"War is the favorite pursuit of man": How George Fitzhugh and John Quitman Moore exalted War as a Regenerative and Progressive Force

This article analyzes the perceptions of war amongst the Southern intellectuals George Fitzhugh and John Quitman Moore. This study contributes to the lacuna in the literature in tying concepts of violence, regeneration, sex, and race together. The author argues that Fitzhugh and Moore advocated violence as a regenerative and progressive force to respond to abolitionism and women’s rights. Martial prowess and physical combat were means to purify the feeling of social despair that defined the Antebellum South on the eve of the American Civil War. Southern notions of violence embodied the masculine ideal and when exercised in war allowed man to reach his emotional, racial, and temporal apogees. For these intellectuals, war served to unite the individual with fellow comrades, the nation, and a progressive vision of the future. War served a creative function in the reestablishment of a masculine ideal in a new Confederate States of America.