Confederates In The Attic Analysis

The living legacy of the United States Civil War is a complicated time in American history one finds difficult to describe. The ramification of the war prior, during and after still haunt the current citizens who call The States their home. Tony Horwitz’s book Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War looks at the wide gap of discontent that still looms in the late 1990s. For some southerners, the Confederacy still lives on through reenactments, stories and beliefs. For others in the South, reminders the land was dedicated to the Confederacy spark hatred and spite. Tony Howritz seeks to find out why the Civil War still captivates Americans today. From a young age Horwitz is educated about the Civil War from his 101

There Howritz was introduced to the racial rift that lives on between blacks and whites. The birthday celebrations of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee were held separate from the birthday celebration of Martin Luther King, nationally recognized for good reason. King’s celebration saw attendants from blacks and whites but the Jackson-Lee celebrations only whites attended. Howritz moves next to South Carolina where he speaks with a neo-Confederate who takes delight in the inauguration of a governor pledging to fly the Confederate battle flag. Horwritz spoke to a “New South” businessman in South Carolina who thought the south would never shed its image left by the Civil War unless blacks and whites band together instead of continuing the

Ancestors fought for the Confederate Army, the beliefs of civil and state rights during the Civil War are not far removed from the beliefs of the people Howritz encounters. Not to be ignored is the racial tension that arguably was as intense then as it is now. Many ignorant White people feel superior to black people, driven home by their discontent of the Confederate Army losing the War. The South’s remembrance of the Civil War is based both on fact and lore but mainly on racism and ritual. Yes, people do mask their justification for supporting the Rebels by stating the war was ignited by civil and state rights, other’s do not even attempt to mask their reasoning by down right stating the black race is an inferior one. There was a politically correct remembrance of the Confederacy in that men felt so strongly about their beliefs they were willing to wage war and die for them, many felt that should be honored. My own understanding of the South’s passion with the Civil War is much like Tony Horwitz, In that the War is so intriguing and interesting because it involves the country I live in and the beliefs that are so passionately felt to this day. Born and raised in California I believed racism to be dead and the surprise I received moving to the panhandle of Texas was discomforting. The Civil War has a unique way of luring