Transcripts For CSPAN3 Civil War Memory 20170902

Immediate post war era to today. This is about one hour and 15 minutes. Here we are for the last class this semester. Were going to move into the aftermath of the war, as you know. We spent all semester looking at various aspects of this conflict. Right from the beginning i alerted you one of the themes in this class was going to be the tension between history and memory. We talked about it on the first day of class. Have reiterated as weve gone along. Here we are finally at the end where were going to focus on memory for our last class. Theres no better event in the United States history to talk about how powerful contending memories of something that happened in the pass can be. Theres simply nothing remotely equal to it, i think, than the civil war. Passions get up quickly when people remember the civil war. Been watching that in charlottesville over the last year and a half in the debates over the statute the r. E. Lee downtown. Ill talk at the end, when i get to the war today, about some of the resonances of the war in our current american situation, and the ways in which the different extremes of memory put in place by the war time generation either do or do not remain with us now. My real focus today will be how the wartime generation remembered the war. Im going to focus on four great interpretive traditions that came out of the wartime generation, thrived for many decades after and in differing degrees right down to 2017. The loyal white citizenry, African Americans, and former confederates have different interpretations of the war after appomattox. They remembered they remembered the way it suited their purposes, feeling good after they came out of the war, and various social and political situations that came up taf the war. Theres never one history of a important event. If theres just a history of the civil war, you dont need people like me, you would go buy the civil war book and read it and youll know all about it. And if you were interested in Something Else, you could buy the wlfr else book you wanted. But we exist, and there are a bunch of us in this room that are doing this for a living. If there were only one past we would be doing something really useful in live than what we do, something that contributed to the common good instead of adoerng it which is what we mainly do. But the fact we disagree puts us in line with what the generation that experienced the war did. They had vibrant, is a sort of soft word, to describe how they contested their versions of history. Well start with the winning side. The winning cause and the emancipation cause. The two winning memories of the war, then well go to the lost cause, which is the most common term used to get at the former confederates memory of the war. Then well get to reconciliation which is another stream of coming to terms with the war that i think historyiance have vastly exaggerated. Theyve exaggerated the degree to which people say were all kmerns, sorry we slaughtered each other, lets go pals and love one another. Thats comforting but not exactly accurate. Then ill finish with thoughts about the war today and why people are still interested in the are war, what they try to find by going back and examining the war. There are very Different Reasons for people to look back toward the war. And ill talk about some of those. But i want to start with the memory of the war that was held by by far the most people who were alive during the conflict, and that is the union cause memory of the war. I guess if we were going to parse numbers, there are 31 million americans plus or minus in 1860. I would say at least 20 million or so of them would have said this is the most important way to remember the war, the union cause memory of the war is the most important. And it is, it gets at the meaning of union that weve talked a lot in here. Ill say parenthetically, this is of our four great traditions here, the one that has been lost almost entirely in modern america is the union cause version of the war. Most americans couldnt begin to tell you what union meant in the mid 19th century, theyre absolutely innocent of that. In my story about the union in pasadena tells us how far we were. Somebody says that probably doesnt get what was going on in the 19th century. Luckily we know how Important Union was. We can go out and be sort of pros low tizers if you want to remind people union is the most fraught word in the middle of the 19th century. But the union cause celebrated the restoration of the republic and the care carrying forward the we have defeated the slave holding ol gauks. We got rid of slavery. They would have been happy that slavery was gone, people who embraced the union cause, not for the reasons we would want them to be happy. Theyre happy because now these issues related to slavery are not lurking and waiting to burst into the kind of inflammatory action that brought on the cessation crisis of 1860, 61, get rid of slavery, you get rid of the only internal factor that could sundayer of the union. Its good emancipation came in the course of the war, but the reason its a good thing is that its made the union safe. Were going to come out of the war with the republic in tact, small d democracy, lincolns notion of the last best hope of earth, that is now firmly in place. Where as its eroding in europe as americans believed, and they were right, in the wake of the failed revolutions in the 1840s. Thats what this did, made the nation safe. Ill read some representative, three quick quotations that get at this. And get at the fact that the other thing celebrated by the union cause is the union was saved by whom . By citizen soldiers who put on uniforms and picked up muskets because thats what you do if something is threatening a political system that gives you a voice in your government and a Economic Opportunity to rise. Weve read lincoln. He is the poster boy for this meaning of union. He gets at the economic and the were in control of our own government elements of that. That is what theyre celebrating. Lets pick our friend sherman. Heres in his congratulatory order to the men of his armies in may 1865. Three armies came together from different hills with separate histories but bound by one common cause, the union of our country and the per pech wation of the government of our inheritance. Sherman said that the men, had done all men can do. And he added that they could join in the universal joy that fills our land because the war is over and our government stands vindicated before the world. He touches all the key points there, the citizen soldiers, saving the government. Ross cokonk lynn of new york whos just a congressman at this point, became a very powerful and some whispered corrupt senator after the wore. He grated a new york regiment that was on its way home from the war. A veteran regiment. And he said that they had come together with a common purpose in hoping, quote, peace with the government and the constitution of our fathers established has been the object of the war and the prayer of over patriot and every soldier. And finally ill quote one Union Soldier here, a ohio soldier, he celebrated, quo, the citizen soldier of the army of the republic. The great experiment has been settled for all people of all countries. Recognized as a outgrowth of american destiny. This is the absolutely purest form of the notion of american exceptionalism that this soldier puts forward. Theres no place like this, it was worth fighting for, we have salvaged it and we are going to go forward. So the loyal citizenry, the loyal white citizenry, we talked before about how overwhelmingly white the free states were, almost 99 . They would have said okay weve done it, we saved the union. They followed up on some of the wartime business in the aftermath of the war. When former confederates behaved as if they hadnt lost the war in the summer of 1865, the loyal white citizenry of the United States decided more was necessary, but it was only in response to what the former confederates were doing. You come up with the three great cartime amendments, 13th in december of 1865, and then the 14th which sought to guarantee equal Legal Protection for formerly enslaved people and the 15 this which gave the vote to the africanamerican men. Republicans, those who believed in the union cause used it politically as you might imagine, and tried to cast democrats as disloyal, as only luke warm if even that, in pursuit of saving the union. They talked about how tree sawnous the former democrats were, and they engaged in what became waving the bloody shirt, some republican speaker literally waving the shirt of a bloody shirt of a soldier. Oo speaker from maine who may not have always been exactly on the straight and narrow he urged in 1876 northern veterans to quote vote as you shot during the war. In other words, vote for the republicans against the democrats and the former rebel feends who were in the Democratic Party in the south. This is how he put it with his very light touch. Every prison guard who tortured union princers at andersonville was a democrat, the man who shot abe raw lamb lincoln was a draft, any man to tried the old flag was a democrat, every man who tried to destroy the nation was a democrat. Soldiers every scar you have on your bodies was given to you by a democrat. Now this is sort of indirect, but approximate we really Pay Attention we can figure out the message. The message is vote republican, the republicans saved the union. We can see whats not mentioned, no mention of emancipation, getting rid of slavery, its a mention of saving the nation. They were very effective at waving the bloody shirt, running soldiers who put on Union Uniforms for president. Not only the man, we get u. S. Grant twice, 1868 and 1872. But then we also get rugter ford b. Haze and james a. Gar field and benjamin harrison. All Union Generals who were elected president. Then William Mckinley who was a Company Great officer, but nonetheless a Union Veteran. Every republican who held the presidency for the rest of the 19th century had been directly involved in saving the union. The democrats, we know who they ran successfully twice, Grover Cleveland who hired the poor polish guy to vote for him. Theres a disconnection between whos getting elected as a republican and a democrat to the presidency. The republicans would say of course the democrats are running a draft dodger. We run generals, they run draft dodgers. The democrat ran one former general for president , hancock in 1880. And he did okay. But he did not win. It is a plus to have Union Veteran on your resume if youre running for office after the civil war. And the democrats struggle with this notion that they were not really fully on board with this struggle to save the union. They came back, once the former Confederate States were back, the democrats regained control of the house of representatives. Didnt take a decade. But the republicans used the union cause very, very effectively. They also, the loyal citizenry, did a number of things to commemorate the union cause. They established what they called decoration day, what we call memorial day now which was a day to go specifically and remember the union man who herself given their lives to save the nation. You would go and decorate the gafs, hence decoration day, put a flag, hear a speech related to the war, watch some veterans parade in their uniforms during decoration day. The government as weve talked about, established National Cemeteries specifically because they needed a place to put more than onethird dead United States soldiers, only United States soldiers, so confederate soldiers, at least not deliberately in these cemeteries. Theres a handful of exceptions. So you would go off and combine those two things, a decoration ceremony in a national cemetery. So youre not just talking about the men who gave their lives for the union, youre surrounded by them as you hear a speech about the value of union. They erected memorials and monuments in courthouse squares. The most ago any sent one of all is in indianapolis. Its a incredible monument. If youre headed to a colts gase, you can touch base with the union boys and then watch the colts who wish they had a line that could defended the best quarterback. They put these monuments up every where in villages and small towns to really grand monuments. You have cant walk around washington, d. C. Without running into generals on horse back. Theres even one of George Clinton mccullen. But the grandest is of grant right in front of the capitol, of course, looking straight down the mall toward the lincoln memorial. You have memorial day. If you read the inscriptions on the monuments theyre very important. We dont have a good book. This is something that something bright graduate student should take on a series look at the inscriptions on civil war memorandum roerls both union and confederate. The dom instant motif are union, union, union, nation, and on some, put a really small percentage of all of them, you also will get some mention of emancipation, often in terms of lincolns, theyll mention lincolns emancipation prok location when you mention union. The memorial landscape underscores powerfully the fact that union was the dominant memory of the war among the loyal citizenry of the United States. They also wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. The civil war generation picked up pens and just outpoured the accounts, regiment al histories, memorandum waurs, published sets of letters. When you read those, you get a strong sense of just how dominant this notion of a war for union was. Its a war for union. And its a war that ended with this grand success that ratified the work of the founders. How do you compete with the founders . Thats one of the problems. All they did was establish the country in a bloody war against scummy great britain, then they are responsible for the constitution. Okay. Check. Check. And what have we done late . How do you complete with that memory . Thats tough. How about saving the work of the founding generation. Thats not bad. Lets put that on our resume and that makes us look pretty good. That doesnt leave anything for later generations to do. Who cares. Were taken care of. Its a baby boomer set of life. What about im more important, i want wall of you to take care of me. And my generation lives for ever. We are going to be around. You are going to have us as a giant anvil on your backs for almost all of your lives and you cant do anything about us, so dont even try. You dont have a chance. Here this gives the civil war generation something that they can stand, they often created images of washington, lincoln and grant together, put them literally side by side. Ive talked before about how at the end of the war, lincoln is the great figure for us, at the end of the civil war grant and lincoln were equivalent figures. Tying the work of the founding generation to the generation that served the union. The union cause memory hugely important. One of the winning memories of the war. The other winning memory of the war was the emancipation cause. This would have been embraced by the overwhelming majority of African Americans in the United States both formerly enslaved and the small minority that lived in the free states. This would have been their principles understanding of the war, along with white abolitionists. I think radical republicans would have said the same thing. They would have said of course its a good thing the union was preserved. If the union wasnt preserved, slavery would have lived. So, yes, its a good thing the union was presevered. But its only worth per serving if its a improvement. And the improvement is a union without slavery. Its a institution of slafr ray mocking that high language in the declaration of independence and other high documents. The union being saved is good but the most important thing that came out of the war is the destruction of frederick called the held black system of slavery. Did the abolitionists think they were promoting the work of the Founding Fathers. They thought they were improving the work of the Founding Fathers. And they thought the Founding Fathers work lets take a random thing. How about the constitution . The constitution is fine but it has a profound flaw at its center, it accepts slavery. So many abolitionists before the war, they call the constitution a rag that allows slavery to exist in the United States. So the founders were on to some things, but their work was far from perfect. It will only will really only realize the purpose of the founders if they get rid of slavery. That would have been their attitude toward that. One reason many people in the antebellum years saw them as a problem because the abolitionists would attack the constitution. And that was considered unacceptable by u. S. Citizens in the late 19th century. So the emancipation is a winners cause. I would say five if were going to put a number on it, we cant but am, i would say about 5 Million People would have said this is the most important thing. And African Americans and others established their own traditions in remembering the war. They had their own day, one day that they would pick during the year. And they often called it emancipation day. And it was on different days in different states. In texas its juld june teenth. It refers to when word of emancipation came to places in texas. Here in virginia it was often april 9th, appotomatax day. The people that got in front of the usct units were the ones that got in front of lees army as it went west. Virginia april 9th often became a the one day of the year where you would have your major celebration in the black community, paw raid youd have speeches, the same thing with the main stream declaration memorial Day Celebrations smt United States, but you would have them on different days and you would have them with a specific focus on this outcome of the war, the end of slavery. For africanamerican veterans, that on their resume was just as useful as it was for white veterans who ran for office or whatever. But in numbers disproportionate to how many of them there were. Usat veterans were very prominent after the war. They had disproportionate influence. It was a cash atto say i was a usat man. I did the most direct thing you could do to get rid of slavery. Put on a uniform, pick up a musket and go try to advantage wish the rebels and destroy the confederatesy. There was not a widespread movement to erect monuments to usct men. There was almost none. The memorial landscape almost devoid of monuments specifically directed at the emancipation memory of the war. The earliest monument that went up that dealt with the ending of slavery is balls famous statute in emancipation park, thomas ball as statute on capitol hill that went up in 1876 which later became controversial, its lincoln standing up and reaching down and a black man starting to rise. It conveys the message lincoln freed the slaves, struck the shackles from black people. Its the first notable monument that ent up for emancipation. You should go look at it. Frederick douglass gave a speech in which he criticized that view of why emancipation came. Thats 1876. The next major monument was 1897, and that is my favorite Civil War Monument august us saint to the 54th massachusetts and robert gould shaw. But it is to shaw and to the 54th, as only academics can do, there was a article a few years ago where someone attacked the saint godness monument because they said it diminished the black soldiers because shaw was on a horse. They were innocent of the fact generals are on horses and infantry man are on the ground whether they are black or white. Thats why theyre infantry men. Its a spectacular monument. The National Gallery in washington has a beautiful plaster of it. You dont have to go all the way to boston to see it. Go to the National Gallery, stand in front of that monument and then come and tell me that it demeans africanamerican soldiers. Only a academic could argue that that somehow diminishes the service of these men. 1897. Its a may asiaing monument. Didnt shaws family influence why hes the one that got the monument. Did the prominence of shaws family have anything to do yes. Shaw without shaws family, would the monument have gone up . No. A very well connected family. And a abolitionist family, his parents more than shaw. Not really burning with the abolitionist spirit the way that his parents were, but that is a huge element in that. When we went to peters burg and we were do you know where they have the rebuilt earth works we saw the letters monument there that went up in 1990 to the usct troops. That it went up in 1990. Ill state the stunningly obvious. That wasnt there until the wake of glory. This is one of the influences of a successful part of Popular Culture in carrying over to how we remember things. I made you write about movies because they have a impact on how people remember the past. That monument would not be there if it werent for glory, that put is usct men on the map. That is almost a century after saint godness monument in boston. It wasnt until the end of the 20th century, 1998 that you got a kind of National Monument to the usct men its in washington, d. C. Its at vermont and 10th street in the shaw district of washington, and its a plaza that has the names of the 200,000 black men who served in the army and the navy on tablets that go around this little plaza. And then theres a sculp chur in the middle. Thats 1998 when that went up. So, the emancipation memory of the war, its there, and it car carries forward but it wouldnt be as prom informant to somebody whos looking at the memorial landscape to figure out what the memory of the war was. Frederick douglass figured this out early on. He watched what was happening after the war and he believed that the emancipation memory of the war was slipping away as early as the 1870s and he devoted a good bit of his later years to try to keep alive the emancipation memory of the war. As early as the that robert e. Lee died in 1870, in october of 1870, and Frederick Douglass red the oe pitch wears of robert e. Lee and it seemed to him that the loyal citizenry had already forgotten that there was a right and wrong side to the war. The union cause believed there was a right and wrong side. The union cause is the right side. The rebels were traitors, and thats why we call it the war of the rebellion. So theres a right and wrong sigh. Theres a right and a wrong side here. But doug last thought a sense of that was slipping away especially in democratic newspapers in the north which had really quite gentle even aappreciate tive observe itch wears. He wrote after lees death he was sick and tired of the rebel sheath. We can scarcely nak up a newspaper that is not filled with nauseating flatteries of the late robert e. Lee. That is doug las in 1870, already looking down the road and anticipating that maybe the emancipation part of this equation was going to be eroding much more quickly than it should. Those who would have been happy to see the emancipation memory of the war erode put in place the third of our traditions here, and that is whats come to be call the lost cause tradition. This would have been former confederates who did this. And lets say maybe 5. 5 million of them, lets duct 10 for actual unionists among white people but its add kentuckyiance, they woke up after suffered from a kind of amnesia about what had happened the four years before, they baim kentucky kornls after the war. Compare the monuments in kentucky and compare the two monuments, i wonder which ones taller and the one thats taller im goelg to give it away is not Abraham Lincolns. Lets say 5. 5 million would have embraced the lost cause memory of the war very quickly. Now, the white south has a much greater problem in some ways after the war than the loyal citizenry did. They are big time losers, overwhelming losers. They were lost shatteringly. Not kind of, not maybe, not gosh i wonder who won and lost, no, theyre very well aware of who lost. They talked a far higher i mean, its you can calculate the difference in loss. Far higher percentage of their military age men are said, far higher than in the United States. We cannot recap chur how important this was. Their slave holding social structure is swept away. I cant think of anything equivalent in our society that you could change that would bring as much of a impact. And im going to quote one person on this. He was married to one of Thomas Jeffersons granddaughters lived at edge hill, went to uva in 1853, his name a robert garlic hill cane, he married jane ran doll of. And her uncle was george window this will randolph. Right after the war, he was traveling through virginia, he kept a diary. And this is what he wrote shortly after. The abolition of slavery immediately and by a military order is the most marked feature of this conquest of the south, conquest of the south. Man you mission after this fashion will be regarded here after, wrote cane, with scarcely controlled anger when it has borne its fruits in the passions of the hour have passed away as the greatest social crime ever committed on earth. I think hes upset about emancipation. The greatest social crime ever committed on earth, other than that, im not upset about it. But i am pretty upset about it. So, you have former confederates surveying both the physical and the social landscape after the war, and theyre going to have to deal with a profound failure. No other part of White American society has had to grapple with this. What do you do . If thats what youre dealing with. How do you find a way to hold your head up and say, yes, we kind of did support sues session and yes, heres where we are now, how do we find something positive to take out of that experience. How do you do it . And what they did, with their economy in ruins in the short term, the economy came back of course in many ways. They had some troops occupying them. Thats been vastly overstated. Theres never a real army of occupation, the u. S. Army gets tiny very quickly, most of it is deployed out west as it always was, and true army of occupation, you had a million men in United States uniform in 1965 and evan that million were only occupying a very small part of the confederatesy. The u. S. Army is back down to about 30,000 men by the 1870s. The french army, more than a half million at that. The prosecution army more than a half million. Its part of the United States tradition of not liking standing armies in the peace time, and the fact most people in the loyal states didnt think there was a lot left to do. Never mind that. Thats a subject for another class, another place. The point is confederates are looking around, they realize how many of their young men are dead. They realize that their social structure is gone and they dont know that jim crow is coming so they cant say slaverys gone but jim crows on the way so everything is going to be okay. Part of what they do in the next years. Jim crow is the most obvious expression of confederate response to the loss of slavery and defeat. How are they going to make sense of whats happened to them and the people who might look at say really sues session was a good idea . Really . And look at us now. How do they do it . Heres how. They dont have a retreat where they all go to a cabin somewhere in the app latch ians and come up with a rational of the war. They use organically, you can find the seeds of it in the war itself, but they come up with a interpretation of the war that allows them to maintain a sense of honor in the wake of this awful defeat and we have come to call it the lost cause interpretation. Here are its main elementsment there are vary yags of it. Number one, they are not identify i had yachts. They realize they were out of step with western civilization before the war because they were a slave holding oe site. They understood they needed to distance themselves from slavery. They argued the war was not really about slavery, it was about constitutional principle, it was about do you want to intrusive Central Government ramming things down your throat or do you want the states to maintain their integrity and sovereignty as the founders said was their argument. Weve talked about this in the course of this semester and youve red Jefferson Davis. They tried to inauk late themselves against the charge theyre doing all this to protect their slave holding society. They know theyre going to be judged before the bar of history and if theyre as honest retrospectively as they were Going Forward about slavery, they would look bad. We talked about Alexander Stevens cornerstone speech before the war and Jefferson Davis before. Theyre saying slaverys right up the middle of it. Retrospectively they changed their mind. They say not only is it not at the center of thing, its really only incidental. Thats the word Jefferson Davis said, it was incidental to this high constitutional principle. Get yourself free of the taint of slavery. Number two, why did the war end the way it is . Because we never had a chance. Because of overwhelming union man power and material resources, there is no loss of honor in losing a war for high constitutional principle that you never could have won. It was a gallon unit fight for the right reason but we couldnt win because there were so many yankees, grant wasnt a good general, he could just count. He knew hes not unlimited men and poor lee, we know this, lee only has 11 men at peters burg at the end, and theyve only got 9 shoes among them, and six of them are left shoes. So, its the situation is terrible. And grant has a million men. And yet it takes grant nine months to subdue r. E. Lee. Who is the greater general there . Is it mr. Armath or r. E. Lee. Its not close. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Go down not University Cemetery here in c. Ville and walk in the entrance and theres a Confederate Monument there, first one that went up in charlottesville, 1893, read the inscription on the front of it. Fate denied them victory. Fate. Im going to tell you this right now. If you ever get in a contest where you know fate is against you, just throw in the towel right then. Because if fate is against you, you are not going to emerge triumphant. That is a perfect loss cause message on the front of that monument in the uva cemetery where there are 1,000 confederate soldiers that died in the hospitals and uva during the war. Its not about slavery, we never could have won, theres a alternative reason. Its we almost won, but james long street undid lee at getties burg. We would have gone. One reason they think its so important now is was confederates, they couldnt talk enough about it and argue enough about it in long street, that republican catholic grantliking, leehating guy. He undid, and jeb stewart did, too, and,ule, we never could have one. You never could have one or you take it. You take it one way. The main thing is we never could have won, northern man power and resources, and im going to read to you a wonderful quotation that gets at this. From one of my favorite lost cause barbecuea roos, jubl early. Hes really important in the development of the lost cause argument. Here is how he put it, getting this sense of kind of flesh and blood band of brothers confederates contesting this mechanic is tick juggernaut from the United States. He put it this way. Generally this is after this is why lee lost. Generally had not been conquered in battle but surrendered because he no longer had a army to give battle. I think thats because he was conquered. What he surrendered was the skeleton, the mere ghost of the army of Northern Virginia which had been gradually worn down, heres where you Pay Attention, by the combined agencies of numbers, steam power, railroads, mechanism and all the resources of physical science. All that stuff is on the Yankee Yankee side, all the confederates have is not enough shoe and blood and sinew. This pressure from the yankee hords, hissing is visible now. Finally produced that exhaustion of our army and resources and that accumulation of numbers on the other side which wrought the final disaster. I mean, its numbers, dude. Can you understand that . Theres nothing else going on here. And he says, shall i compare grant to lee . He said, you might as well compare the peera mids in their imagine city besides the niel to a pigmy per which had on atlas. They are aware, she self consciously looking toward the future. They understand how history ians and future americans are going to understand the war. Theyre going to read what the wartime generation wrote. That is where people are going to turn to reach their conclusions about the war. And they talk to each other in the immediate aftermath of the war. Lee had paved the way about the numbers argument. And i need to say we already know this. There is a element of truth in the argument. The union has more. It has four times as many white men in its military age population. Its industrial capacity is far beyond that of the confederatesy, theyre not making that part of it up. That part is true. But they exaggerated and miss confederate advantages and so forth. But they know theyre writing for the future. Lee thought for a while about writing a history of his army after the war. He even began to collect information. He wrote to former officers and said my records are incomplete, do you have something on thats the phrase that lee used at app matt ix. So the this Union Numbers thing is starts very early. Jubl early relied to lee on this point of getting the record down so that people will read it in the future. He said that he said, yes, you should write this history of the army in Northern Virginia, you need to do this generally. He didnt in the end because he got busy running Washington College as president. And i think its a good thing he didnt write it. He couldnt write worth a dam. He wrote one thing we have, and its the most wooden. He probably had i love passive voice on one of his buy accepts because he never broke free of passive voice. Thats another aside. Heres what early wrote to lee. He said, the most that is left to us is the history of our struggle. And i think that ought to be accurately written. We lost nearly everything but honor, and that should be religiously guarded. Sheer is weve got to get our version down, former confederates are telling one another. We have to do it, get it for our ounce people, our children and others so we can look them in the eye. We know that were going to be judged Going Forward by people who are going to look at things that the wartime generation wrote. They are busy doing this. And saying it wasnt about slavery. And they never could have won. And then they play their best card. Do they say what person can we talk about . I know, lets talk about Jefferson Davis, everyone loves him. No, because almost no one loved Jefferson Davis. Hes not loveable as you know from reading his works. Who can you talk about, whos the most important confederate during the war . R. E. Lee. Isnt even close. You can talk about him without talking about slavery. You can even pretend he sort of antislavery if you squint just right and stand ond or head and turn the lights out. You know from confederates, that part of it, i wont belabor that, you can talk to lee, hes your best card. He was a brilliant general, he did win great battles against long odds. Joe hooker had twice as many win at chancellorville yet lee won with his cohoert Thomas Jonathan jackson struck down at high tied tragically, if only, all the ifs that linger, what if, what if, Stonewall Jackson, then you lower your voice, had been at gettysburg. What would he had we know what. He would have been in a box moldering and had no impact on chancellorville and it would have seemed awkward to carry his corpse up into pennsylvania even to rally the rootroops. That wouldnt work that way. So, you focus on lee. Focus on lee. And present him as a christian gentleman, which he was. Project him as someone whos the antimcclellan. Theres not a single letter in lees vast correspondence that is unlike any letter than mclelen wrote, the kinds of letters that say im wonderful, if only theyd let me have my way. Im a hero, i want to save the republic. I, i, i, me, me, me. There arent letters like that. Hes the perfect person to seize that. So they do. They emphasize lee is their man. And there are more monuments to lee that go up. And the one in charlottesville was the one of the last ones that went up in 1924. But there are more monuments to lee an any in the confederacy. And well see in a moment he even crossed over the divide from being a lost cause. When i was growing up the two great figures in the civil war were lincoln and lee. Not lincoln and grant. Why wasnt it lincoln or grant . And never mind davis. Davis was never in the running. He never had a chance to become one of those people. So the confederates settle on these things and they have their own traditions. It is still celebrated in some places. I think fredericksburg, they have their own National Cemeteries although there is no nation to create the cemeteries, groups of woman across the south. A former uva student whos now a very successful professor, care line jany wrote a book called there are parts of larger cemeteries. Hollywood cemetery in richmond has a confederate section. They bury them by state. They would have speeches there just as the union cause people would have speeches. In National Cemeteries you would have the confederate decoration date, confederate memorial day just as you had the National Memorial day, the declaration day. And monuments went up all over the south. There are five over in charlottesville. You have one in the cemetery, the confederate soldier in front of the courthouse downtown. You have the equestion soldiers of jackson and lee. And you have the list in the rotunda that list the graduates that died in the army. Its the same phenomenon as you had in the north. And usually the inscriptions on them get at the idea of overwhelming odds, of fighting for high constitutional principle, often specifically state rights against an encroaching federal government. Go read the one in front of county courthouse. So its a kind of duly memorial landscape in many ways that you get after the war. And the lost cause puts up many, many, many monuments. They also wrote just as people who embraced the union cause or those who embraced the emancipation cause. One of the great examples of emancipation cause writing was a three page stich who wrote on the rise and fall of the slave power. The confederates do a lot of writing, and they prove quite successful at getting their version of the war into print and into Popular Culture. Weve been talking a bit about here the two most scenes that build the scene of it civil war. The two most parnt by far with birth of a nation and gone with the wind depending on how many people saw them, how long they were part of the land zap. Theyre not pure lost cause. But theres no emancipation cause in them, no real union cause. Theres a little reconciliation cause, but sherman is the great destroyer and great invader in these two. They come in giant yankee armies wreaking havoc, destroying everything. They also have the motif, which is the last element of the lost cause ill talk about which is the loyal enslaved population. The slaves were happy, the slaves were content. The slaves were welltreated under the confederacy. And in fact the yankees didnt like black people as much as confederates do. That kind of reaches its apex its a lost cause film in many ways. And you have the conversation between Stonewall Jackson and this black cook. And jackson is interviewing him, and it turns out theyre both from lexington. And the words that come out of the black characters mouth, were all in this together, and you think what does the prospective cook thinks in it for him if the confederacy wins. Really, it just makes your mind drift away to Something Else that might make sense. And my Favorite Book title of all books on the civil war is Stonewall Jackson, colon, the black mans friend. Im not making that up. If only the confederacy can win, at last black people can get a break. I mean thats kind of the message in here. Like i said, you just cant make some things up. The bitterness that remained among some confederates is profound. Heres something that gets at what former confederates actually thought. This is part of the lyrics from a song called oh, im a good old rebel. Which was sarcastically dedicated to the honorable 300,000 yankees is stiffed in southern dust. We got 300,000 before they conquered us. They died of southern fever and southern shot. I wish they was 3 million instead of what we got. I aint going to love them that is certain sure. And i dont want no pardon for what i love and am. I wont be reconstructed. I love the lyrics of that one. Everybody tells me how easily they got back together. Lets talk about reconciliation really quickly. This is powerful part of the literature. The idea that White Americans north and south decided not to talk about slavery, dont talk about race, who was right or wrong, just get together in a sort of versed racist energy agreed. And everyone was gallant and we love each other. Theres absolutely some truth to this, and there you can find evidences of this. But i think you need to be careful about exactly how you explore this. I think theres a public base for some people and a private base. His private face he seized about reconstruction. He hated what was going on in terms of racial reconstruction. He was very upset. Thats the public lee where not the private lee. The same was true of many other figures. But there was some reconciliation in some ways where theyre talking about a common hairtinal. In films, this is a strong element in many films that have come down over the years. Theres a good bit of that those of you who watched the film gettysburg. The reconciliation film there is really teased out by hancock and arm stead, theyre really thinking about each other and all they care about each other. They really love being in the army together, and they really are just americans. And its too bad this is going on. Thats a very strong reconciliation theme. The war with spain gave a wonderful opportunity for our kind of public reconciliation. Ando the United States government, for example i mean they need soldiers from both confederates states and former loyal states in the war with spain, and so they pitch it that way and make a big deal with the fact you have southern white boys and northern white boys all in blue uniforms going off to fight the spaniards in cuba and elsewhere. And they even trotted out a group of former confederate generals and made them generals in the United States army. Joseph wheeler was one of them. Theres a film of little Joseph Wheeler this tall walking back and forth with a little sword and a long white beard. This is a very selfconscious effort to push reconcil kragz. Here are all these boys fighting together in blue uniforms against a common foe. Against a common foe. And the newspaper loved an alenled quotation from wheeler down in cuba. As his troops were tacking and he got caught up in the moment and he said go get those damn yankees. Theyre spaniards. Thats what i meant. That joe wheeler, hes such a caution and hes really just an american. Just an american. The reconciliation cause took a number of forms. And we can see it on the memorial landscape. And im finally going to come to our hand outs here. The top thing on your hand out is the United States halfdollar in 1925 that has robert e. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on a United States 50 cent piece. Just think about that a minute. I wonder how many losing rebels in civil wars in history ended up on official coinage from the republic they almost undid. Turn to the next page there. You have this great cartoon from 1938, which is the 75th anniversary of the battle of gettysburg. Lets pretend i have power point now, and im so repeating the stunningly obvious as if you cant figure out anything on your own. Its a union and confederate veteran. And there they are shoulder to shoulder. Was gettysburg necessary. Really, was gettysburg necessary. It almost makes you think of recent quotations of was the civil war necessary . Anyway, was gettysburg necessary. And the implications of course was it wasnt necessary. Our family had a spat. Oh, too bad, too bad, too bad. And im going to give you two perfect examples of reconciliationist rhetoric. They both took place at gettysburg. One on the 50th anniversary of the battle, one on the 75th. And they were delivered by two people who lets just say theyre not quite picked at random. Wood row wilson and del nor roosevelt. Here we have wilson. We found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms. Except we shall not forget the splendid valor, the manly devotion of the men now grasping hands and smiling into each others eyes. Just a kind of collective american manhood that had fought for causes we wont talk about what the causes were and whether one was right or wrong. These are american virtues. Not northern virtues, not southern virtues, american virtues. 25 years later franklin roosevelt. Quote, men who wore the blue and men who wore the gray are brought hereby old loyalties but meet here in united loyalties to a united cause of which the unfolding years have made it easier to see. And behind him he was dedicating the eternal Peace Monument up on guttiesbering. And the words on it are peace united in the entire nation. And he closed by saying thats the same time that the cartoon came out in the philadelphia newspaper of the two veterans together. And there were newsreels of these old, old men literally shaking hands across the wall, this old stone wall at gettysburg. So this the very famous reck rationest take on the war. And the literature behind this is white veterans completely turned their blacks on white veterans. More Research Suggests that isnt true. When you talk about slavery and attitude towards race, you need to understand that they can be somewhat puzzling to us now because what we would assume to be the case often isnt the case. And that was often the true with Union Veterans looking back at the war. Your other two the u. S. Has commemorated the civil war in a number of stamps. It was a simpler time in the centennial years when i was young and we only had to learn nine things and you were considered educated. The only put five stamps out, one each year. And theyre very straightforward. Theyre battles. They dont take a side. Theres nothing political about them. The only argument would be should we have more in the west or more in the east . And of course theres more in the east because the east is more important. Your next sheet shows how much more complicated but that is its even handed. Theres no taking sides there. Fast forward to the 1990s. That is the sheet of commemerative stamps from the 90s, and you can see its different. It has men and women. Its very even handed in terms of for every union figure, theres a confederate figure. And if you look at the very top, and i didnt bring my glasses but im pretty sure it says this. I think it says civil war in very large letters. And i think it says war between the states in smaller letters. But thats, again, who calls it the war between the states, former confedrist. They call it war between the states, and the United States calls the civil war. Well, thats not really what many what did the union people really call it . The war of the rebellion. When they published all of the records of the war, its the war of the rebellion. Thats what it is. But this strike it out civil war in bigger print. And i can close my eyes and imagine them at the table. Youve got to put war in there. I want it bigger, no you can have it smaller. And you can just hear. I weep at that prospect. Youre going to learn to hate Committee Meetings more than anything else in your life. You go in sit around for three hours where and then you skied to meet again. And it really makes life seem not worth living when youre in those. Okay, where are we today . Well, the civil war still gets a lot of attention today. And i think people come at the war with two basic things in mind. And the first thing is what can we find things in the war that thats really about us . How do we draw from the war things that are pertinent to political and social issues . Its full of those kind of things, bursting with them, in fact. Two obviously ones are those related to race. Its not it didnt justsert of happen to come that way. It came that way. Revisiting these confederate memorials in the wake of a brutal racial incident in our current world. It brings the emancipation cause back into the big picture. For emancipation clause is now the default understanding of the war. Those of you who wrote about lincoln, you see it in linkening chen. And its all through Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter. Dont mess with those other two years. Its all settled at geltiesberin and its all about slavery. Anyway, i wont go off on that. The understanding is that the emancipati emancipation is the cause that has the most resonance. Theres also a good deal of debate about the relative power, the central and local governments. I mean weve seen this. Barack obama is elected president , texas talks ability secession. Donald trump is elected president canada talks about secession. I mean, heres the deal, secession was settled by the civil war. That is not going to happen. But you go back to the war i just find it amazing you have people that say i want to get right with south carolina. So im going to argue for secession. There must not be a mirror in the house i think when thought happens for a little check on themselves. So you can go back in finding ways. The other way to go back is to go back and try to understand what was actually going on. And that often leads to problems because what we think should have been going on often isnt what was going on. I mean to us, to people in 2017, a great war to end slavery makes sense. That is worth this profusion of blood, to eradicate the institution of slavery from the american republic. But when you go back and actually read stuff, which is dangerous, you find out that alas, that is not the primary motivation. And you find out that you have to come to terms with the union. And thats a hard sell now. Its hard to tell people what unioned them . What did it mean . And part of it is weve been a great power for all these decades. Its hard to imagine anything internally literally destroying the republic now. People dont wake up and wonder whether the nation is going to be here next year. But that was a genuine fear in the 1960s. And recovering that can be very difficult. And it causes us to sort of get outside of our comfort zones and come to terms with the real past. And its not picking people oh, i like them, and i dont like them. But what the goal for this second way to get at the war should be understanding what was going on in the past, not deciding whether you like robert guld shah more than you like as a kind of detached observer i like to sit back and watch the civil war carnival unfolds as it always does, kind of in waves. Heres the main thing that i want, and i know this is going to happen because some of you down the road when youre much older, you know, mid20s. Youre going to sit down in front of your computers or by tt to me youve ever been to a battlefield or read something that made you think about soar. Now, many of you are going to be unscarred either that way by this class. Some of you as ive said before, i dont think even for weeks counseling even in the worst cases here but some of you are actually going to go out of here and stay in touch with the spectacular success. And the only papers you know when im looking for them go write them. [ applause ]0 p. M. On cspan 3. Working with our capable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. And now university of georgia professor scott nesbit teaches a class on Historic Preservation and the debate over several Cultural Heritage sites. Such as the tearing down of Confederate Monuments. His class is about an hour. So this is as you guys know the university of georgia at the brand new digital humanities