What Matt Walsh Gets Wrong about the Civil War

If a state is free to leave the Union at will -- if its leaders and citizens object to the results of an election or policies, or a state just decides that secession serves its interests – then why have a nation? 

J. Robert Smith | August 11, 2026

Matt Walsh recently put out a video in his series on history, this one titled: “What Schools Don’t Teach You About the Civil War.” You can find it on YouTube. It’s worth an hour of your time. It’s worth it because, today, attempts to reinterpret history are proliferating. So-called progressives and outright leftists seek to reinterpret our nation’s history in very ugly and false ways. That’s true about the Civil War. Of course, Walsh isn’t a progressive or leftist. Far from it. He’s conservative and old school. His take on the Civil War repackages the “Lost Cause” arguments.

Getting at the truth of historical events is always challenging. If you’re of a certain age and grew up in the South, public schools taught Walsh’s interpretation of the war. Or key aspects of it. I’m of a certain age and was born and raised down South. Walsh breaks little new ground.

For those unfamiliar, following the South’s defeat, southern scribes and prominent politicians -- mostly Confederate veterans -- decided that northern historians weren’t going to have the final say on the origins and rationale for the war. Hence, they wrote competing narratives aimed at defending and ennobling the act.

Lost Cause apologia created a Don Quixote -- minus his tilting at windmills. The southern Quixote was high-principled and gallant, best exemplified by Robert E. Lee. Lee was used to personify the war as noble, though star-crossed. After all, by war’s end, the South was devastated. Hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers died or were wounded. Southern state economies didn’t fully recover for nearly a century. All the death, destruction, and futility -- all the enduring suffering -- needed justification.

As with most Lost Cause histories, Walsh focuses on Lee’s brilliance, highlighting his impressive victory at Chancellorsville. He doesn’t mention Lee’s abject failure at Gettysburg. James Longstreet -- Lee’s second in command -- practically begged Lee not to order Pickett’s Charge, to no avail. Lee never again went on the offensive. Nor did his........

© American Thinker