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 tr