by Shay Hardin
Synopsis:
A wounded, disillusioned Confederate soldier, Inman miraculously survives injuries received fighting in a bloody battle during the Civil War. The bleak prospect of returning to battle inspires him to flee the hospital and set out on a perilous journey back home to his beloved Ada. Ada, a cultured outsider to Cold Mountain, is battling to survive after the death of her father leaves her destitute on the farm. Ruby, a sassy, knowledgeable and self-sufficient farmer arrives to help, whereupon they return the farm to working order, thwarting starvation. Inman makes his way back home to Ada and they take shelter in an abandoned hut, where they consummate their love and plan their future. The Home Guard, aware of Inman’s arrival, confronts the women the next morning. Shots ring out, summoning Inman to their rescue and Inman sustains a fatal gunshot wound by one of the deputies and dies in Ada’s arms, a scene that is reminiscent of an earlier premonition by Ada. The epilogue finds Ada, nine years later on the farm, raising a child with Ruby and her family. Ada has come to love Cold Mountain as her home, just as Inman had.
Historical Context:
The time is the mid-1860’s, the waning days of the Civil War, and one of the most transformational periods of American history. The movie, although derived from literary fiction, constructs authentic narratives about the soldiers and events of the American Civil War and its history in the southern Appalachians. The main character, W. P. Inman, is based on the Civil War service of William P. Inman, Twenty-fifth North Carolina Infantry Regiment (Peuser). He deserted and returned to the war, pardoned for his offenses. He then participated in the siege of Petersburg, Virginia which is where the movie Cold Mountain begins.
The siege of Petersburg, an especially horrific battle that took place in July 1864, depicted in the opening scenes of Cold Mountain, is said to be “one of the best historical evocations of Civil War combat ever put on film” (Thompson). “Northern soldiers are laying explosives under Confederate defenses.” (Minghella). Federal troops dug a “510-foot mine shaft within three weeks” and packed it with 8,000 pounds of highly explosive gunpowder. The resulting explosion sent “clods of earth weighing at least a ton, and cannon, and human forms, and gun-carriages shooting upward in a fountain of horror” (The Crater). The resulting explosion left “a crater 130 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep, killing 352 Confederates.” (The Crater) Union troops rushed the crater, clamored up the steep embankment, and became trapped in the muddy chaos below. The crater crowded with Union forces, and Confederate soldiers fired into it, killing nearly 6,000 men (McPherson 196).
By 1863, “the war had taken its toll on the spirits of most Confederate soldiers and they began to question the bloodshed” (Franch 5). “From 1861 to 1865, around 23,000 North Carolina soldiers deserted” (Franch 1). Like Inman, many soldiers were driven to enlist by a concept of nationality that was based on a duty to protect one’s home and loved ones. Absent was a sense of duty and loyalty to the Confederate government. The South’s default on its promise to take care of soldier’s families led to more Confederate desertion, as a scarcity of goods led to suppliers inflating prices, propelling families to near starvation (Franch 8). Much of the role of tending supplies and feeding the hungry was left to the women, as domestic confusion abounded and the war drastically transformed the demographics of towns.
Women played a large role in holding down the homestead while the men were in service. They were expected to exhibit “self-sacrifice and patient suffering just as their Revolutionary foremothers had done” (Kelly). The advent of war led to an absence of men, resulting in an unbalanced male demographic, leading to nontraditional courtships and swift marriages. Husbands wrote letters to their wives back home, instructing them on how to care for things, asserting that women were not capable of properly caring for the farm or surviving on their own. Isaac Lefevers wrote to his wife in April of 1862, “I want you to have as mutch plowing done as you can but not plant now till I come home or rite again. I don’t want you to do it [plowing] yourself for it is too hard for you to do it”(Kelly).
Women assumed new assertive roles and became highly adaptive and resilient to the new working environment they had inherited. Expectations about feminine frailty and dependence were discarded. Shortages of food, clothing, and medicine were common. “The lack of salt led many women to gather up the dirt from curing barns in order to salvage what they could. These scarcities led to high costs and inflation” (Kelly). In the film, Ada’s femininity is intact and she is on the verge of starvation before Ruby arrived to help her regain the harvest productivity of the farm. Ruby filled the gap of the absent man; she plowed fields, built fences and tended anything that needed to be taken care of on the farm. Under a constant threat from both Confederate and Federal raiders, women often endured rape, or the threat thereof, and physical harm as they struggled to maintain civility and order in the world around them.
As the war raged on and deserters attempted to return home, loyalties were tested. Bipartisan conflicts arose quickly and pitted neighbor against neighbor. The mountains were a known hideaway for runaway slaves and wartime deserters. As a result, Confederate “home guards,” or local militias, were created. They represented the “assumed authority of the army whose crimes are justified in the name of war” (Bradshaw). First formed in the South, their duties consisted as “guardians of property and slaves while the owners were away, rail lines, mail routes, scouts or serving as escorts who knew the terrain” (Bradshaw). With the passage of the Conscription Act of 1862, they were charged with the collection of Confederate deserters and draft dodgers. While most home guards were not like the ruthless tyrant portrayed by Teague in the movie, “killing people indiscriminately and torturing women,” there were a few home guard units that did gain notoriety due to their path of destruction when they set out on raids of town supplies, homes and the reported mistreatment of prisoners of war (Thompson).
The film does not depict the considerable Union sentiment in western North Carolina, nor how the authorities “preyed violently on those deemed insufficiently loyal to the South,” which was cause for continued bitter conflicts even after the war (Thompson). Teague, the leader of the home guard in the movie Cold Mountain, was based on an historical character referred to “the notorious Haywood County Home Guard killer” (Stokes 107). Teague was a “cunning sadist” drunk with power as he turned a game of hide and seek into a brutal and deadly sport. “The soldiers and home guards discovered that while they often could not find the deserters, they could usually find their families and could always find their homes and lands” (Paludan 75). The home guard was a constant threat to Inman and other deserters or outliers throughout the film, culminating in the death of both Inman and all of Teague’s men.
Cold Mountain is a film depicting a historic narrative of the sectional conflict of the Civil War, a love story, and a visual tale of two parallel odysseys; those of Ada Monroe and W.P. Inman. It gives a fictional, yet illuminating idea and multidimensional perspective on the historic impact the war had on the lives of those living in the South, particularly the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina.
How true is the film?
Although some creative liberties were taken, the movie does portray some level of historical accuracy in part due to extensive research by the novel’s author, Charles Frazier. Told from a Confederate point of view, it conveys the often untold sympathetic views of Southerners whose lives are deeply affected by the war, which is usually hidden by the more popular demonized portrayal of Southerners due to their stance on slavery. The film veers from its authenticity when it completely avoids the topic of slavery, almost eliminating it entirely. This leads to a pretty large distortion of portraying the racial make-up of the population, seeing as all of the townspeople of Cold Mountain are white (Thompson).With that being said, I feel that it was necessary to ignore the issue of slavery in order for the film to maintain its sense of innocence. Also, the film was not about slavery, therefore it rightly did not serve as the focus.
One aspect I find to be inaccurate, and is supported by other historians, is the portrayal of Ada as a poor, farm worker toiling in the fields and performing manly work, yet she always appears “made up” and dainty with clean fingernails and coiffed hair (Thompson). However, many cosmetic and external aspects of the film maintain some, if not a strong sense, of historical accuracy; from the beautiful landscapes to the realistic 19th century costumes and Confederate weaponry, both extensively researched and consulted on with historians for the highest level of authenticity for the film. The film does a great job at capturing both the large picture of the horrors of the war, but it also reminds people that within this large picture lie the details of people, places and things. The movie attempts to accurately document history by weaving the ravages of war with fictional friendships and unbridled romance.
Bibliography:
Cold Mountain. Directed by Anthony Minghella. (Burbank: Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 2003). DVD.
Franch, Daniel, and Wade Dudley. “Desertion in the Confederate Army: A Disease That Crippled Dixie.” Explorations 9 (2014): 1-9. Accessed January 18, 2016.
Kelly, Donna E. “North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial.” North Carolina Civil War Death Study. 2016. Accessed January 29, 2016.
McPherson, James M., and James K. Hogue. Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. London: Mcgraw Hill Higher Education, 2009.
Paludan, Phillip Shaw. Victims: A True Story of the Civil War. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981. Accessed January 28, 2016.
Peuser, Richard W., and Trevor K. Plante. “Cold Mountain’s Inman: Fact Versus Fiction.” Prologue Magazine, 2004. Accessed January 30, 2016.
Stokes, Melvyn. American History through Hollywood Film: From the Revolution to the 1960s. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013.
“The Crater.” Civil War Trust. 2014. Accessed January 18, 2016.
Thompson, Bob. “Cold Facts about `Cold Mountain'” Tribune Digital-Chicago Tribune. January 01, 2004. Accessed January 29, 2016.
Link to Movie Trailer:
History Goes to the Movies 