Civil war. Historians discuss how africanamericans remember and interpret the civil war. This is an hourlong event. We are here for our fourth and final panel to discuss africanamerican opinions on the war. We want to begin with a discussion of the scope and significant. Maybe you want to get us started. The u. S. Color troops are more than anyone imagined. Massachusetts had three state registrants. There are over 140 of various kinds. They are a significant military force. What is interesting that i think in the beginning of the war none of the white northerners would have imagined you had black northern soldiers. They turned many patriotic northern freemen away. It is only the process of the war. The high death count, the sickness, and the fact that it did not go well. It prompted people to think about arming africanamericans. The emancipation proclamation was authorized. You had over 180,000 troops, which on one hand, people always say there were 2 Million Union troops, but they came when they were needed. They were fresh troops at the end of the war. I dont think any other military historian would dispute at the end of a very long, hardfought war, you had fresh committed troops just handed to you. That isnt an enormously significant factor. And i think they are very important because making century americans, if they were going to fight and die for freedom of African Americans would have expected them to serve in fight and die with them. And they most certainly did that. I have read so many accounts where White American soldiers are very aware of black soldiers service. I cant see a war for freedom continuing, particularly given the difficult months of without 1864, seeing a real commitment on africanamericans to serve and die in this war. I think they are tremendously significant. Story of this is connected to other lines, you mentioned that figure of a black military service, 50,000 of those troops were southerners, seven African Americans who had fled plantations and farms and made their way to union lines and recording stations like cap nelson in kentucky. Camp nelson in kentucky. It challenges us to think of the civil war as a war of the south versus the south in some sense. We equate the south of the confederacy, we talked about divisions within each society over the course of the day. But here you have a representative of southern unionism, the phenomenon of sevens in which some scholars, especially bill freeling, who makes the case of the number of men from slave states that wore blue uniforms gave a decisive edge to the union in the end. He finds 450 thousand men from slave states were union blue. This is a new framework for thinking about the war. Lets talk a little bit about men in the ranks and give some examples to the audience of some of these troops and their stories. Prof. Gannon there are so many. One of the things people have no idea is how many medal of honor winners there were among colored troops there were 14 in one battle. Christian fleetwood was one of those medal of honor winners. Robert penn, there are so many others. There were also the African Americans in the navy who were also awarded the medal of honor. They were so much more. So many stories. Its incredible about their sacrifice. Most people dont realize the men who fought at port hudson were officers, black officers among them. The 54th massachusetts had black officers at the end. One of the better known people was joseph wilson, who became historian and he was the one who wrote one of the seminal books in 1890 about africanamerican military service. A very well thought of book that chronicled it. It was keyed to people remembering the blacks had served. Prof. Varon wilson a great example of someone who is intervening in memory. I recently wrote a book about appomattox which i learned something i hadnt known before, thats that ct residents were present there and help to block lees escape route as the confederacy tried to punch through a federal trap that have been laid. The men in those u. S. Cg regiments, six altogether, a remarkable microcosm of africanamerican life in united states. It was southerners who had fled slavery, there were northern free blacks included in the ranks. There was a man named George Washington williams, a brilliant historian. A baptist minister and educator named William J Simmons was in the ranks of appomattox. He would go on to be the journalistic manner mentor to an antilynching crusader. There are the big numbers are important, but so are the individual lives. Any other observations . Lets segue to another theme that we touched on as we moved along and that we wanted to return to. That is the 13th amendment has come up in a number of different contexts. This think a little bit about emancipation is a process. One of the big takeaways of this sesquicentennial is that emancipation is a process that unfolds gradually. Why is the 13th amendment necessary, given that lincoln has already promulgated his emancipation proclamation two years earlier . It seems to me, if i could just back up a bit. The importance was primarily to ensure the nation understood that the civil war, by 1863, had become more than a war for unions, but a war for freedom as well. It was the on the ground decisions of hundreds of thousands of black people who were enslaved, their decisions to leave slavery that would ultimately be ratified by both the emancipation proclamation, and subsequently ratified by the 13th amendment. Of course, lincoln knew that this proclamation had no constitutional foundation, it was just a measure. So he worried about that. Not only did he worried, but loss of americans worried. Lots of black people worried lots of abolitionists worried. Hundreds of thousands of northerners sent petitions to congress. They signed their names and saying we want a constitutional amendments. And congress did finally come up with an amendment. No one was quite happy with the wording, it was revised several times until we got to the point where we got the one that we do have. The getting that amendment passed was very difficult. But very important. Prof. Varon you make an important point, when we look at any of these changes, whether thats the enlistment of africanamerican troops or the 13th amendment, there are actions on the ground in the south, mainly this mass exodus that are driving those big decisions. They are also lobbying from northerners and free blacks in the north for these policies like enlistment. Thats another source of pressure moving lincoln. Prof. Brundage the ratification of the 13th amendment is part of this drawnout process of cleaning up the mess, if you will inherited in part by the civil war, but also the dred scott decision. Earlier there was talk about the 14th and 15th amendment. This is all, once youve destroyed slavery, the question of what is to come after slavery for africanamericans in American Society has to be addressed. The border states had not left the union, they still have slavery. There were lots of loose ends that had to be tied up. Prof. Varon lets talk about freedom and how it was to be defined. There were whites who were able to accept emancipation as a military necessity, but had a narrow definition of emancipation. Nothing but the freedom to work for wages. Nothing beyond that. Not full civil rights and full political rights. Africanamericans, the three people the freed people had a more expansion i expansive idea of their Citizenship Rights. What does that Citizenship Rights term connote . Prof. Glymph the whole debate over citizenship points that until this moment in history, we had no National Definition of citizenship. And what enslaved people wanted formerly slaves wanted was not so different from what all americans want. The right to move, mobility, the right to ones children, the right to marry and have that marriage sanctified by the church and by law. The right to vote, for men. I think most fundamental to all the civil rights is the right to possess or own ones own body and labor power. I can sell my labor to you, just as any northern immigrant can. But you cant buy my body. That is a fundamental right, settled everything else. Layering on top of that basic civil rights. Like marriage and the vote and the right to testify. We have to remember that even southerners were willing to grant, even in the really horrible black codes the right to marry, the right to earn a wage, the right to testify as long as you are not testifying against whites. You could testify in a court of law. Against other black people. The question becomes what beyond those basic rights to black people have . That question is sort of answered, but not accepted. Prof. Varon all the rights you mentioned are connected in the sense that the power to sell your labor is meaningful only if you have mobility and can seek the best terms, rather than being pressured to work for your former master in a world in which there is the aggressive laws and so on the coattail mobility. Curtailed mobility. These things work together. Prof. Glymph it also means that white people who were former owners of slaves have to learn how to be business owners. How to be employers. How to manage a wage labor force instead of an enslaved one. Prof. Brundage this speaks to the complexity of the situation for africanamericans. I think africanamericans had a range of opinions about what the concept of citizenship should be. But they still, they were close to having a general consensus about what it would be. To translate that into a practical, lived reality of citizenship was an entirely different matter. If you just take the issue of property. Africanamericans come out of slavery with some property. Sometimes. Small amounts of personal property, perhaps. They dont have the types of property that are the foundation to an independent livelihood. Its one thing to say now you can own property. But if you start out for the point of having no property whenever, how does one exercise that right in any meaningful way . All of those questions are on the table in 1865, and have to be resolved not just in the abstract someday in the future. They knew to be resolved immediately. Within the next week, three weeks, month, year. If to plant crops, you have to harvest them. The nittygritty of freedom and citizenship became of paramount importance, literally immediately. Prof. Varon one thing we did not mention was literacy had been criminalized by antebellum southern law. That is also part of that package of Citizenship Rights. Maybe we can talk we have not talked much about religion over the course, but it is an important topic in the 19th century. Let me put it this way. For africanamericans, both those in the army and civilians the Union Victory had a providential cast. All the contending sides on the civil war, unions and confederates, both believed god bless their cause and they were fighting a godly war. We can compare and contrast that on the part of whites in the union army, confederates, and then africanamerican. Prof. Brundage for white southerners, 1865 was a bitter pill to take because they had been telling themselves this was a slaveholders republic that had a providential mission. White southerners pivoted particularly certain denominations. At this compel you said presbyterians went all in. Up to aliens episcopalians and presbyterian when all in. They believed god was punishing them for their hubris. That was their way of making sense what had happened. If you were devoted to your faith, the only solution i can imagine you would come up with. White northerners could see this as vindication. Lincoln described vindication in a way. For the one group in particular for home the providential interpretation was unambiguous was africanamericans. The way in which black ministers made sense of this was that god had intervened in Human Affairs in 1861s. God had chosen Abraham Lincoln to do his work in 1862. That gods will was to transform the status of africanamericans because they were his chosen people. Now god had released them from bondage at there were great they their future. We talk about the grim days of reconstruction and grammar days of the jim crow grimm,erer days of the jim crow south. There is an optimism that god cant be doing this to us if he will put us back in a situation like slavery. There has to be a forwardlooking progress to this and that is essential as to how africanamericans are interpreting what happened after the civil war. Prof. Varon that is the investment in the idea that they are a redeemer race that will redeem america from the sin of slavery, but also a deep investment in the Union Victory in the moment where they had proven irrevocably that they had earned citizenship and that providence favored the righteous in the war. Prof. Brundage to pick up on something ed said about the global implications, you could carry this further in the idea that africanamericans have this providential role to play. It was not just america. It was world history. Now, africanamericans were going to lift up their brothers of color in africa and outside the united states. A kind of missionary impulse that we know about. You think about the white missionary impulse of the late 19th century to china and elsewhere. Africanamerican star going to africa, especially south africa, and have a very important influence with this civilizing mission that they are going to bring the most modern christian values to people of color around the world. Prof. Glymph i would like to mention as a counterpoint at the same time there was a very important religion and its import in terms of the war and emancipation, africanamericans were incensed on thinking about the secular component of what all this meant. If it meant to going to africa to help christianize the africans, on the other it meant taking hold in america of their political rights. Unlike religion during slavery when all you could do was to pray to god and hope something happens, not you can pray and do something to make something happen. I think that was a very important distinction between slavery and freedom. Prof. Varon we have talked in the context of the lost cause in memorialization, the construction of historical memory. Lets turn to that topic for africanamericans and particularly about commemorative traditions and how what the scholars called an emancipationist memory of the were taking shape. The lost cause this not go uncontested. Africanamericans dispute everyone of those five tenets that kerry cheney outlined for us. How do they dispute them . Through what means and vehicles did africanamericans offer counter argument to that lost cause mythology and to the reconciliation of impulses itself . Prof. Brundage i will speak about prof. Gannon i will speak about what i studied, the grand army of the republic being the largest veterans organization. One of the most important things i found was the role of the africanamerican host. Just like av africanamerican post. Just like a vw post. I found Meeting Minutes of an africanamerican post where they wrote exactly that that was their purpose, to remind people of what has happened in the civil war. They were very direct about it. What they did is they would participate in memorial day. July 4, large parades, any kind of event possible. They would name their posts after great heroes, whether they were white like robertshaw or a lesserknown person like joel bend. They would have lectures. They saw themselves of living reminders that they had fought in a war for their own freedom. It was a twofold thing. What i found surprising was that they were the center of the community idea. They had womens Groups Associated with them or part of a Larger Organization called womens relief corps and ladies of the grand army republic. These were organizations with white and black members and they were very key to these commemorations, whether they be memorial day or a mans nation day. Whether they be black or interracial. They were key players. They worked with the churches and they would have memorial Day Celebrations there, where the ministers would give sermons about the africanamerican civil war experience, which is not only about slavery, but their own actions. Africanamericans are really very active. Prof. Varon lets talk about that concept go ahead. Prof. Glymph i want to say that it is not only that you have congregations and member congregations in savanna that would host these commemorative events. There were black women in arkansas who would go three miles into the wood to hold meetings. Black woman all of the south were decorating union graves. It is also the content of the administration. There is a case to be made for the africanamerican cause. To think about it in terms of a cause linked to the union cause and how africanamericans postwar remembered the cause and what was the content of that remembrance. It does not consist of just gathering to have a party, but gathering where speeches are made that say explicitly, we helped to win the war. Speeches that say explicitly the struggle is connected to struggles elsewhere, for example, in haiti. I think that was really central. We give a lot of credit to northerners like dubois and douglass in terms of perpetuating african civil war memory. I think the credit rightly belongs to former slaves, that they were the chief witnesses to the war and also the chief witnesses to commemoration. Prof. Varon you mentioned emancipation day. Emancipation day was not exclusively january 1. There were many emancipation days celebrated across the south, signifying that it was a process and not a moment. April might was an emancipation april 9 was an emancipation day. There were a variety of emancipation days that served as occasions for printers and politicians and leaders to get up and remind people of that integral role in victory. Prof. Brundage picking up on the performative tradition of africanamerican memory, one big difference that we can still see in the landscape of the present day is that africanamericans were at an extreme disadvantage to ground their memory on the physical landscape for a variety of reasons. Africanamericans had many, many calls upon their pocketbooks, to fund churches, schools, etc. You can imagine that building a monument would be comparatively lower on the list of activities and many small communities. In addition to that, there were africanamericans of the time that said lets not held monuments. Let our churches and schools be our monuments. Whats this what this means is that the africanamerican tradition tends to be celebration with kerry which carry great meaning in the community. A lot of people paid attention to these, particularly in texas but they did not leave, at least a century later they did not leave anything on the landscape and say that is where the Africanamerican Community held emancipation day for 34 years. Of course, we have the monuments in front of the courthouse is which are physical testaments to that lost cause memory. The point being that there is a contest and conversation between white and black memory in the south, but they are taking place in different forms almost necessarily. Prof. Varon we see these commemorations in the north. There is evidence of africanamericans sobered april 9, lees surrender as emancipation day into the 20th century. We can maybe come back to reasons for that. I wanted to come back to veterans to the point about africanamerican veterans and their commemorations. What about white Union Veterans . Did they turn their back on africanamerican veterans . To what degree, and where were the limits of that alliance . Prof. Gannon it is interesting. The limits are interesting, but some ways understandable given everything we have said. One of the things that if you want to atr meeting and there were africanamericans there you would say they are our color comrades. A comrade is a special thing and they were comrades. They were colored comrades. In some ways, that is a mark of distinction, but i think it sets a limit. The grand army of the republic was the Union Army Veterans organization. It was an honestly powerful and large and a great honor to belong to. Indy gar africanamerican in the gar, africa and americans join. When i did my research, i found that black americans also belonged to posts with White Americans, which is really i wont even say unusual. I would say unprecedented in the 19th century, particularly in such an honored organization. So i found instances where it was in the gar they are comrades and the comrade is a central piece of their relationship. You and i suffered in the same union army. Even if we did not fight in the same organization. You know how we emphasize that. Veterans understood they marched, they were cold, they were sickened, the entire experience was pretty bad. So they embrace them as part of it because they were in the group. Within their organization, the commander of the massachusetts grand army of the republic for africanamericans, i mentioned robert pimm was commander of his integrated post. That is not unusual. This is not unusual. I just said within the organization. To some extent, Union Veterans remember the war was about slavery very clearly. They remember that former slaves fought for their side. They remember they won the war in 1865 where the disconnect comes is that people expect that in 1895, to go outside of their organization and change things and civil rights, or to continue to fight to realize full civil and political rights. That does not happen. They are very clear on freeing the slaves. They are very clear on this special status of the comrades. That does not extend to civil rights. Prof. Varon all the observations about the centrality of the africanamericans in the Union Victory, that they should be joining forces with them in the call for Citizens Rights and disenfranchisements and all of those of elements . Prof. Gannon the word emancipation means you ended slavery. If they had a checklist, check and of slavery. That is what they thought. We have been talking about religion lately. What i found is they tied to emancipation very central because in their minds they had redeemed the nation from the sin of slavery with their own blood. They had that redemption ideal. It was central because they were trying to deal with the fact they had lost so much in the civil war. They remembered freeing the slaves. In fact, they even said particularly in the army of the potomac, we are losing the war until the war became about freedom. God looked on our cause favorably only when we did that. They are aware of this. There is, we would like to see some connection, particularly in 1895. Within the organization, they are comrades. This is what they might say. We are not going to boston unless they let our color comrades stay in the hotel. They are fully aware that africanamericans are kicked out of the hotel. The only people there going to force in our their comrades. They will not make you stand against that area is very up against that. This is very complicated. Prof. Varon lets talk about frederick douglass. I think douglass is the person we hold up who has done the most to defend and defined the emancipationist memory of the war. What is his role n. Y. C. Say there was a right side why does he say there was a right side that we ought not to forget someone was on the moral high ground and we are forgetting it. Lets talk about that. Prof. Brundage i will take an initial step. I think there are two sides. We should understand that douglass was one of the great orators of the 19th century steeped in oratory of the 19th century and one of the great vehicles for the oratory in the 19th century was to scold your audience and tell them all the things they did not do right. If they started doing things right, they could save themselves in the future would be wonderful. And im not trying to in any way diminish the magnitude of what douglass did. That was just the style of speech that he was particularly prone to give. He wanted to scold his audiences. You are not remembering hard enough. I think this goes back to something gary mentioned in the lost cause. White southerners at the turn of the 20th century are starting to crack the whip and say you young whippersnappers are not paying enough attention to our sacrifice. He was acutely aware of not only what was happening with the socalled retreat from reconstruction in the late 1870s, but also the general cultural power that started to be evident of the socalled lost cause. There were so many different ways that he could have seen that beginning to emerge and certainly one of them was in the emergence of not only changing attitudes towards robert e lee but also changing attitudes towards jefferson davis. It is both how he chose to cast americans generally, but also changes on the landscape. Prof. Varon do we give douglass too much centrality or does he deserve the centrality that he has as the premier spokesman for the emancipation memory . Prof. Glymph i dont think we give him too much. I think he deserves credit for working really hard to first the runaway slaves, to tell a story, and during the war working hard to convince the government, then working hard to help recruit them, then working hard to convince lincoln that colorization was not the way to go. And then working hard after the war to say there were some people, not only black people, but white people who said that treason had been committed, and it is not a word that we like to talk about in the context of the civil war. I agree with you that douglass did see on the ground in the 1870s evidence that this nation was reuniting on the basis of not treason or loyalty but as a hero. He foresaw that when he made his famous to her, he said we are all american and we were all heroes. History books said that the most important thing is to remember that Union Soldiers were heroes and confederate soldiers were heroes. The story of heroism comes to occupy the central narrative as opposed to loyalty or disloyalty. It was massive when it came and it was embraced by southerners and northerners. There is nothing black people could do even if they had the resources to mount monuments. They did not have control over public space. They did not have the right to vote anymore. Africanamerican memory is the most displaced memory. You can talk about union memory but the most fabled memory is the africanamerican memory. Prof. Varon is the africanamerican press able to play in Important Role in this . I would argue that it is. What is that role . Prof. Brundage one further observation of frederick douglass. One thing for us to remember about douglass, but just periodically remind ourselves he occupied such a unique place. Here was a man that was born a slave, runaway slave, who transformed himself into one of the great writers of the 19th century and certainly one of the great orators of the 19th century. It is not just the up from slavery story that is so remarkable about him, but that he had mastered the craft. Oratory in the 19th century. That was one of the most prestigious expressions of citizenship and of power that he mastered that and could talk to the white man in the white mans only which made him truly remarkable. White mans own language which made him truly remarkable. There was a profound sense that he was uniquely positioned to talk about these issues. There was no one else who could have done it the way he could. About black newspapers, black newspapers are essential, along with and we come back to black churches because they provided the spaces for black commemoration often. A safe space that africanamericans controlled and in which they could talk about this Robin Mitchell interpretation of history appropriately. Providential interpretation of history, appropriately. Africanamerican newspapers could make it public not just for the Africanamerican Community, but for some white newspaper editors who would get copies of the black newspaper and pay attention. They were intermediaries between these two memory communities. Prof. Varon important newspapers, sometimes there is a direct connection between the important people and newspapers. One in philadelphia was very important. You mentioned the new york age . Prof. Gannon it was interesting because it was just new york, but they had subscribers all over the east coast. They would pick up stories and have correspondent letters. That view eb dubois w. E. B. Dubois deliver that. They were players in civil war memory and the most remarkable one was the 1913 gettysburg reading. They have a totally different view. Prof. Varon tell us about that reading and then about the take. Prof. Gannon you have the 1913 reading. President wilson was a southerner. Everyone talks about he gives the speech and it seemed to be some key moment of reunion reconciliation. Prof. Varon describing the heroes. Prof. Gannon the blue union boys were all heroes. People said things like there were not any africanamericans there and there was a tale of what the 1913 reunion was like. The newspaper covers it that way. Theyre all american heroes. They were all americans because that is the way americans are. They are heroes. They were trying to merge the confederates and u. S. Military tradition together to prove that we are all americans, all heroes, and sort of embrace it. They were americans. That is the way we are. That was the thought process. They had this reunion. There is sort of this party line. I read a lot of newspapers that covered it. The great heroes of this union were picketts charge. Not broke americans heroic americans in central pennsylvania. The new york age tried the central reunion to the Current Situation of africanamericans jim crow and disenfranchisement. Their view was about the national syndicate. They were talking about newspapers and business. They wanted business between the sections. That is why they wanted reunion. They were the ones for africanamericans actions being there and the africanamerican veterans say a lot of the white veterans were not pleased with things like the rebel yell and the way confederates behaved. They were at the reunion, but they really werent on board with the idea that it was a lovefest. Really, they were very they gave a totally different story. You would get none of this if you had read, as i read, the washington post. The new york age had a different take. Prof. Varon as powerful as the reconciliationist narrative was and lost cause narrative was there is a counter argument present and we shouldnt imagine it get swept away because it is never entirely swept away. We alluded to be divisions among africanamericans and im picking up on the seams of davids book. We have been indebted to his paradigm as we talked about this. Douglass is passed as the premier exponent of the expansion is married and dubois as this has this relationship with booker t. Washington. Maybe what you would call an africanamerican version of reconciliationism. I know you have worked on booker t. Washington. Tell us how that rivalry shed light on this question of memory. Prof. Brundage well, thats thank you for that question. [laughter] prof. Varon do you mean that sincerely . Prof. Brundage yes and no. I almost dont know where to begin with that, except to say that dubois grew up in a different place, literally and metaphorically then did booker t. Washington. Duboisl life as a marvelous line where he says booker t. Washington had known the crack of the whip and dubois had not. This is a fundamental difference between the two men. I think the most important thing to keep in mind is this goes back to something that gary mentioned earlier. Really until the 1930s, the overwhelming majority of africanamericans in the 1930s lived in the south. When booker t. Washington was head of the testing he tusk eegee institute, he had to take into account the reality of alabama. He was running a state institution, although he had privatized it. He had to navigate in a different context then did dubois, who was for the most part an obscure academic i say obscure for most americans until he became affiliated with the crisis and the naacp after 1909. They occupy very different positions. I think for washington, his story was one about what africanamericans had done with their freedom. He wanted to emphasize africanamerican capacity. He did not want to emphasize obstacles or inefficiency to that. We can criticize all we want about those choices. If dubois had a phd, he had the finest Education One could have had at that time. He had a much larger vision of the obstacles that he thought africanamericans were facing. I really do think it is a case that they are speaking to different audiences and speaking pass each other in some ways. Im confident that if booker t. Washington had lived as long as the view eb dubois debbie eb to boy w. E. B. Dubois, maybe they would have said you are right. There was more Common Ground than either recognize that the time. Prof. Varon that is an important point and we should think of and emancipationist and reconciliationist memory should not be thought of as opposite rate economy. Washington williams tried to fuse those things and try to trumpet the important of the u. S. Et but also to see that moment of Union Victory could a uger racial conciliation and they look at responses to embrace those magnanimous terms. They understood that that counterargument to a longstanding antiabolitionists argument. That was the argument you could not have emancipation because if you did, you would have been just an race war and social chaos. Abolitionists have been saying for decades that you would have your first chance of harmony because slavery, not, is the source of vision. Diffuse emancipation memories with peace and harmony, those are not necessarily agendas that are at odds. Prof. Brundage let me offer one anecdote. I was thinking in savannah, there were a group of socalled africanamerican men meeting. In their circle, many of them affiliated with booker t. Washington. Many were also founders of the local chapter of the naacp when a chapter was opened in many of them were also supporters of marquise barbies organization, the Pan Africanist of the late late 19th century. We would see that as being a blue statered state divide. These men were members sometimes of all three simultaneously. Prof. Varon lets talk a little bit about, and it came up in the earlier panels, about this sesquicentennial as compared to the centennial celebrations as term as where things stand as far as our collective memory and the place of the emancipationist memory in the national consciousness. Do we feel we have made a great deal of progress . Do we feel there is a long way to go . If so, what do we need to know more about and learn more about and teach more about . Prof. Glymph im here and nobody has walked out. [laughter] [applause] none of my colleagues [inaudible] we have come quite a way since 1963. Liz and uii and several other people here today, and im sure you have too but we have been invited to the programs, more civil war programs and i can count on my hands in the last five years. What i have noticed, while i cant compare the two because i was not there in 1963 in person, but i do think there is a generosity of spirit. By that, i mean on all sides. More people are willing to listen and to hear facts that they can agree with an facts they can recall from, but you can recall some facts and be willing to consider it. I see an america that lincoln would have been thinking, that is when i talk about the core of memories. You are getting there. Youre not quite there yet heard what i dont see quite there yet. What i dont see as we go around the country, i have not seen any significant increase in the number of black people attending these events and i dont know why that is. I think it is something to think about. Maybe it shows that still black people dont claim the war because what they could legitimately claim has been pushed back so far. That is my short answer to a very important question. Prof. Gannon its kind of like the centennial was so white. It was like the story of the one lakh representative who could not one black representative who could not stay in the hotel. You are going to have the Civil Rights Act passed, but memory at that time was so dominated by the cold war, so dominated by the 20th century and our constant wars and the fact that america constructed this civil war memory of her works or the of wrote southerners and northerners for no other purpose than part of this whole idea of what American History was. We always had american soldiers that were wrote, even when they fight each other that were heroic, even when they fight each other. We had wars in 20th century and you wanted a consensus. Prof. Glymph if we wanted that, and we didnt want consensus and we were concerned about the International Arena and the cold war, it seems to me that the better option would have been to include black people. One of the criticisms that america got when black soldiers went to europe in world war ii and they came back, what are we coming back to . Enemies communist nation, they said you have no right to say anything on the national front. Look at your nation. We would have been in 1963 in a much better position to embrace you know, embrace black people in the celebration. I have heard the cold war argument. Prof. Gannon im not saying youre not right. You would not have been wrong. We have created an allwhite male space of shared heroism of the civil war and that has been built up over many decades of textbooks and historical scholarships and movies that he would take time to break. Prof. Varon you are getting into a related issue, which is how we define history and civil war history. We have a much more expansive definition goes beyond generals and politicians and rank and file soldiers, the way we have taken on the challenge of studying the home front and understanding the blurred lines between home front and battlefront is part of the story we tell about progress, wouldnt you think . Prof. Gannon yeah. One of the things i think would be a way forward, what i have been struck by and it is not really my specialty, but what struck me is in the 20th century, there have been africanamerican civil war monuments that were a couple built. Women were central to that. Africanamerican women. I think we need to and i like to focus on the foot soldiers of civil war memory. I think that there was even into the 20th century a lot of people working on that. I think sometimes we have a triumphant narrative for the lost cause that ignores they got their movie gone with the wind, so they must have won. What were people thinking about . Prof. Varon when you get back to things like emancipation day and putting statutes up, scholars have written about why that member to tradition fades. Parts of the civil war could be a test case as to whether black citizens will get full rights. There is a sense that putting up statues and holding celebrations like emancipation day is quaint and oldfashioned. There are broader cultural shifts that factor into this. Prof. Brundage i want to offer one, picking up on something. One measure of the difference between the centennial in the sesquicentennial some of you may have encountered Edmund Wilsons patriotic war. Wilson was the leading military scholar of the 20th century and he put a series of articles in the new yorker and they gathered together during the centennial as patriotic war. If you have a copy, look through it. Who was the hero of patriotic or . Patriotic war . We have heard a lot about asked in Bragg Braxton bragg. It is not him. It is Alexander Stevens, the Vice President of the confederacy. Why does Edmund Wilson . Hold him up . Because wilson saw him as one of the great spokespeople for an antileviathan worldview. Someone was shouting against Big Government and bureaucracy. Edmund wilson rights is truly glowing portrait of Alexander Stevens. At no point does he print the fact that Alexander Stevens said that slavery was the cornerstone of the confederacy. If you look at the sesquicentennial at no point could you have gone through most of the major events associated with the sesquicentennial, certainly none in virginia as part of this commission, and not been reminded the centrality of slavery for the civil war and the centrality of experience for africanamericans. That is a measure of enormous transformation in the way that we make sense of the civil war of africanamericans participation in it. I have not heard of anyone in recent years who has held up Alexander Stevens as someone was answers to contemporary problems. Prof. Varon people wrote about the construction of the archive. We can think about an archive or library as it to go find the truth. Archives have historically have agendas and limitations and they had been constructed hundreds of years ago to make great historians sometimes kept out by segregation. One thing that has changed is we have reconstructed archives in this world of digital history. That only what we consider the stuff of history, but the access to it that will help us painted more inclusive picture have gone we have only a few seconds left. I think you all and invite you to submit questions. We will convene back here shortly. Thank you very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer each week, American History tv sits in on a lecture with college professors. Next, Brooklyn College professor benjamin carp talks about the advantages and disadvantages for british and American Forces during the revolution of it he describes how individual personalities, supplies, and typing influenced the outcomes. This class is one hour in 15 minutes. Benjamin hi, everybody