1 00:00:02,400 --> 00:00:05,960 Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Coming up, we have an episode that references 2 00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:09,840 Speaker 1: the United Daughters of the Confederacy and that organization's role 3 00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:13,880 Speaker 1: in perpetuating the Lost Cause myth of the US Civil War. 4 00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:17,720 Speaker 1: We explained that very briefly in the upcoming episode, but 5 00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:20,439 Speaker 1: we wanted to re release our episode on the Lost 6 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:24,640 Speaker 1: Cause to provide more thorough context. This originally came out 7 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:28,480 Speaker 1: on December fourteenth, twenty twenty, and let me tell you, 8 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:31,880 Speaker 1: listening to it before choosing it as a Saturday Classic 9 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:36,240 Speaker 1: was wild and gave me some bizarre deja vu. Travel 10 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:42,400 Speaker 1: with caution. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, 11 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:52,880 Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 12 00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:56,560 Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Holly, this 13 00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:00,440 Speaker 1: has been a weird year. What oh shut that normal? 14 00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:04,720 Speaker 1: I live in a closet. I mean, it's been a 15 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:07,440 Speaker 1: weird year in general. It's been a really weird year 16 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,000 Speaker 1: to work on this podcast. We recorded an episode back 17 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:13,280 Speaker 1: in March where we talked about some of that and 18 00:01:13,319 --> 00:01:16,480 Speaker 1: how just strange it was to be working on the 19 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:21,480 Speaker 1: show and living in this moment that was clearly historically significant, 20 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:24,080 Speaker 1: that moment being the pandemic at that time, and that 21 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:26,720 Speaker 1: sense of strangeness has really continued and also I think 22 00:01:26,959 --> 00:01:33,520 Speaker 1: escalated with the other things that have also happened since then. Yes, 23 00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:36,600 Speaker 1: future historians will have quite a lot of layers to 24 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:39,760 Speaker 1: peel on this onion that is twenty twenty. Yeah, So, 25 00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:45,240 Speaker 1: like this whole sense of very surreal stuff like that 26 00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:49,520 Speaker 1: went on through the widespread protests against police brutality and 27 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:51,800 Speaker 1: racism that started in the late spring and summer, and 28 00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:57,800 Speaker 1: now as we're recording this, the truly bizarre afterlife of 29 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:02,160 Speaker 1: the twenty twenty presidential election. For most of this year 30 00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,000 Speaker 1: has really felt like either we just wrote an episode 31 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:09,280 Speaker 1: that's suddenly not relevant anymore, or we've been working on 32 00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:11,920 Speaker 1: episodes feeling like they're just gonna come out in this 33 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:14,320 Speaker 1: black hole of we don't know what the world is 34 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:17,200 Speaker 1: going to be like. Then, is this gonna seem really 35 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:20,639 Speaker 1: tone deaf when it publishes in a week and a half. Yeah, 36 00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:24,800 Speaker 1: So we're recording this on December first, Who knows what 37 00:02:24,919 --> 00:02:27,280 Speaker 1: the world is going to be like when it actually 38 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:30,680 Speaker 1: gets to people's feeds. In a way, with all this 39 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:34,520 Speaker 1: just bizarre, strange, disorienting chaos that we have all been 40 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:40,520 Speaker 1: living through the election has felt uniquely disorienting because there 41 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:45,200 Speaker 1: are clear historical precedents for the pandemic and the protests 42 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,960 Speaker 1: and the conditions that led to the protests. And we 43 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:49,840 Speaker 1: have talked about a lot of those things on the 44 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:55,120 Speaker 1: show before, but while there have been disputed elections in 45 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,720 Speaker 1: the United States, we don't really have a one to 46 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:04,240 Speaker 1: one comparison to a sitting president having clearly lost the 47 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:10,080 Speaker 1: election making all kinds of baseless and often verifiably false 48 00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:15,000 Speaker 1: claims about having actually won it in all caps in 49 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:22,000 Speaker 1: all yes. However, another piece of this very strange post 50 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,280 Speaker 1: election season is this attempt to just promote the idea 51 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:29,560 Speaker 1: that the election was somehow rigged in favor of President 52 00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:32,440 Speaker 1: elect Joe Biden. And so if we look at things 53 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:36,040 Speaker 1: more generally and we talk about attempts to create a 54 00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:39,360 Speaker 1: narrative to reframe a loss so that it will be 55 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:43,200 Speaker 1: more favorable to the losing side, there are definite precedents 56 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: for that in history, and one of them is the 57 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:48,840 Speaker 1: subject of today's episode, which is the myth of the 58 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:52,480 Speaker 1: Lost Cause of the Confederacy, which was a distortion of 59 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:55,160 Speaker 1: the history of the US Civil War that is still 60 00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:58,440 Speaker 1: affecting the world today, just a heads up that we 61 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:02,800 Speaker 1: cannot possibly dealt into every conceivable nuance of this in 62 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:07,880 Speaker 1: an episode. One of the many books about how the 63 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:11,480 Speaker 1: Civil War is remembered is called Race and Reunion. The 64 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: Civil War in American Memory. That's by David W. Blighte. 65 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:18,760 Speaker 1: And not counting the notes and the index of that book, 66 00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:23,360 Speaker 1: it is almost four hundred pages long, and the author 67 00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:27,640 Speaker 1: describes that as a quote synthetic and selective work on 68 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:30,680 Speaker 1: a vast topic. So we are kind of looking at 69 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:35,120 Speaker 1: the big picture overview of this and not every conceivable 70 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:38,960 Speaker 1: facet of it. So the Lost Cause was part ideology, 71 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:43,080 Speaker 1: part social movement. Since its purpose was to promote an 72 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:46,800 Speaker 1: ahistorical interpretation of the US Civil War, we got to 73 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:49,680 Speaker 1: start with a recap of what exactly the Lost Cause 74 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,159 Speaker 1: was trying to undermine. Although there were other factors that 75 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,080 Speaker 1: played a much smaller role, the primary issue that drove 76 00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:59,320 Speaker 1: the US Civil War was, of course slavery. You can 77 00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:02,000 Speaker 1: certainly make the argument that the North went toward to 78 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:05,120 Speaker 1: preserve the Union, but under that argument, the reason the 79 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:08,800 Speaker 1: Union was in jeopardy in the first place was still slavery. 80 00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:12,800 Speaker 1: And this was not a new division. Disagreements over slavery 81 00:05:12,880 --> 00:05:15,960 Speaker 1: and efforts to accommodate slave states for the sake of 82 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:18,760 Speaker 1: keeping the Union together. Let's go all the way back 83 00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:22,600 Speaker 1: to before the drafting of the US Constitution, and they're 84 00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:26,719 Speaker 1: represented in the Constitution itself, so all the language that 85 00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:30,680 Speaker 1: we're about to talk about still exists in the Constitution today, 86 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:34,520 Speaker 1: although the thirteenth and fourteenth Amendments supersedes some of it. 87 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:37,880 Speaker 1: Article one, Section two sets up the framework for the 88 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:40,880 Speaker 1: House of Representatives and how members of that body will 89 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:45,200 Speaker 1: be apportioned. It reads, in part quote, Representatives and direct 90 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:48,800 Speaker 1: taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may 91 00:05:48,839 --> 00:05:52,520 Speaker 1: be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, 92 00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:55,520 Speaker 1: which shall be determined by adding to the whole number 93 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,960 Speaker 1: of free persons, including those bound to service for a 94 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:03,720 Speaker 1: term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths 95 00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:06,919 Speaker 1: of all other persons. So this is known as the 96 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:11,840 Speaker 1: three fifths Compromise. And even though it doesn't specifically mention slavery, 97 00:06:12,279 --> 00:06:18,560 Speaker 1: everyone understood that other persons here met enslaved Africans. Southern 98 00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:21,960 Speaker 1: states wanted their enslaved population to count for the purpose 99 00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:25,200 Speaker 1: of apportionment, and that would give those states more legislative 100 00:06:25,240 --> 00:06:28,680 Speaker 1: power and help protect the institution of slavery. They did 101 00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:31,880 Speaker 1: not want their tax burden to increase by that amount, though, 102 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:34,839 Speaker 1: so this solution was to count three fifths of the 103 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:40,720 Speaker 1: enslaved population. Article one, section nine addressed the international slave trade, 104 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:44,479 Speaker 1: though again without using that language. It reads quote, the 105 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:47,919 Speaker 1: migration or importation of such persons as any of the 106 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:51,760 Speaker 1: states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not 107 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:55,400 Speaker 1: be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand, 108 00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:58,520 Speaker 1: eight hundred and eight. But a tax or duty may 109 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:02,680 Speaker 1: be imposed on such importance not exceeding ten dollars for 110 00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:06,640 Speaker 1: each person. In other words, while the government could impose 111 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:09,520 Speaker 1: a tax or a duty on enslaved people brought into 112 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:13,240 Speaker 1: the country, it could not ban the international slave trade. 113 00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:16,840 Speaker 1: Before eighteen oh eight, and then Article four came to 114 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:20,520 Speaker 1: be known as the fugitive slave clause. Quote. No person 115 00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:23,680 Speaker 1: held to service or labor in one state under the 116 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:28,200 Speaker 1: laws thereof escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any 117 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:33,080 Speaker 1: law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, 118 00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:35,640 Speaker 1: but shall be delivered up on the claim of the 119 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:38,880 Speaker 1: party to whom such service or labor may be due. 120 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:42,520 Speaker 1: Delegates from the slaveholding states would not have accepted the 121 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:47,160 Speaker 1: Constitution without these provisions, each of which protected slavery and 122 00:07:47,240 --> 00:07:51,240 Speaker 1: the interests of enslavers and slave states, And over time, 123 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:54,720 Speaker 1: the growth of anti slavery sentiments and abolition movements in 124 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:58,480 Speaker 1: the northern states became increasingly threatening to the slave states 125 00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:02,280 Speaker 1: of the South. To be clear, there were also abolitionists 126 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:05,960 Speaker 1: in the South, including enslaved people advocating for their own 127 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,280 Speaker 1: liberation and liberating themselves, but the national balance of power 128 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:13,440 Speaker 1: between North and South is what we're really focused on here. 129 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:18,520 Speaker 1: Beginning in about eighteen twelve, the United States started intentionally 130 00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:22,840 Speaker 1: admitting new states into the Union in pairs one slave 131 00:08:23,080 --> 00:08:27,000 Speaker 1: and one free state to maintain this purported balance, and 132 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:31,000 Speaker 1: this continued until eighteen fifty, when California became the first 133 00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:35,480 Speaker 1: free state admitted without a corresponding slave state. The Compromise 134 00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:38,240 Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty was a collection of laws meant to 135 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,520 Speaker 1: diffuse some of the tension from this shift, one of 136 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:45,560 Speaker 1: those being a much stronger Fugitive Slave Act. In eighteen 137 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:48,640 Speaker 1: fifty four, the Republican Party was established to try to 138 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,120 Speaker 1: resist the expansion of slavery into the western territories of 139 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:55,720 Speaker 1: the United States. By the election of eighteen sixty, it 140 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:59,000 Speaker 1: was widely believed that the election of a Republican president 141 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:02,280 Speaker 1: would spell the end of slavery and would prompt slave 142 00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:06,040 Speaker 1: states to secede from the Union. This came to pass 143 00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:10,120 Speaker 1: after Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected as president on November sixth, 144 00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:15,080 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty. After Lincoln's election, Senator John J. Crittenden of 145 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:20,199 Speaker 1: Kentucky proposed a collection of constitutional amendments and Senate resolutions, 146 00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:23,360 Speaker 1: some of which would make slavery permanent in part of 147 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:28,160 Speaker 1: the country, to try to head off a secession crisis. Unsurprisingly, 148 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,760 Speaker 1: this proposal was supported by the slave states but denounced 149 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:34,800 Speaker 1: by the free states, so it failed, and then on 150 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:39,040 Speaker 1: December twentieth, eighteen sixty, South Carolina became the first state 151 00:09:39,120 --> 00:09:42,160 Speaker 1: to announce that it was seceding from the Union. South 152 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:46,600 Speaker 1: Carolina issued a declaration of the Immediate Causes which induce 153 00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:50,640 Speaker 1: and justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. 154 00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:54,800 Speaker 1: This document read, in part quote, an increasing hostility on 155 00:09:54,880 --> 00:09:57,880 Speaker 1: the part of the non slaveholding states to the institution 156 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:00,439 Speaker 1: of slavery has led to a distion in regard of 157 00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:04,040 Speaker 1: their obligations and the laws of the general Government have 158 00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:08,560 Speaker 1: ceased to affect the objects of the Constitution. Other states 159 00:10:08,640 --> 00:10:11,679 Speaker 1: issued similar documents when they succeeded. They're going to have 160 00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:15,080 Speaker 1: a couple of examples. This one's from Georgia quote. For 161 00:10:15,160 --> 00:10:18,439 Speaker 1: the last ten years, we have had numerous and serious 162 00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:22,640 Speaker 1: causes of complaint against our non slave holding Confederate states 163 00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:26,160 Speaker 1: with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have 164 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:30,320 Speaker 1: endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace 165 00:10:30,360 --> 00:10:34,800 Speaker 1: and tranquility, and persistently refuse to comply with their express 166 00:10:34,920 --> 00:10:39,800 Speaker 1: constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and 167 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:42,280 Speaker 1: by the use of their power in the Federal government, 168 00:10:42,760 --> 00:10:45,840 Speaker 1: have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of 169 00:10:45,880 --> 00:10:50,600 Speaker 1: the common territories of the Republic. This is from Mississippi quote. 170 00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:54,480 Speaker 1: Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery. 171 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:58,920 Speaker 1: The greatest material interest in the world. Its labor supplies 172 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:02,000 Speaker 1: the product which constitutes by far the largest and most 173 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:05,839 Speaker 1: important portions of commerce on the earth. These products are 174 00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:09,280 Speaker 1: peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and 175 00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:12,400 Speaker 1: by an imperious law of nature, none but the black 176 00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:16,480 Speaker 1: race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products 177 00:11:16,480 --> 00:11:19,079 Speaker 1: have become necessities of the world, and a blow at 178 00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:24,000 Speaker 1: slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. Texas and 179 00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:28,880 Speaker 1: Virginia issued similar documents containing similar sentiments as well, And 180 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:32,480 Speaker 1: while some of these documents did also spend a significant 181 00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:36,280 Speaker 1: amount of space discussing states' rights in general, the rights 182 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:39,520 Speaker 1: that were being discussed all circled back to slavery. They 183 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:42,320 Speaker 1: included things like the right to take enslaved people into 184 00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:46,040 Speaker 1: free states without their being freed as a consequence. So 185 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:50,280 Speaker 1: these documents supported the slave states' rights to maintain slavery, 186 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:53,600 Speaker 1: but not really the free states' rights to outlaw or 187 00:11:53,640 --> 00:11:57,440 Speaker 1: restrict it. A Constitution of the Confederate States was adopted 188 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:01,720 Speaker 1: on March eleventh, nineteen sixty one. Unlike the US Constitution, 189 00:12:02,120 --> 00:12:05,960 Speaker 1: this one made several direct, specific references to slavery and 190 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:10,599 Speaker 1: enslaved people. Ten days later, Alexander Stevens, vice President of 191 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:13,760 Speaker 1: the Confederate States of America, delivered what came to be 192 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:17,160 Speaker 1: known as the Cornerstone Speech. It said that this new 193 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:21,680 Speaker 1: constitution had quote put at rest forever all the agitating 194 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:26,560 Speaker 1: questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it 195 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:30,480 Speaker 1: exists amongst us, the proper status of the Negro in 196 00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:34,560 Speaker 1: our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of 197 00:12:34,559 --> 00:12:38,720 Speaker 1: the late Rupture and present Revolution. So yeah, there were 198 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:42,480 Speaker 1: of course cultural and economic differences between the North and 199 00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:45,160 Speaker 1: the South, and other issues that you could cite as 200 00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:49,400 Speaker 1: contributing factors in all of this, but there is overwhelming 201 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:53,200 Speaker 1: documented evidence that the biggest issue and the one that 202 00:12:53,280 --> 00:12:57,240 Speaker 1: was the most important, with slavery. It seems unlikely that 203 00:12:57,280 --> 00:12:59,920 Speaker 1: the Confederate States would have shied away from that stance 204 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:02,800 Speaker 1: had they won the war. Slavery was right there in 205 00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:06,720 Speaker 1: the Confederate States Constitution, including the clause quote no bill 206 00:13:06,760 --> 00:13:10,640 Speaker 1: of attainder expost facto law or law denying or impairing 207 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:13,600 Speaker 1: the right of property in Negro slaves shall be passed. 208 00:13:14,559 --> 00:13:19,640 Speaker 1: But instead the Confederacy suffered a humiliating defeat that left 209 00:13:19,679 --> 00:13:22,400 Speaker 1: the question of how the nation could possibly be whole 210 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:25,720 Speaker 1: again and how the South could envision itself after this 211 00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:28,320 Speaker 1: turn of events, And we're going to talk about that 212 00:13:28,400 --> 00:13:40,960 Speaker 1: after we pause for a sponsor break. After the US 213 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,120 Speaker 1: Civil War, there were a lot of questions about how 214 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:47,760 Speaker 1: to reunite the country, like what would states have to 215 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:51,560 Speaker 1: do to be readmitted into the Union. What would former 216 00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:54,280 Speaker 1: Confederates have to do to earn some kind of pardon? 217 00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:58,120 Speaker 1: How could the places that had suffered material damage as 218 00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:01,000 Speaker 1: a result of the war be rebuilt? And how could 219 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,359 Speaker 1: the social, economic, and political injustice that had both enabled 220 00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:09,199 Speaker 1: and grown from the existence of slavery be addressed and rectified. 221 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:12,240 Speaker 1: We have talked about a lot of this in previous 222 00:14:12,280 --> 00:14:14,880 Speaker 1: episodes of the show that relate to the period of 223 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:18,840 Speaker 1: US history known as Reconstruction, and those episodes include our 224 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:21,400 Speaker 1: two parter on Robert Small's that we put out as 225 00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:24,280 Speaker 1: a Saturday Classic this summer, and our two parter on 226 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:27,600 Speaker 1: the Wilmington Coup that came out in twenty eighteen. A 227 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,160 Speaker 1: lot of these questions were practical, like would former Confederate 228 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:34,720 Speaker 1: leaders have to stamp trial? What kind of services would 229 00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:38,880 Speaker 1: be provided for formerly enslaved people? Where would the money 230 00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:41,800 Speaker 1: come from to pay for those services? But some of 231 00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:44,200 Speaker 1: these questions were a little bit more abstract, like what 232 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:47,560 Speaker 1: did this mean for white Southern identity? How could the 233 00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:51,520 Speaker 1: Southern States defend themselves from mockery, shame, and accusations of 234 00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:55,480 Speaker 1: treason from the white Southern point of view? Answers to 235 00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:58,760 Speaker 1: a lot of these more nebulous questions rested on a 236 00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:00,920 Speaker 1: set of ideas that came to be known as the 237 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:04,760 Speaker 1: Lost Cause, as a term that was popularized by the 238 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,840 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty sixth book of the same name by Edward 239 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:11,800 Speaker 1: Pollard of Virginia. The biggest and most important piece of 240 00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:14,520 Speaker 1: the Lost Cause myth was that the Civil War had 241 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:18,160 Speaker 1: not been about slavery. Southern states had seceded over the 242 00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:21,000 Speaker 1: issue of states' rights, and that had been the cause 243 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:24,080 Speaker 1: of the war. According to this idea, still hear it 244 00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:27,040 Speaker 1: on occasion. I don't know if on occasion is even 245 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:32,160 Speaker 1: strong enough. I'm being super polite. Even though the Lost 246 00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:35,600 Speaker 1: Cause narrative claimed that the Civil War was not about slavery, 247 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:41,120 Speaker 1: it also reimagined slavery itself. According to Lost Cause proponents, 248 00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:44,920 Speaker 1: slavery was not an evil institution, and slavers in this 249 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:48,000 Speaker 1: version of the story are benevolent. They looked after their 250 00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:51,880 Speaker 1: enslaved workforce, providing housing, clothing, and food, and generally giving 251 00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:56,680 Speaker 1: enslaved people a better life than they would have had otherwise. Also, 252 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:00,920 Speaker 1: according to this narrative, enslaved people were happy, grateful, loyal, 253 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:05,640 Speaker 1: dedicated to their enslavers. Folded into all of this was 254 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:08,720 Speaker 1: the idea that people of African descent weren't capable of 255 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:12,240 Speaker 1: handling their own affairs, that they somehow needed the guidance 256 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:16,960 Speaker 1: and supervision of their enslavers. Even though the Lost Cause 257 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:21,080 Speaker 1: took great pains to minimize the documented horrors of slavery, 258 00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:24,680 Speaker 1: it also contended that slavery was well on its way 259 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:28,560 Speaker 1: to dying out on its own. Sort of a corollary 260 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:32,120 Speaker 1: to this reimagining of slavery was the myth of the 261 00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:37,520 Speaker 1: Black Confederate, which became way more popular later on in 262 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:40,120 Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. In particular, like it had kind of 263 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:44,160 Speaker 1: a heyday. This was the idea that enslaved black people 264 00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:48,080 Speaker 1: were so loyal and cared for that they willingly volunteered 265 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,240 Speaker 1: to fight for the Confederacy in enormous numbers. Estimates for 266 00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:55,680 Speaker 1: how many Black Confederates there supposedly were are all over 267 00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:59,120 Speaker 1: the place. There anywhere from five hundred to one hundred 268 00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:03,200 Speaker 1: thousand such, depending on who you read. The reality is 269 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:06,600 Speaker 1: that enslaved Africans were a massive source of labor within 270 00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:10,879 Speaker 1: the Confederate army. They worked as body servants, cooks, and 271 00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:14,800 Speaker 1: manual laborers, but they weren't soldiers, and they were not volunteers. 272 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:19,640 Speaker 1: They were enslaved. Confederate forces also captured and enslaved free 273 00:17:19,640 --> 00:17:22,639 Speaker 1: black people in the places they moved through or occupied 274 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:26,600 Speaker 1: during the war. Historian Kevin M. Levin has written a 275 00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:29,919 Speaker 1: whole book about this called Searching for Black Confederates The 276 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,480 Speaker 1: Civil War's most persistent myths. Yeah, people like to use 277 00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:39,000 Speaker 1: photos of soldiers posing with their enslaved servants as like 278 00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:41,439 Speaker 1: some kind of evidence that there were a whole lot 279 00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:45,240 Speaker 1: of soldiers and that the person the picture is really 280 00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:48,399 Speaker 1: depicting is enslaving. The person next to them like that 281 00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:52,439 Speaker 1: is not a volunteer soldier who went with him. So 282 00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:56,960 Speaker 1: the lost cause ideology also framed the South's defeat as 283 00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:01,680 Speaker 1: something that was inevitable. Under this ideology, Confederate generals were brilliant, 284 00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:05,000 Speaker 1: they were gifted in their strategy and their tactics, and 285 00:18:05,119 --> 00:18:08,440 Speaker 1: the South was defeated only because the North had superior 286 00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:11,399 Speaker 1: numbers and resources. So the idea is the South was 287 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:14,919 Speaker 1: just overwhelmed. So it wasn't that Robert E. Lee and 288 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,840 Speaker 1: other Confederate leaders failed to develop an effective strategy to 289 00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:22,320 Speaker 1: offset the fact that the Northern states were more industrialized 290 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:25,080 Speaker 1: and more densely populated. It was just that there was 291 00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:29,440 Speaker 1: no strategy that ever would have been enough. This idea 292 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:32,520 Speaker 1: that the Confederate war effort was doomed from the beginning 293 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:37,000 Speaker 1: is the source of that lost cause, Moniker. Within this reframing, 294 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:42,960 Speaker 1: Confederate generals were universally gentlemen. All of the soldiers were 295 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:47,320 Speaker 1: noble and gallant. White women were also perfect examples of 296 00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:51,400 Speaker 1: Southern femininity. They had sacrificed for the cause of freedom 297 00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:55,920 Speaker 1: and had borne up under immense struggle. More broadly, Antebellum 298 00:18:55,960 --> 00:19:00,000 Speaker 1: life in the South was described as universally genteel and refined, 299 00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:06,080 Speaker 1: with plantations romanticized as idyllic, expansive homes and fields, rather 300 00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 1: than the reality, which was that they were slave labor camps. Yeah, 301 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:10,840 Speaker 1: so I woant to take a minute for like a 302 00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:13,399 Speaker 1: more personal note. I understand that for a lot of 303 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:16,760 Speaker 1: people this history is very personally important to them and 304 00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:20,160 Speaker 1: their families. If you're about to write us an angry 305 00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:23,600 Speaker 1: email about your second or third great grandfather who served 306 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:27,320 Speaker 1: for the South, I have second and third great grandfathers too, 307 00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:30,399 Speaker 1: so I get it, Like you want to think that 308 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:33,639 Speaker 1: your ancestors were on the right side of history, but 309 00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:38,480 Speaker 1: they really just were not in this case. Eventually, proponents 310 00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:42,159 Speaker 1: of the Lost Cause ideology started to reframe the period 311 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:46,359 Speaker 1: of reconstruction as well, and under this idea, reconstruction was 312 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,080 Speaker 1: not an attempt to repair the damage of the war 313 00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,280 Speaker 1: and to address injustice. It was an effort to just 314 00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:56,960 Speaker 1: punish the South in exact retribution. And Northerners who came 315 00:19:57,040 --> 00:19:59,719 Speaker 1: to the South to assist with this whole process were not, 316 00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:04,760 Speaker 1: according to Lost Cause proponents, motivated by altruism or philanthropy. 317 00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:09,440 Speaker 1: According to the Lost Cause, they were unscrupulous, corrupt carpetbaggers 318 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,119 Speaker 1: who were only in it for the money, money that 319 00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,120 Speaker 1: they were going to get illegitimately. So we referenced Edward 320 00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,520 Speaker 1: Pollard's book The Lost Cause earlier, and while that book 321 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:23,400 Speaker 1: did popularize this term, the movement itself is not something 322 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:25,760 Speaker 1: that just started and ended with one book. It was 323 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:29,560 Speaker 1: much bigger. Glimmers of the Lost Cause ideology were present 324 00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,560 Speaker 1: at least as early as General Robert E. Lee's farewell 325 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:36,560 Speaker 1: address also called General Order Number nine, delivered the day 326 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,879 Speaker 1: before he surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, and that began 327 00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:44,400 Speaker 1: quote after four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed 328 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:47,960 Speaker 1: courage and fortitude. The Army of Northern Virginia has been 329 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:52,600 Speaker 1: compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need 330 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:56,040 Speaker 1: not tell the brave survivors of so many hard fought battles, 331 00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:58,919 Speaker 1: who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have 332 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:02,679 Speaker 1: consented to this result from no distrust of them, but 333 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:06,080 Speaker 1: feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that would 334 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:09,200 Speaker 1: compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuance 335 00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:13,240 Speaker 1: of the contest. I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice 336 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:17,040 Speaker 1: of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. 337 00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:20,800 Speaker 1: After the war was over, white Southern women's groups that 338 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,760 Speaker 1: had been focused on providing aid during the war started 339 00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:29,600 Speaker 1: instead focusing on memorializing the fallen and honoring returning soldiers. 340 00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:34,000 Speaker 1: And some of this certainly included absolutely legitimate work like 341 00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:37,480 Speaker 1: burying the dead and holding funerals, and helping to care 342 00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:40,800 Speaker 1: for women and children who had lost their husbands and fathers. 343 00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:45,199 Speaker 1: But running alongside all of that work were efforts to 344 00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:49,440 Speaker 1: reinforce the idea of the Southern War effort as this noble, 345 00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:54,400 Speaker 1: doomed endeavor that was not about slavery. In the late 346 00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,840 Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. Men's veterans groups became part of this effort 347 00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:02,320 Speaker 1: as well. The Southern Historical Society was established in April 348 00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,919 Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty nine to ensure that this version of 349 00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:10,720 Speaker 1: Civil War history would be remembered. Former Confederate General Jubile A. 350 00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:14,840 Speaker 1: Early was the Southern Historical Society's first president and was 351 00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:18,959 Speaker 1: a major proponent of the Lost Cause. Although many Confederate 352 00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:22,320 Speaker 1: memorials were built much later, which we will talk about, 353 00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,720 Speaker 1: some were raised in the years immediately after the war 354 00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:29,439 Speaker 1: was over. In April of eighteen sixty six, Jefferson Davis, 355 00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:32,199 Speaker 1: who had been President of the Confederate States, went on 356 00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:36,879 Speaker 1: a tour to dedicate memorials in multiple cities, including Montgomery, Alabama, 357 00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:41,920 Speaker 1: and Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia. Prominent Confederate figures were also 358 00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:47,000 Speaker 1: lionized after their deaths, depicted as noble, nearly flawless heroes 359 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:51,360 Speaker 1: in eulogies and early biographies. This included Robert E. Lee, 360 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:55,840 Speaker 1: who died on October twelfth, eighteen seventy. Biographies written shortly 361 00:22:55,920 --> 00:23:00,800 Speaker 1: after his death characterize him as a devout Christian who slavery, 362 00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:05,200 Speaker 1: even though his cruelty to his own enslaved workforce, including 363 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,840 Speaker 1: breaking up their families and either ordering or carrying out 364 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:13,400 Speaker 1: the whipping of people who escaped, was documented. His opinions 365 00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,200 Speaker 1: on the supremacy of the white race were also very 366 00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,840 Speaker 1: well documented. Yeah, he was definitely a Christian, but that 367 00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:24,200 Speaker 1: did not somehow undo the other part. Jefferson Davis was 368 00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:28,400 Speaker 1: similarly eulogized after his death on December sixth, eighteen eighty nine. 369 00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:32,080 Speaker 1: More than one hundred thousand mourners paid their respects as 370 00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:35,359 Speaker 1: his body lay in state in New Orleans, Louisiana, and 371 00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:38,240 Speaker 1: then from there his remains were taken by train to 372 00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,520 Speaker 1: their final resting place in Richmond, Virginia, and this train 373 00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:44,919 Speaker 1: made stops along the way, with the crowds honoring his 374 00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,760 Speaker 1: passing by laying magnolia blossoms on the tracks and firing 375 00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:52,200 Speaker 1: their guns into the air. At Sometimes these crowds were 376 00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,320 Speaker 1: so large the train had to stop so they could 377 00:23:55,359 --> 00:24:00,440 Speaker 1: be cleared away. Not every former Confederate figure was similarly treated, though. 378 00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,959 Speaker 1: For example, after the war, former Confederate General William Mahone 379 00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,040 Speaker 1: became one of the leaders of the Readjuster Party in Virginia. 380 00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,520 Speaker 1: This party was a coalition of black and white political 381 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,399 Speaker 1: leaders that dominated Virginia politics from eighteen seventy nine to 382 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:18,960 Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three, with many black members of the coalition 383 00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:23,560 Speaker 1: being elected into state and federal office. Mahone's presence at 384 00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,040 Speaker 1: Confederate reunions had to be sort of explained away, with 385 00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:31,760 Speaker 1: organizers stressing that everyone should remember his wartime service rather 386 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,720 Speaker 1: than focusing on his political career. By the eighteen nineties, 387 00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,440 Speaker 1: the Lost Cause ideology was immensely popular in the South, 388 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,680 Speaker 1: and it was gaining traction elsewhere. The magazine Confederate Veteran 389 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,720 Speaker 1: was launched in eighteen ninety three, and by nineteen hundred 390 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,560 Speaker 1: it had more than twenty thousand subscribers, and it was 391 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,600 Speaker 1: by far the most popular and widely read journal in 392 00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:56,800 Speaker 1: the South. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was established 393 00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety four and was heavily involved in promote 394 00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:04,480 Speaker 1: the Lost Cause myth. In eighteen ninety six, the Confederate Museum, 395 00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,879 Speaker 1: which was initially focused on a Lost Cause interpretation of 396 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:12,359 Speaker 1: the war, was opened in Richmond, Virginia. Historians and commentators 397 00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,840 Speaker 1: criticized the Lost Cause ideology. Throughout all of this, there 398 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,120 Speaker 1: were grains of truth to it, such as that there 399 00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,280 Speaker 1: were white women who had made huge sacrifices during the 400 00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,440 Speaker 1: war and soldiers who had volunteered out of a sense 401 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,399 Speaker 1: of patriotic duty, but a lot of it was just 402 00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,320 Speaker 1: flatly false. Critics pointed out that the Lost Cause narrative 403 00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:36,080 Speaker 1: tried to erase all kinds of horrors, including the existence 404 00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,840 Speaker 1: of the Ku Klux Klan and the practice of lynching, 405 00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,520 Speaker 1: while also leaning on racist depictions of black people that 406 00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:46,600 Speaker 1: allowed the clan in lynching to flourish. Black leaders and 407 00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,160 Speaker 1: their white allies also noted that accepting the false tenets 408 00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,800 Speaker 1: of the Lost Cause meant abandoning Black Americans in the 409 00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:57,840 Speaker 1: work of reconstruction and erasing the horrors and ongoing destructive 410 00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:02,399 Speaker 1: legacy of slavery. Abolitionists and other reformers called for the 411 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:07,000 Speaker 1: rejection of this entire narrative. At the same time, though 412 00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,359 Speaker 1: in a lot of the North and at the federal level, 413 00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,400 Speaker 1: there was also this sense that accepting the Lost Cause narrative, 414 00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,800 Speaker 1: or at least not pushing back against it too hard, 415 00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,200 Speaker 1: might help unify the nation and allow it to heal 416 00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:25,080 Speaker 1: from the war. However, this purported reunification, but the emotional 417 00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:29,320 Speaker 1: healing of white people ahead of everyone else, particularly black Americans. 418 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,640 Speaker 1: So in terms of national politics, the Northern States were 419 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,680 Speaker 1: complicit and allowing this fiction to stand for the sake 420 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:38,560 Speaker 1: of the Union at the expense of some of the 421 00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:43,480 Speaker 1: Union's most marginalized citizens. I see this as a continuation 422 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,560 Speaker 1: of all those earlier concessions and appeasements that go all 423 00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,560 Speaker 1: the way back to the drafting of the Constitution, and 424 00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,800 Speaker 1: the lost cause was still being reinforced well into the 425 00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,000 Speaker 1: twentieth century, and we are going to get into that 426 00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:08,360 Speaker 1: after a sponsor break. Much of the national dialogue following 427 00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,520 Speaker 1: the US Civil War had been about reunification and reconciliation 428 00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,760 Speaker 1: and coming together, and eventually this included soldiers who had 429 00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,560 Speaker 1: been on opposite sides of the war. Although there had 430 00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,760 Speaker 1: been smaller events earlier on the first major Civil War 431 00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,320 Speaker 1: reunion involving soldiers from both sides was the Manassas Piece 432 00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:33,040 Speaker 1: Jubilee in July of nineteen eleven. This happened at the 433 00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:36,720 Speaker 1: start of a series of fiftieth anniversary remembrances that would 434 00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:41,040 Speaker 1: go on until nineteen fifteen. About ten thousand people attended 435 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: this event, including about three hundred Confederate and about one 436 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,840 Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five United States veterans. A much larger 437 00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,919 Speaker 1: event took place in nineteen thirteen, with more than fifty 438 00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:56,720 Speaker 1: three thousand veterans assembling at Gettysburg. This was a massive event, 439 00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,880 Speaker 1: with states in the federal government providing funding for every 440 00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,479 Speaker 1: saying from getting veterans to Gettysburg to feeding them and 441 00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,960 Speaker 1: providing emergency medical care while they were there. Most of 442 00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,880 Speaker 1: the veterans attending this were very elderly, and the weather 443 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,160 Speaker 1: was brutally hot, so that medical care was a vital 444 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,520 Speaker 1: part of the plan. Yeah, and even with it, there 445 00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,080 Speaker 1: were people who died on the scene at the reunion 446 00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:21,399 Speaker 1: because they were in their advanced years and the weather 447 00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,639 Speaker 1: was just punishing. Again. The theme with all this was 448 00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:30,320 Speaker 1: reconciliation and healing, but again for white people at the 449 00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,160 Speaker 1: expense of black people who had been harmed by slavery 450 00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,720 Speaker 1: in the war and their descendants who were still being 451 00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:39,400 Speaker 1: harmed by ongoing racism and violence. And the words of 452 00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,560 Speaker 1: the Washington b which is a newspaper with a predominantly 453 00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,160 Speaker 1: black readership based in Washington, DC quote, the occasion is 454 00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:50,440 Speaker 1: to be called a reunion, a reunion of whom only 455 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,160 Speaker 1: those who fought for the preservation of the Union and 456 00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,120 Speaker 1: the extinction of human slavery. Is it to be an 457 00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,560 Speaker 1: assemblage of those who fought to destroy the Union and 458 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:03,840 Speaker 1: propare slavery, and who are now employing every artifice and 459 00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:08,240 Speaker 1: argument known to deceit and sophistry to propagate a national 460 00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:13,920 Speaker 1: sentiment in favor of their nefarious contention that emancipation, reconstruction, 461 00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:18,320 Speaker 1: and enfranchisement are dismal failures. Some of the most visible 462 00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:21,480 Speaker 1: remnants of the Lost Cause ideology came about during the 463 00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,560 Speaker 1: presidency of Woodrow Wilson. He came into office in nineteen thirteen. 464 00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,440 Speaker 1: The first film screening at the White House happened during 465 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,520 Speaker 1: his presidency. It was the film Birth of a Nation, 466 00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,360 Speaker 1: originally known as the Klansman, which included quotes from one 467 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,719 Speaker 1: of Wilson's history books, A History of the American People. 468 00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,640 Speaker 1: Wilson was a proponent of the Lost Cause and the 469 00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,640 Speaker 1: Dunning School, named for historian William A. Dunning, who interpreted 470 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,600 Speaker 1: reconstruction as a failure. Birth of a Nation embraced the 471 00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:55,520 Speaker 1: Lost Cause ideology, using racist depictions of black Americans to 472 00:29:55,560 --> 00:30:00,000 Speaker 1: frame reconstruction as deeply damaging to white people it is. 473 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,239 Speaker 1: He was also credited with a resurgence in the Ku 474 00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,520 Speaker 1: Klux Klan, which is depicted in the film, saving the 475 00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,640 Speaker 1: South from the horrors of Reconstruction. By the time Wilson 476 00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:13,480 Speaker 1: became president, Reconstruction was long over and many of the 477 00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,440 Speaker 1: gains and civil rights for black Americans that had been 478 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,680 Speaker 1: implemented during that time had already been lost. Wilson was 479 00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:25,000 Speaker 1: the first Southern president elected since Reconstruction, and he continued 480 00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:29,440 Speaker 1: that trend of rolling back civil rights, including segregating or 481 00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,040 Speaker 1: allowing his cabinet to segregate a number of federal bureaus 482 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:37,120 Speaker 1: and offices, as well as the US Navy. Wilson ran 483 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,080 Speaker 1: for a second term as president on a platform that 484 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:44,200 Speaker 1: included keeping the United States out of World War One, 485 00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,920 Speaker 1: but after he was elected, he began preparing to go 486 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:51,040 Speaker 1: to war, including constructing new camps for training newly recruited 487 00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,240 Speaker 1: military personnel. This is when US military bases started to 488 00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:59,280 Speaker 1: be named after Confederate leaders, even though those leaders fought 489 00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,680 Speaker 1: against the US military during the Civil War. So after 490 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,960 Speaker 1: the end of the Civil War, the US Army had 491 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,560 Speaker 1: occupied eleven Southern states, with troops being removed after the 492 00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:15,520 Speaker 1: state had met with requirements to rejoin the Union. The 493 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,560 Speaker 1: last of these troops were removed after the eighteen seventy 494 00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,760 Speaker 1: six presidential election, and that was one of the disputed 495 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,400 Speaker 1: elections that we nodded to at the start of the show. 496 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,800 Speaker 1: The candidates in this election were Democrat Samuel Tilden and 497 00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:33,200 Speaker 1: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden had won the popular vote 498 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,560 Speaker 1: but didn't have enough votes to be declared the winner, 499 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,880 Speaker 1: and the Electoral College and then the electoral College votes 500 00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:43,400 Speaker 1: from three states were disputed. The result was the Compromise 501 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:48,200 Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy seven. Hayes would become president, and in exchange, 502 00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,720 Speaker 1: among other concessions, he agreed to place a Democrat in 503 00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,480 Speaker 1: his cabinet and to withdraw the federal troops that were 504 00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,520 Speaker 1: still occupying parts of the South. This is generally seen 505 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,880 Speaker 1: as the end of Reconstruction, and for decades there wasn't 506 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,880 Speaker 1: a large military presence in the South. Because of the 507 00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,880 Speaker 1: legacy of Reconstruction, the idea of sending troops to the 508 00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,600 Speaker 1: South had become something of a taboo. But less than 509 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:15,560 Speaker 1: forty years later, the expansion of the military and preparation 510 00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,160 Speaker 1: for World War One meant that camps had to be 511 00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,840 Speaker 1: built in the South. We needed a lot of camps, 512 00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,640 Speaker 1: we had to put them somewhere. So as part of 513 00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,800 Speaker 1: the effort to make these encampments more palatable in the 514 00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,840 Speaker 1: places where they were being built, they were named for 515 00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:36,800 Speaker 1: former Confederate generals and other Confederate military figures, including camps 516 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,360 Speaker 1: named for Robert E. Lee and Pierre G. T. Beauregard, which, 517 00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:44,680 Speaker 1: along with others, were built in nineteen seventeen. Encampments named 518 00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:48,800 Speaker 1: for General Braxton Bragg and General Henry Lewis Benning followed 519 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:52,840 Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen. It really became a standard practice for 520 00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,840 Speaker 1: new encampments and forts built in the South to be 521 00:32:55,960 --> 00:33:00,800 Speaker 1: named after Confederate military leaders, even though again these were 522 00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,560 Speaker 1: the enemy of the U. S. Army during the Civil War. 523 00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,920 Speaker 1: As these bases were being built, another trend was developing, 524 00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:12,680 Speaker 1: that of erecting statues to honor Confederate soldiers, many of 525 00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,800 Speaker 1: which were arranged and funded by the United Daughters of 526 00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,960 Speaker 1: the Confederacy. Although as we said earlier, some memorials were 527 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,720 Speaker 1: built just after the Civil War, their number really started 528 00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:27,200 Speaker 1: to grow after about eighteen ninety, with the first Surgeon 529 00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:32,480 Speaker 1: statues peaking between nineteen ten and nineteen thirty. As we've 530 00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,200 Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episodes on the Harlem hell 531 00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:38,880 Speaker 1: Fighters and Red Summer. There was an intense backlash against 532 00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,880 Speaker 1: the great migration of Black Americans to more northern states 533 00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:46,880 Speaker 1: and against Black Americans advocacy for equal rights. These newly 534 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,800 Speaker 1: erected statues were part of that backlash by the white majority, 535 00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,680 Speaker 1: and another smaller surge in their installations happened during the 536 00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,719 Speaker 1: civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties. Yea, 537 00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,560 Speaker 1: they were sort of part fromer of Who's in charge 538 00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:10,000 Speaker 1: here and part ongoing whitewashing of the Civil War. Although 539 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,839 Speaker 1: some cities could afford to hire a professional sculptor to 540 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,840 Speaker 1: create the monument, a lot of these were mass produced 541 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,799 Speaker 1: and ordered through the mail. One major supplier was Monumental 542 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:25,160 Speaker 1: Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, whose US and Confederate Soldier 543 00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:29,080 Speaker 1: statues were almost identical except for whether they had a 544 00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:33,560 Speaker 1: US or a CS on the belt buckle. Meanwhile, one 545 00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,640 Speaker 1: of the most widely popular pieces of lost Cause fiction 546 00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,120 Speaker 1: came into print and then to the screen, Gone with 547 00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:42,759 Speaker 1: the Wind, which debuted in nineteen thirty nine and was 548 00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,200 Speaker 1: based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell that came out 549 00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:49,480 Speaker 1: three years earlier, so, as we have alluded to, we 550 00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,160 Speaker 1: still see glimpses of the city. But in the post 551 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,759 Speaker 1: World War two era, more historians started returning to the 552 00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,000 Speaker 1: subject of the Civil War and the Lost Cause, which 553 00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:00,960 Speaker 1: by this point had made it its way into history 554 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,560 Speaker 1: textbooks all over the country. Historical sites and museums also 555 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,600 Speaker 1: started re examining their collections and their missions after the war, 556 00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,279 Speaker 1: as these institutions started trying to more accurately represent the 557 00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,640 Speaker 1: war and its repercussions. This has really been an ongoing, 558 00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,560 Speaker 1: many year effort. The Museum of the Confederacy, which we 559 00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,200 Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, merged with the American Civil War Center in 560 00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:28,000 Speaker 1: twenty thirteen to form the American Civil War Museum, and 561 00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:30,240 Speaker 1: that's a museum that tries to give a more honest 562 00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,200 Speaker 1: look at the Civil War. But you can still see 563 00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,760 Speaker 1: glimpses of the Lost Cause narrative all over the place, 564 00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,400 Speaker 1: and this decade's long failure to honestly reckon with the 565 00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:44,440 Speaker 1: Civil War has done so much damage. Polls about how 566 00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,200 Speaker 1: many Americans know or don't know that the Civil War 567 00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,000 Speaker 1: was about slavery or regular occurrence, but it's not just 568 00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,960 Speaker 1: whether people know a particular fact about history. The Lost 569 00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:59,160 Speaker 1: Cause ideology contributed to racist violence and discrimination all over 570 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:02,080 Speaker 1: the United States, and as we've already mentioned, it put 571 00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,759 Speaker 1: the emotional healing of the idea of the nation and 572 00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,600 Speaker 1: of white people in the South ahead of justice for 573 00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,560 Speaker 1: formerly enslaved people and their descendants. So this is a 574 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,600 Speaker 1: great example about how this kind of false narrative is 575 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,840 Speaker 1: not just about whether people know a particular intangible truth. 576 00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,719 Speaker 1: It also has real and ongoing consequences that we still 577 00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:25,840 Speaker 1: feel today. Yeah, we still see them in our inbox 578 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,440 Speaker 1: in response to episodes. From time to time, I have 579 00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:33,800 Speaker 1: gotten in arguments with friends about that whole States Rights business, 580 00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,480 Speaker 1: and I'm like, two own slaves. They're right, that's what 581 00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:44,319 Speaker 1: I can't. Yes, there's a weird to me. I will 582 00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:49,040 Speaker 1: say it is weird. The romanticism of that is strange 583 00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,600 Speaker 1: to me because I don't as much as I love history, 584 00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:55,200 Speaker 1: I don't tend to romanticize it in that way, you 585 00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:57,319 Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, it's not part of my 586 00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,319 Speaker 1: cultural identity that I am from lines of this that, 587 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,719 Speaker 1: and I you know, I don't have that investment. So 588 00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,080 Speaker 1: it's a little hard sometimes for me to understand the 589 00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,920 Speaker 1: attachment to it. Yeah, I am pretty sure. Like I 590 00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,400 Speaker 1: have not looked at every single person in the entire 591 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:18,880 Speaker 1: family tree, but pretty sure on both sides of my family. 592 00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:23,279 Speaker 1: In the eighteen sixties, everyone in the family tree was 593 00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:26,759 Speaker 1: living in North Carolina. There are definitely people in my 594 00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,600 Speaker 1: family tree and direct ancestors of mine who served for 595 00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,640 Speaker 1: the Confederacy, And like, I totally understand, as I said 596 00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:37,240 Speaker 1: earlier that like people don't want to imagine bad things 597 00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,040 Speaker 1: about their ancestors, right, But to me, regardless of any 598 00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:45,760 Speaker 1: of those individual people's reasons for serving, they were still 599 00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:50,440 Speaker 1: serving as part of, you know, a group of states 600 00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:55,719 Speaker 1: that had established themselves as a slave nation in an 601 00:37:55,840 --> 00:38:00,719 Speaker 1: army that was fighting a war to extend and protect. Like, 602 00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:03,799 Speaker 1: whatever your personal reasons for that, that's still a side 603 00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:07,560 Speaker 1: that you were on. Yeah. Yeah, well, and it's one 604 00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,120 Speaker 1: of those things I don't know if it will help 605 00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:13,320 Speaker 1: people reconcile it, right, the nuance of the individual versus 606 00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:18,080 Speaker 1: the individual's part in a larger group, how much they're 607 00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,000 Speaker 1: influenced by what they grew up with, and how that 608 00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,160 Speaker 1: has probably you know, had probably warped their perception of 609 00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,640 Speaker 1: right and wrong, particularly in regard to this issue. I mean, 610 00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:29,640 Speaker 1: it's still as you said, it comes down to that 611 00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:34,000 Speaker 1: is the side you were on. Yeah, I don't it's 612 00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,480 Speaker 1: a little it's hard for people to accept even now, 613 00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,040 Speaker 1: and I don't know the way through that. I think 614 00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:43,520 Speaker 1: there are a lot of groups doing a lot of 615 00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,319 Speaker 1: good effort, and some of the stuff that we talked 616 00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,239 Speaker 1: about right there at the end of like trying to 617 00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,319 Speaker 1: really take an honest look at things and reckon with 618 00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,160 Speaker 1: it is a big part of that. But yeah, it's 619 00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:58,360 Speaker 1: a weird it's a weird thing. There's a lot of 620 00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:01,840 Speaker 1: psychology to it to be unravel. Yeah. You and I 621 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,239 Speaker 1: were talking about something totally different earlier this week, and 622 00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,440 Speaker 1: I was saying, how a lot of times when we 623 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,319 Speaker 1: look at things, we have to sort of hold multiple 624 00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:14,319 Speaker 1: contradictory truths about things in our heads at the same time. 625 00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:17,520 Speaker 1: And I think that's the case for a lot of 626 00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:22,840 Speaker 1: folks here. Yeah, And it's difficult but doable and important 627 00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,160 Speaker 1: to It's an important skill to learn to be able 628 00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:30,040 Speaker 1: to see multiple facets that are not always comfortable, right. 629 00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:33,200 Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of what we're working on all 630 00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,560 Speaker 1: the time, right, Like, no one person is simple and 631 00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:43,400 Speaker 1: easily summated. They all had problems we all do. Yeah. Yeah, 632 00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:52,920 Speaker 1: they're all humans and fallible. Thanks so much for joining 633 00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,600 Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us 634 00:39:55,600 --> 00:40:00,600 Speaker 1: a note, our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, 635 00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,439 Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, 636 00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,880 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.