Bending History to meet a Lost Cause Agenda: Erasing the Confederate Generals from History Who Don't Muster Up to Their Version of History

Many of the Lost Cause monuments situated on courthouse lawns and parks in southern cities and towns at the center of the storm often have a similar look to them. Why? Most were commissioned at about the same time (1890s-1920s) and most were turned out by the same artists, who, interestingly, often lived north of the Mason-Dixon. No doubt General Robert E. Lee was a likely choice for many of these monuments, often situated atop his beloved Traveller, the most famous horse of the Civil War. Lee was an ideal choice to represent these early 20th century Lost Cause monuments of southern defiance because the story of Lee turning down President Abraham Lincoln's request to lead the Union army to put down the Southern rebellion fits the Lost Cause narrative of a war between the states over states' rights. Many Americans either of a certain age educated in a time in which the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War held sway across this nation or perhaps those still living in areas in which teachers, families, and communities still clings to this interpretation are quite familiar with Lee's rejection of Lincoln's offer in favor of deferring to his state's (Virginia) decision to secede from the Union. Lee's decision to favor his state over the union fits the Lost Cause narrative perfectly and thus the general has been remembered fondly by those who fervently cling to the idea that "The War Between the States" (their term of choice) was fought over states' rights and other issues rather than slavery (see an earlier post in which Southern and Confederate leaders clearly declare slavery as the root cause of the Civil War).



Longstreet statue in Gainesville, GA

Longstreet statue recently installed at Gettysburg

Not all Confederate generals have been remembered as fondly as Lee. A couple of the most capable generals have been largely erased from the Lost Cause narrative of their "War Between the States" because they don't muster up to their version of history. One of the most noted Confederate generals of the Civil War, James P. Longstreet, has been largely erased from that history. There are only two statues to Longstreet: one in his hometown of Gainesville, Georgia & another installed nearly a decade ago at Gettysburg (a statue depicting the battlefield general and nothing more). Today, Longstreet might seem known more for being the scapegoat after Lee's failure at Gettysburg rather than his many battlefield successes against Union forces. Sure, he was no Stonewall Jackson (who I argue was the Confederacy's best battlefield general), but he was certainly the next most capable of Lee's generals.

So, why only two statues to Longstreet? Was the screw up at Gettysburg that bad, threatening to tarnish the great Lee's reputation that Southerners punished Longstreet by overlooking him time after time as hundreds of Lost Cause monuments started springing up throughout the South? Why was Longstreet constantly overlooked in favor of other less capable Southern generals and leaders?

The answer, which should be instructive to Americans today as we debate the Lost Cause monuments, has more to do with Longstreet's post-Civil War resume. He became a Republican, breaking bread with the enemy to support Republican policies such as interracial democracy--supporting equal rights for the freed people. Thus, Longstreet became persona non grata in the post-Civil War South among supporters of the Confederacy.

General William Mahone, CSA

Read the following article by Jane Dailey (University of Chicago) about another of Lee's right hand men, General William Mahone, who has been erased from the Southern Lost Cause narrative of "The War Between the States." It lays out the similar fate that both Mahone and Longstreet have faced at the hands of the architects of the Lost Cause narrative.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-confederate-general-who-was-erased-from-history_us_599b3747e4b06a788a2af43e?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003

Those who built the Lost Cause monuments to Confederate generals and leaders, who bent history for their own purpose, certainly understood what they were doing in the early 20th century when they erected monuments to further their "War Between the States" narrative: "Interracial political cooperation had to be forgotten if [the southern architects of the Lost Cause] were going to sell white supremacy and solidarity as timeless and natural, and not as the result of a 30-year campaign [JIM CROW] to render black southerners political and economic dependents and social unequals. How we remember our past directly influences the possibilities for our future. This is why [early 20th century] white Democrats erased as much as they could of the history of interracial democracy in the South, after they [purposely] destroyed it."

Note: I have chosen to make a few changes [brackets] to the article's conclusion to more clearly set the historical & political context.      

 

Impeachment of a President, Part 2

Impeachment of a President, Part 2: 150 years ago (Aug. 12, 1867), President Andrew Johnson pulled the trigger on his own impeachment. Fed up with the disloyalty of his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, who was colluding with his enemies, the Radical Republicans in Congress, the president suspended Stanton. His action violated the Tenure of Office Act, a law passed by Republicans in March 1867 with the expressed purpose of preventing the president from removing any official approved by the Senate. Johnson fervently denied the constitutionality of the law; however, he worked within the boundaries of that law to secure a replacement for Stanton who would be acceptable to the Republicans. He turned to the most popular man in the United States, General Ulysses S. Grant.

From left to right: President Andrew Johnson, General Ulysses S. Grant, Sec. of War Edwin M. Stanton

Grant, a man many believed to be apolitical, above the political mudslinging over the outcome of the Civil War and the direction in which the nation should go (Reconstruction) that had poisoned the relationship between the executive and the legislative branch, was, in fact, anything but apolitical. And Johnson's circle of friends knew it. They tried adamantly to convince Johnson not to appoint Grant in Stanton's place. But blinded by his vitriolic hate of Radicals, Johnson thought Grant would win him allies elsewhere in Congress among moderate and conservative Republicans. Above all, the president thought he could pull Grant's strings.

Though he was not willing to yield to Johnson's order, Stanton did step aside on August 12, 1867 when Grant was named as his replacement because he knew where Grant stood and that the general could serve as a check on the president, to keep him from removing key military officials who were working hand-in-hand with the Republican Congress to implement a Radical Reconstruction of the former Confederate states.

Grant's role during the period between Appomattox (April 1865) and his election as President (Nov. 1868) was the topic of my master's thesis. Before the new wave of Grant revisionism kicked in during the mid-2000s, I was arguing that Grant was political and working with Republicans to undermine Johnson's administration. More on the sneaky Grant, operating in the shadows, in the next installment.

Impeachment of a President, Part 1

Impeachment of a President, Part 1: 150 years ago today (August 5, 1867), Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton received the following message from President Andrew Johnson: "Public considerations of a high character constrain me to Say, that your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted." Stanton wasted little time in issuing a firm response to his superior's request: "In reply I have the honor to say that public considerations of a high character, which alone have induced me to continue at the head of this Department, constrain me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress."

Sec. of War Edwin M. Stanton (left) & President Andrew Johnson (right)

Johnson was eager to act while Congress was adjourned for the summer and remove Stanton, an Abraham Lincoln appointee, who had come to align with the president's Republican enemies to thwart executive hegemony. The Republican Congress feared Johnson might try to fire his Cabinet members, all Lincoln appointees who Johnson had retained and half of whom were colluding with the Republicans to undermine Johnson's policies. Thus they passed the Tenure of Office Act (March 2, 1867), which prohibited the president from removing any official conferred by the Senate without their approval (according to the law, appointees were to serve until the term they had been appointed expired, i.e., in Stanton's case, March 4, 1869, when Lincoln's 2nd term had been set to expire). It was a trap set by Republicans to possibly get the impeachment ball rolling in the House of Representatives and one Johnson, who relished a fight, was eager to test in the courts.

Johnson was taken aback when Stanton held his ground and refused to move aside. To Johnson's credit, he didn't take further action. He didn't because his hands were tied. He needed a replacement for Stanton, someone that neither the Republicans, nor the American people would oppose. He had one person in mind and that person had previously rejected his offer to take the keys to the Secretary of War's office. Over the next week, Johnson would work hard to win over this national hero by appealing to this individual's sense of duty.

Impeachment of a President Series Coming

"[T]he President....does continue to do the most provoking things. If he isn't impeached it wont [sic] be his fault."

150 years ago, the president, Andrew Johnson (left), and Congress were on a collision course toward a constitutional crisis when Henry Dawes (top right), a moderate Republican congressman from Massachusetts, wrote his wife about the toxic situation in Washington. For nearly two years, Johnson and the Republican Congress had locked horns over the power to control Reconstruction in the post-Civil War South. Spurred on by a pugnacious and defiant president who relished thumbing his nose at his enemies, the contest for power in the South expanded in the summer of 1867 to control over both the military and the presidency. Johnson's "August Massacre," the removal of three key administrative and military officials for their disloyalty or collusion with his enemies, sprung a trap set by Congressional Republicans that led to the first impeachment of an American president.

This is the event in American history that led me away from 20th US and Diplomatic history to study the post-Civil War era. The year was 1998 and the Republican Congress was steaming the country down the iron horse's tracks toward the second impeachment of an American president and I thought choosing impeachment as the topic of my political science and history research papers was a clever way of sort of killing 2 birds with 1 stone. I had no idea then that my decision would lead me to a Ph.D. and a passion for 19th century American history, even a quirky interest in one of our nation's most controversial presidents.

Over the course of the next 10 months (beginning tomorrow) I'll randomly trace the events leading up to Johnson's impeachment in the House and acquittal in the Senate. You will even find out what Johnson ate to cope with the news of his impeachment.

Solar Eclipse of August 7, 1869

Excited about the coming eclipse? 148 years ago (August 7, 1869), Americans living in virtually the same regions that lay in the path of the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse were treated to what some referred to as the event of the century (I, however, would dispute that since the Civil War had ended only four years prior).

The total solar eclipse of August 7, 1869 as seen in Shelbyville, Kentucky



 

The epicenter of this national event was Burlington, Iowa (scores of scientists huddled together here to view the event) and Shelbyville, KY (see picture), which was inundated with thousands of visitors seeking to witness the celestial phenomenon. For my Kentucky and Tennessee friends, the total solar eclipse followed a path through Louisville and Shelbyville (KY) and Bristol (TN/VA). But those living in Columbia and Knoxville, much like the coming event, saw a near total eclipse.



August 28, 1869 cover of Harper's Weekly which documented the solar eclipse as it crossed over the American continent.



Nimrod Porter's diary entry from August 7, 1869

Nimrod Porter, a Maury County farmer whose diary is a treasure for TN Civil War era historians, simply recorded: "The eclipse in the evening attracted much attention. Almost a total one of the sun."





Knoxville Daily Press and Herald, August 8, 1869 

Though some Knoxvillians ventured north by rail to Bristol, most chose to stay home and view a near total eclipse of the sun (see Daily Press and Herald).

According to William Brownlow's Knoxville Whig (Aug. 11, 1869): "Immense preparations had been made in the way of smoked and stained glass. We preferred the smoked, as when looking at the sun it is better on the eyes 'to see through a glass darkly.' . . . We didn't see them, but we are informed that fowls went to roost in East Knoxville, birds sought their nests and several laborers quit work, thinking night had come, because the daylight had gone for a season."

Prevent Agents of Hate & Division from Hijacking Civil War Monuments

I second the call of Tennessee's Sons of the Confederacy members (such as the Elm Springs camp in Middle Tennessee & Raymond Parker with the local Longstreet-Zollicoffer Camp 87), who condemn the racist, bigots of the KKK, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacist & militia groups. According to their statements, SCV members are prohibited from associating with these groups who cling to an ideology of hate and thus adhere to the politics of white resentment. Therefore, I call on the SCV to protect the monuments from these agents of hate and division in our nation. We may not agree on the historical significance of the specific Lost Cause monuments in public spaces, but I'm sure we can agree that these thugs should not be permitted to hijack these monuments to further their political agenda of hate & division.

SCV, Elm Springs, TN Press Release (Aug. 14, 2017)

Southern Apostles of Disunion Explain the Reason for Secession (the Cause of the Civil War)

What caused the Civil War? Let Southerners tell you why:

Surely Southerners, most of whom did not own a single slave, would not have fought a rich man's war had that war been strictly about slavery, right? It must have been for a noble cause, such as the preservation of states' rights over a tyrannical federal government or the riveting issue of tariffs, correct?

Winslow Homer's Prisoners from the Front (1866)

Over the course of a semester, I have ample time to discuss the history of the Old South (prior to the abolishment of slavery) and its people–all classes and races within southern society–and in doing so, I give voice to the southern people, their beliefs, fears, and motivations, allowing them to speak for themselves in the primary sources they have left for posterity. In the space of 2 to 3 months, I have plenty of time to cover the Old South's landscape–providing its social, political, economic, and legal context–and put it all into historical context with developments north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But since C-SPAN isn't knocking on my door to film my classes as part of their American History lecture series and you may not be able to come sit in on my class for an entire semester, allow me to share with you how I confront the issue of why the South chose to secede and thus fight a civil war. After providing 10 to 12 weeks of historical context up to the point of the election of 1860 (an election in which the Republicans, a new, sectional party, swept into power to control the executive and legislative branches, thus putting the South into a minority power) we arrive at the secession winter of 1860-61. This is the point in time in which the southern states decided to sever their bonds with and rebel against the Union of states that the Founding Fathers had created. Note the time (Dec. 1860-Mar. 1861) in which the first set of southern states acted to secede and establish their own form of government. Up to this point in time, the Southern states had either controlled or shared power with their northern neighbors in the federal government. With the election of an anti-slavery Republican president and Congress in Nov. 1860, the South feared that it would lose its ability to shape policy in respect to slavery. Despite the Republican party's pledge to respect the Constitution with regards to an individual's property rights (which offered a federal protection of slavery in the states in which slavery legally existed according to individual state constitutions), Southern leaders felt they had no legal recourse but to secede.

Stephen Hale of Alabama, who would serve on Alabama's secession commission, best sums up Southern sentiment at this time in a Dec. 27, 1860 letter to Kentucky's governor, Beriah Magoffin:“Upon the principles then announced by Mr. Lincoln and his leading friends, we are bound to expect his administration to be conducted. Hence it is, that in high places, among the Republican party, the election of Mr. Lincoln is hailed, not simply as a change of Administration, but as the inauguration of new principles, and a new theory of Government, and even as the downfall of slavery. Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions—nothing less than an open declaration of war.”

Again, I allow my students to let the Southern people speak for themselves, to explain in their own words why they chose to secede. Therefore, the best way to resolve the question of why the South chose to secede and thus fight a Civil War, is to look at how they justified their decision to leave the United States in their secession conventions. Now, these secession documents tend to be long and thus I have chosen excerpts. That said, I encourage you to read the documents for yourself in their entirety (need help finding them, please let me know!). You will find in each document not only the same list of reasons (preservation of slavery, white supremacy, states' rights, tariffs, etc.) for secession, but also a common theme as the primary cause for severing their bonds with the United States–slavery is always made a clear objective. In my classes, I choose to use Mississippi's secession document, which speaks for itself, clearly stating their position up front; however, I have included excerpts from additional states and then I conclude with fitting statements from Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Stephens, who told Americans then (and still speaks to us today) on what ground the Confederacy was founded. Friends, don't take my word for it, listen to the architects of secession for yourself.

Mississippi:
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery–the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Texas:
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquillity and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery–the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits–a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

South Carolina:
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

Georgia:
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.

What did the South's most respected leaders, those who held the highest offices in the Confederacy, have to say about slavery, white supremacy, and the cause of secession?

Jefferson Davis, Jan. 21, 1861 farewell speech in the U.S. Senate:
 "[W]e are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our Fathers have bequeathed to us....Our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men."

Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech March 21, 1861 (Stephens' remarks on the Confederate constitution):
 "[Slavery] was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.... Our new government...its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

No, our Founding Fathers are not "Next"

No, statues to our Founding Fathers are not "next" as some have implied. Why? Our Founding Fathers served to create and serve a new government, a union of states, rather than Confederate leaders who rebelled against that Union in a cause to preserve slavery.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/statues-washington-jefferson-aren-t-next-it-s-complicated-historians-n793971

Monuments to the Lost Cause: Creating an Imagined Past

For those seeking a good review of the historical context behind Southern Civil War monuments, especially those in the public sphere, please see the following link: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYP…/INCORP/monuments/front.html

For those who are confronted with the words of Confederate leaders and the ordinances of secession drafted by the southern states that left the Union before Fort Sumter and still choose to deny the FACT that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War, then they will deny that these monuments that stand in public spaces represent an imagined past, one marked by southern defiance, violence, and racial segregation--the Jim Crow South when they were erected. Many of these good Americans, who I count among my own family and friends and I still love them in spite of their social media posts, refer to the United States Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression." They suffer from what psychologists refer to as "motivated reasoning" and therefore are emotionally invested in a belief and are inclined to accept only information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, while dismissing conflicting evidence. They choose to adhere to a declaration of their values irrespective of others and thus see the world in way that divides along political lines (motivated reasoning is endemic among extremists of all political stripes). There is not much more we can to do to help these folks, who have either quit reading my posts or have severed our bonds of social media friendship.

I not only offer my students both sides of the story--proper historical context--but also allow them to read the primary sources and form their own conclusions. This coming semester we will dive into the debate over Civil War monuments. For example, one of the sources they will examine will include the 1924 unveiling of the statue of General Robert E. Lee that stood at the center of the sad and sick scenes that took place in Charlottesville this past weekend. Only by reading the newspaper accounts and speeches given at the dedication ceremonies (in which the artists, financial backers, officials, and supporters offered commentary), by viewing the monuments for what they say and do not say, and with some historical context of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow South, can one truly understand why these monuments were built in the first place and what purpose they were intended to serve? Only then, with a proper understanding of their historical context, can we as Americans proceed forward with an instructive debate on the place of these Lost Cause monuments in the 21 century.

Front page of the Charlottesville Daily Progress, May 21, 1924, which covered the unveiling of the Robert E. Lee statue at the center of the storm in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Relics of the Lost Cause Reopens Unhealed Wounds

“We never agreed on the outcome of the Civil War and the direction the country should go in." Judith Giesberg professor of history Villanova University & editor of the Journal of the Civil War Era.

Friends, that's why Reconstruction matters. Monuments specifically erected in largely public spaces two to three generations after the Civil War are not history of the conflict itself or southern herit...age, but rather were intended to glorify an imagined past and perpetuate the notion of Confederate nationalism. These mostly early 20th century monuments are beacons of southern defiance and racial segregation--a history of the time in which they were erected, the Jim Crow South.

Read the speeches given by the builders and supporters of these monuments at their dedication ceremonies and you will discover for yourself within the scripted homage to southern chivalry and heritage, the primary motivation behind these relics of the Lost Cause (Gone with the Wind) understanding of the Civil War and its aftermath.

Should these Lost Cause monuments be torn down? NO! But rather than remain within public spaces where they may come crashing down sooner rather than later (as in the case of Durham, North Carolina), perhaps these monuments should be moved to public history spaces (museums/cemeteries) where they can be safely preserved and proper context can be attributed to them to help us better understand Reconstruction and our nation's 150 year struggle to come to grips with the outcome of the Civil War and the direction that the country should go in.

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