Review of Gods and Generals (2003) by Myown A — 24 Jul 2008

Not your typical Civil War recounting of the supposed racist southern rebels versus the morally superior northern heroes. This movie is just too much to take for the politically correct self-righteous blowhards who usually write movie reviews. This is the history of the War Between the States as told from the Southerners' point of view. It portrays the southern cause as a noble one without demonizing the union and without equating the South and her cause as nothing more than pro-slavery.

In spite of what 9 out of 10 commentators will write here, this movie is more accurate than most. Men on both sides fought and died for a cause they believed in. The South was wrong about slavery. Dead wrong. But the North's aversion to slavery was neither universal nor entirely morally motivated. The South needed slaves to survive. The North didn't. At least not any more. Having made what money they could from the vile institution of slavery by participating in the marketing of Africans to the agricultural South and investing their profits into mechanization, the North suddenly developed a case of moral superiority. Still, the North was right about slavery. Many southerners, such as General Thomas Jackson, knew that too. The fact that the South was fighting for her independence from the Union while maintaining the institution of slavery was no more ironic or immoral than the fact that the Colonies fought for their independence from Great Britain while still maintaining the institution of slavery.

For the South, States Rights was a central issue, probably even more important than slavery. Many Southerners, like General Jackson, believed that slavery would one day die a natural death in the South, as it had in the North due to economics. The South resented the fact that Northerners would force them to give up slavery without any compensation. This would reduce them to poverty. They considered the demands of the North to be no less egregious that General George Washington had considered the demands made upon the Colonies by the King of England.

This film approaches the Civil War (or as some Southerners still jokingly refer to as "The War of the Northern Aggression") from a more balanced point of view that allows the Rebellious South to maintain her honor without swinging the pendulum such that the Loyal North is without her due honor.

Those who have decided their convictions about the Civil War because of the politically correct one-sided version propagandized by the winners will scoff at this movie in their self-righteous, hypocritical ignorance. That maybe most of them. They are wrong.