80-year-old veteran when she was about 20) and a transplanted Confederate memorabilia dealer from Connecticut who sells Rebel flags that are sewn in Michigan. What emerges is a complex tapestry that illustrates varying attitudes toward the war among those who recall it fondly, or at least respectfully.
The reader meets forgetful whites who conveniently omit any reference to slavery when listing the factors that triggered the war, as well as bemused blacks who tolerate neo-Confederates as long as they remember that their ancestors lost the real thing. “Slavery was not all that bad,” an otherwise sensible-seeming retired white nurse tells Horwitz.
Some people, such as a white supremacist in South Carolina, long for a resumption of the conflict. “I’m not an American,” the man says. “I’m a citizen of the Confederate States of America, which has been under military occupation for the past hundred thirty years.” (Confederates in the Attic was first published in 1998.)
Others want to honor the valor of their ancestors, without necessarily embracing the Confederacy itself. Some are nostalgic because they see the contemporary South as a soulless region that has lost its unique character. Then there are the James Dean wannabes, for whom the Confederacy represents nothing more than an anarchic vision of hell-raising and personal freedom. Horwitz even finds teenagers - black and white - who either revile or revere the Stars and Bars without really knowing or caring what they represent.
“We’re not a migrating people,” as elderly woman from Charleston, S.C., explains. “We live in our old houses and eat on our old dishes and use the silverware every day. We’re close to the past and comfortable with it. We’ve surrounded our lives with the pictures of all these relatives hanging on the walls, and we grow up hearing stories about them.”
Confederates in the Attic introduces us to reenactors, ranging from casual weekend hobbyists to self-described “hardcores” like the zany Rob Lee Hodge (that’s him on the cover) who are obsessed with complete authenticity; a Scarlett O’Hara impersonator who learned Japanese because she's constantly dealing with Japanese tourists; a woman with a dubious claim to owning houses that inspired Margaret Mitchell when she was writing Gone with the Wind; and the late historian Shelby Foote, whom Horwitz interviewed in his Memphis home.
Horwitz also chronicles how rampant development has obliterated much of the landscape of the Civil War and how southern cities commemorate (or obliterate) the war in various ways. Perhaps most touchingly, he shows us that radically different racial attitudes toward the Civil War continue to fuel a self-imposed segregation - psychological at least, and sometimes physical as well - in much of the South.
Horwitz meets his share of racist rednecks, but he also reels in well-mannered Southern ladies, thoughtful working stiffs, educators, assorted oddballs and intriguing iconoclasts who are almost too good to be true. Like the only surviving Confederate widow (she married an 80-year-old veteran when she was about 20) and a transplanted Confederate memorabilia dealer from Connecticut who sells Rebel flags that are sewn in Michigan. What emerges is a complex tapestry that illustrates varying attitudes toward the war among those who recall it fondly, or at least respectfully.
The reader meets forgetful whites who conveniently omit any reference to slavery when listing the factors that triggered the war, as well as bemused blacks who tolerate neo-Confederates as long as they remember that their ancestors lost the real thing. “Slavery was not all that bad,” an otherwise sensible-seeming retired white nurse tells Horwitz.
Some people, such as a white supremacist in South Carolina, long for a resumption of the conflict. “I’m not an American,” the man says. “I’m a citizen of the Confederate States of America, which has been under military occupation for the past hundred thirty years.” (Confederates in the Attic was first published in 1998.)
Others want to honor the valor of their ancestors, without necessarily embracing the Confederacy itself. Some are nostalgic because they see the contemporary South as a soulless region that has lost its unique character. Then there are the James Dean wannabes, for whom the Confederacy represents nothing more than an anarchic vision of hell-raising and personal freedom. Horwitz even finds teenagers - black and white - who either revile or revere the Stars and Bars without really knowing or caring what they represent.
“We’re not a migrating people,” as elderly woman from Charleston, S.C., explains. “We live in our old houses and eat on our old dishes and use the silverware every day. We’re close to the past and comfortable with it. We’ve surrounded our lives with the pictures of all these relatives hanging on the walls, and we grow up hearing stories about them.”
Confederates in the Attic introduces us to reenactors, ranging from casual weekend hobbyists to self-described “hardcores” like the zany Rob Lee Hodge (that’s him on the cover) who are obsessed with complete authenticity; a Scarlett O’Hara impersonator who learned Japanese because she's constantly dealing with Japanese tourists; a woman with a dubious claim to owning houses that inspired Margaret Mitchell when she was writing Gone with the Wind; and the late historian Shelby Foote, whom Horwitz interviewed in his Memphis home.
Horwitz also chronicles how rampant development has obliterated much of the landscape of the Civil War and how southern cities commemorate (or obliterate) the war in various ways. Perhaps most touchingly, he shows us that radically different racial attitudes toward the Civil War continue to fuel a self-imposed segregation - psychological at least, and sometimes physical as well - in much of the South.
