Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 20160818

Pennsylvanians cares at all, at least in terms of the slave, was defending fugitive slaves and taking no fee. If im mott mistaken in the 1838 Constitutional Convention when pennsylvania decided to take the right of voting away from blacks who until then had that right, there was only one member who refused to sign that constitution and that was Thaddeus Stevens. The father of the Public School system of pennsylvania, the great voice for equality and the great commoner. He is a man who deserves great credit and great honor and i dont have to tell you as well that Thaddeus Stevens when he died in 1868 would tell a reporter the great pity of my life is i have lived long and so uselessly. For he believed then that reconstruction would not be able to survive. The commitment was not there. When this man died we had him buried in the back church yards. He said i reside here in this quiet spot, not from a desire of seclusion, but finding that every other cemetery makes a bar on the basis of race, have determined in death to be as i was in life, to speak from my great belief, equality of man for his creator. That is Thaddeus Stevens. [ applause ] American History tv airs on cspan3 every weekend telling the american stormy through events, interviews and visits to historic locations. This month American History tv is in primetime to introduce to you programs you could see every weekend on cspan 3. Our features include lex tours in history, visits to College Classrooms across the country and hear lectures by top history professors. American artifacts takes a look at the treasures at u. S. Historic sites, museums and archives. Real america revealing the 20th century through archival films and newsreel. The civil war where you hear about the people who shape the civil war and reconstruction and the presidency focuses on u. S. President s and first ladies to learn about their politics, policies and legacies all this month in primetime and every weekend on American History tv on cspan3. Thursday on American History tv primetime the 40th anniversary of the national air and space museum, the celebration took place in july with the Current Museum director, retired general jack bailey, and a look at exhibits on the start of aviation and into space exploration. It begins tomorrow night at 8 00 eastern. Coming up this weekend on cspan 3. As the National Park service prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary, well take a look at the development of californias state park. Saturday night on reel america, the land of the giants that documents the efforts of the u. S. Conservation core and the daily life in the conservation camps. For Fire Prevention and growth provides lumbar for any kind of construction job which may be desirable. They make everything from heavy bridge timbers to park signs. A few scholars discuss hamilton. Then at 10 00 on road to the white house remind, bill clinton and former can sis senator bob dole face up in the 1996 campaign. We are the strongest nation in the world and we provide the leadership. Lets do it on our terms when our interests are involved and not when somebody blows a whistle at the united nations. I believe we have been successful when we moved to kuwait to repel sa dam hue sanes, into the taiwan straits. I believe the United States is at peace tonight in part of the discipline, careful, effective deployment of our military resources. And at 6 00 p. M. Eastern well take a tour of arlington house. Built my washingtons step ground son it was the home of robert e. Lee. He declared this house a federalist house. This was to represent all the beliefs of george washington, and that included, one again, the idea that this nation would exist forever, and that no state had a right to leave it. So how ironic is it that that mans daughter would mary robert e. Lee, who became the great confederate general and the man who came closest to destroying the nation that was created in the american revolution. For our tv schedule go to cspan. O cspan. Org. The Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in gettysburg pennsylvania recently held a conference on reconstruction and the panel of the civil war. A panel of historians talk about how southerners created their own narrative during reconstruction to explain why the civil war was fought and why the south lost. Their talk is about an hour. All right. Good evening. Im peter carmichael. I am a professor of history at Gettysburg College and also the director of the Civil War Institute. Its my pleasure this evening to be moderator and panelist for this session on the anatomy of a lost cause. Joining me, to my immediate right is keith bohannon. Keith is an assistant professor of history at west georgia university. Keith has very long experience in the historical profession. He started off as a seasonal historian, actually as a volunteer at kennesaw National Military park when he was a teenager. A teenager. And during that time, he also did Extensive Research in georgia archives. There simply is not another person who knows more about georgia during the civil war than keith bohannon. He finished his ph. D. At penn state, started under Gary Gallagher, who then moved on to the university of West Virginia and then mark nealy was keiths adviser. To the right of keith is katy meier. Katy is an assistant professor. She just received her promotion excuse me, i said assistant. I meant to say associate professor, associate professor at virginia commonwealth university. Katy is a graduate or i should say a student of Gary Gallagher at the university of virginia, where she completed her dissertation, became a book called natures civil war, and its published by university of North Carolina press. If any of you have any interest at all in the experience of the civil war soldier, you must read katys book. Its a path breaking book. Its a book that harkens back to the scholarship of bill wily. She also considers a range of other factors that he did not consider such as the impact of the environment on the lives of civil war soldiers and how those soldiers through selfcare were able to preserve their own lives often against the good judgment of military authorities. Natures civil war is an outstanding book, and i recommend it to all of you. So, we have an outline behind us. And its an outline youre going to see on a few occasions this evening. Were going to try to be fairly structured so that we can capture or hit the big talking points of the lost cause, and with that foundational information, well then turn it over to all of you so you can ask us any questions that you might have. Again, i am moderator and panelist. We thought maybe i should put an extra chair over by katy and then i could ask the question and run over to that chair and answer it, but i promised i would reserve the hardest questions for myself. Okay . All right. So im actually going to get it started here. I think the first thing is to begin with what do we mean by a myth . And its crucial that we dont see myth or equate myth with falsehood. We should understand that myth, especially in the case of the lost cause, myth is a way of perceiving a truth. And it also provides a vehicle for spiritual and moral meaning. A way of perceiving truth. One thing that i dont think would be very satisfying this evening is if we were to line up all the tenets of the lost cause and knock them all down. Falsehood, falsehood, falsehood, falsehood. Certainly, there are lots of exaggerations. But within those exaggerations, there are not just kernels of truth which we need to recognize, but what is i think the real task at hand is how did white southerners and why did white southerners come to embrace things for many of us seems absolutely not just ridiculous but put them in sort of a fantasy world. And we know that many of these former confederates were extraordinarily smart and intelligent individuals. So the task at hand, like any good historian, is to be empathetic, put ourselves in their place, and try to understand how they could perceive truth through something that we, again, its like any kind of factual merit. The origins of the lost cause. The term lost cause was not created by historians. It in fact emerged during the war but became more popular after 1865. How did that term come to the surface . I can tell you, it didnt happen like this. You didnt get a bunch of former confederates gathering at some resort in a room and say, okay, we need to come up with a way to explain why we lost this war. Lost cause. Got it. Lets put lost cause down. Now, lets get the tenets of the lost cause. Of course none of that happened. It happened in a much more spontaneous way, and in fact, it comes out of the war itself, as i mentioned. You can see the lost cause or elements of the lost cause in general orders number nine. General orders number nine, as many of you know, was lees farewell address to his troops at appomatox courthouse. It was an address that he did not compose. It was an address that one of his staff officers, charles marshall, a graduate of Indiana University i might add, he wrote the draft. Lee did come in, and he did make some corrections. I think there were some elements of general orders number nine that lee thought was a little harsh toward the union army. I have put in bold just a few sections, and im going to go through this quickly. Rest assured, were going to come back to general orders number nine. In this document, in this document, you can again see some of the essence, the essence of the lost cause interpretation as to why the confederacy failed. Of course, i cant see it well from here. So the very first paragraph is crucial. Printed in bold. Compel to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. Second paragraph, and this speaks to this issue of honor. Lee, and i should say marshall as well, very sensitive to how confederate soldiers were going to respond to this defeat, and as our Previous Panel spoke to the issue of subjugation. The word subjugation time and time again, you will find in the letters of confederate soldiers throughout the war. Fearful that defeat to the yankees, that that would mean a debasement of them as men, and that loss of mastery. Robert e. Lee and marshall are clear here, they want to restore the reputations of their men. They want their men to be able to go home and to say to their family members that they did what . That they in fact served honorably to the very end, and the capitulation was forced upon them because further resistance would have been pointless bloodshed. General orders number nine. It is what i would consider to be one of the most important lost cause documents of the war. Edward pollard gets a fair amount of credit and probably too much credit for popularizing the lost cause idea. Its crucial to, i think its important to remember that southern women played a vital role in advancing the lost cause ideas, and they did that through commemorative activities, especially when it came to the reburial of confederate dead. And many southern women claim that this act, this reinternment of confederate dead, of creating cemeteries just for them was an apolitical act. They said, were women, we cant be political. Thats impossible. But, of course, what they did was intensely political. So more than pollard, actually, we should give credit to those southern women in those first years after the war from 1865 to 1867, the Ladies Memorial Association in particular, they did good work in advancing that lost cause message. Carey janney who will be speaking to us this week, she wrote a book on the ladys memorial association, a book worth checking out, and i believe its a book thats back in our library. So the popularization of the lost cause in the immediate postwar years, again, all this would strike you sort of odd that i keep saying lost cause. Why in the world did defeated confederates employ this language . Lost cause. Lost cause. It makes, in fact, no sense. Because its a really strange way of saying that we have been subjugated. Almost like an acknowledgment of it. But i would say the use of the lost cause was a foil. Lost but not really lost. Defeated but not dishonored. And so the language of the lost cause, it, in fact, helps southerners deal with the burden of defeat. Youre going to see my ineptitude with technology. For the whole world and cspan to see. Who here we go. I have to get through this outline. Youll see the second one comes before the first one, and then there we go. There we go. Youll get some more opportunities to laugh at this when it comes up again. There we go. All right. So, we have to ask ourselves why was the lost cause necessary . Why the lost cause was necessary, i believe you should turn to the Great Southern historian c. Vann woodward. I see all of you out there and im not trying to shame my cwi audience, but move your hands for me right now. I do this with my students when they have their pens out there and im saying, look, when i suggest that this is something you should write down, even if youre really not doing it, just go through the motion. I would like to see everyone move their hands right now and write down c. Vann woodward. C. Vann woodward. C. Vann woodward is a must. A brilliant historian of the south, and in and among his many writings, he wrote about the burden of southern history, and in the burden of southern history, he identified the exceptionalism of that history for white southerners. And for white southerners, they had the burden of or i should say the guilt of holding slaves. They had the burden of secession. They had the burden of a war that sacrificed so many lives. And they had the burden of military occupation. They had to explain not just to themselves but they had to explain to the entire world, and thats crucial and something that i dont think we have heard a lot of around here, and that is reconstruction is something that should not be studied in isolation. This is not just a regional issue. This is an issue that needs to be globalized. White southerners in the postwar period were speaking to the world. They were speaking to a world in which they very much wanted to membership of, a world in which had moved away from slavery, and now they had gone to their death as a nation and as a people to defend an institution that most of the world, of course, had turned its back upon. And so ultimately, why they turned to the lost cause in this explanation is that they had to make the loss of this life, they had to make it sacred. Had to make it sacred. And once again, i impress upon all of you as deplorable as many of these ideas are, as ahistorical as many of them are, we need to position ourselves from the perspective of those former confederates. Imagine that bloodletting, that that nation endured, and now coming out of that knowing that whos going to write the history of this war . Going to be the victors, of course. All right. Now, with that said, lets start to work our way through our outline. Ill turn it over as a moderator, i think i took too much time, but i will give my other panelists an opportunity to speak. Well have some give and take as we work our way through there, and then like i said, well get back and have questions for you all. So the first question. Whats the place of slavery in the old south . Ill leave it to either one of you. Go right ahead. Well, i would say that slavery permeated every aspect of society in the old south. One of the things i like to talk about with my students is that figure thats thrown out where onequarter of the white population in the old south was slaveholding by the eve of the civil war, does not mean that the rest of the threequarters of the population was not invested completely in slavery. For instance, those who wanted to move up economically in society would aspire to slave owning because most of the wealth of southerners before the civil war was held in slaves or in land, especially cotton land. And in addition, i would speak to the idea of slave rebellion. Whites in the south and the north feared, lived in fear of a reversal of the social order in which blacks were subjugated. And the specter of slave rebellion was something that every southerner would fear, so in my current home state of virginia, those of you, im sure in the audience, know about nat turners rebellion in the period of the 1830s. Nat turner, a slave, had hacked women and children in their beds at night to death. So there was this idea that even if you were not a slave owner yourself, if suddenly the enslaved population rose up and there was a reversal and they perpetrated to whites what was being done to them in the brutal institution of slavery, this meant that possible violence could be done. So all of that to say everyone was invested in the social order of subjugating blacks in slavery in the south. One of the people who really popularized some of the main tenets of the lost cause was an exconfederate general named john b. Gordon. We will be talking more about him in a few minutes. In 1903, just a few months before his death, gordons reminiscences were published and his depiction of slavery in there, which only takes up a very small portion of the book, it mainly recounts his war career, but the portrayal of slavery that he gives the reader is very typical of what you see in countless lost cause books. Slaves are devoted and loyal to their masters. The white and black races in the south know each other and understand each other, and its only during reconstruction when northerners come down to manipulate and take advantage of freed people that the problems arise. Gordon also points to how slavery had existed in almost every state at the time the constitution was ratified. And that its disappearance in the north occurred not because of the antislavery sentiment, and again, let me stress, this is what gordon is saying. This is part of this lost cause mythology. He claims that the end of slavery in the northern states came about not because of it being perceived as immoral. It had to do more with industrialization and a climate that wouldnt allow for slavery. Let me just add one other element to that, thats relations among whites in the old south. We have heard a lot about the power of race and creating a bond that transcended class. Theres no doubt about that. I think at times we overemphasize that power of race because it often reduces, especially poor whites, as to almost unthinking historical actors. They understood that the planner had white skin. They had white skin, but the real differences between them, class differences and social differences, and so to think that all of these men when it came to the war, they simply lined up and followed the elite class to their death just because they had white skin is a gross oversimplification. And what we really miss is that there was a firm belief, especially again by those who were of the educated and of the elites, that within the south slavery created a system that protected white workers, not just raised them up, but protected them from an Economic System that was brutal and unforgiving to workers across the globe. Again, the global perspective is essential here. Especially in the 1840s and the 1850s. All you have to think about is dickens england, not a merry time, is it . A place in which industrialization is ripping the shreds out of the english working class, and were already seeing, or i should say southerners and northerners were already seeing in the United States that this cherished free labor ideology in which all men rise up by their boot straps wasnt a reality for all white men. So the intellectual class of the south pointed to the north. They pointed to europe, and they said, look. They have no protection as workers. When they get too old or get injured, they get kicked to the curb. But in the south, our laboring class, cradle to grave protection. Now, let me be clear. Thats a very selfserving, very idealistic, extraordinarily paternalistic view of that system, but it was there view, and you cant just dismiss it out of hand. With that view was a Firm Commitment to hierarchy. You have heard a lot about mastery. If you believe in mastery, you believe in hierarchy, and you believe all men are created equal. Regardless of their skin color. Even with the lost cause, that sort of utopian view they have of their society, its a utopian view in which stratification is absolutely essential for a society to advance in terms of republicanism, christianity and progress. The south wants to be part of the world of nations. They want to be recognized as a prosperous and advanced civilization, but they say to the rest of the world, weve got the answer, and its slavery. Thats whats going to allow us to avoid all of the chaos that was of course erupting in england and in places in the United States. All right. So well move to what caused the civil war . Go right ahead. Want to go first . You can go. To get back to gordon, i think his reminiscence illustrate one of the main tenets of the lost cause. But in some ways he deviates. He starts off in his explanation, this is in his reminiscence of why the civil war took place, by saying that slavery was the immediate fomenting cause of the conflict. And its fair to say that if there hadnt been slavery, there wouldnt have been a war, but then he shifts, and in shifting, he gets to this point that confederate leaders made after the war. Davis and Alexander Stevens in their writings, and then gordon says that its really the heart of the conflict, thats the phrase he uses, rests with different constitutional interpretations of what the power relationship should be between the federal and state governments. And southerners feared an increasingly powerful National Government in the 1850s that would restrict the spread of slavery and that when southerners acted to protect their interest and seceded, the secession was a constitutional legal action that they were taking. Ill be speaking a little more about jubal early, who was known as one of the chief architects of important lost cause ideas. He has a great quote about the cause of the civil war from his memoirs. Ill read that. He says, during the war, slavery was used as a catch word to arouse the passions of a fanatical mob and to some extent, the prejudices of the civilized world were excited against us. But then he goes on to argue, this was not the real cause of the war. War was over, quote, the inestimatable right of selfgovernment against the domination of a fanatical faction at the north and slavery was the mere occasion of the development of the antagonism between the two sections. So what i think early illustrates very well here is that there was a shift in what leading confederates were arguing caused the war. If you look at their writings in 1861 versus their writings in 1865, you notice a distinct switch from an emphasis on slavery to an emphasis on states rights or the right of selfgovernment as the cause of secession. And there are, of course, numerous documents we can look at to compare these differences, such as the declarations of secession in 1861, which all highlight slavery. Alexander stevens, the Vice President s cornerstone speech, et cetera, and then you can compare it to stevens post war writings where he completely reverses his position. Which like two volumes. It takes two volumes. Yes, to undo what you said with the cornerstone of the confederacy. The cornerstone of the confederacy speech, again, should reveal to us that it was a very fine line that the slave holders had to walk to be able to gain the support of yeoman farmers and non slave holders, that even in the messages of secession, you see the very heated racial language. You see them being very clear that theres radical factions against the south, but when it came to the moment to go to war, that racial rhetoric for the cause of slavery gets downplayed tremendously. We should also remind ourselves again, i think its so crucial, and im drawing heavily from a famous historian who said the yeoman farmers and nonslaveholders, he said they were not political marshmallows. They were used. They were sponges that could be used by the slaveholder class. I think the fact there was so much dissension in the confederacy speaks to that. If in fact those men were so drive by racial ideology they couldnt see their own interests, you would have a hard time explaining the dissent that occurred which then leads to us our next questions which is how did the southern home front respond to military invasion . According to the lost cause. Gordon talked about the selfsacrifice of white women on the southern home front in sending their men off to war and then enduring enormous hardships and shortages. He talks about the loyalty of slaves to their masters during the four years of conflict. Those at home as well as body servants accompanying their masters off to war. Gordons really in his reminiscence talks you hear much about reunion. And he has kind things to say about most Union Generals, including grant, for his magnanimity at appomattox towards lees men. But there are a couple Union Generals that gordon is not kind to in his writing. And those are david hunter and phil sheridan. Thats because of what gordon witnessed in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864 and the devastation wrought by the armys troops under those two men and what gordon describes as the indescribable suffering of the women and children in the Shenandoah Valley. Gordon served under jubal early. Much i would say from earlys perspective would be similar to gordons, but jubal earthy was not nice to anyone. Jubal early was disgusted by the invasion of the home front. He, you know, deemed what the union had done atrocity, he was particularly fixated on hunter and what hunter had perpetrated against the women of the Shenandoah Valley. He has some choice quotes about this. He says the scenes on hunters route from lynchburg had been truly heart rending. Houses had been burned. Helpless women and children left without shelter. Even the negro girls had lost their little finery. So there is jubal early standing up for the enslaved that hunter had so viciously perpetrated these attacks against. This is not to make little of this. The devastation to the valley was something that early was very impassioned by. And this motivated his ire during the war and after the war. His famous orders to burn chambersburg, he wrote in his memoirs that he did not regret that at all because he felt this was retribution that was deserved because of what the union had done in the valley. It was definitely an igniting piece emotionally in his lost cause. So, im curious how the two of you tried to teach this to students, because theres a tension here that katy, you have pointed to, and that is you cant deny the fact that there was a hard war strategy that was waged against the south. Right . You cant deny the fact that the military age of the south, their military age population. You cant deny the fact that there was tremendous unity, in fact, unity across class boundaries. So how do you bring this complexity without at the same time reaffirming a lost cause perspective that i think i hope all of us here are somewhat uncomfortable with. How do you teach it . How do you talk about it . Well, i dont really see attention because going back to what you initially started with, we need to understand that the lost cause had a purpose. That it came from a place of authenticity, even if it developed into a mess. Jubal early is an excellent example of the emotional toll that war exacts. And in this case, im not talking about, you know, what the Veterans Panel was speaking of earlier. Im talking of this anger and rage and the creation of enemies. Thats what war does. And this is what enemies look like. Jubal early calls david hunter, david hunters deeds were those of a malignant and cowardly fanatic who is Better Qualified to make war against helpless woman and children than upon armed soldiers. Early is not just making that up. He feels thats what hes seen when he marched through the valley. So i think that we can give the whole truth, and i think in giving the whole truth, it provides the kind of education you need to understand why the lost cause exists. And pointing out again to reiterate something keith said at the beginning at the lost cause myth has kernels of reality in it. We looked at general orders number nine. The army of Northern Virginia was outnumbered in all of its major battles, as were the other confederate armies. I know the movie hasnt been released yet. The free state of jones. I dont even know what the title of the movie is. I think thats it. Usually hollywood screws that up even. Good. Whats it going to be . 24th of june. 24th of june, yes. So im very impressed with i believe its the director who did serious, serious reading about it and is very articulate. I dont agree with all of his findings at all, but thats why historians have jobs. Because we have interpretive differences. Were sort of like lawyers. Right . We have to keep proving our cases, so im fine with his different interpretation. What i heard from him and from some of the clips, we see a confederacy that is badly divided and that division results in poor whites and former slaves or runaway slaves coming together as almost a band of brothers. So im curious about your thoughts about go ahead. I was going to say, but at the same time, when you you also have to ask the question, which scholars often dont. If you focus on guerillas, this unionist resistance on the home front, deserters, how are those people able to operate for so long . And its because 80 plus of the military age population is in the armies. Thats a really good point. So if thats the case, what does that say about the loyalty to the majority of people in jones county . 80 mobilization is just mindboggling. That level of investment. It is, i agree with you. Then i think what we lose with that statistic is that mobilization, whats behind it . Its not just all its conscription and coercion in addition to volunteering. Tremendous amount of coercion, tremendous amount of force and violence is there. I think what all this points to is when you start to unpackage the lost cause and you start to then get to see these various experiences and all of these different stories, they have to be recovered in some way. Catherine clinton who had the last comments in our previous session about the return of confederate soldiers, i thought she said it beautifully about why these stories from the dark side, they demand and deserve our attention. Just with the lost cause, for anyone to simply reject it, not to take it seriously, because within that you can understand and you can appreciate why men and women during the war and the immediate aftermath of the war, why it was so easy for them to make this bloodletting, this loss of life, why they thought it had to be made sacred. And to dismiss that out of hand as historians is problematic, and i think that its also problematic even today. Were far too quick to see any expression of Confederate Heritage as an expression of racism or an expression of someone who is just not historically well informed. If youre ever going to create a real conversation with people who have different perspectives, the very first step, of course, is not to dismiss their views out of hand. Its easy to sometimes do that with the lost cause. I mean, keith and i have worked at National Parks and engaged a range of visitors who had really curious views. And i think we learned quickly on to sit there and try to tell them that their understanding as to why the south lost or the slavery wasnt important, i came to see that a frontal attack wasnt going to work with them. But what was going to work with them was to say, you know what, i understand you had ancestors who fought on the confederate side. I understand why you feel when i say slavery caused the war, im damning your ancestors, but im not. If you say that, you might get the conversation going. I think johns book on the confederate battle flag is an excellent example of dealing with this issue in a nuanced and kind of changeover kind of way. A very good book. Well move to why did the confederacy fail . We have answered this question with the first document we looked at up there, with the general orders number nine. And jubal early said lees army had been gradually worn down by the combination of numbers, steam power, railroad. So hes combining the North Industrial might as a cause for confederate defeat with the overwhelming number of soldiers in the union army. And theres little acknowledgment in most of the lost cause writings that Union Victory came about because of superior generalship on the part of northern officers. Can you all help me here with gettysburg because in the lost cause and gettysburg is pivotal in trying to explain away the confederate defeat. Can we talk a little bit about gettysburg and how its place in this theory of confederate defeat. Ill start a little bit and then ill turn it over. Should we keith is going to give a tour on this, right . Yes. I will be as well. He can give a little preview. But what i would say about that is, again, jubal early was one of the leading figures who was damning James Longstreet, and i have a choice quote from him again because hes a very quotable fellow. I am firmly convinced that if general lees plans had been carried out in the spirit in which they were conceived and there he reese talking on the second kay of gettysburg, a decisive victory would have been obtained which perhaps would have secured our independence. So, again, this is a postwar construction, and indeed, the focus on longstreet is really in the 1870s after James Longstreet had publicly made statements about robert e. Lee that and after robert e. Lees death. And after robert e. Lees death, good point. And jubal early, one of his chief projects was to idolize robert e. Lee and protect his image. So that angered him. And, you know, helped to kind of shift the focus to longstreet. But in addition, as many of you know, longstreet had committed apostasy by becoming a republican. He was his own worst enemy. Tripped over himself all the time. Right, which was just another reason to attack him. So its really in the 1870s that this shift goes to well, maybe gettysburg wag the moment and maybe James Longstreet was the reason. And a. P. Hill and dick yule come into under fire as well. Tell us about lee here. And just how the lost cause, how it venerates the message. I think the first thing we should point out is that its not solely a lost cause, construction of the veneration of lee. I mean, theres a Staggering Amount of evidence from the war that lees victories in the first two years of the conflict had an enormous impact on confederate morale, and so thats a point i would bring up first. Yeah, absolutely. And, again, early and many other exconfederate generals made it their project to venerate lee. For early, i think it was personal, because when he had faced defeat in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, lee had to remove him from command but did so very gently and kindly in a letter saying, you know, the public has lost faith in you, but i havent. You have done a great job for the confederacy, and after the war, before lees death, lee and early exchanged numerous letters that i think early treasured. You know, lee was so important to him. And in those letters, lee said, lets put the emphasis on manpower and materiel to show the world the real reason we lost. So this became a pet project between the two of them, and i think this kind of melded and early put a lot of effort into venerating lee. And lee, just to clarify, lee was writing early and gordon and quite a few other generals in the years immediately after appomattox to try to obtain copies of their reports, and lee was also particularly interested in getting strength figures to help bolster the argument that his army had always been grossly outnumbered by the armies at the potomac. Which is an important part about lee. He was working behind the scenes and if he hadnt been working behind the scenes and if he in fact gone public. In what respect . In his views, if he had written his memoir like he intended to do. Confederates were urging him. We all know, when you go we obviously all know when you go public and engage in that kind of debate, no one ever looks good. So in a way, lees standing behind the scenes and dying in 1870, to a degree, that preserved his reputation. But hes also extraordinarily busy as a president of a struggling college. Thats one of the big factors that prevented him of course. And Failing Health from writing the book. Of course, but he also thought entering the fray was distasteful. He didnt want to engage in that kind of thing. As you know, he never wanted to return to the battlefields. Heres where the lost cause comes in. It appears hes just above the fray. But he was engaging in correspondents behind the scene. He made it very clear the wrong side had won this war. He was very dissatisfied with republican rule. He was no friend of black folks both during or after the war. Of course, the lost cause, its able to smooth all those edges over, but i think keiths point is an important one to remind ourselves of. That he was during the war, r. E. Lee, the idol of his people. Then after the war, he became the quintessential christian gentleman. And a great general. There, again, its a tough thing to teach to your students. Because did he not carry himself that way . Some will say, my god, how can a professor of history say that when r. E. Lee was a slaveholder . Again, that would be missing the point here. The point is that how he carried himself at the time, how he was perceived by not just confederates but by many northerners as well, they elevated at a point that he was christlike. And so thats why gettysburg, again, is so crucial here, because gettysburg, you have to find scapegoats because r. E. Lee has a military record with one asterisk on it, and its gettysburg, right . So now early makes a hell of a lot of accepts as does pendleton among others as to why they have to destroy not just longstreets reputation but others because they have to show the world they werent outgeneraled. Because of course this also means what . The war doesnt exist beyond the appalachia mountains. Does it . It exists only in virginia. If it exists only in virginia, you can focus on lee as the great general who was never outgeneraled, simply worn down by superior numbers and oh, wait, we have gettysburg and with gettysburg, we have the great turning point in the war. If only longstreet or yule or stewart or name others had only done what lee wanted, things would have been different. And that part of the lost cause, its still very much with us. Keith and i are going to talk about this on monday. Not all of you, of course, will be on the tour, but to me whats striking is that longstreets reputation has been redeemed, hasnt it . Through killer angels and through the movie and through very good scholarship. Theres more balance with longstreet. Whats still extraordinarily troubling to me is that there still is a lost cause hold on this whole subject, because now people will speak about James Longstreet and say, if lee had only listened to longstreet. If he had only done that. If he had disengaged and taken a defensive position and let the yankees hurl their legions against lees army, things would have been different. They would have won a great battle in pennsylvania and marched on to washington, d. C. When i hear that hallucination, i want to interrupt folks and say, do you know what youre saying . And we do this far too often i think as civil war students. We depoliticize these whatifs of the civil war. What youre saying is you want confederate victory. You want one of those nations and ultimately you want one of those nations committed to slavery. So just stop the whatifs. Especially richard yule. That drives me nuts. The legacy. All right. So we sort of covered it early in gordon. And so lets do the last question. What is the legacy of the lost cause . What is the legacy of the lost cause . This is a complex question. We could spend a couple hours just grappling with this. Ill take ill make one point here. I mean, in terms of physical reminders, where im from, every county seat, every courthouse square, has a confederate monument. And most of these were erected within a nearer timeframe to 1890s up through 19 teens, they were erected for multiple reasons. They were erected to commemorate the staggering loss of life that had taken place in those four years. But theyre also reminders to everyone in those communities, onmipresent, daytoday reminders of who holds the reins of power, and theyre being erected during a time when some pretty terrible things are taking place. Being erected in the 1890s to the beginning of the 20th century when you have the imposition of disenfranchisement. Africanamericans being stripped of the vote. You have jim crow laws being passed that enact legalized segregation, and you have lynchings. Those monuments today are problematic as we know. If you follow headlines, particularly since the horrific incidents in charleston, these monuments are becoming contested, more so than they have in the recent past. Im going to ask what do you think . How do you teach shes at bcu in richmond. Monument avenue, a monument that has jackson, lee, stewart, and arthur ashe. On monument avenue. On monument avenue, yes. On all on one major thoroughfare. Im sure this issue comes up with your students. How do you handle it . Well, i mean, i teach a mixed population, a diverse population of students, because bcu is an urban campus. So i have students who come up to me in class and say that their families have a picture of jesus on their fridge next to a picture of robert e. Lee. I teach a large number of students of various ethnicities and races and genders, like i said, a very mixed group. So there are mixed ideas. I think about what they believe should be done with monuments. So, i mean, i honor that, frankly. I dont tell them that i have the right answer, but rather that we have to have conversations as communities. And im heartened that we are having conversations as communities because as we know, the lost cause interpretation has, you know, it started in the south. It spread through Popular Culture to the whole country in the 20th century. And when we compare the centennial to the sesquicentennial celebrations, we see an emphasis on emancipation coming back that had been obscured for so long. So i think its very healthy that we have conversations. What i tell my students is the job of historians is to provide context for the monuments so we know they are jim crow era artifacts, and i think keith did a beautiful job of explaining there were many motivations behind putting these monuments up. The idea of honoring the dead, the fallen, et cetera. In addition to honoring white superiority over blacks, so these are all ideas that are encompassed in these statues. When they stand out there by themselves, people may not know the story or only parts of the story, so finding ways to provide context, if possible, is extremely useful. Jill titus who is on the staff here is working on an interpretive marker for the South Carolina monument here at gettysburg. What shes doing and i know there are other communities doing this even in georgia is to put up interpretive markers next to the monuments. Ole miss is doing that. To provide that context. First of all, for those who want to remove the monuments or take them to cemeteries or just destroy them, that makes utterly no sense to me, because it seems to me that if you want people to appreciate and to understand what union armies accomplished, not just of course Union Victory, but also emancipation, we have to encounter, we have to contend with what they were up against. And we also have to, as keith pointed out so nicely, that these monuments, they say much more about the age of jim crow than they do about the civil war. Its horrifying to me to think that many of these individuals just want to wipe the slate clean when in fact if we had other interpretive markers there, that people could have to read so they could understand and appreciate why these monuments were unveiled, i think that that would do a great deal in trying to understand and make history relevant, which everyone is crying out for. I think there is a way of doing it. And above all else, i hope we can all agree upon this. I want to preserve my right to be offended. I mean it. I want my right to be offended to be preserved. Im offended [ applause ] im offended by many of those confederate monuments, but i know that taking them off that commemorative landscape is just an absolutely grave mistake. And so if you get an opportunity, jill has done some wonderful work. At some point, we need to get her to lead a tour of the battlefields as they relate to the centennial in the 1960s, and ill end with this and well turn to questions. Katy mentioned the 150th. And i will i think we all should be extraordinarily proud and feel a great sense of gratification about where we have come in a very short period of time. Getting to go back to what Catherine Clinton said about all these voices. I think all those voices are coming up to the surface now. Theyre all being discussed. Were really engaging history in a way that you did not see in the centennial. What we have done here and what others have done throughout this 150th anniversary, its truly remarkable. Truly remarkable. All right. We have some questions from the audience, i believe, that are going to be read to us. And theres jill coming up to the mike. Did southern religious traditions and rhetoric have an effect on the souths ability to accept contradictory elements of the lost cause . Thats a good one. Its a fantastic question. Their ability to accept i mean, thats a really excellent question. I would say that the religious and cultural context certainly shaped the manner in which the lost cause is framed by various people. For instance, one of the major reasons that the lost cause was developed was that people had to come to terms with the fact that they had lost, and they thought they were morally correct and god was on their side. So they had to cope with those seemingly contrary ideas. So i think they continued to justify and fixate on elements that they could say were morally correct, and some of those were in contradiction with each other. Yeah. Ill just quickly add i think youre spot on. You know, its the idea that going into the war they thought god was on their side. Just as northerners did, and at the end, again, this is a great shock, but did former confederates, did they lose their faith in god . Did they lose their christianity . They didnt, and, again, our Previous Panel which i thought was very good, these were some things that i thought needed to be discussed. These men, even though the trauma of war and of defeat, nonetheless, they had faith that they could hang to in a very meaningful and powerful way and religion was one of them because they told themselves we lost but were not defeated, and god will in fact, will vindicate us. It will happen, and they thought hopefully in their lifetimes, right, but they truly did believe in that and then the next point is that the lost cause in itself became a religion. If youve done any reading about it its very, very clear. A great book on the lost cause, a starter, a primer, would be gaines foster, ghost of the confederacy. Wilsons baptized in blood is a book that looks specifically at a topic that the person asked about the relationship between protestant and evangelical christianity and the lost cause. Okay. Great job. Im sorry. Go ahead. Did the lost cause rationalization Gain International traction in england and france . This is its so anecdotal that i shouldnt even repeat it, but ill just say when we worked at the park, i never met a brit who wasnt a zealot for the confederacy. I never have. Im sorry. There will be some International Incident now that i said this. They have to worry about the eu now. So theyre not going to care about this. There was a lot of proconfederate sentiment during the civil war, particularly in england. Class is an important factor there, particularly among the upper class. I agree. I think part of it even resonates with northerners and southerners today, why it resonates with the brits and germans, there is something romantic about the confederacy. And of course, i will come clean here. I probably shouldnt, especially on national tv, but i was a confederate reenactor as a boy. I was born in indiana. My mom claims i was a confederate reenactor because it was cheaper to get a uniform on the union side. Im not sure that was it. I knew slavery was a moral wrong, i knew slavery was the cause of the war. But there was just, again, something that it was just ill use the word again. There is a romantic appeal to the confederacy. I suspect that explains a lot about why our friends in england and in germany are infatuated with confederacy. Yeah, go ahead. How does an examination of the lost cause inform a critical examination of our National Myths, such as e pluribus unum. Wow. Geez. Wow. Hmm. Pete, you take it away. You said youd take the hard ones. Yeah. [ applause ] no, thats not what i said. I said i would take the hard ones that i asked. Thats what i said. No. Someone rewind the tape. Can you repeat the question . Sure. We actually need a lifeline is what we need here. Jim martin, are you in the audience . How does an examination of the lost cause of southern myth inform critical examination of our National Myths, such as e pluribus unum. How does it inform our National Myths. I think by the early 20th century the lost cause myth becomes a National Myth and lee becomes an icon alongside Abraham Lincoln. You can look in john brown gordons memoirs and see that. He has very positive things to say about Abraham Lincoln alongside thats a really good question, it is an excellent response and it needs to remind us how malleable the lost cause is over time. It is always changing. How it can bring lots of contradictory elements together. The mantra of heritage, not hate. Thats not something that exconfederates ever said. Thats not something you would have heard in the mid 20th century. Thats a very recent mantra that, to me, suggests that people are on the defensive. But i hear it all the time. Daughters of the confederacy