In the 1920s, Confederate groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were pushing forward schemes to memorialize the Confederate cause. These efforts were met with strong opposition both from African Americans and from the families of Union veterans who feared that a Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War was taking hold. The records of the Union groups’ opposition are today preserved in the pages of “Confederate heritage” groups that reprinted them in their own publications to stoke their own outrage machine.
The language used in the two Unionist resolutions reprinted here show that at least a portion of the U.S. population was not buying what the Lost Cause was selling. The first condemns the efforts by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to turn the home of Robert E. Lee into a Lost Cause shrine. The second, from the Daughters of Union Veterans, condemns the effort to turn Stone Mountain, the birthplace of the Second Klan, into a government-supported sacred ground commemorating the Confederate leaders in stone. Today, of course, efforts are underway to dial back the corrosive power of this “Confederate Disneyland” to distort history.
Notice that both Unionist resolutions deny that the “Confederacy” even existed. It is a mark of the success of the Lost Cause’s teaching power that these denunciations would have seemed strange to a reader just a decade ago. The Stone Mountain resolution also strongly condemns the flying of the “Confederate Flag.”
These are excerpts from the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ 1926 Year Book. reprinting the Grand Army of the Republic
Through what (proper) venues are paper copies of these minutes for sale?
I posted a link to the online copy. I am not aware of paper copies being available outside of research libraries and archives.
The arguments of George Thomas, American hero though he was, above present an archetype of the methodology ‘mechanism’ of the False Story tenet of the American Civil War/War Between the States historiography, (the roots of the False Story lie in the formation of what Howard K. Beale articulated as the ‘Devil Theory’ of the war in his 1946 essay, “What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War.”)
The False Story school embodies what Patricia Grimshaw herself articulated as, ‘The Circle in the Sand’, (see her article, ‘The Fabrication of a Benign Colonisation?’, Melbourne Historical Journal, 31, 2003); ‘[to draw] a circle in the sand and attempted to convince the reader away from thinking or questioning outside of it.’
The False Story presents a cogent argument, provided that only very certain and limited number pieces of evidence are engaged with and only supposing very specific questions are applied to it. This is to pre-set the determination of ‘loading’ the reader to come to a pre-determined conclusion and often that resulting from an emotional reaction, not a critical reflection, and most often, this being a moral assertion, not a historical argument, propaganda rather than historical works.
In other words, the False Story engages in dishonesty by omission; it deliberately seeks to limit the evidence, questions and arguments that may well challenge its’ thesis, in part or in whole, whereas, explicit acknowledgement and grappling with these omitted evidences/questions/etc, could well change or challenge its tenets/arguments, etc, in part or in whole.
The strongest historical arguments/works/etc, can explicitly demonstrate that they have engaged the widest possible scope of evidence that is possible and put to it the higher, not lower, number of questions, and at least their main arguments have remained largely intact. Examples of this type of high-calibre methodology would include, ‘The Lincoln Nobody Knows’, by Richard N. Current; ‘The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the Early Colony, 1788-1817’, by Stephen Gapps; ‘The Secret Army & The Premier’, by Andrew Moore; or the documentary, ‘Get Collins: The Intelligence War in Dublin During the War of Independence’.
Thomas’ comments above can at best be appealed in defense to the statement by William Philpott, that the historical participants of the First World War found it impossible to apply themselves’ in objective manner to understand the meaning of the conflict they had fought in, (********)
It may well be argued that these same comments of Thomas can be understood as, however emotionally embraced on the part of the ‘The Rock of Chickaumaga’, do not necessarily present a comprehensive view of all pertinent historical evidence on the matter.
Specifically, one must put that in citing Robert E. Lee’s actions as composing treason against the United States, Thomas, and the large False Story historiographical camp, can only put a cogent argument that Robert E. Lee committed treason, provided, the following pertinent evidences are never mentioned:
-During the War of 1812, when the United States of America was fighting a war of national self-preservation; a foreign enemy was successfully invading American territory and occupying it and American citizens; killing US soldiers and sailors abroad and within American territory on land and sea; capturing and destroying the national capital of the USA and forcing its President and First Lady to flee for their very lives, the following actions occurred which met all prima facie legal elements for a case of treason against the United States to be put.
The political and cultural leaders of the New England states with held state troops from the American Army; they attempted to economically thwart the plans and ability of the US Government to finance the war effort; they held a secret vote upon whether or not to secede from the American Union, (that this was not carried successfully does not change the fact that in the very act of having said vote, they felt secession was a valid outcome to have come to); secession was openly advocated in the Mass. state legislature and Governor Strong attempted to convene a peace treaty for the state of Mass. alone, w/o permission or involvement of any kind from the federal government or other states.
If these actions can not be viewed as providing ‘aid and comfort’ to America’s enemy/ies, nothing can be.
-In the Nullification Crisis of 1833 in South Carolina, SC had publicly published materials contravening the ‘Aliens & Sedition Act’ from 1828-32. In the ensuing episode, SC openly armed/drilled, etc, its state militia to fight in open combat the US Army, should it be ordered to invade the state to enforce the federal tariff laws. SC made threat of open war upon the US federal government and any forces from any other state that should their demands not be met.
-In 1839, due to the territorial dispute between the state of Maine and the then-British colony of New Brunswick, the citizens of Maine took independent actions which brought a third conflict between American and the British Empire to the brink of occurring. Maine state forces had invaded a disputed territory and seized control of it from British/NB colonial forces, taken the military officer of the NB Governor into custody in a Maine prison. The British Parliament openly discussed this incident as the fomentation of hostilities. The Governor of Maine had argued the constitutional legality of Maine doing these actions to both President Van Buren and General Winfield Scott, (both latter of whom gave statements in support and against Maine’s actions), and on the floor of Congress, Maine’s reps argued that the fact their state was a state of the Union meant that it possessed all the inherent rights to sovereignty as the 13 which had created the Union which bound them. Thereby, they argued, Maine had the right to invade foreign territory, conquer this by force and add it to the boundaries of Maine w/o any need, political or constitutionally, to involve or inform the federal government.
That Maine’s actions would have necessarily ‘levied war upon the states’ of the American Union, and despite the explicit wording of the US Constitution that wars and affairs involving foreign governments belong explicitly to the federal government, meets all prima facie elements to be considered treason.
-Yet, with all three examples above, no persons ever faced any legal proceedings for treason of any kind, whatsoever. More than to a specific precedent, there had emerged in the approximate 50 years before the Civil War/War Between the States, an indisputable tradition wherein treason had not been set to actions of individuals/parties/states that had clearly infringed themselves into it. None ever faced any legal consequences of any kind for treason.
-For Thomas’ to cite Robert E. Lee as a traitor, he could only do so by ‘going quiet’ on the above very relevant legal and constitutional precedents and conventions. When these matters are explicitly considered in regards to Lee’s actions, (and by extension, to other Confederates), Thomas’ opinions can not be seen as a strong argument.
To attempt to do otherwise is to openly engage in nepotism, arbitrary, spurious and punitive argument to cement an Orwellian emotional nationalistic historical assertion.
-Thomas had no obligation of any kind to hide his emotional statements, and it is critical to openly engage with these as evidence of the historical situation. Yet, these can not not be seen as ‘absolutely answering the historical question/s’.
If no person, known to date in historical evidence, ever put the question to Thomas, ‘how could he argue that Lee was guilty of treason; yet ignore by ‘going quiet’ on the fact that three times, New England, South Carolina and Maine had all done the same, yet he didn’t pass the same public opinion about treason to these equally’, then it is the duty of contemporary historians to indeed grapple with these questions and evidences.
When this critical reflection process is applied, it is impossible to come to the conclusion Thomas argued so vehemently for.
Just a note: the document cited comes from the George Thomas Grand Army of the Republic Post, not from General Thomas himself.
Note: In above work, William Philpott has been contacted for the reference to his statement. The original interview with him which was on YouTube is no longer present.
Here is the link to his webpage: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/professor-william-philpott
[Accessed 13 February 2022].
Might I also add, that Gary Gallagher even would rebuke the Union groups for denying that the Confederacy ever even existed. He presents his opinions on this lecture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCLPb_bUjCE
[Accessed 13 February 2022].
There are a wide variety of opinions on issues of law like whether the Confederacy existed as a nation or country, whether those who participated in the Confederate cause were “citizens of the Confederacy,” whether they thereby gave up their United States citizenship as a result.
When I am old and have no other responsibilities, perhaps I will research these issues, but that is a task for a different decade.
Admin-
Thank you for the correction that the above documents refer to GAR veterans’ unit named in General Thomas’ honor and not to the General, personally. I did misread that, though, I feel it useful to mention that General Thomas himself did make statements very much in kilter with those of ibid GAR veterans’ unit. My arguments thereby carry.
Allow me to state that we agree that a wide scope of evidences/law/etc, certainly do exist that pertain to whether the Confederacy was a nation/country/etc, or not.
Allow me to further put that I have immense respect for the authorship and materials’ cited on this page. Please to keep up the fantastic work. It is recognized and appreciated.
Thank you