View source for 471A3--Week 5 Questions/Comments--Tuesday

The soldiers who wrote pieces for magazines such as the ''Confederate Veteran'' included a lot of stories or war memories that related to or tied into reconciliation. Blight even stated that reconciliation and fraternalism dominated a lot of the ex-soldiers memories. Since these stories and memories were all written down, I was wondering if you think the idea for reconciliation, at least among the soldiers, would have come as quickly if the veterans had never received the opportunity to write for the magazines? -Avanness

I was a little surprised to read repeatedly how proponents of the Lost Cause believed and stated that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War. They argued that secession from the Union was the main cause for the South's participation in the war. People who believed in the Lost Cause even ended up rejecting people like John Mosby who was against reunion and was adamant about claiming slavery was the cause of the war. Why do you think this was? Do you think the South was really just trying to save their image or were they really ready for reconciliation with the North? -Avanness

I was also surprised to see how persistent Lost Causers advocated that the war had been about secession, not slavery.  Blight talks about how the Lost Cause idea itself transformed, and race was the most commonly left out.  What advantages did this have for Southerners and reconciliation?  How do you think memory would have changed if race and slavery had been incorporated into the Lost Cause? -ABratchie

In Chapter 6, most of the veterans’ recollections and assessments of battle and the war in general became popular about twenty years after the war.  Blight mentions that for many of the soldiers, dwelling on some of the raw memories in the years just following the war was simply too painful, but then later in the chapter suggests some other reasons that celebrating the valor of the soldiers gained common appreciation across sections.  What caused the nationwide decline in race relations in the last decades of the century? – Erin B.

Blight quotes Robert S. Dabney on pg 263 as having written that "Yankees would ultimately meet their just fate...'in the day of their calamity, in pages of impartial history, and in the Day of Judgment.'"  Harsh words.  Do you think that religion played a larger role in understanding the effects of the war in South than in the North?  What kind of a role did it play in South? -- Erin B.

Blight talks extensively about soldiers memories in ''Century'' Magazine.  Most of those memories, however, came from famous generals, not "many ordinary voices" (179).  What do you think the impact of those memories was on society and what do you think was lost from the recollections that were omitted from the issues? -ABratchie

Blight talked how Civil War veterans wanted to pass along the virtues of the soldiers down to the next generation. Do you think this motivated more veterans to write about their war experience and join memorialization organizations? - MK

I found Blight's description of Civil War memory as a national pastime very interesting. What were other people's reaction to this statement? -MK

MK, I agree with it for sure. I own a few Civil War movies, and have seen them all more than a few times (although APPARENTLY, not enough for Glory...) and can recite a few scenes by heart. Jeff Shaara's Civil War books are phenomenal reads, and I'll confess to spending a day on and around the Antietam battlefield just for the hell of it. Even us...would we be in this class if we weren't at least a little interested in the subject matter? --Cash 

"The former soldiers were the living reminders that the current society, however drab and materialistic, had evolved out of a more heroic time." This quote says very clearly something that we have discussed a great deal, and it also gives us an idea of how quickly the times changed from the heroic romanticized era to a more common time. How often did these events involving the civil war veterans occur? AJ L.

Why were magazines like ''Century'' so opposed to publishing the real horror stories from the war? Blight discusses how it opposed the reconciliation theme, but why weren’t people interested in knowing what really happened to the soldiers who were imprisoned in war camps and the like? - Angie

Even further than reconciliation, Angie, I think it was more a matter of just wanting to move on for a while. I used an analogy in another class re: 1970 America as the hangover after the party. I think by 1865, much of the nation felt exactly the same way. Everyone just wanted to figuratively go outside, smoke a cigarette, take a few deep breaths, and just move on from there. No one wanted to remember that soon how awful it was to be in war with each other. --Cash

On page 275, Blight tells us how a southerner named Albert Morton attended both a UCV and a GAR parade. Morton says that the Confederate parade was fun and lively while the Union memorial parade was “wooden” and almost apathetic. While the observation is presumably biased since he was a southerner, it still seems ironic that the Northern parade (the victors) would be less celebratory than the southerners (the losers). Did the North really care so little about memorializing their victory? - Angie

Along with MK's first question. How did the idea being paid for their Civil War memories shape the writing of them by Civil War veterans? -Megan Mc.

"Never had memory possessed such commercial value in America." What do you think of this quote? Is remembrance of the civil war the most commercial American memory?- Aaskins

The theme of the 1880s-90s is soldierly reconciliation, but black veterans are either excluded or segregated.  Why would the Union veteran groups become increasingly exclusive to blacks?- Aaskins

Is the Lee monument in Richmond inappropriate?  As Blight points out, it is hard to interpret African American reaction to the monument, so does that make the monument acceptable or even more inappropriate?- Aaskins

Why were Civil War soldiers more willing to talk about their war experiences than veteran of more recent war like World War I and II, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars? Not only were they willing but enthusiastic about the prospect. Do you think that they would be more willing to talk about the horrors of the war if the thought people wanted to here about it? Logan T

Veterans concern with the passing on of "soldiers' virtues" and the promoting of manly sports that accompanied that concern in Henry Lee Higginson's dedication of the "soldiers field" to Harvard was an interesting topic in this chapter. It represents again the belief that the U.S. was slipping away from the Romantic golden days of noble society and the virtues that went along with it but also showed the respect and desire to retain those virtues that people still held. - AJ L.

The stories of the prison camps were approached very carefully, but did become part of the national memory. Why did people feel it was so important to include these, despite the challenge they often posed to attempts at reconciliation and the glorification of the war? -GStan.