At which the civil war is still very much a part of living memory. Right . There are livingductions of the war, people involved in combat who are still alive. In 1912, state of pennsylvania issued an invitation of honorably discharged veterans of the civil war to come to gettysburg for a reunion of sorts. And you probably have already seen pictures of this or read about it in David Wrights book. I want to spend a little time talking about that. That marked something of the high water mark. It was kind of the peak of their aspirations. They invaded the north. The defeat of gettysburg was in many ways the beginning of the end. It proved at least on the battles there was no way for the confederacy to take the war to the end. So here we have some pictures. This is actually a picture of new york veterans having a meal at gettysburg. If you were to look at the public narrative, the narrative you would find in newspapers and commemorative pamphlets in public pronouncements, the sentiments expressed during this period were very much part of what david white called the reconciliationests memory of the war. To quote the Pennsylvania Evening telegraph, there can be no unworthy sectionalism. No little memories in the prospect with a united country, with a spirit of patriotism pervading the length and breadth of us, the American Public of today is not the same as it was. Okay, so while we talk tonight, i want you to think about the language being used. And we acan come back to some o it, but there can be no unworthy sectionalism and what that might tell us. As you probably all know, in 1913, union and confederate veterans reenacted the charge of the battle of gettysburg. This is a photograph of union and confederate veterans shaking hands across the wall at the top of the hill. How many of you have been to gettysburg . So you know the wall. You can see this. I dont think as historians we should underestimate the importance of this gesture. Given the extraordinary passage of the conflict we studied. Let me ask you a question. What were the feelings of union and confederate soldiers for one another during the war . What do we know about those . They didnt like each other at all. Jamie . Okay. Acknowledged it. Sort of a commonality amongst experience. Later or at the time. At the time, i think there is expression. Okay, john. To an extent, its where theyre coming from, too. As geographic, from the border states [ inaudible ] all right, lets keep going a little bit. The way i look at some of those narratives, i agree there are signs of kind of a shared understanding, but it seems to me in so far there are tensions, they are at their peak during the war. Union soldiers, we have seen in james work that theres a clear desire to cell as many of the enemies as possible. One of the things i found in doing my paper is general lee was quite dismissive of Union Soldiers. And im not sure that i i know sectionalism is the issue, but it does seem to me that the south seemed to have more of a marshall spirit, and i thought they thought that themselves. I agree, i do think so. And thus, it must have been difficult to find yourself on the losing side. Yeah . On the Eastern Theater or the western theater, and slaves mostly fought in the east. Right. On the potomac. And the armies in the west, like sherman, they had a different opinion. They might indeed. A very good point. I wanted to put up this other image because if i go back for just a moment and look at the handshake over the wall at gettysburg, as a student of the civil war, the image that comes to mind is this one. Who has seen this image before . This is a cartoon from 1872. Mocking horace greely, who was then running for president. He had said let us clap hands over the bloody chasm of civil war memory. And he recreated it by depicting greely to expending out his hand over the dead of anderson vil andersonville prison. And i think for me, at least, the notion that we have moved from this to this is significant, right . How in your opinion do we get from a northern memory that is at least in part in 1872 still strongly condemning the Confederate Military apparatus, from there to the handshake . What do you think . John . Its fromcascpx the whole dr reconciliation. Its bringing back the union together in an attempt to create a more robust, complete, together nation. Okay, tara . I think its time. In 50 years has past before they have taken the photo. Some of the hard feelings may start to vanish over the time. Okay, jamie. That was sort of the moment for a lot of the veterans who are now politicians to find a commonality amongst imperialism in the late 19th century. When confederate veterans decided they should support the spanish american war, that became a moment of sort of unity. John . I think theres a bit of a political nature to it, and then theres also, you know, even though were seeing veterans, theres less veterans at that point because it pools attention because theres less people involved in the event, and its sort of an effort. Part of it is the confederacy wants to expand the honorable image of themselves. Okay. So whose memory is not visible in the hand shake . Austin . Africanamericans. Africanamericans. Okay. If we go back if we go back to that pennsylvania editorial, im going to read you a couple other passages and i want you to listen carefully. So we have that editorial that says there can be no unworthy sectionalists, right . It also says the following, in reference to kind of the valor of soldiers, right . Both vanquished and visitors gave sublime display of the heroism of the american race. And then later, looking back across the entire period of the war, that period has enriched American History beyond co computation and the results are of inestimatable value to the race, both in the present and in the future. What words leap out at you in those passages . Does any word . What do you think the writer means by american race . Talking white, talking white race. Talking white, paul. Commonality. So if were going to talk about civil war memories, i thought i would put up a different sort of image. Here we have the ku klux klan, right . This is the early ku klux klan of the postcivil war period, and also we have the ku klux klan of the 1920s. This is a photograph circa 1922. When we talk about civil war memory, should we talk about the klan . Im going to be suggesting thats a yes. What would be the consequence of thinking about the klan while thinking about civil war memories . Matt . When you talk about the klan, you have to look im thinking reconstruction, 1876. What, 1877. Where you have the federal government actually going out there and putting, i forget the law they actually put in place. The ku klux klan act. There you go. Basically going out to arrest and stop these types of violent actions against africanamericans. Yes. Not successfully, right, for the most part. So the ku klux klan is very much a part of the postwar reconstruction history, right . But why might be think about them in a context of the 50th anniversary . John . I was going to jump off what matt said. It leaps into this as well. The ku klux klan kind of shows everything that didnt go quite the way it could have after the civil war. It shows the failings of reconstruction. The failing to kind of move past slavery into equality because you still had these people who are wielding fear and power in a large portion of the nation. Okay. Amy . Its more of the nation and that lies around that lie. It is the creation of that lie that even persists in one form or another to this day. Exactly. We want the look. So traditionally, when we talk about the rise of the klan, beginning in the middle of the second decade of the 20th century, we talk about thomas dixon, the clansman, who gave birth of the nation. The question to us, it seems to me, should be why does the klan seem like the logical Reference Point . Because the klan whether its for dixon or griffin, for the book or for the movie or for the growth of the klan culture, that by the 1920s, embraces millions of people. What is it, how is it as salient an image . The memory. It disappears only to be what was, 1925, there were 4 million members, and certainly, that is a lost cause through the 30s and the 50s and 60s in one form or another. And that means it was destroyed by civil rights. Great, thank you. So i think right, this gets us on this gets us off to think a little bit about the role of race. Im going to talk a little about what i think race means in that period of time. We have to be very careful when we see the term american race. It is the height of race thinking in the early 20 tth century. Its part of it. By american race, the people who use those terms generally thought what kind of white folks should be. But it wasnt simply white versus black. It was far more complex in the 19th century. In some ways, the rise of the clan is a reflection of nativist sentism. So if we remember that, remember that as groups sort of looked to try to think their way through this 20th century, right, they looked back at this ultra Violent Group from the civil war as a model for how to go forward. When we think about the semicentennial, we need to remember its exactly the same period of time, i should say 1911 to 1915, my apologies, should say that, but we need to remember that 1913 is the year when Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal government, right . Started with agencies like the Postal Service and moved from there. We have birth of the nation. We mentioned that. By 1924, we have the immigration restriction act, which pegs the number of people who can migrate to the United States at a percentage of that number that was in the country in 1890, which is to say it shifts the focus from eastern southern european migrants back to western and Northern European migrants. I think we have to see all these things as being connected in some way. Theyre also connected to historical scholarship. One of the things i want to talk about is the connection between the civil war memory and the kind of scholarship that exists about civil war and reconstruction. We talk a lot about history and memory. Those of you in public history, which is a good chunk of you, you would probably talk about it more than anybody else. Youre probably familiar with this quote. White wrote on a book, history, what trained historians do, is a reasoned reconstruction of the past, rooted in research. Critical and skeptical of human motive and action. Memory, however, is often treated as a sacred set of potentially sacred meaning, preserving a heritage or meaning. Memory is often own, history interpreted. Memory is passed down through generations. History, as you all know, is revised. I would say in many ways, history and memory are rarely as they are. These comments reflect a later state of scholarship than you would find at the turn of the century. The turn of the century is the birth of the dunning school. It looks at reconstruction, its all reconstruction as a terrifying and terrible mistake, placing the vote in the hands of africanamericans. Dunning and his powers arguing a big mistake of reconstruction. So scholarship of this era and memory of the civil war are all resonating together. So thats my 50year piece. Any questions . Because i would love them. Jamie . What did they do for scholarship, to support that at that time . For the most port, having read a lot of the old pieces, they generally looked at political pamphlets, speech said, documents of Fairly Famous people. If you look at any prominent politician in the 18th century, their papers and letters were published by somebody. All you needed was a good library and you could make progress. Federal documents in some case. Were the documents of Frederick Douglass just ignored . No, john . The semicentennial celebration really portraying or really were the sreconciliation of the soldiers. I read something that it was more of a political move and not really a friendly gathering. People who were actually in the war. Its quite possible that we look back and see it stronger than it was, because certainly, there were political tensions between the north and the south in 1911 and 1913, but then again, you have Woodrow Wilson as president and hes a sournl president from stanton, virginia. And so his world, that world is already very different than whats come before. [ inaudible ] he does. He does. Austin . Quick question. When the klan was revived around the semisencennial, thats like when the flag was used wide llys there a reason the battle flag was used over the state flag of the government . Im the wrong person to answer that question. Ill have to get back to you on that one. Okay. Any other questions . Yeah, matt. The notion that a celebration of the semicentennial, but i know that a lot of veteran groups were meeting on a regular basis. Always having reunions and certainly in the south. That was a big deal for small towns because they would get their local brigades or whatever volunteer units they came up. Was that a way that the country was able to perpetuate the memory of the civil war . Or do you think thats how the memory was sort of skewed, so to speak . I think memory is never pure. I dont think it ever can be. Certainly, in the north, which is where i know more, the grand army and the republic, captors of the gar, served both as ways for remembering but also as platforms for political action. And so i suspect thats true for the confederate effort as well. Interesting that a lot of these confederate highprofile generals were vilified for any criticism they had of how the war went. But at these particular reunions, they were cheered. So its almost like you had almost at a national lev, sort of a disconnect from the local level. Im just wondering if the klan was more that memory was more local and then graduated up to a National Level because of the birth of a nation or did it just come out of the war . So, what strikes me as being really interesting is the focal point of the klan is in indiana and the midwest, which is actually not the place where you have large numbers of confederate backgrounds. You have large numbers of the other one, other kind. So the new klan of the early 20th century is to me fascinating because presumably, you have grandchildren of union veterans. Right . As Significant Players in the klan. Just because its sort of like a white supremacist type of gee, wasnt it great back then . I think thats part of it. I would love to hear what other people think. We have to be careful with the term white supremacist, which is correct for us, but were projecting it backwards. Thats why i want to go back to the phrase american race. They saw that phrase as having a set of meanings they could grasp. You mention immigration, but at the same time, you have this Industrial Revolution where people are living in poverty and people who are just miserable, days of egrarrian bliss, so to speak. These are agrarrian protestant, christian, often evangelicals. Prohibition is one of these large issues. They sort of proudly sport prohibition. It almost plays into the whole Frederick Jackson turner idea of the Great American race conquering all of america, and we have gone away from that because now we have all this filth and problems in the city. It does reflect all the prejudices. Yeah. Yeah. John, did you have something . All right, so if we jump forward to the civil war centennial, so this is, i think theres a lot more scholarship to work with. I think you can see quickly that the reconciliationest memory of the war is alive and well. This is a medallion that was produced by the United StatesCivil War Centennial Commission. There was in fact a National Centennial commission, something we do not have for the 150th. And its job was to kind of facilitate and organize and provide some kind of coherent structure to the commemoration. Every state was to have its own commission. To plan activities. Now, in 1961, the history of the politics are very different than 50 years before. Right . So here is a statement from that Centennial Commission, and i found this one. What was lost by the war was lost by all of us. What was finally gained was gained by all of us. How do you read that statement . How do you read that . Yes . I guess you could look at it as although a lot was lost, both loss and the gains for both sides was a gain for both in the end. So it was kind of an everything got something and everyone lost something. Okay. Emily . And it sounds to me like there was no distinction between the sides. You know, it didnt matter. We all came through it together and came out of it together as one without distinction. Okay. John . To me, it was kind of like coming back to the recsill yashz thing before. What was lost was the union and that what everyone gained when the war was over was once again a reunified union. So what is gained is the nation, essentially. So yeah . What i thought about it was everyone, both sides lost people, that people died in this war, and so you have hundreds of thousands of people who died, so yes, everyone lost someone, everyone knew someone who died, but the freedom you knew was gained by everyone at the end. Whos the i . John . Theres no mention of slavery or anything. Could you reconcile that statement with the experience of the people you read about in southwest georgia in susan donovans book . John . No. Why not . Why would it be difficult to reconcile with this . Because if you are a slave, you didnt lose your slaves. Okay, you gained. Right . You gained. And of course, i mean, we talked about this. We talked a little bit about cultural Reference Points, but its also true in the 1960s, you really did have different terminologies for the war. So it may have been the United States civil war Commemoration Commission, but there were states that refused to use the term civil war, right . So terms like the war of the Saudi Arabian southern insurrection, the war of aggression, were terms muff more at play than they were or have been in my time. The war between the states was taught in maryland, which was meant, i think, to be more neutral. Now, as it happens, the