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The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film
More movies have been produced about the Civil War than about any other aspect of American history. From 1903 (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) to the present, film studios have released more than eight hundred silent and sound pictures about the nation’s most cataclysmic event. In this wonderfully comprehensive study, Bruce Chadwick first shows us how historians, journalists, playwrights, poets and novelists of the late nineteenth century—partly as an effort to reconcile former antagonists—rewrote the war’s history to create enduring legends, most of which had no basis in reality.
Early silent films followed their example, presenting egregiously distorted—and anti-black—stories about the war, which viewers accepted as truth.
Dr. Chadwick gives us a clear (and sometimes humorous) recounting of those films’ plots and themes, including D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and goes on to describe dozens of movies from the twenties and thirties, among them the classic Gone With the Wind. In the forties and fifties many westerns were partly or chiefly based on the Civil War, presenting veterans of both armies gone West to make a new life in the territories, now united in their hatred of the Indians, another minority group.
Collectively, all these films created a deeply mythologized and racist version of the war, and of the antebellum period that preceded it and the Reconstruction era that followed. It was a war that, on film, no one actually started (unless they were radical abolitionists) and no one really lost. The movies gave us what the author calls a “moonlight-and-magnolias” view of the past, filled with gallant cavaliers, a saintly Abraham Lincoln, Scarlett and Rhett, brave Northern warriors and beautiful Southern belles. Slaves were portrayed as obedient servants pouring mint juleps, as happy “darkies” toiling long hours in the field for lovable and benevolent masters, or as mere background pieces, like furniture or bales of hay—and, once freed, as menacing and vicious. Thus, Dr. Chadwick tells us, Americans were given segregation and racism on screen in a way that not only validated the racism they saw in their everyday lives but also helped to maintain it. Even after the civil rights movement, which inspired powerful films like Glory that portrayed the courage of black soldiers, such prejudicial films did not entirely disappear.
The Reel Civil War is a book about the power and the perils of both movies and mythmaking, but more than that, it is a book about the American people and how for a very long period their false ideas about their country’s history—in this case a terrible war—were perpetuated by Hollywood.
Early silent films followed their example, presenting egregiously distorted—and anti-black—stories about the war, which viewers accepted as truth.
Dr. Chadwick gives us a clear (and sometimes humorous) recounting of those films’ plots and themes, including D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and goes on to describe dozens of movies from the twenties and thirties, among them the classic Gone With the Wind. In the forties and fifties many westerns were partly or chiefly based on the Civil War, presenting veterans of both armies gone West to make a new life in the territories, now united in their hatred of the Indians, another minority group.
Collectively, all these films created a deeply mythologized and racist version of the war, and of the antebellum period that preceded it and the Reconstruction era that followed. It was a war that, on film, no one actually started (unless they were radical abolitionists) and no one really lost. The movies gave us what the author calls a “moonlight-and-magnolias” view of the past, filled with gallant cavaliers, a saintly Abraham Lincoln, Scarlett and Rhett, brave Northern warriors and beautiful Southern belles. Slaves were portrayed as obedient servants pouring mint juleps, as happy “darkies” toiling long hours in the field for lovable and benevolent masters, or as mere background pieces, like furniture or bales of hay—and, once freed, as menacing and vicious. Thus, Dr. Chadwick tells us, Americans were given segregation and racism on screen in a way that not only validated the racism they saw in their everyday lives but also helped to maintain it. Even after the civil rights movement, which inspired powerful films like Glory that portrayed the courage of black soldiers, such prejudicial films did not entirely disappear.
The Reel Civil War is a book about the power and the perils of both movies and mythmaking, but more than that, it is a book about the American people and how for a very long period their false ideas about their country’s history—in this case a terrible war—were perpetuated by Hollywood.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 15, 2026
I've long been fascinated by the Civil War of 1861-65, having read many books about it and have even visited most of the Civil War battlefields. And, of course, I've watched the movies about the war. In this book, Bruce Chadwick gives us a history of the Civil War as presented on film. One thing I didn't know is how many silent films featured CW stories and this was even before the epic film directed by D.W. Griffith-"Birth of a Nation." Of course, the 1915 film was not only pro-Confederate but pro-KKK and presented the worst stereotypes of African-Americans. Griffith was a Southerner, from Kentucky, and was interested in showing the Old South as he liked to remember it--as a land of chivalrous gentlemen and their ladies--and their contented loyal black slaves. This was "the moonlight-and-magnolias" view that romanticized the South and would be seen in many CW films, most notably 1939's "Gone With the Wind." That view also reinforced the Lost Cause Myth, in which the white Southerners were seen as victims of the aggressive Yankees who won only by heavily outnumbering the gallant Confederates led by the most gallant of them all, Robert E. Lee ( never mind Lee's ordering the suicidal "Pickett's Charge") . A good question is why "Birth of a Nation" and GWtW were as popular in the North as in the South. Chadwick points out the mythologized version of history was for the purpose of reunification of the nation. The South may have been defeated but they could take pride in their heroes. The terrible price was that African Americans lost their civil rights and the system of segregation was imposed on them---with the acceptance of most of the North as well as the South. Chadwick shows that a major change in viewing our history occurred with the television mini-series "Roots," with a much more sympathetic treatment of black people. More recently, we've had "Glory" which depicted the heroism of black Union soldiers in the Civil War. The book was published in 2001, so several excellent movies are not mentioned-- "Cold Mountain," "Lincoln," "12 Years a Slave," and "The Free State of Jones."
April 1, 2010
About Revisionist in the media. There wasn't that much wrong with.... Fill in the blank.
Birth of a Nation, Gone With The Wind, and the list goes on and on. Famous Director D.W. Griffin was a Confederate sympathisor and his father was a
Rebel Officer and his Birth of a Nation is just one of his works showing depraved blacks, nasty Union Soldiers and the KKK is the heroic movement which influenced so many people even a President. Mitchelle's Gone With The Wind was a sympathetic Revisionist view of the South during the Civil War along with many movies which dulled the sharp division between north and south. Heroic Confederate officers savine southern bells from the Union soldiers and slaves.
The reason why there are so many Jewish movie makers is that anti semitism in the east forced Jews west to the new industry, the movie industry.
Birth of a Nation, Gone With The Wind, and the list goes on and on. Famous Director D.W. Griffin was a Confederate sympathisor and his father was a
Rebel Officer and his Birth of a Nation is just one of his works showing depraved blacks, nasty Union Soldiers and the KKK is the heroic movement which influenced so many people even a President. Mitchelle's Gone With The Wind was a sympathetic Revisionist view of the South during the Civil War along with many movies which dulled the sharp division between north and south. Heroic Confederate officers savine southern bells from the Union soldiers and slaves.
The reason why there are so many Jewish movie makers is that anti semitism in the east forced Jews west to the new industry, the movie industry.
February 20, 2022
"The Reel Civil War" is a deep dive into how the intense desire for reconciliation after the Civil War and the Lost Cause Myth skewed American's perceptions about the war and its causes and about how that misperception ultimately made its way to the silver screen to misinform the masses.
October 21, 2007
So, I actually only read the first half of this (I stopped once it started talking about the sound era) but it's a pretty interesting book on revisionist history of the Civil War in film. The author doesn't seem to be an early film scholar, as there are some errors or questionable statements in that department, but overall, a nice survey of trends in early Civil War films.
April 20, 2023
Thought-provoking study of the cinema of the Civil War, as well as referring to post-Civil War writings of various types of myths about the Civil War - Moonlight & Magnolias - Happy & obedient slaves/darkies - Freed slaves as vicious & dangerous - Benevolent masters - Gallant rebel cavaliers - Northern scoundrels, scalawags & carpetbaggers - Saintly Abe Lincoln - Southern belles pure as the driven snow.
Special focus given to Birth of a Nation & Gone with the Wind (background and all).
There are many references to a variety of films up to more modern times.
The book overall raises many questions about real Civil War public knowledge.
Special focus given to Birth of a Nation & Gone with the Wind (background and all).
There are many references to a variety of films up to more modern times.
The book overall raises many questions about real Civil War public knowledge.
February 26, 2023
A fascinating deep dive into the iconography of the Civil War over the years.
February 1, 2016
I found this gem at my favorite used bookstore in Seattle, Magus Books, which is just a block from the University of Washington. Its strength, as the title suggests, is in tracing the story of the American Civil War as told by the cinema. Those interested in the way in which movie impacts both culture and education in the USA would do well to find this book and read it.
Chadwick spends a considerable amount of time and space carefully documenting the myth produced by Gone with the Wind, a completely unrealistic, idealized portrait of the ruling planter class of the deep South. Many of us would, in years gone by, have been inclined to dismiss this concern by saying that after all, the book and movie were primarily intended as a love story, but Chadwick demonstrates that this is not so. He ferrets out actual interviews with Margaret Mitchell herself in which she insists that this is exactly the way it was. Her sources? Former plantation owners, of course.
To this day, if an avid reader goes to Goodreads.com and under the caption “explore”, goes to “listopia” and from there selects a list of readers’ favorite Civil War titles, GWTW will place within the top ten, and sometimes be the foremost title, selected over nonfiction as well as more accurate fiction. I find this horrifying.
The research regarding the Civil War itself is nothing I haven’t seen before, but Chadwick makes excellent use of strong secondary sources to document the fact that Black folks in the pre-war South were neither happy nor well treated. He takes apart the myth Mitchell constructed in a meticulous manner, one damn brick at a time. Hell yes. About ten percent of the way into the book, Chadwick’s removed, scholarly tone changes to one of articulate outrage, and I found this tremendously satisfying.
Chadwick follows Civil War films forward, after first also examining Birth of a Nation, a painfully racist film which was famous at the time because of its length; its original claim to fame was not content, but technology. For those that have not seen the film, this will be interesting reading also, and those that have seen it may pick up some new information as well.
A couple of generations later, the more realistic and highly acclaimed Roots television miniseries told the story of Black America in a way that hadn’t been represented on film before. Chadwick is again careful in his documentation and clear in his explanation.
The book’s final film treatment is of the most positive and accurate film depiction of African-Americans is the film Glory. This reviewer used this film in the classroom. It depicts the Black Massachusetts infantry that tried to take Fort Wagner and in doing so, inspired President Lincoln to order more Black troops to be armed and trained for combat in the American Civil War.
For those interested in the connection between film and American history, and of the American Civil War in particular, this book is recommended.
Chadwick spends a considerable amount of time and space carefully documenting the myth produced by Gone with the Wind, a completely unrealistic, idealized portrait of the ruling planter class of the deep South. Many of us would, in years gone by, have been inclined to dismiss this concern by saying that after all, the book and movie were primarily intended as a love story, but Chadwick demonstrates that this is not so. He ferrets out actual interviews with Margaret Mitchell herself in which she insists that this is exactly the way it was. Her sources? Former plantation owners, of course.
To this day, if an avid reader goes to Goodreads.com and under the caption “explore”, goes to “listopia” and from there selects a list of readers’ favorite Civil War titles, GWTW will place within the top ten, and sometimes be the foremost title, selected over nonfiction as well as more accurate fiction. I find this horrifying.
The research regarding the Civil War itself is nothing I haven’t seen before, but Chadwick makes excellent use of strong secondary sources to document the fact that Black folks in the pre-war South were neither happy nor well treated. He takes apart the myth Mitchell constructed in a meticulous manner, one damn brick at a time. Hell yes. About ten percent of the way into the book, Chadwick’s removed, scholarly tone changes to one of articulate outrage, and I found this tremendously satisfying.
Chadwick follows Civil War films forward, after first also examining Birth of a Nation, a painfully racist film which was famous at the time because of its length; its original claim to fame was not content, but technology. For those that have not seen the film, this will be interesting reading also, and those that have seen it may pick up some new information as well.
A couple of generations later, the more realistic and highly acclaimed Roots television miniseries told the story of Black America in a way that hadn’t been represented on film before. Chadwick is again careful in his documentation and clear in his explanation.
The book’s final film treatment is of the most positive and accurate film depiction of African-Americans is the film Glory. This reviewer used this film in the classroom. It depicts the Black Massachusetts infantry that tried to take Fort Wagner and in doing so, inspired President Lincoln to order more Black troops to be armed and trained for combat in the American Civil War.
For those interested in the connection between film and American history, and of the American Civil War in particular, this book is recommended.
June 2, 2023
Excellent, and mostly objective, discourse and history on the mythmaking ability of Hollywood.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews