His thesis is a canard on the same order

His thesis is a canard on the same order of those who argue that slavery was not an issue in the nation’s greatest crisis.

His summation of the South’s cause is also extraordinarily elitist. So the bourbon class duped an entire nation? Not only is this a sophomoric insult to the millions of very real people who made hard life and death choices, it is also nonsense. One need only look at the enlistment rolls to find every class of citizen: merchant, factory worker, teacher, engineer, yeoman farmer, craftsman, Cherokee tribesman, and even freed blacks taking up the Southern cause.

You will also find that over 50,000 white Southerners fought for the Union, and that thousands of Yankees supported the South. The war environment was nuanced, textured, and complex. In fact, the worst “class struggle” of the type Mr. Gardner bemoans were the draft riots of New York City in 1863, when roaming bands of whites killed hundreds of free black citizens.

Do not delude yourself that the lower class Southern whites were manipulated into the fight by clever plantation barons. Or that there was not extensive anti-secession, pro-union sentiment in the region. (In fact, much of the anti-secession talk came from the slave owners on large plantations, who correctly predicted that disunion would bring an end to the system).

I have never argued, nor will I ever argue, that the Southern Cause was just. In fact, in the column for which Mr. Gardner attacks me, I went on at length about the horrors of slavery, and celebrated the outcome of the war as a victory for the American promise. He must have missed that part.

What I did praise, and what I feel the battle flag symbolizes for the vast majority of those who display it, is the effort of those who fought under it, including Mr. Gardner’s ancestors. He must have missed that part, too.

He also takes me to task for pointing out that racists who