MARYVILLE UNIVERSITY
The Manipulation of the
Civil War in Film
Megan Wunderlich
4/28/2010
Since “The Birth of a Nation,” Civil War films have distorted the historical truth of the conflict in order to
make a statement within the films, whether this statement be about an issue in the society during the
time in which the film was made in or about the historical inaccuracies of films. Therefore historical
films, for this paper specifically Civil War films, have major issues within the films, such as historical
inaccuracies, the neglect of the introduction of political conflicts and issues other than slavery, and the
introduction of intentional flaws. Flaws may make the film more interesting, however, as the paper
demonstrates, the flaws are made so that the film will be easily sold to the general public. Thus,
historical films makes history an objectified commodity.
Beginning in 1915 with Birth of a Nation, Civil War films have done a good job in showing the
advancement of the American culture, from racist ideals to isolationism to immigration and morality of
war. In the 1951 film The Red Badge of Courage the subject is the Korean War, in the 1976 film The
Outlaw Josey Wales the subject is Anti-Vietnam war, if we skip ahead to the 1999 film Ride with the
Devil the cultural issue is immigration. Civil War films also have major moral issues that they discuss,
and they do not always argue a solution to these moral issues, such as in Ride with the Devil in which the
issue was immigration, but the producers did not argue a solution. Other moral issues are those that
D.W. Griffith argues about the truth behind the film.
D.W. Griffith is quoted in David Mayer’s Stagestruck Filmmaker in saying, “Of necessity, the
stage must tell the truth more freely than any other method of expression. It is the only means existing
today of even attempting to portray the truth,” and the author says he “condemned motion pictures for
their cheap shoddiness and their expensive excesses.”1 Thomas Cripps continues this argument stating
that all films divert the viewers from the bigger issue, which is a major issue with “the documentable
trace of American capital investment.”2 History, therefore, is a commodity that can be flawed for film
makers purposes and therefore are also objectified. Thus the producers may make a film about blacks
in American society, Glory!, but in the end the movie is flawed so that the film can make money and the
producers can receive money from investors. If Glory! was a historically correct film, it would discuss
who exactly enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts, free Northern Black men, and how the company really
did fare in the Civil War.
Such historical inaccuracies of these films allow the viewers to believe something which is/was
not true. Such as W. Scott Poole argues that in Glory! the producers portrayed the black soldiers as
runaway slaves or free men under some type of subjugation when in fact most black soldiers of the 54th
1
David Mayer, Stagestruck Fimmaker: D.W. Griffith and American Theatre, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,
2009), pg. 1.
2
Thomas Cripps, Following the Paper Trail to Birth of a Race and Its Times.
Massachusetts were free Northern men. He also points out that in the film the entire 54th
Massachusetts dies in the climactic battle, when in reality the soldiers went on to fight other battles
after that defeat.3 Most inaccuracies are made in order to sell the film, as stated earlier, and since these
films are easily manipulated the history is as well. Bruce Chadwick says that since the silent film era the
truth has been distorted so much in film that by the 1990’s revisionist films, such as Ken Burns’
documentary The Civil War, needed to be produced in order to reeducate the general population and
film producers on the Civil War ‘truths.’4 “Good historical ‘truths’ raise questions about the status of
particular versions of historical accounts; compel us to critically evaluate our own responses to what
appears on the screen; or at the very least give us some sense of what particular historical moment
might have ‘looked’ like.”5 Therefore the films, Hollywood and documentary, makes us analyze what
we know and to “think about the relationship between racial politics and the production of historical
truths.”6
Viewers of these films also gain an understanding of the war, usually a distorted understanding
in which the film is seen by the viewer as a type of educational text. Therefore when we watch Outlaw
Josey Wales we believe that all Confederates committed random acts of violence, or as in Ride with the
Devil viewers may assume that there was considerable amount of violence against immigrants within
troops and that immigrants who fought did so voluntarily. The reality is that there was violence, but it
was not random and most immigrants, if not all, were drafted and segregated into their own troops.
Bruce Chadwick says that producers distort reality in order to create fiction and romanticize the era. He
also states that the public believes that films are legitimate historical documents to view and receive a
3
W. Scott Poole, “Ain’t Nobody Clean,” in Memory and Myth edited by David B. Sachsman. (West Lafayette,
Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2007), pg. 262 and 266.
4
Bruce Chadwick, The Reel Civil War. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). Pg. 7.
5
Trevor B. McCrisken and Andrew Pepper, American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film. (New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005), pg 68.
6
Trevor B. McCrisken and Andrew Pepper, American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film. (New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005), pg 68.
history lesson.7 Thus history is easily manipulated in order to make the Civil War seem good; because of
the Civil War the slaves were emancipated.
Many films depict a fine line between what is considered good and evil and place blame on the
South. To the South, slavery was a good thing, and the Northerners believed this institution was one of
the greatest evils in American society. As we watch these films we see slavery as morally wrong, which
it is, but the problem is that all Civil War films are viewed from the North’s perspective rather than from
the South’s. The Outlaw Josey Wales hunted down the Confederate troops that killed his family, Glory!
states that only Union soldiers could rise above racism to employ blacks in the army, Ride With the Devil
follows the Missouri Bushwhackers who were pro-slavery and anti-Lincoln soldiers. Paul Ashdown
comments on how the war has been portrayed in film and has evolved by saying, “the first silent films
emphasized conflict and assigned blame. Films after World War I avoided causes and issues and viewed
the Civil War as bad for both sides. There were few battles. Individual heroes and the healing of
sectional divisions took priority.”8 Looking at these three films we can even see the way in which the
films evolved, especially becoming more complex. Josey Wales obviously blames the Confederates for
the war and he does not join an army to fight another army. Glory! states that the Union Army is more
civilized and sophisticated because they can allow blacks into their army. Ride with the Devil does not
even deal with Union vs. Confederacy fight, other than that the Bushwhackers ally with the Union and
the Jayhawkers ally with the Confederates, based primarily on whether or not they support slavery, and
mostly the conflict and conversations discuss immigration.
Poole especially focuses on the racism of film, in that most Civil War films are about white men,
or as in Glory! white men in power, and states that this is another historical inaccuracy in which, “the
breaking of Trip actually symbolizes the continued unwillingness to make a Civil War film that not only is
7
Bruce Chadwick, The Reel Civil War. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). Pg 4, 12
Paul Ashdown, “Knights in Blue and Butternut: Television’s Civil War,” in Memory and Myth edited by David B.
Sachsman. (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2007), pg 243.
8
full of black men is in a real sense about black men.”9 The Civil War, as film makers portrayed, was
fought by white men over the institution of slavery for their own benefit. For the Northern soldiers the
war was to end slavery so that they had more cheap labor for their factories, for the Southern soldiers it
was so that they could keep their slaves so they could continue to be rich, lazy, people who had a source
of free labor that would be happy to serve their masters. David Mayer seems to agree as well. Mayer
says that, “racial issues rarely intrude into these dramas and never distract from the objective of
reunifying a white nation,”10 therefore because the producers give little attention to the black cause, the
viewers believe the Civil War was fought between white men and other politics were never addressed.11
Phebe Davidson believes that Civil War films do much more than just reflect the culture; they
also influence the culture as well; especially Birth of a Nation, as stated by Davidson, which influenced
the culture by giving to “the rise of independent black film companies, which was not a goal of [Thomas]
Dixon or [D.W.] Griffith.”12 These new film companies were established as a reaction to the way blacks
were portrayed in the film, as murders, rapists and evils of society. If we look at Glory! we see that the
film was made in response to the passage of Affirmative Action but it also called for better race relations
between blacks and whites, but also for better relations between blacks. “Glory! should be applauded
for its positive contribution to the ongoing project of recovering previously marginalized black histories
and for recognizing the sacrifice made by 180,000 African-American soldiers during the Civil War.”13
As David Mayer states, “the American Civil War has never been a stable field with an agreedupon historical interpretation. Rather it was-and is-an evolving, contested subject which is host to
9
W. Scott Poole, “Ain’t Nobody Clean,” in Memory and Myth edited by David B. Sachsman. (West Lafayette,
Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2007), pg. 262 and 266.
10
David Mayer, Stagestruck Fimmaker: D.W. Griffith and American Theatre, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,
2009), pg. 121.
11
W. Scott Poole, “Ain’t Nobody Clean,” in Memory and Myth edited by David B. Sachsman. (West Lafayette,
Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2007), pg. 262 and 266. And Bruce Chadwick, pg. 8.
12
Phebe Davidson “History with Lightning,” in Memory and Myth edited by David B. Sachsman. (West Lafayette,
Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2007), pg 231-232. Thomas Dixon was the author of The Clansman, the novel in
which D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation is based on.
13
Trevor B. McCrisken and Andrew Pepper, American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film. (New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005), pg 67.
vehemence, disruption, and difference, a palimpsest upon which fresh questions about the past are
inscribed.”14 Civil War films are a type of history text that can interpret the Civil War in whatever
fashion the producers wish. As Trevor McCrisken and Andrew Pepper quoted David Thelen, “[Civil War
films] form a ‘story of bitter irreconcilable conflict between two societies and between two sets of
values’ into one of ‘human courage and bravery exhibited by all.”15 Therefore as David McCulloch has
said “the past is up for grabs for creative people.”16 We can view films about the Civil War, they will not
be historically correct, but they will reflect current societal themes. Historians are able to look back at
these films and study society, not the Civil War because these films were flawed by capitalists so that
the history could be manipulated to make a positive statement of the past.
14
David Mayer, Stagestruck Fimmaker: D.W. Griffith and American Theatre, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,
2009), pg. 121.
15
Trevor B. McCrisken and Andrew Pepper, American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film. (New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005), pg 64.
16
David McCulloch quoted in Bruce Chadwick’s, The Reel Civil War. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). Pg 5
Bibliography
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