A class on civil war memory and how people in the north and south have interpreted the conflict from immediate post war era to the present day. The class is about one hour and 15 minutes. Professor gallagher 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, and 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, and 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 past 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. We have been watching that in charlottesville over the last year and a half in the debates over the equestrian statue of 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 streams of memory put in place by the wartime 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 thereafter, and in differing degrees continue right down to 2017. The loyal white citizenry, African Americans, and former confederates have different takes on the war after they went forward after appomattox. Versions of the war that suited their purposes in both allowing them to come out of the war feeling good about themselves, and suited their purposes as they dealt with various social and political issues that came up in the decades after the war. Their actions remind us there is 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 then you would know all about the civil war. If you were interested in Something Else, you could buy the whatever else book you wanted. But we exist, and there are a bunch of us in this room that either already doing this for a living or will be doing this for a living. If there were only one past we would be doing something really useful in life than what we do, something that contributed to the common good instead of adorning it which is what we , mainly do. But the fact we disagree puts us in line with what the generation that actually experienced the war did. They had very vibrant a sort of soft word to describe how they contested their versions of history. Well start with the winning side. The union 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 historians have vastly exaggerated. Theyve exaggerated the degree to which people say oh, we are all americans sorry we , slaughtered each other, lets be 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 we cannot do this, but i will plow ahead. 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 about 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 mid19th century, theyre absolutely innocent of that. In my story about the union in pasadena reminds us of how far we are. Onion,l for the somebody says that probably doesnt get what was going on in the 19th century. Luckily we luckily we know how important the union was. We can go out and be sort of proselytizers if you want to remind people union is the most fraught word in the middle of the 19th century. But the union cause celebrated , above all the restoration of , the republic and the carrying forward. They would have argued that yes, we have defeated the slaveholding oligarchs that work such a threat to the of the founding generation. 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 that brought on the cessation action that brought on the cessation crisis of 1860 1861. Get rid of slavery, you get rid of the only internal factor that could sunder the union. Its good emancipation came in the course of the war, but the reason its a good thing is that it made the union safe. Were going to come out of the war with the republic intact, small d democracy, lincolns notion of the last best hope of earth that is now firmly in eroding whereas it is 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. I will read some representation, three quick quotations that get at this. And get at the fact that the other thing celebrated by the union causes 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 system that affords the opportunity not a guarantee but the opportunity to rise. We have read lincoln. He is absolutely the poster boy for this meaning of union. He gets at the economics, and we are in control of our own element of that. That is what theyre celebrating. Lets pick up our friend sherman. This in his congratulatory order to the men of his armies in may three armies came together from 1865. Different hills with separate histories but bound by one common cause, the union of our country and the perpetuation of the government of our inheritance. Sherman said that the men had done all men can do,a nd he 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 conklin of new york whos just a congressman at this point, became a very powerful and some whispered corrupt senator after the war. 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 every patriot and every soldier. And finally ill quote one Union Soldier here, a ohio soldier. He celebrated 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. 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. We talked about that a little bit 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. So you come up with the three great wartime amendments 13th in december of 1865, and then the 14th, which sought to guarantee equal Legal Protection for formerly enslaved people and the 15th amendment, which gave the vote to the africanamerican men. You get those in the aftermath of appomattox. Republicans, those who believed in the union cause used it politically as you might imagine, and tried to cast democrats as disloyal, as only lukewarm, if even that, in pursuit of saving the union. They talked about how tree treasonous the former democrats were, and they engaged in what became waving the bloody what came to be called waving the bloody shirt, where some republican speaker ended up literally waving the shirt, a bloody shirt of a soldier. Maine, who may not have always been on the urged inand narrow, 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 themes who were in the fiendslrebel who were in the Democratic Party and this out. 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 Abraham Lincoln was a democrat, any man who fluvial flag was a democrat every man , who tried to destroy the nation was a democrat. The messages vote republican, the republicans saved the union. We can also see what is not mentioned here in this catalog, no mention of emancipation, any mention of getting rid of slavery, it is the mention of saving the nation. They were very effective at waving the bloody shirt, they were very effective at running soldiers who put on Union Uniforms for president. Not only the man, we get u. S. Grant twice, 1868 and 1872. But but then we also get rutherford b. Hayes and james a garfield and benjamin harrison, all Union Generals who were elected president. Then, the last gasp of electing Union Veterans came with william mckinley, who is a Company Great officer but nonetheless, a Union Veteran. So every republican that held the presidency for the rest of the 19th century had been directly involved the democrats, we know who they ran successfully twice, grover cleveland, who hired the poor polish guy to fight for him. Theres a disjuncture 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 democrats did run one former general for president , hancock in 1880. And he did ok. 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. In 1874, didnt take a decade. For the democrats to read to reestablish control. 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 men who had given their lives to save the nation. You would go and decorate the graves, 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 a third of a million dead United States soldiers, only United States soldiers, no confederate soldiers, at least not deliberately in these cemeteries. Theres a handful of exceptions. Not many. So you would go off and combine those two things, a Decoration Day 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 magnificent one of all is in indianapolis. Its a incredible monument. If youre headed to a colts game, you can touch base with the union boys and then watch the colts who wish they had a line that could defend the best quarterback in the nfl. [laughter] prof. Gallagher they put these monuments up everywhere 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 National Cemeteries, 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 some bright graduate should take on, a serious look at the inscriptions on civil War Memorials both union and confederate. The dominant motif are union, our union, union, nation, and on some, but 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 proclamation together with 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. Regimental histories, memoirs, 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. It actually gave this generation work. 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. Ok. Check. Check. And what have we done lately . 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. Sort of a baby boomer approach to life. I dont care about you, what about me . I am more important. I want all of you to take care of me as i get older. And my generation lives forever. 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. [laughter] prof. Gallagher 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 war, grant and lincoln were equivalent figures. They would put those together tying the work of the founding , generation to the generation that served the union. Very overtly tying them together. 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 principal 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 had not been preserved, slavery would have lived. If you dont save the union, you dont get rid of slavery. So, yes, its a good thing the union was presevered. But it is only worth preserving if it is an improved union. And it is only an improvement if it is a union without slavery. And it is only an improvement if it is a union without slavery. It is a union without the institution of slavery mocking that high language in the declaration of independence and other foundational documents. The union being saved is good but the most important thing that came out of the war is the destruction of what frederick called the held black system of slavery. Student did the abolitionists think they were promoting the work of the Founding Fathers . Prof. Gallagher 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, for example, they called the constitution a rag that allows slavery to exist in the United States. So the founders were onto 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 did not like abolitionists and thought they were a problem is because abolitionists w