Not Even Past: The Stories We Keep Telling about the Civil War

by Cody Marrs

The American Civil War lives on in our collective imagination like few other events. The story of the war has been retold in countless films, novels, poems, memoirs, plays, sculptures, and monuments. Often remembered as an emancipatory struggle, as an attempt to destroy slavery in America now and forever, it is also memorialized as a fight for Southern independence; as a fratricide that divided the national family; and as a dark, cruel conflict defined by its brutality. What do these stories, myths, and rumors have in common, and what do they teach us about modern America?

In this fascinating book, Cody Marrs reveals how these narratives evolved over time and why they acquired such lasting power. Marrs addresses an eclectic range of texts, traditions, and creators, from Walt Whitman, Abram Ryan, and Abraham Lincoln to Margaret Mitchell, D. W. Griffith, and W. E. B. Du Bois. He also identifies several basic plots about the Civil War that anchor public memory and continually compete for cultural primacy. In other words, from the perspective of American cultural memory, there is no single Civil War.

Whether they fill us with elation or terror; whether they side with the North or the South; whether they come from the 1860s, the 1960s, or today, these stories all make one thing vividly clear: the Civil War is an ongoing conflict, persisting not merely as a cultural touchstone but as an unresolved struggle through which Americans inevitably define themselves. A timely, evocative, and beautifully written book, Not Even Past is essential reading for anyone interested in the Civil War and its role in American history.

Genres: Civil War, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published March 24, 2020

Reviews

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 5 out of 5]

“History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read, nor does it refer merely, or even principally to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.”-James Baldwin

Borrowing from William Faulkner’s famous quote about “the past isn’t over. It’s not even past”, the author looks at the legacy of the Civil War on the American psyche over the last 150 years and how it continues to influence and haunt us.
Each chapter takes a common myth about the war and turns it on its head.
Such as the idea that the Civil War was a battle between “brothers”.
As the author writes:

“A nation, to state the blindingly obvious, is very much not a family. None of the things that define a nation whose members are strewn about and linked only through legal fictions resemble the intimate bonds and everyday rhythms that collectively create a family….If the nation is fundamentally a family, then the Civil War was simply a domestic quarrel, a temporary falling out that ultimately brought everyone back together. Is that an impossible (and slightly embarrassing) fiction, a story belied by history and logic alike? Of course. But in the end that might be the secret to its appeal. It says something that people know on some level isn’t true but profoundly want to believe. It functions as a kind of national wish fulfillment, converting common assumptions about race, community, and the American past into fictions that feel like history. In that respect, the Family Squabble is no mere conceit: it is a living mythology that continues to take form even now, after all this time.”

Framing the war as a “family” affair makes sense in that implies that all citizens are now and have always been invested in the outcome. As the author points out however, this American “family” did not include black Americans. We see this most clearly in the literature of the war even up to the present day, where stories of “brotherhood” almost exclusively involve white brotherhood.
My favorite chapter perhaps was the one detailing Lost Cause mythology. The idea that the war was not fought by the South to protect slavery is ludicrous to the point that its barely worth discussing. Endless numbers of Confederate generals and leaders made their opinions quite clear that slavery was the “cornerstone” (to use the word of the Confederate Vice-President) of the Confederacy. It was written into the Confederate Constitution with little ambiguity and any argument about the war being about “states rights” needs to end with the reminder that the only “state right” that mattered to the South was slavery. The author does a fantastic job of tracing Lost Cause mythology and how it developed for anyone unaware of it. In particular, he rightly points out that 150 years of Southern schools teaching this nonsense to their children, and their children’s children, as well as monuments to the Lost Cause seemingly being around every corner on every Southern street, can only lead to one outcome. One that sees us in 2023 still fighting a war we want to tell ourselves was long since decided.
What then is the solution?
Perhaps in a sense some good may come out of the Presidency of Donald Trump in that while he seemingly created the conditions for incidents such as the one at Charlottesville, the truth is those feelings and hatreds have always been there. While it may be unpleasant to see them so openly, the only way we can begin to deal with the legacy of the civil war is to bring them to the surface and admit that many of its causes still linger with us today.
It is not a discussion that can be had in the shadows and therefore requires that we all look at the myths we tell ourselves in an attempt to not only find truth, but ultimately some kind of real reconciliation.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

The day after rioters attacked the Capital, I taught Lincoln's First Inaugural Address and Stephen's Cornerstone Speech. To say it was surreal would be an understatement.

I started reading this book last week and it has helped me begin to organize some of my thinking about the state of the country. It is one that, although written for academics interested in literary criticism, would be beneficial to any to read.

[Tim Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book on my sabbatical scholarly reading list for my new project.

This monograph makes as strong a case for the Civil War’s impact on American arts and letters as any work of literary studies I have read recently. This achievement stems not only from penetrating textual analysis and lucid (and often moving) prose but also from its politics. Marrs challenges us to think deeply about what a true reckoning with our racial past involves: new stories, new monuments, new policy, and new freedom fighters. His exegesis of twenty-first-century Black voices, continuing the tradition of Douglass, DuBois, King, and others, is particularly noteworthy.

A quick yet important read, which is accessible to general and scholarly readers alike.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal--Marrs classifies Civil War narratives, both fiction and nonfiction, across four different traditions that call attention to ideologies that continue to linger in the United States long after the 19th Century. This is as much a book about historiography as it is about our present sociopolitical landscape.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous overview of Civil War-related art, and how it shapes/reflects our thinking about the war and then of nation - and how those forms continue to shape our thinking now.