''Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War'' is a 1962 book of

historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

and

literary criticism A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...

written by

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...

. It consists of 16 chapters about the works and lives of almost 30 writers, including

Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the ...

, George Washington Cable, Mary Boykin Chesnut,

Kate Chopin Kate Chopin (, also ; born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminis ...

John William De Forest John William De Forest (May 31, 1826 – July 17, 1906) was an American soldier and writer of literary realism, best known for his Civil War novel '' Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty''. He also coined the term for the Great Am ...

(who, as American historian

Henry Steele Commager Henry Steele Commager (October 25, 1902 – March 2, 1998) was an American historian. As one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time, with 40 books and 700 essays and reviews, he helped define modern liberalism in the Un ...

put it, "surprisingly gets more space than any other writer, North or South"), Charlotte Forten,

Ulysses Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War ...

, Francis Grierson,

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (né Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associat ...

, Hinton Rowan Helper,

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Cou ...

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

Sidney Lanier Sidney Clopton Lanier (February 3, 1842 – September 7, 1881) was an American musician, poet and author. He served in the Confederate States Army as a private, worked on a blockade-running ship for which he was imprisoned (resulting in his catch ...

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

, John S. Mosby,

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

Thomas Nelson Page Thomas Nelson Page (April 23, 1853 – November 1, 1922) was an American lawyer, politician, and writer. He served as the List of United States ambassadors to Italy, U.S. ambassador to Italy from 1913 to 1919 under the administration of Presiden ...

Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American author and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (185 ...

, Albion W. Tourgée John Townsend Trowbridge,

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

, and

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

. In addition to De Forest, Wilson pays particular attention to Cable, Grant, Grierson, Holmes, and Stowe, choices considered "

catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and unexpected" at the time of its publication. The "patriotic gore" of the book's title was taken from Maryland's former (until 2021) pro-Confederate state song, " Maryland, My Maryland," "wrenched rather violently" from a line about the

Baltimore riot of 1861 The Baltimore riot of 1861 (also called the "Pratt Street Riots" and the "Pratt Street Massacre") was a civil conflict on Friday, April 19, 1861, on Pratt Street, Baltimore, Maryland. It occurred between antiwar "Copperhead" Democrats (the lar ...

. Commager described the book as a "series of reflections on ivil Warliterature and on the men and women, and the societies, that produced it"; he characterized it as "original, skeptical, allusive, penetrating. It is discursive, ranging widely from North to South, and even more widely in time." Most of the essays in the book originally appeared during the 1950s in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''. The critic R.W.B. Lewis observed that "the book does have a certain somber and durable magnificence. But for me it is damaged by Wilson's strenuous demythicizing of the war itself—his rejection as irrelevant of such matters as the fate of the Union and of the institution of slavery." Writing during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, Wilson viewed the Civil War through the lens of imperialism: “Having myself lived through a couple of world wars and having read a certain amount of history, I am no longer disposed to take very seriously the professions of ‘war aims’ that nations make.” This included the Union's "moral" rationale for going to war. As such, Wilson's analysis of the Civil War, intentionally or not, echoes the now-discredited Lost Cause ideology. Historian David W. Blight wrote, Wilson used "language no diehard Lost Cause advocate of the turn of the 20th century nor neo-Confederate of the early 21st could improve upon" and "simply took no interest in black literature, and seemed completely unaware of slave narratives." For Blight, this position reveals as "much about Wilson’s own moral blindness sabout the state of knowledge in elite white circles of African-American history and letters in the 1950s and even early 1960s." Indeed, Wilson almost entirely ignored African-American writers, with Forten as an exception, notably neglecting to mention

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was the most impor ...

. Even so, as

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic and professor at Yale University. He was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern ...

noted, "Wilson is unsparing and witty in his treatment of the pretensions of the Southern myth." Blight also characterized Wilson's introduction to the book as a "mesmerizing if troubling

manifesto A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...

" written "in the midst of various

crises," a "blunt and sustained critique of the Cold War and of war itself." Wilson posited that the moral fervor of the Civil War laid the groundwork for American global aggression in the 20th century. As Blight wrote, the introduction has thus been called "everything from shocking to naive to brilliant; some considered it unpatriotic, even un-American." The essayist

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

also picked up on this theme, regarding it with more sympathy. "In 1963," he wrote, "as ''pontifex maximus'' of the old American republic, Wilson is speaking out with a Roman hardness and clarity, and sadness at what has been lost since Appomattox. Our eighteenth-century ''res publicus'' had been replaced by a hard-boiled soft-minded imperium, ever eager to use that terrible swift sword, presumably forever." When Wilson was honored by President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

in 1963 with a

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, alongside the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by decision of the president of the United States to "any person recommended to the President ...

, the president asked him what ''Patriotic Gore'' was about. Wilson told him to go read it for himself.

References

{{reflist Books of literary criticism American Civil War books 1962 non-fiction books Oxford University Press books