A review of The South’s Forgotten Fire Eater: David Hubbard & North Alabama’s Long Road to Disunion (New South Books, 2020) by Chris McIlwain
Establishment historians typically portray Southern history as a cartoonish parade of superficial, racist, self-interested characters dedicated to the preservation of slavery. Every action by Southern political actors requires a discussion about how it relates to the subject’s pro-slavery ideology and their sinister racism. Most focus on the same people–prominent Confederate leaders or Southern politicos both before or after the War–but promise to add a new layer to the “complexity” of the story. They all fail.
This has made most new academic tomes on Southern history almost unreadable.
Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to find The South’s Forgotten Fire Eater by Chris McIlwain at my local Barnes and Noble sandwiched between books deifying Lincoln and criticizing Lee. A unicorn.
McIlwain offers “complexity” in a sea of conformity by writing a biography of David Hubbard, a North Alabamian unknown outside of the State, that focuses on economics rather than slavery or racism. He addresses both topics, but in a way that accurately weaves them into the real complexity of the antebellum South.
Hubbard arrived in North Alabama from Virginia shortly after the War of 1812, where he served as a Quartermaster in the army. He described the land in idyllic fashion. He studied law and became a commercial force in the State. He bought and sold land, dabbled in slavery and cotton, but eventually became a leading Southern industrialist. Hubbard developed the first railroad in the South, a line that eventually bypassed the beautiful though dangerous Muscle Shoals region of the Tennessee River. He served in the State legislature and for a couple of terms in the United States House of Representatives. After Alabama seceded in 1861, he was elected to the Confederate Congress and then was appointed as Confederate States Commissioner of Indian Affairs. One of his sons died in battle during the War.
McIlwain argues that historians have neglected Hubbard because he never fit the stereotypical Southern fire-eater, but no one did more to stoke the flames of secession in North Alabama than Hubbard. His support for industry might lead to the assumption that Hubbard was one of the fledgling Southern Whigs. In fact, Hubbard always considered himself to be a “Jacksonian” Democrat. He broke with Jackson during the Nullification Crisis in 1832, but though he never adopted every page of its economic agenda, he never abandoned the Democratic Party.
McIlwain presents a solid political and economic biography of an important but neglected Southern figure. Traditional subjects like these used to be fertile fields for graduate students looking for dissertation topics. No longer. But McIlwain is an attorney, not an historian, which perhaps speaks volumes about the modern historical profession. We have to rely on the “amateurs” to do the work of the professionals.
The South’s Forgotten Fire Eater is not a “Lost Cause” polemic nor a hagiographic defense of Hubbard, but McIlwain attempts to objectively understand Hubbard and his positions without filtering them through presentist lenses. That alone made the book a worthwhile purchase.
“… without filtering them through presentist lenses. That alone made the book a worthwhile purchase.”
That alone should make it the book “Book of the year!”
Yesterday I finished David McCullough’s book, “The Pioneers.” I enjoyed it, but probably it was just the first half or two thirds of it that I liked. The majority of the book takes place in Ohio; the settling there in the early 19th century beginning at Marietta near the Ohio River. McCullough mentioned how those responsible for the settling in Ohio fought very hard to ensure that slavery would not get a foot in Ohio. The fight for a “free” Ohio, particularly, according to McCullough’s book, was against Jefferson. McCullough brings up a story of a few of the prominent Ohio settlers meeting the widow Martha Washington. Supposedly, in this meeting with the Ohio men, Mrs. Washington said of Jefferson: “…one of the most detestable of mankind…the greatest misfortune our country had ever experienced.”
I easily noticed that McCullough made sure in his book that the reader learned, that perhaps first and foremost in these Ohio mens’ minds, was that slavery would not spread to Ohio. In the last eleven pages of McCullough’s book, I counted at least 10 times McCullough pointing out how anti slavery these early 19th century Ohio players were.
I won’t deny that that was true of those Ohio settlers, I don’t know for certain, but their supposed super strong anti slavery view just came across to me as pretty smug and self righteous, knowing the north had as much to do with that institution and probably more.
And, it made me wonder about McCullough. I think he was born and raised in the north, Pennsylvania I believe. His views probably leaned northward, and of course I realize he narrated Ken Burns “The Civil War.” I just wonder if doing that turned him more against the South, if he had been turned against the South some already.
The book you reviewed sounds interesting, Mr. McClanahan, thank you.