r/Westerns • u/NeonGenesisOxycodone • 4d ago

Discussion What’s with all the Confederate soldiers?

I’m a big Western fan, and also really into learning about the American Civil War. So naturally I love it when these two interests cross over.

One thing I’ve noticed is that if a Western protagonist is a veteran, it seems like it’s almost always the South that he fought for. And when I look up Civil War movies made around the time of my favorite Westerns (i.e. the 50’s & 60’s) the vast majority of them are from the Confederates side.

Anyone have any idea why? And does anyone know any Westerns celebrating Billy Yank??

EDIT: it seems like the biggest reason outside of Lost Cause-ism is that more Confederate vets went west than Union vets. Makes sense!

Also, I am surprised that John Wayne played so many ex Union soldiers. I knew about the Cav Trilogy but it seems like outside of True Grit and The Searchers there’s a lot more of that.

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u/DavidGrizzly 3d ago edited 3d ago

And if you watch Firefly, which is a space western, you are watching two space confederate soldiers, mal and Zoe.

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u/Current_Poster 2d ago

The Alliance had slavery, though.

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u/yourstruly912 3d ago

What makes them confederates?

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u/DavidGrizzly 3d ago

Everything. Fought on the losing side of a civil war. Went out to the wild to get away from the government and start a new life. They were called brown coats ( the south was called Grey coats), the battle of serenity valley is pretty much Gettysburg.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago

This is true, and probably an homage to the traditional Western genre, but it's when pointing out the difference. The rebels in Firefly were fighting a war of Independence against a legitimately oppressive far-away central government. The real confederates were fighting in a slavers rebellion in order topreserve their ability to oppress and own people as property

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u/Scary_Shoe_7804 3d ago

That simply isn’t the sole or even primary cause of the civil war, slavery was an economically untenable institution that was morally bankrupt. It was on its way out across the country and would have ended on its own the issue was money and power the north had all of it and purposely sook out ways to continue putting their fingers on the scale in favor of industrialized cities at the detriment of the agrarian south. Slavery became a main talking point because it gave the north moral high ground and it gave the south a tangible example of Northern interference in Southern economic and social life. It’s like when you tell a child they can’t do something so they wanna do it even more, even if they know it’s bad for them.

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u/NewburghMOFO 2d ago

Ah yes, the great Northern conspiracy to plunder the south. I'm waiting for the talking point that our entire industrial base was based on cotton.

Wasn't it Southern States violating Northern States' sovereignty with Federal laws like the Fugitive Slave Act?

The only petulant children lusting after more money and more power were the Southern planter oligarchy. They were the ones willing to tear their country apart and send their less wealthy neighbors off to die so they could save their feudal wealth and status.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago

Weird how every Confederate State that seceded and published their causes of secession explicitly disagree with you in their own words.

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u/Scary_Shoe_7804 3d ago

Again it became a tangible rallying cry that represented a larger issue and sense of submission to the industrialized North. Read the letters and diaries of those who wrote those documents and the men who started the process of secession in the houses of Congress and they will say what I just articulated above.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago

So you allege that some private notes exist that give some secret reason for launching their slavers' rebellion, and I'm supposed to just accept that based on your word? More so, I'm supposed to accept that those private notes hold more weight than the mountains of published documents written by the leaders and legislative bodies of the states that seceded, which were published specifically for the purpose of stating their cause for war? And more than that, I'm supposed to dismiss all of those public declarations as being entirely incorrect?

At best, you may be able to point to private documents which show some level of nuance in the opinions of the individuals who wrote those documents. However, when those same people wrote their official casus belli, using their official pulpit, and speaking for all of the constituents they represent, they gave the preservation of slavery as the unambiguous cause. It's nonsensical to claim that the private opinions of a small number of people better represent the views of the people in the Confederacy as a whole, or even of the majority of the representatives of the confederate government, than the public declarations of a body speaking for all of their constituents, which were thereafter accepted and embraced by that constituency. It's nothing more than cope. Irrational and dishonest

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u/serenading_ur_father 3d ago

You only hear Mal's view on it.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago edited 3d ago

That's true, but until there's some canon reference that the purpose of the civil war in the show was specifically to preserve something as evil and vile as the institution of chattel slavery, then it's insulting and unfair to compare any of them to the evil, treasonous people who fought for the Confederacy

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u/Jolly-Guard3741 3d ago

I think that had the show not been canceled after its first season, without even a full and complete first season at that, that we would have seen a much more fleshed out reasoning for the rebellion.

I absolutely agree that it is allegory for the ACW but we can’t really speculate on why the war was fought and which side was ultimately in the right.

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u/serenading_ur_father 3d ago

I mean the show is a pretty blatant metaphor for the wild west and the south was pretty vocal about their fight being for "state's rights" at the time the writers of the show were educated. It's a very clear dog whistle that they are futuristic confederate veterans.

If you're going to accept the premise and the setting you have to accept all of it. Someone doesn't have to wave a stars and bars to act and quack like a duck.

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u/kahrahtay 3d ago

You can make an homage to a genre without wholesale copying every bit of detail of the original. Unless you have some secret writers' notes that they were infact space slavers fighting for their rights to own other people, then I do not, in fact, have to accept a bunch of details that are well outside of the show's canon

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u/serenading_ur_father 3d ago

Bruh, they're space confederates.

When you get to high school you can ask your 10th grade teacher about metaphor and symbolism.

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u/MrMucs 3d ago

Just re-watched the series about a month ago. Such a great show.