Yanks in Disarray: How Press Coverage of the Civil War Bears an Eerie Resemblance to Political Coverage Today
In his memoirs, Grant bemoaned a press that constantly amplified setbacks and belittled successes by his forces; the same can be said in the fight for democracy today
“Battles had been fought of as great severity as had ever been known in war, over ground from the James River and Chickahominy, near Richmond, to Gettysburg and Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, with indecisive results, sometimes favoring the National army, sometimes to the Confederate army; but in every instance, I believe, claimed as victories for the South by the Southern press if not by the Southern generals. The Northern press, as a whole, did not discourage these claims; a portion of it always magnified rebel successes and belittled ours, while another portion, most sincerely earnest in their desire for the preservation of the Union and the overwhelming success of the Federal armies, would nevertheless generally express dissatisfaction with whatever victories were gained because they were not more complete.” — “Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant,” page 364
Headline at the top of Washington Post home page on Friday morning after Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election.
Two of my lifelong passions have been journalism and history. And as our nation faces the greatest test to its democracy since the Civil War, I’ve been struck more and more by the parallels between then and now when it comes to press coverage.
While the Northern army fighting to save the union and preserve American democracy during the Civil War had great advantages in resources and manpower, it also faced great disadvantages, as the hero of the war, Ulysses S. Grant, explained at length in his personal memoirs (considered by many historians to be among the greatest memoirs ever written). Many of those disadvantages had to do with military realities (the army tasked with conquering land in hostile territories always faces a much greater challenge than the one tasked with defending land it already possesses). But one disadvantage he spent a significant amount of time on had nothing to do with military and tactical matters; and everything to with the shaping of public opinion through press coverage in the North and the South.
As the quote at the top of this post makes clear, the South had an enormous advantage in this regard, similar to the enormous advantage that the MAGA forces threatening our democracy hold today. The Northern press — even that segment that believed in the moral imperative of saving the Union — constantly spun battlefield events in a way that minimized Union progress and victories and exaggerated those of the South. The South, on the other hand, benefited from a Fox News-like media bubble that was largely divorced from reality and obsessed with spreading whatever false narratives and propaganda would keep the Southern population firmly deluded about and supportive of the rebellion. It worked so well that when the Northern victory eventually came, with Grant’s forces besieging Richmond and Sherman’s marching to the sea of Georgia, much of the Southern population was stunned with disbelief, because it had been told time and again that they were winning.
Fast forward to 2024. Much of the Mainstream Media seems more obsessed with the weaknesses and fumbles of our current president (his age, his low approval ratings, the divisions within his party, however healthy those divisions may be in spawning needed debate over complex issues) than the fact his opponent and the movement he controls is hell bent on destroying every norm and principle at the heart of our political system, including democracy itself. A man who is now a convicted felon, and facing a litany of other criminal indictments for inciting an insurrection against his own government, trampling on the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law and trying to overthrow the will of voters, is often treated in the media as just another flawed politician, rather than an existential threat to our basic freedoms as Americans.
And then you have the MAGA media bubble of Fox News and right-wing outlets like it, which have shown over and over that they will spread any lie, distort any fact, dehumanize any political opponent, to achieve the ratings, power and political outcomes they so covet. What they sell above all is hate-filled grievance, and they do it well (though stoking hate is really not all that hard once you succumb to its temptation).
As soon as the verdict came down in New York last week showing that prosecutors had scored a slam dunk, I knew the Mainstream Media machine would instantly do just as the Northern press did during the Civil War — spin, parse, manipulate and diminish this clear triumph for the rule of law into something different. All while the MAGA media machine inflamed rage on the part of Trump’s cult about a rigged witch hunt (never mind that Trump’s lawyers approved of the very jurors who handed down the verdict when weighing all the facts). The headline gracing the top of the Washington Post website Friday morning said it all. The magnitude of a former president being convicted of a felony in a case that may have swung the outcome of the 2016 presidential election (and enabled all the ineptitude, incompetency and corruption that followed over the following four years) was secondary to the “toll” the almighty felon was taking on our prized judicial system.
Was it any surprise? The minute Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed his charges, he was questioned, ridiculed and attacked by media pundits who said the case was weak (it wasn’t); the case was trivial (it wasn’t); the case was salacious because it involved a porn star and sex (it was about fraud that diminished the sanctity of our elections and therefore our democracy). So when he and his team of prosecutors proved all the naysayers wrong, the story, of course, had to change to the “toll” Trump was taking on the same judicial system that had proved its strength — the unhinged rage exhibited by him and his cultists; the horse-race speculation about what it would all mean for an election still five months away. A powerful ex-president being held accountable by ordinary Americans for crimes he committed wasn’t a triumph of the American judicial system; it was evidence of the “toll” inflicted on it by the loser.
When I saw the headline “Even as Trump found guilty, his attacks take toll on judicial system,” I immediately thought back to Grant’s words about the Northern press during the Civil War. The disdain he felt for the role they played in manipulating public opinion against the Union war effort was so great that he even suggested that it was a greater asset to the Confederacy than the generals and soldiers who fiercely opposed every move of his army.
Immediately, a series of hypothetical headlines popped into my head that today’s Mainstream Media might have used to spin other pivotal historical events in ways that would have served the interests of those seeking to undermine our democracy and faith in our political and governmental institutions for their own selfish and corrupt ends.
A sampling:
Even as Lee is repelled at Gettysburg, his attacks take toll on Union forces
Even as Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, his bold attack on institution of slavery takes toll on fragile Union coalition
Even as Eisenhower secures beachhead at Normandy, D-Day carnage takes toll on Allied forces
Even as Truman pulls off shocking election upset, his political weaknesses continue to take their toll
Even as Supreme Court rules unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education, backlash by segregationists takes toll on civil rights movement
Even as Kennedy avoids nuclear war in Cuban Missile Crisis, decisions take toll on his relationship with military brass
Even as Nixon resigns in disgrace, Watergate investigations take toll on American political institutions
Few people today would compare Joe Biden to Abraham Lincoln, but the fact is that for much of their terms, they shared much in common. They both sought to keep together a deeply divided nation. They both had trouble maintaining public support for their political agendas and were quite unpopular for much of their time in office. Their leadership was relentlessly questioned and critiqued by the mainstream press, while their adversaries were protected by a media propaganda bubble that showed no respect for or interest in the truth or long-established political norms — or even the humanity of their fellow Americans.
We all know how things turned out in 1864. Ultimately, victories on the battlefield could no longer be minimized and discarded as the end game at last came into view for a war-weary nation. When the tide turned, even the cynical press had to acknowledge reality.
If all goes well, the fight for democracy will follow a similar arc in 2024. Let the Mainstream Media obsess over whatever political narrative will generate the most clicks and views to benefit their bottom line and own ingrained skepticism, regardless of the stakes for our country and our freedoms. Out of their sight, and largely ignored by the public at large, a growing army of warriors for democracy, committed to the preservation of our shared national values, is growing in number and gaining strength by the day. They’re knocking on doors, making phone calls, donating money, writing postcards, speaking the truth and building a movement to save our nation from the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War. Anyone reading this is welcome to join them in this noble struggle.
As much as I would love to credit a free press for playing a vital role in preserving and strengthening our democracy, I’m sorry to say that they simply aren’t up to the task when it comes to the preeminent issue at hand, and in many cases they are doing more to aid and abet the enemies of democracy than to hold them accountable. It’s up to the rest of us to do the work that needs to be done. And together, we can prevail in the same way that the forces marshaled by Grant and Lincoln prevailed in the face of all the cynics, naysayers and doubters 160 years ago.
During some of the bleakest days of 1864, when it seemed that elusive victory may never come as the press obsessed over one setback after another, Grant sent a dispatch to Washington from the front lines containing a line that would be noted by that same press and soon capture the imagination of the Northern public, instilling a sense of hope and confidence that quickly seemed to be fading.
“I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
That sentence became a rallying cry that drowned out the skepticism and doubt that had taken such root in the Northern psyche. As summer 2024 approaches, those of us who care about the preservation of our democracy need the same rallying cry. We will fight it out on the line of truth, decency and democracy if it takes all summer and much of the fall — regardless of whether or not the Mainstream Media chooses to take note.