Why the South Lost the Civil War

In this widely heralded book first published in 1986, four historians consider the popularly held explanations for southern defeat--state-rights disputes, inadequate military supply and strategy, and the Union blockade--undergirding their discussion with a chronological account of the war's progress. In the end, the authors find that the South lacked the will to win, that weak Confederate nationalism and the strength of a peculiar brand of evangelical Protestantism sapped the South's ability to continue a war that was not yet lost on the field.

This strain of thinking is typical after a war, as it shifts the blame to internal dissenters who think the war itself is a bad idea. It was employed by the Nazis after the World War I to convince the German people that Germany had not been military defeated but betrayed in 1918. It's an ongoing them among those who wish to see Vietnam as having had a purpose.

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Background Information

The dividing line between the powers of the federal government, designated by the Constitution, and those reserved for the states has long been controversial.

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Why the South Lost the Civil War

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