a providential cast. we can observe that all the various contending sides of the civil war, the union and confederate each believe that god blessed their cause and they were fighting a godly war. maybe we can compare and contrast the implications of providence on the part of say whites in the union army confederates and then african-americans. what is that providential view look like? prof. brundage: for white southerners, 1865 was a bitter pill to take. i have been telling themselves that it was a slave holders republican a providential mission. white southerners pivoted, particularly of certain denominations, episcopalians and presbyterians went all in on this great they pivoted and concluded that somehow they were god's chosen people. and god was chastening them, was punishing them for their hubris. their punishment still meant that he loved them beyond all others.

-- that is the one vindication i could not think of. but the way in which black ministers made sense of this, god had intervened in human affairs in 1861 and god had chosen abraham lincoln to do his work in 1862. that god's will was to transform the status of african-americans because they were his chosen people. now god had released them from bondage at there were great they -- great things in their future. one thing to keep in mind as we talk about the grim days of

reconstruction and grimmer days of the jim crow south, there is an optimism that god can't be doing this to us if he will put us back in a situation like slavery. there has to be a forward-looking progress to this and that is essential as to how african-americans are interpreting what happened after the civil war. prof. varon: that is the investment in the idea that they are a redeemer race that will redeem america from the sin of slavery, but also a deep investment in the union victory in the moment where they had proven irrevocably that they had earned citizenship and that providence favored the righteous in the war. prof. brundage: to pick up on something ed said about the global implications, you could carry this further in the idea that african-americans have this

providential role to play. it was not just america. it was world history. now, african-americans were going to lift up their brothers of color in africa and outside the united states. a kind of missionary impulse that we know about. you think about the white missionary impulse of the late 19th century to china and elsewhere. african-american star going to africa, especially south africa, and have a very important influence with this civilizing mission that they are going to bring the most modern christian values to people of color around the world. prof. glymph: i would like to mention as a counterpoint at the same time there was a very important -- religion and its import in terms of the war and emancipation, african-americans

were incensed on thinking about the secular component of what all this meant. if it meant to going to africa to help christianize the africans, on the other it meant taking hold in america of their political rights. unlike religion during slavery when all you could do was to pray to god and hope something happens, not you can pray and do something to make something happen. i think that was a very important distinction between slavery and freedom. prof. varon: we have talked in the context of the lost cause in memorialization, the construction of historical memory. let's turn to that topic for african-americans and particularly about commemorative traditions and how what the

scholars called an emancipationist memory of the were taking shape. the lost cause this not go uncontested. african-americans dispute everyone of those five tenets that kerry cheney outlined for us. how do they dispute them? through what means and vehicles did african-americans offer counter argument to that lost cause mythology and to the reconciliation of impulses itself? prof. gannon: i will speak about what i studied, the grand army of the republic being the largest veterans organization. one of the most important things i found was the role of the african-american host. just like av -- african-american post. just like a vw post. i found meeting minutes of an african-american post where they wrote exactly that that was their purpose, to remind people of what has happened in the civil war.

they were very direct about it. what they did is they would participate in memorial day. july 4, large parades, any kind of event possible. they would name their posts after great heroes, whether they were white like robert shaw or a lesser-known person like joel bend. they would have lectures. they saw themselves of living reminders that they had fought in a war for their own freedom. it was a twofold thing. what i found surprising was that they were the center of the community idea. they had women's groups associated with them or part of a larger organization called women's relief corps and ladies of the grand army republic. these were organizations with white and black members and they were very key to these commemorations, whether they be memorial day or a man's nation

day. whether they be black or interracial. they were key players. they worked with the churches and they would have memorial day celebrations there, where the ministers would give sermons about the african-american civil war experience, which is not only about slavery, but their own actions. african-americans are really very active. prof. varon: let's talk about that concept -- go ahead. prof. glymph: i want to say that it is not only that you have congregations and member congregations in savanna that would host these commemorative events. there were black women in arkansas who would go three miles into the wood to hold meetings. black woman all of the south

were decorating union graves. it is also the content of the administration. there is a case to be made for the african-american cause. to think about it in terms of a cause linked to the union cause and how african-americans postwar remembered the cause and what was the content of that remembrance. it does not consist of just gathering to have a party, but gathering where speeches are made that say explicitly, we helped to win the war. speeches that say explicitly the struggle is connected to struggles elsewhere, for example, in haiti. i think that was really central. we give a lot of credit to

northerners like dubois and douglass in terms of perpetuating african civil war memory. i think the credit rightly belongs to former slaves, that they were the chief witnesses to the war and also the chief witnesses to commemoration. prof. varon: you mentioned emancipation day. emancipation day was not exclusively january 1. there were many emancipation days celebrated across the south, signifying that it was a process and not a moment. april might was an emancipation -- april 9 was an emancipation day. there were a variety of emancipation days that served as occasions for printers and politicians and leaders to get up and remind people of that integral role in victory. prof. brundage: picking up on the performative tradition of african-american memory, one big difference that we can still see in the landscape of the present day is that african-americans were at an extreme disadvantage to ground their memory on the physical landscape for a variety of reasons.

african-americans had many, many calls upon their pocketbooks, to fund churches, schools, etc. you can imagine that building a monument would be comparatively lower on the list of activities and many small communities. -- in many small communities in the south. in addition to that, there were african-americans of the time that said let's not build monuments. let our churches and schools be our monuments. what's this -- what this means is that the african-american tradition tends to be celebration with these events which carry great meaning in the , community. a lot of people paid attention to these, particularly in texas,

but they did not leave, at least for us to see decades later a , century later, they did not leave anything on the landscape where you say oh, that is where the african-american community held emancipation day for 34 years. of course, we have the monuments in front of the courthouse is -- courthouses which are physical testaments to that lost cause memory. the point being that there is a contest and conversation between white and black memory in the south, but they are taking place in different forms almost necessarily. prof. varon: we see these commemorations in the north. there is evidence of african-americans sobered april 9, lee's surrender, as emancipation day into the 20th century.

we can maybe come back to reasons for that. i wanted to come back to veterans, to the point about african-american veterans and their commemorations. what about white union veterans? did they turn their back on african-american veterans? to what degree, and where were the limits of that alliance? prof. gannon: it is interesting. the limits are interesting, but in some ways understandable given everything we have said. one of the things that if you went to a gar meeting and there were african-americans there you would say they are our color comrades. a comrade is a special thing and they were comrades. they were colored comrades. in some ways, that is a mark of distinction, but i think it sets a limit. the grand army of the republic was the union army veterans organization. it was an honestly powerful and

large and a great honor to belong to. in the gar, africa and americans join. when i did my research, i found that black americans also belonged to posts with white americans, which is really -- i won't even say unusual. i would say unprecedented in the 19th century, particularly in such an honored organization. so i found instances where it was in the gar, they are comrades and the comrade is a central piece of their relationship. you and i suffered in the same union army. even if we did not fight in the same organization. you know how we emphasize that. veterans understood they marched, they were cold, they were sickened, the entire experience was pretty bad. so they embrace them as part of it because they were in the -- they wore the blue.

within their organization, the commander of the massachusetts grand army of the republic for african-americans, i mentioned robert penn was commander of his integrated post. that is not unusual. this is not unusual. i just said within the organization. to some extent, union veterans remember the war was about slavery very clearly. they remember that former slaves fought for their side. they remember they won the war in 1865 where the disconnect -- they won the war in 1865. where the disconnect comes is that people expect that in 1895, to go outside of their organization and change things in civil rights, or to continue to fight to realize full civil and political rights. that does not happen. they are very clear on freeing the slaves. they are very clear on this special status of the comrades. that does not extend to civil

-- two african-americans and general rights. prof. varon: all the observations about the centrality of the african-americans in the union victory, that they should be joining forces with them in the call for citizens rights and disenfranchisements and all of those of elements? prof. gannon: the word emancipation means you ended slavery. if they had a checklist, check end of slavery. that is what they thought. we have been talking about religion lately. what i found is they tied to emancipation very central, because in their minds they had redeemed the nation from the sin of slavery with their own blood. they had that redemption ideal. it was central because they were trying to deal with the fact they had lost so much in the civil war. they remembered freeing the

slaves. in fact, they even said, particularly in the army of the potomac, we are losing the war until the war became about freedom. god looked on our cause favorably only when we did that. they are aware of this. there is, we would like to see some connection, particularly in 1895. within the organization, they are comrades. this is what they might say. we are not going to boston unless they let our colored comrades stay in the hotel. they are fully aware that african-americans are kicked out of the hotel. the only people there going to force in are their comrades. they will not make you stand against that. this is very complicated. prof. varon: let's talk about frederick douglass. i think douglass is the person

we hold up who has done the most defend and define the emancipationist memory of the war. what is his role n.y.c. and why does he say there was a right side that we ought not to forget someone was on the moral high ground and we are forgetting it. let's talk about that. prof. brundage: i will take an initial step. i think there are two sides. we should understand that douglass was one of the great orators of the 19th century steeped in oratory of the 19th century and one of the great vehicles for the oratory in the 19th century was to scold your audience and tell them all the things they did not do right. if they started doing things

right, they could save themselves in the future would be wonderful. and i'm not trying to in any way diminish the magnitude of what douglass did. that was just the style of speech that he was particularly prone to give. he wanted to scold his audiences. you are not remembering hard enough. i think this goes back to something gary mentioned in the lost cause. white southerners at the turn of the 20th century are starting to crack the whip and say you young whippersnappers are not paying enough attention to our sacrifice. he was acutely aware of not only what was happening with the so-called retreat from reconstruction in the late 1870's, but also the general cultural power that started to be evident of the so-called lost cause. there were so many different

ways that he could have seen that beginning to emerge and certainly one of them was in the emergence of not only changing attitudes towards robert e lee but also changing attitudes towards jefferson davis. it is both how he chose to cast americans generally, but also changes on the landscape. prof. varon: do we give douglass too much centrality or does he deserve the centrality that he has as the premier spokesman for the emancipation memory? prof. glymph: i don't think we give him too much. i think he deserves credit for working really hard to first the runaway slaves, to tell a story, and during the war working hard to convince the government, then working hard to help recruit them, then working hard to convince lincoln that colorization was not the way to

go. and then working hard after the war to say there were some people, not only black people, but white people who said that treason had been committed, and it is not a word that we like to talk about in the context of the civil war. i agree with you that douglass did see on the ground in the 1870's evidence that this nation was reuniting on the basis of not treason or loyalty but as a hero. he foresaw that when he made his famous to her, he said we are all american and we were all heroes. history books said that the most important thing is to remember

that union soldiers were heroes and confederate soldiers were heroes. the story of heroism comes to occupy the central narrative as opposed to loyalty or disloyalty . it was massive when it came and it was embraced by southerners and northerners. there is nothing black people could do even if they had the resources to mount monuments. they did not have control over public space. they did not have the right to vote anymore. african-american memory is the most displaced memory. you can talk about union memory but the most fabled memory is the african-american memory. prof. varon: is the

african-american press able to play in important role in this? i would argue that it is. what is that role? prof. brundage: one further observation of frederick douglass. one thing for us to remember about douglass, but just periodically remind ourselves he occupied such a unique place. here was a man that was born a slave, runaway slave, who transformed himself into one of the great writers of the 19th century and certainly one of the great orators of the 19th century. it is not just the up from slavery story that is so remarkable about him, but that he had mastered the craft. oratory in the 19th century. that was one of the most prestigious expressions of citizenship and of power that he mastered that and could talk to the white man in the white man's

only which made him truly remarkable. -- white man's own language which made him truly remarkable. there was a profound sense that he was uniquely positioned to talk about these issues. there was no one else who could have done it the way he could. about black newspapers, black newspapers are essential, along with and we come back to black churches because they provided the spaces for black commemoration often. a safe space that african-americans controlled and in which they could talk about this robin mitchell interpretation of history appropriately. -- providential interpretation of history, appropriately. african-american newspapers could make it public not just for the african-american community, but for some white newspaper editors who would get copies of the black newspaper

and pay attention. they were intermediaries between these two memory communities. prof. varon: important newspapers, sometimes there is a direct connection between the important people and newspapers. one in philadelphia was very important. you mentioned the new york age/. prof. gannon: it was interesting because it was just new york, but they had subscribers all over the east coast. they would pick up stories and have correspondent letters. that view eb dubois -- w.e.b. dubois deliver that. they were players in civil war memory and the most remarkable one was the 1913 gettysburg reading. they have a totally different view. prof. varon: tell us about that reading and then about the take. prof. gannon: you have the 1913 reading. president wilson was a southerner.

everyone talks about he gives the speech and it seemed to be some key moment of reunion reconciliation. prof. varon: describing the heroes. prof. gannon: the blue union boys were all heroes. people said things like there were not any african-americans there and there was a tale of what the 1913 reunion was like. the newspaper covers it that way. they're all american heroes. they were all americans because that is the way americans are. they are heroes. they were trying to merge the confederates and u.s. military tradition together to prove that we are all americans, all heroes, and sort of embrace it. they were americans. that is the way we are. that was the thought process. they had this reunion. there is sort of this party line

. i read a lot of newspapers that covered it. the great heroes of this union were pickett's charge. not broke americans -- heroic americans in central pennsylvania. the new york age tried the central reunion to the current situation of african-americans jim crow and disenfranchisement. their view was about the national syndicate. they were talking about newspapers and business. they wanted business between the sections. that is why they wanted reunion. they were the ones for african-americans actions being there and the african-american veterans say a lot of the white veterans were not pleased with things like the rebel yell and the way confederates behaved. they were at the reunion, but they really weren't on board with the idea that it was a lovefest. really, they were very -- they

gave a totally different story. you would get none of this if you had read, as i read, "the washington post." "the new york age" had a different take. prof. varon: as powerful as the reconciliationist narrative was and lost cause narrative was there is a counter argument present and we shouldn't imagine it get swept away because it is never entirely swept away. we alluded to be divisions among african-americans and i'm picking up on the seams of david's book. we have been indebted to his paradigm as we talked about this. douglass is passed as the premier exponent of the expansion is married and dubois as this -- has this relationship

with booker t. washington. maybe what you would call an african-american version of reconciliationism. i know you have worked on booker t. washington. tell us how that rivalry shed light on this question of memory. prof. brundage: well, that's -- thank you for that question. [laughter] prof. varon: do you mean that sincerely? prof. brundage: yes and no. i almost don't know where to begin with that, except to say that dubois grew up in a different place, literally and metaphorically then did booker t. washington. dubois'l life as a marvelous line where he says booker t. washington had known the crack of the whip and dubois had not. this is a fundamental difference between the two men. i think the most important thing to keep in mind is this goes

back to something that gary mentioned earlier. really until the 1930's, the overwhelming majority of african-americans in the 1930's lived in the south. when booker t. washington was head of the testing he -- tusk eegee institute, he had to take into account the reality of alabama. he was running a state institution, although he had privatized it. he had to navigate in a different context then did dubois, who was for the most part an obscure academic -- i say obscure for most americans -- until he became affiliated with the crisis and the naacp after 1909. they occupy very different

positions. i think for washington, his story was one about what african-americans had done with their freedom. he wanted to emphasize african-american capacity. he did not want to emphasize obstacles or inefficiency to that. we can criticize all we want about those choices. if dubois had a phd, he had the finest education one could have had at that time. he had a much larger vision of the obstacles that he thought african-americans were facing. i really do think it is a case that they are speaking to different audiences and speaking pass each other in some ways. i'm confident that if booker t. washington had lived as long as the view eb dubois -- debbie eb to boy -- w.e.b. dubois, maybe

they would have said you are right. there was more common ground than either recognize that the time. prof. varon: that is an important point and we should think of and emancipationist and reconciliationist memory should not be thought of as opposite rate economy. washington williams tried to fuse those things and try to trumpet the important of the u.s. et but also to see that moment of union victory could a uger racial conciliation and they look at responses to embrace those magnanimous terms. they understood that that counterargument to a

long-standing anti-abolitionists argument. that was the argument you could not have emancipation because if you did, you would have been just an race war and social chaos. abolitionists have been saying for decades that you would have your first chance of harmony because slavery, not, is the source of vision. diffuse emancipation memories with peace and harmony, those are not necessarily agendas that are at odds. prof. brundage: let me offer one anecdote. i was thinking in savannah, there were a group of so-called -- african-american men meeting. in their circle, many of them affiliated with booker t. washington. many were also founders of the local chapter of the naacp when a chapter was opened in many of them were also supporters of marquise barbie's organization,

the pan africanist of the late late 19th century. we would see that as being a blue state-red state divide. these men were members sometimes of all three simultaneously. prof. varon: let's talk a little bit about, and it came up in the earlier panels, about this sesquicentennial as compared to the centennial celebrations as term as where things stand as far as our collective memory and the place of the emancipationist memory in the national consciousness. do we feel we have made a great deal of progress? do we feel there is a long way to go? if so, what do we need to know more about and learn more about and teach more about?

prof. glymph: i'm here and nobody has walked out. [laughter] [applause] none of my colleagues [inaudible] we have come quite a way since 1963. liz and uii and several other people here today, and i'm sure you have too but we have been invited to the programs, more civil war programs and i can count on my hands in the last five years. what i have noticed, while i can't compare the two because i

was not there in 1963 in person, but i do think there is a generosity of spirit. by that, i mean on all sides. more people are willing to listen and to hear facts that they can agree with an facts they can recall from, but you can recall some facts and be willing to consider it. i see an america that lincoln would have been thinking, that is when i talk about the core of memories. you are getting there. you're not quite there yet heard what i don't see -- quite there yet. what i don't see as we go around the country, i have not seen any significant increase in the number of black people attending

these events and i don't know why that is. i think it is something to think about. maybe it shows that still black people don't claim the war because what they could legitimately claim has been pushed back so far. that is my short answer to a very important question. prof. gannon: it's kind of like the centennial was so white. it was like the story of the one lakh representative who could not -- one black representative who could not stay in the hotel. you are going to have the civil rights act passed, but memory at that time was so dominated by the cold war, so dominated by the 20th century and our constant wars and the fact that america constructed this civil war memory of her works or the

-- of wrote southerners and northerners for no other purpose than part of this whole idea of what american history was. we always had american soldiers that were wrote, even when they fight each other -- that were heroic, even when they fight each other. we had wars in 20th century and you wanted a consensus. prof. glymph: if we wanted that, and we didn't want consensus and we were concerned about the international arena and the cold war, it seems to me that the better option would have been to include black people. one of the criticisms that america got when black soldiers went to europe in world war ii and they came back, what are we coming back to? enemies communist nation, they

said you have no right to say anything on the national front. look at your nation. we would have been in 1963 in a much better position to embrace you know, embrace black people in the celebration. i have heard the cold war argument. prof. gannon: i'm not saying you're not right. you would not have been wrong. we have created an all-white male space of shared heroism of the civil war and that has been built up over many decades of textbooks and historical scholarships and movies that he would take time to break. prof. varon: you are getting into a related issue, which is how we define history and civil war history. we have a much more expansive definition goes beyond generals and politicians and rank and file soldiers, the way we have

taken on the challenge of studying the home front and understanding the blurred lines between home front and battlefront is part of the story we tell about progress, wouldn't you think? prof. gannon: yeah. one of the things i think would be a way forward, what i have been struck by and it is not really my specialty, but what struck me is in the 20th century, there have been african-american civil war monuments that were a couple built. women were central to that. african-american women. i think we need to -- and i like to focus on the foot soldiers of civil war memory. i think that there was even into the 20th century a lot of people working on that. i think sometimes we have a triumphant narrative for the lost cause that ignores -- they got their movie "gone with the

wind," so they must have won. what were people thinking about? prof. varon: when you get back to things like emancipation day and putting statutes up, scholars have written about why that member to tradition fades. parts of the civil war could be a test case as to whether black citizens will get full rights. there is a sense that putting up statues and holding celebrations like emancipation day is quaint and old-fashioned. there are broader cultural shifts that factor into this. prof. brundage: i want to offer one, picking up on something. one measure of the difference between the centennial in the sesquicentennial -- some of you may have encountered edmund wilson's patriotic war.

wilson was the leading military scholar of the 20th century and he put a series of articles in "the new yorker" and they gathered together during the centennial as patriotic war. if you have a copy, look through it. who was the hero of patriotic or? -- patriotic war? we have heard a lot about asked in bragg -- braxton bragg. it is not him. it is alexander stevens, the vice president of the confederacy. why does edmund wilson? hold him up? because wilson saw him as one of the great spokespeople for an anti-leviathan worldview. someone was shouting against big government and bureaucracy. edmund wilson rights is truly glowing portrait of alexander stevens. at no point does he print the

fact that alexander stevens said that slavery was the cornerstone of the confederacy. if you look at the sesquicentennial at no point could you have gone through most of the major events associated with the sesquicentennial, certainly none in virginia as part of this commission, and not been reminded the centrality of slavery for the civil war and the centrality of experience for african-americans. that is a measure of enormous transformation in the way that we make sense of the civil war of african-americans' participation in it. i have not heard of anyone in recent years who has held up alexander stevens as someone was answers to contemporary problems. prof. varon: people wrote about the construction of the archive. we can think about an archive or library as it to go find the truth. archives have historically have

agendas and limitations and they had been constructed hundreds of years ago to make great historians sometimes kept out by segregation. one thing that has changed is we have reconstructed archives in this world of digital history. that only what we consider the stuff of history, but the access to it that will help us painted more inclusive picture have gone up exponentially. we have only a few seconds left. any closing comments? in that case, i think you all and invite you to submit questions, please, because we will convene back your shortly for a last round of q and a. thank you very much. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> next, more of our coverage from the some hosey him. the susquehanna -- from the symposium. >> prof. varon: we are going to have a half-hour question-and-answer session. we have questions from the audience. we will talk for a half an hour and we were adjourned for meet and greet and book signing. will talk for a half an hour and we were adjourned for meet and greet and book signing. i will get us signing. one e-mail asked what is the value of a former slave's former

perspectives? explain what wca interviews are. >> the works project administration came up with all manner of shall we say temporary occupations for unemployed americans. one of the things they try to do was provide opportunities for writers, historians. one of the tasks was to interview former slaves who were quite elderly about their experiences since slavery.

>> we have 2000 of these interviews. the reason people raise questions about their use, often times those being interviewed people who are quite elderly recalling the times before the civil war and their experience as enslaved people. sometimes they were being interviewed by people white people in the community, so these are mediated sources. on the other hand because they have 2000 plus, we can look in the responses for patterns. we see strong patterns. the fact that we can crosscheck them makes them a very rich source for recording the history of slavery. slave resistance. responses to events like appomattox, and the slaves

critique of slavery. >> you talked about the union cause and northern non-slaveholding states. what about the union cause and confederate states. how did unionists fair following appomattox? >> i was going to save the union cause of the southern states is largely a cause of african-americans in southern states who are in many cases pro union. we should call them unionists. there were a bunch of them injured virginia who decided they were going to be in virginia anymore. they started talking about 38 counties worth of them. they rounded up to an evening --

and even 50. there is a strong union's presence in western virginia. >> along the mountain range where agriculture doesn't take root so easily. pockets of unionism. even in those places we shouldn't assume all were unionists. they were a small minority, a minority that bloomed large for the confederacy and for the union the representative, the hope that white southerners might be co-opted and brought on board. and for the confederacy they they were a thorn in the side. the represented dissent. >> east tennessee had an active grand army of the republic. and did everything you would have in the north. you needed -- they had run out of southerners in that area. you needed a map to control the

public space. elsewhere, the grand army republic, it was african-americans who cap memorial day alive in many places. they were the ones when they couldn't get to it, they would decorate the national cemeteries. african-americans are very key. there are pockets. there have to be enough people to be able to command the public space quite -- space. >> there was a huge peace movement in north carolina. that was dampened down because of various reasons. one was a charismatic governor was able to attack emancipation and turn it around.

they were sick of the world are -- the war. you couldn't say they wouldn't have then happy to be back in the united states. we have to distinguish anti-administration. >> conditional unionists who like many slaveholders, who decided we are going to lose and who decided to come up for to the union side to allow them to trade and get their cotton and sugar out. there are many unionists who are southern planters. >> and they were very disappointed they were not rewarded and often times it was much more conditional.

>> there were unionists from states. there were probably ability 100,000 who fought during the war. >> let's segue. did the united states government unwillingness to take responsibility for repairing the confederate debt as they did for the union debt contribute to southern intransigence after the war? >> i would say no. the opposite. this was the responsibility southern people felt were there's. it might have been a problem for them. the great expression is the efforts between 1870 and 1870 34 southern states to reclaim the dead from gettysburg.

those are the only ones out of their reach. they have the concerns that sparked the national cemetery movement. well our brave graves be respected by the enemy? they employ the same physician selecting the union soldiers for the inclusion in the soldiers national cemetery at gettysburg. he kept his records. his son had inherited part of this as well. they collected 1800 remains from the battlefield. as late as the 1890's there is a wonderful passage. politicians after mckinley's inauguration and his very palpable effort to try to reach out and conciliate the south one of those objects of conciliation is maybe perhaps finally the federal government should take control and care for

the union -- confederate debt. there is a brief passage where it says i don't think a yankee headstone would fit my grave. thanks anyway. >> what effect if any do we think the spanish-american war had on bringing the country back together. then it says, i have a poster from the spanish-american war that belong to a civil war ancestor. it includes a patriotic soldier shaking hands. prof. gannon: when you look at the union cause, to preserve the union, they saw under arms together, who were reluctant to

embrace blue and gray. they saw the as the capstone of their victory that demonstrated they had been right, they had achieved what had to be achieved. they had created a united nation. they were clear on this. freeman who would be able to serve together and go on, a shining model and bring democracy to the world. it was through their service and sacrifice this had been accomplished. >> they trotted out former confederates and made them generals during the war. prof glymph: lee was the council to cuba before the war and was active in reconciliation efforts. it was a huge moment, a huge benchmark.

prof. gallagher: and a huge man. he was an actually very active in moving around very much. prof. waugh: he moved quickly when the maine exploded. prof varon: are there east-west differences? prof glymph: clearly. we tend to forget californians fought in the war. we tend to forget in 1862 joseph was getting ready to issue you a preliminary proclamation. he was signing and ordered. there was a war going on with native americans. the east was the tremendous effort on the part of the confederacy to line up native

americans, to join the confederacy. the civilized tribes to join in part. it is getting more and more attention, i think. prof. waugh: hundreds of thousands of x union veterans for example those who built the first transcontinental railroad from omaha to sacramento, they stayed -- who wouldn't want to stay in california? but also colorado. across the street from ucla is the veterans cemetery that started as a soldier's home in 1889. they estimate 11,000 union veterans are buried there. they are buried all throughout the cemetery.

prof. gallagher: >> there is a clear divide about how they fought. how long did that last? did that memory survive? prof. gannon: i did find a pattern. the thing is interesting, the eastern states, the ones that serve the army of the potomac remembered they had done well at all. they interpreted that into this we were going to do well until war became about slavery and god was on our side. there is a strain there. that isn't even address. they are clear on emancipation. they went so far to the south

and emancipated so many slaves. the interesting thing about easterners, in the beginning we lost. we lost him the front line. it was only when we cited -- decided to free the slaves god was on our side. there was a difference that had been in the army in the potomac and those that hadn't been. >> the eastern soldier thought the western soldiers didn't do much fighting. the eastern soldiers engage in one big bloody battle right after another. mainly the western soldiers walked around a lot. [laughter] and ended up in north carolina. prof varon: how about this

question. if wife's excepted black involvement, how did they square that with their willingness to support jim crow? if people know they were active in the jr -- ga are? prof. gannon: it was politically powerful. they saw their job is getting pensions to help veterans. they had been political in the first few years of their life. they actually disappeared for a few years. people credited it to that. they were careful to stay out of partisanship. their view was their organization was fraternity, charity, loyalty. that it was within their purview of what they would do. if they got involved with politics, they virtually disappeared in the 1870's.

did they occasionally fight? yes, occasionally. what they would stand up to his violence and lynching. they would rarely take it. that was outside of their organization. that didn't have anything -- that wasn't about the ga are. i found many prominent union veterans had been involved, did try to fight it outside. justice harlan who made the great dissent to the plessy was a union veteran. not within the organization itself wouldn't do it. part of that, it wasn't history. in some states the ga are disappeared in the 1870's. everyone said it was close -- because of their close political ties. a is said of we're not about politics. we are about -- it is about the pension. getting the veterans what they deserve. prof. ga