So explain this:
Why is it “Stonewall Jackson taught us what the pause that refreshes really was”? Why not have a painting of Uncle Billy giving the boys a pause somewhere near Atlanta (the home of Coca-Cola, BTW) in between barn burnings?
After all the victor gets to write the history….
Scott Manning
March 2, 2011
Do you have a better pic of that ad? I can hardly read it.
JM Rudy
March 2, 2011
I second that request… I’d love to read the copy.
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
I’ve got a copy of that ad around here as well. Just need to hunt it down. I also have two other copies of the image; one, a copy (8×10) of the original art piece that I ordered from Coca-Cola HQ in Atlanta, years ago… just wish I had a larger version.
Craig Swain
March 2, 2011
Best I can offer: http://cgi.ebay.com/1863-STONEWALL-JACKSON-CIVIL-WAR-COCA-COLA-COKE-ad-L-K-/270712554752
Mike Simons
March 2, 2011
You know better than to ask that! When that ad was made if you had put That Bluebellied Dog Sheman on it and sent it to stores across the South it would have got tore up sent back with a cancelled order and the stores would have bought more Pepsi or RC !
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
Mike, I think you’re missing Craig’s point. There is much chatter about “long-legged Yankee lies” dominating history in the South in years after the war. In fact, the Lost Cause legacy had a firm hold on history in the South for many years… even through the Second World War, during which time this was used as an advertisement to sell Coca-Cola. The artwork was actually done in the 1930s, by Haddon Sundblom. I wrote an article about it, back in the 90s, but never submitted it to any publication. That said, however, I have mentioned it in this blog before… => here
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
Craig, I can’t tell you just how much I used to love this print, ever since I first saw it on the front cover of CWTI (I still have that issue, by the way). Sundblom did a tremendous job on the piece, and until Troiani, nobody came even close to putting out something with so much color and life.
Bob Pollock
March 2, 2011
Interesting, but you might want to edit the title of this post.
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
Thanks! Corrected.
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
This particular ad is from 1943.
The portion immediately under the Jackson print reads…
“A new idea joined the army in “the sixties”. It was the rest pause… with refreshment. Here’s what a Coca-Cola advertisement said about in in 1931:-
Stonewall Jackson always got there first. On the march he gave his men rations of sugar and at intervals required them to lie down for a short rest. Thus he marched troops farther than any other general in the field. Since his day all marching troops have been given a short rest period out of every hour.
To our fighting men and war workers everywhere that fact has new importance. A short pause helps you in any task. A pause for the energy-giving refreshment of ice-cold Coca-Cola helps you even more.”
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
… and for those who don’t know… the founder of Coca Cola was… drum-roll please… a Confederate veteran. If I remember correctly, a lieutenant in Co. I, 3rd Ga. Cav.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pemberton
Dick Stanley
March 3, 2011
Yeah, Uncle Billy got screwed. No residuals for you, Sherm.
Craig Swain
March 3, 2011
My follow up question:
Could Coca-Cola run a similar ad, featuring Erwin Rommel, with something like “The Desert Fox took a pause and enjoyed a cool Coke captured at Kasserine Pass!”???
Scott Manning
March 3, 2011
No. While there are Americans who appreciate Rommel’s, few are ready to hang his photo up on a wall. He was part of an external enemy. “External” is the key. He was not from America and there was no reconciliation after the war.
Craig Swain
March 3, 2011
You have a point. However, there is a school of thought that “forgives” Rommel because of the circumstances he got caught up in that lead to his demise. Sort of making him a “West” German in the Cold War context.
But your point is very valid, and exactly the contrast I planned to illustrate here. If indeed those who won the Civil War were able to slant the history, they sure chose an even handed approach.
Scott Manning
March 3, 2011
I thought about the title of your post. People often state that the South “lost the war, but won the peace.” Or we might be able to say that the losers were able to write the history of the war. I would change both notions slightly. In regards to the Civil War, both the victor and the vanquished wrote the history, but the victor wrote sympathetically and the vanquished wrote better.
Craig Swain
March 3, 2011
Scott, what the title reflects is a recent trend in the dialog. Lately we’ve seen, as Robert alluded to, “long-legged Yankee lies” cited with the tag line “the victor gets to write the history.” This suggests there was some effort to suppress the southern perspective of the events. If so, I guess Coca-Cola didn’t get the memo back in 1942.
Robert Moore
March 4, 2011
I think you mean the suppression of the Confederate perspective of events, Craig.
Bill Newcomer
March 3, 2011
I was raised in the the north and am the great-grandson of a Union soldier from Ohio. What I remember growing up in rural southern Michigan in the 50′s and 60′s was a view of the Civil War that in the main reflected Scott Manning’s comment above. We hadn’t “go the memo” either… My interest in Southern Unionism comes from having some friends who are pretty adament in holding their “Glorious Lost Cause” perspective… I’m not sure how many of us northern born sons of the Union are aware of the extent of Southern resistence to succsession and the Confederacy…. The image of a united southern “Confederate solidarity” remains persistent.
Robert Moore
March 4, 2011
Glad to have you as a follower of the blog, and hope you enjoy the other side of the South in the Civil War, here.
Mike Simons
March 8, 2011
Sherman’s grave is the only one my Sainted Grandma said she would ever spit on if given the chance. I guess IP Lynch my CW vet whom she cared for from age 12 till he died in 1933 when she was 20 filled her mind with the Lost cause.
Anna Bishop
March 15, 2011
Loved this! Quite humerous and very true. Its kinda funny to think that even though the South lost the war the heroes that we pick out in our day are more often then not from the South. You have Chamberlin, Grant, to some Sherman who are all great heroes from the North but if you really think about the majority of our heroes are Southern. Jackson, Lee, Stuart, Longstreet. Funny how that works
Anna Bishop
March 16, 2011
hey, may I repost this on my blog?
Robert Moore
March 16, 2011
Sure. Just cite the source, and note that Craig wrote this piece.
Scott Manning
March 16, 2011
Robert, I could not get enough of that pic. I bought a copy of the Civil War Times magazine that featured it. I have no idea what I am going to do with it, but I had to have it.
Anna Bishop
March 16, 2011
ok thanks!! this is great!