Myths and legends are dilemmas that historians, writers, teachers, and scholars deal with on a regular basis.  They are especially troublesome when it comes to the American Civil War, slavery, and the Battle of Franklin.  Here are just some of the myths that those of us in Franklin hear regularly.  They are followed by some comments about facts and evidence as we continue to adhere to the philosophy that the truth is what matters most.

First, some myths about slavery and how it relates to the Civil War:

·       The Civil War was not about slavery. 

This is a pervasive and dogged myth.  The evidence is clear that the United States struggled with the issue of slavery from its founding.  It was the primary political issue that tore the country apart over time.  It led directly to the creation of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln’s election, and then secession.  Those events in turn led to war.

·       The Civil War was like the second American Revolution.

This is sometimes said to place the efforts of the Confederate States and Southern soldiers on par with the Founders and those who fought against Great Britain.  While there certainly are some comparisons it should be noted that the Founders espoused the idea that “all men are created equal” and they struggled mightily with the issue of slavery.  Those who led the secession movement declared slavery was a constitutional right that could not be infringed and men such as Alexander Stephens, who was the Confederacy’s Vice-President, stated that the Founders were wrong on the issue of “equality” of the races.  Jefferson Davis, who was President of the Confederate States, said that the Founders only intended equality among white men.

·       Abraham Lincoln did not care about slavery.

Even a cursory reading of Lincoln’s speeches and letters throughout the 1850s show a man who firmly believed slavery to be wrong, even while he conceded that, in his mind, blacks and whites were not equal.  Ultimately this is what made Lincoln such a terrible threat in the minds of Southern politicians and slave owners.  He was not a conventional abolitionist.  Instead he argued that slavery was morally wrong and that its expansion should be halted.

·       Only a tiny percentage of Confederate soldiers owned slaves.

While it is true that most Confederate soldiers did not own slaves, erroneous single digit percentages are often used to reinforce this myth.  The truth is that closer to 20-25% of all Southern soldiers either owned slaves or their fathers did.  Some studies have concluded the number was over 30%.  Additionally, just because an individual did not own slaves, it cannot be assumed that they were opposed to the institution. 

·       The North fought the war to end slavery.

Initially, President Lincoln’s primary intent was to preserve the Union.  Had Northern forces won the war in its first 18-24 months it is likely the Union would have been preserved with slavery intact.  But by January 1, 1863, with the official release of the Emancipation Proclamation, the North’s military focus become dual.  By the second half of the war it had turned into a struggle to preserve the United States and to end slavery.

·       Slavery was dying before the Civil War.

The facts show otherwise.  The slave population increased by 25% in just the decade before the war and the economic expansion of that era showed no signs of slowing down.  There were over 300,000 slave owners in 1860 in the states which seceded.  By factoring in their family connections – wives, children, parents – about one-third of the population was directly connected to slavery.

·       Slavery was exclusive to the South.

By 1860 slavery existed as a nearly exclusive Southern institution, but it was an American problem and condition.  Many Northern interests benefited greatly from slavery and the labor markets in the North often excluded free blacks.

·       There was slavery in the North.

There was slavery in the North in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but slavery in the Northern states which were part of the original thirteen colonies had been abolished by the 1830s, excluding New Jersey and Delaware.  Slavery also existed in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and the District of Columbia up until the Civil War and those areas all remained loyal to the Union.  Also, they were all south of the Mason-Dixon line.  However, slavery never existed in states like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, among others.

·       The Emancipation Proclamation did not accomplish anything.

Because the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in rebellious states—states over which, theoretically, Lincoln had no say—some have argued that it was impotent. However, the words “thenceforward and forever free” captured the imagination of the enslaved and emboldened many of them to flee. Nearly one quarter of the four million enslaved in this country escaped to freedom before war’s end. The Proclamation also invited African Americans to join the United States military. They responded in droves, swelling the ranks of the U.S. Army and Navy by nearly 200,000 men. Finally, by defining this as a war about slavery, Lincoln insured that no European nation would enter the fray on behalf of the Confederacy, and he made it perfectly clear to Southerners that if they did not win this war, they would lose their slaves and their way of life.

·       Slavery has always existed, and it still does.

While true that slavery exists in some forms still today, American slavery, which was based solely on race, was perhaps the unique form of slavery in the history of the world.

Myths about the American Civil War in general:

·       There was a “Union” army.

While the men and boys from the North were fighting, in part, to preserve the Union, they did not refer to themselves as “Union” soldiers. They were Federal or United States soldiers. This was the same U.S. army that squared off against the British in 1775; the same U.S. army that would eventually storm the beaches of Normandy in 1944; and the same U.S. army to which many of the gray-clad officers who served the Confederacy had once sworn their loyalty.

·       All Civil War soldiers were young.

While it is true that many young men, including teenagers, served on both sides, the average soldier was in his early 20s.  There were many soldiers in their 30s and even 40s.

·       Civil War soldiers were all volunteers.

Most soldiers did volunteer to serve, but both sides also enacted conscription, i.e. draft laws.  In fact, the Confederacy passed the first draft in American history in early 1862.  Thousands of Northern men were drafted in 1863 and 1864.

·       The Irish enlisted as they got off the boats.

For the most part this is untrue.  The Irish, like other immigrants in the North, enlisted and were drafted under more normal circumstances.  The New York draft riots in 1863 were a sharp response by mostly Irish immigrants to the war policy and emancipation.  Germans and Scandinavians were very pro-Union and served in large numbers.

·       The conflict was known as the “War of Northern Aggression.”

That term was never used during the war and is a late 20th century creation.

·       Confederate soldiers usually had no shoes and barely enough to eat.

In the early stages of the war Southern soldiers were much better equipped and had better food.  However, as the war dragged on matters changed.  When Vicksburg fell, huge food sources in Texas, such as grain and beef, were cut off from the Confederate Army.  As U.S. troops penetrated into various areas of the South, factories which produced shoes and uniforms were destroyed or captured.  Late in the war, states like North Carolina hoarded food supplies desperately needed by Confederate troops in Virginia.

·       African Americans fought as soldiers in the Confederate army.

While many African Americans accompanied Confederate armies, they functioned in the role of camp slaves, cooks, teamsters, and musicians. Some were impressed for physical labor like constructing earthworks, repairing rail lines, mining saltpeter or lead, or working in munitions factories. In January 1864, Gen. Patrick Cleburne proposed arming African Americans to fill the dwindling ranks of the army as soldiers. His colleagues and superiors were so aghast they ordered the entire matter quashed. Gen. Howell Cobb called it the “most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began...If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” In March 1865, a desperate Confederacy finally agreed to train black soldiers, just four weeks prior to the war’s end and too late for implementation.

·       Amputations were performed indiscriminately.

When Minié balls struck bone, they shattered it. Infection typically set in within hours which created an urgent need for treatment. Amputation quickly became the recommended method because more conservative measures were rarely effective. Military surgeons were mostly educated, having either attended medical school or trained with an established doctor. Other than the use of sterilization techniques, better equipment, and modern anesthesia, the basics of performing an amputation have changed very little in the years since the Civil War.

·       Civil War soldiers endured amputations with nothing but a swig of whiskey and a bullet to bite on.

In about 95% of all Civil War surgeries, doctors used anesthesia. Chloroform had been in common usage for a decade before the Civil War and was used throughout the war by both armies. After anesthesia was administered, the soldier would experience loss of consciousness, followed by a stage of physical agitation. Thrashing of arms and legs might require assistants to hold him still, even though he was unconscious and feeling no pain. To onlookers, including wounded soldiers waiting their turn, it might have appeared that he was resisting.

·       Amputated arms and legs of soldiers were commonly flung out windows.

Except in the most extreme situations, surgeons who had given their lives to the healing arts would never have treated human body parts with such flagrant disregard. Amputated limbs were even buried out of respect.

Next, some myths about the Battle of Franklin:

·       Confederate commander John Bell Hood was addicted to laudanum (opium).

This myth was deeply entrenched, but its effects have lessened over the years.  There is no evidence, and never has been, to support this very personal accusation.

·       Carter House was a hospital.

While there were wounded men brought into the house, most were moved to other locations in town after the battle had ended. Neither Carter House nor any building nearby would have been suitable as a hospital because the fighting was too severe in that location. Hospitals were located further back into the town, or along the edges of the battlefield.

·       There was a “Ground Zero” at Franklin.

The term “Ground Zero” was first used to describe the area directly beneath the detonation of an atomic bomb and was later applied to the World Trade Center site following 9/11. It always designates a precise, limited scope. The Federal line of entrenchments at Franklin stretched a mile and a half, and the Confederate Army of Tennessee arrayed itself across a battle line roughly two miles wide as they made their approach. Grievous casualties were scattered across the battlefield, not just in one localized area.

·       The Battle of Franklin is like three 9/11s.

Any comparison of a battle to an act of terrorism like 9/11 is problematic. However, in terms of sheer numbers, more people died on 9/11 than died at Franklin.

·       Franklin was an unimportant battle.

There is ample evidence that the battle was very important because it effectively crippled the Confederate army, and its outcome helped to bring an end to the war in the Western Theater.

·       The five bloodiest hours of the war occurred at Franklin.

Franklin was certainly a violent and bloody battle, but it is impossible to quantify such things.  There were roughly 10,000 casualties in five hours at Franklin whereas at Antietam there were nearly 23,000 casualties in twelve hours.

·       All Confederate wounded were taken to Carnton.

The wounded at Carnton were composed entirely of men in Maj. Gen. W. W. Loring’s Division.  The Southern wounded from other divisions were cared for at other locations.

·       The bodies of five or six Confederate generals were laid on Carnton’s porch the morning after the battle.

The evidence shows it is likely that the bodies of four generals were moved to Carnton – Patrick Cleburne, John Adams, Otho Strahl, and Hiram Granbury.  States Rights Gist died at another hospital (possibly the Harrison House) and John C. Carter died at the Harrison residence on December 10, 1864.

Myths regarding the post-war period:

·       Reconstruction was a failure.

The period known as Reconstruction yielded several very significant accomplishments, including passage of three Constitutional amendments.  The 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th Amendment made native born or naturalized people citizens, and the 15th Amendment guaranteed voting rights to all adult males, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of involuntary servitude.

The Freedman’s Bureau established free public schools and provided food, shelter, medical care, and legal assistance to newly emancipated slaves as well as poor whites. Fourteen African Americans were elected to the United States House of Representatives during this period and two - Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce - were elected to the United States Senate.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed equal access to accommodations, public transportation, and theaters for all citizens regardless of race and color.

Reconstruction failed when it was brought to an abrupt end. The hotly contested Presidential election of 1876 resulted in Southern Democrats handing the Presidency to Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for removal of troops from the South and restoration of home rule. Then, in 1883, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. These two actions ushered in the era known as “Jim Crow.”

·       The Ku Klux Klan began as a benign fraternal organization.

From its very inception, the Klan used violence and intimidation to keep newly freed blacks “in line,” and to limit the freedoms and privileges conferred upon them by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The Klan also wantonly attacked white Unionists and white Republicans.  The Klan’s reign of terror subsided during the Presidency of U. S. Grant, but it experienced a resurgence during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

·       Veterans reconciled and put aside their differences.

Many did, but many did not.  Bitter feelings and resentments lingered on both sides.  Many former Confederates remained “unreconstructed,” and many former Federals were adamant that Confederate iconography should not be allowed in national parks.

·       All Confederate monuments are either symbols of hate and racism, or reflections of the Jim Crow era.

Not all monuments are the same.  Monuments to the average Confederate soldier are materially different than monuments to individuals such as, for example, Jefferson Davis.  The same could be said for the Vietnam War Memorial as compared to a Lyndon Baines Johnson statue.  Some Confederate monuments, like the one in Franklin, can and should be evaluated on their own merits or lack thereof.  As for the monument in Franklin, while put up during Jim Crow and no doubt displaying some of the sentiments of the Confederacy, it was intended as a memorial to those who had served as soldiers and those who died at Franklin.

General myths regarding life in the 19th century:

·       People were much shorter.

The average height for men in the 1860s was about 5’8” whereas it is 5’10” today. The big difference is weight: around 140 lb. in 1860 vs 180 lb. today.

·       Kitchens were separate from the house because of the risk of fire.

Fire was the primary heating method inside the home. Outdoor kitchens helped to avoid further heating the house in summer. Also, most of the cooking was being done by the enslaved and this helped maintain a certain level of separation.

·       People did not have closets because closets were taxed.

There is no evidence to substantiate this claim. Closets were used differently back then with clothing typically folded on shelves or hung from hooks—hangers were not invented until after the Civil War—and would have likely been used for household storage in addition to storing clothes.

·       The Northern economy was driven by industry, whereas in the South it was all agriculture.

According to the 1860 census, roughly three quarters of all the wheat, oats, and corn in the country were being grown by farmers in the North, and half the tobacco. The same census lists more than 20,000 manufacturing facilities in states that would compose the Confederacy.  No doubt farming was widespread across the South, but it was also a significant economic factor in the North.  The biggest difference between the two economies was a free labor system which stood in sharp contrast to the enslaved labor system.