>> you can watch this program and others at any time by visiting our website. are watchingu american history tv, 48 hours of programming of american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter for information on our schedule of upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. announcer: next, author philip greenwalt talks about how at the end of the civil war, southerners grappled with the question of why the confederacy lost. he argues that many of their writings served as a foundation for the lost cause. the emerging civil war blog hosted this event. it is about 50 minutes. chris: the next gentleman who is coming up here is actually author of three books.

he started out writing about a subject near and dear to him, the 1864 campaign in the shenandoah valley. the book is called "bloody autumn." he followed that up with "hurricane from the heavens," and most recently, "calamity in carolina: the battles of bentonville." greenwalt started out as an intern. he has since joined the park service, has done a wonderful job with george washington's birthplace, where he was an interpreter for several years, but most recently, he has decided to go into alligator land and has bowed down at the everglades, where he has been for just a month or so. he is taking time to talk to us about a subject that eric introduced us to just moments ago, the the foundational document of the lost cause. phill is going to talk to us about where that goes and how that legacy remains with us

today. ladies and gentlemen, phill greenwalt. [applause] phillip: good morning. >> good morning. phillip: the good thing about the lost cause or remembering southern confederate history is that has not been in the public eye at all for the last few weeks, months. [laughter] i think i had to turn off my own social media account because i had to rewrite my introduction and conclusion 15, 20 times -- since yesterday. [laughter] but no, for me, the lost cause is an amazing cultural phenomenon that shaped our collective memory of one of the big turning points in american military, political, economic , social, da da da da da, history. but it started right here, april 9, 1865.

the gentleman that spoke before me -- i did not pay him to introduce my subject, but he did a great job. after robert e. lee meets here in the parlor of the mclean house, he issues his farewell address, and in it are the tidbits of what would become one of the mantras of the lost cause. he said "the army of northern virginia has been compelled to yield by overwhelming numbers and resources." later on, he commented and he said," but valor and devotion valor and devotion could not overcome the accent." these are tidbits that explain what happened, why they got to appomattox, 1861 to 1865, the causes of the war matriculated through.

in 1861, his favorite quip was that a confederate soldier marching off to war said he he could whip 10 yankees with a sick. 1865, he came back, asked what happens, and he said "the yankees did not fight with sticks." [laughter] so how could the confederates explain why they fought, what they fought for, or the reasons that they succumbed in 1865? the lost cause, though, stares us in the face in this general area. it is around us. have you ever walked fredericksburg battlefield? if you go to the prospect hill line, you go down and you see these markers, confederate trenches. you go a little farther up closer to where lafayette boulevard cuts in, and you see the absence of one of the two core commanders there at fredericksburg, james longstreet. you see the division line or you

see pickett. fredericksburg is founded in , part of the remembrance reconciliation, so long street had committed a few sins against confederate memory and chose names left off some of these markers. manassas national battlefield, the north called it will run -- -- it is formed, it is saved, preserved, initially called manassas confederate park. or have you gone to the site of lee's greatest victory? not where the north succumbed, where hooker's plan worked -- no, lee's greatest victory. the confederate general did his utmost and came within a hair

breath a few times to actually separating the country. go down i-95 and see stonewall jackson's shrine. do we have a grant shrine or a sherman shrine? we have a grant memorial, but you do not go by richmond, ohio and see the memorial to ulysses s. grant. before i start gathering even more angry responses, or objects being thrown from the front row here -- [laughter] [laughter] the talk is centered on the lost cause. we have to remember, though, that what happened in current affairs, what happens in popular culture today has a whole different meaning, and it has taken the story kernel truth and popped it into unmanageable popcorn. the united states confederacy would object of the confederacy being used in nonhistorical or nonrelated controlled ways.

one of their announcements in the 20th century announced that our flag is not to be used in connection with any political movements. certain demonstrations, some of political groups at times, the confederate flag or insignia or has been displayed with seeming disregard of its significance. with that said, how to explain, understand, how to remember the four bloodiest years in american military history? a gentleman i have studied a lost, a gentleman i view as a poor man's version of stonewall jackson, said that, shortly after the war, "we all know how hard it is to eradicate early impressions," so he encouraged ex-confederates to write about the war.

to get the message out, to get the truth, as robert e. lee said, "my only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth through posterity and through justice to our brave soldiers." this was a letter he wrote in november of 1865. the guns had barely gone silent when southerners of the former confederacy began looking for reason, looking for causes, and justifications for why the war went the way it did. how to explain how scenes went from this to this, or to explain how this euphoria in 1861 turned into this, one of the famous photos, the last few weeks of the war, these soldiers are captured from pickett's division in 1865. how do explain the 25% of killed, men who were

incapacitated, or scarred for the war. how that southern economy, southern civilians, the government of the confederacy pumped in $3 billion to fight the war, and in 1865, it was in shambles. 4 million slaves were freed. the economic and cultural, the social ramifications of one out of almost every three people in the southern confederacy, suddenly your labor force gone. your cities destroyed, cities destroyed -- atlanta, columbia, richmond. even in a way, southern manhood was questioned. why did we lose? how were we overcome? and what do we have to look forward to in the future? some decided the best way to move out, the best way to remember was literally to move.

you have communities now in montana called varina, named after varina davis. you have annexed confederate an ier -- the next can -- ex-confederate soldier who has done so much in his life that every time i study or feel like i am slacking, i think about this gentleman who fought in the civil war because he had connections in the carolinas. decided, you know what, that was an arduous service enough, i am going to have a cross-country. you know what, the rocky mountains do not seem challenging. i will traverse them, and then i will get away from yankeedom in western oregon, where he died in the 1870's. amazing life just to escape what was here in the east. this gentleman, though, is one of first coined the lost cause. edward pollard.

he was in charge of two newspapers in richmond, virginia during the war, and in 1864, he tried to head north, but he was captured by privateers in the navy, and he spent time in fort warren up in boston, massachusetts. pro confederate, anti-jefferson davis, he would write that it is time for the southerners to front on the sword, -- throwdown the sword, take up the weapons of arguments, and the creation of moral societies. as the confederates lost the war, they transitioned into writing. today, if you go on amazon, there are over 5000 books that amazon holds on the civil war. the director of the museum of the confederacy said there is an average of 1.1 books per day written on the civil war since the civil war ended. [laughter] it here, we have:

probably read a collective almost every one of them. what has happened, though, is this phenomenon of lost cause has taken roots. what are the tenants of the lost cause? well, this gentleman here, jubal anderson early, played a part. southern generals -- lee, -- we have to throw in someone from the west, so let's throw in albert johnson. they were worthy of emulation. lee was akin to maybe god-like status. stonewall jackson was a legend even before he dies. how many other generals in american history, maybe, say, george washington, were known and followed and recognized and perceived as greatness before they passed on or before the war was over? northern superior manpower, industry won the war. rhode island made more weapons

per year than the whole weapons made in the confederacy. easy to pinpoint manpower and industry. the south defended states rights, the rights from the revolution. they fought in the second revolution. major tenets -- slavery, not as -- harsh asayed portrayed, put a more bucolic scene on it. and the confederate ideal and the ideal self and the reason that the war was initiated. lost cause also builds on the causes of fighting the war in the first place. southerners were the heirs of the spirit of 1776, standing up to the aggressor, standing up to the northern aggressors, the abolitionist movement, the republican party. still, the prewar unaligned sentiments.

most southern states were ready to resist and defend the rights like theazards, much patriarch party in the colonies of 1775 and 1776. even the "richmond dispatch" in 1864 -- much like lincoln's aim, this is the war of subjugation. this fit nicely as the defeated confederates tried to make sense of their loss. one of the great diaries we have says the cause of the revolution, the forefathers rebelled, and so have we. all of this plays out toward nostalgia, the southern way of life, even depicted in scenes from "gone with the wind," was mentioned last night, from 1939. the lady who played melanie

supposedly did not know the south had lost the war. that scene of the plantation life gave the lands to which the confederates had defeat. the sorrow of destruction brought by the war. they wanted to sustain as much as possible what life was like prewar, but ignore components that did not fit into this nice, category all -- categorical remembrance, the cornerstone speech of alexander stephenson not quite fit in. some of the jefferson davis quotes as senator of mississippi in the senate did not quite fit in. jubal early took control in the late 1860's, early 1870's, the southern historical society papers. one of the gentlemen, a famous artillerist on the war, summed up how important jubal early was to the remembrance movement to

writing about confederate history, saying that long as the old war hero, jubal early, lived no man took up a pen to write a line about the great conflict without the fear of jubal early before his eyes. [laughter] jubal early -- i mean it is fitting. jubal early was the only man who had the privilege to curse in front of robert e. lee, so you -- he might as well stand up and direct some of the commiseration of the war. the ucb called early a "forceful and truthful" writer of history. thomas connolly, a famous "therian, called early the driving force before the first lee cult." and perhaps the most influential figure in early southern writing. jubal anderson early, who ended the war at home because of his

inability to defend the shenandoah valley, the gentleman who left and went to mexico because he could not envision living in the united states, the one who ended up in canada with john breckenridge, who looked across at the united states flag and said he still feels like he could go fight, pillage, and destroy, he returns, though, to lead this movement. and the root of the lost cause for him, he said clearly "lost nearly everything but honor, and that should be religiously guarded." southern historical society papers also became a voice for the ex-confederates. one of them wrote origins of the late war by robert m. t. hunter. relative strength of the armies of lee and grant.

written by jubal early. jubal early also rushes to print in 1866 has ruminants as of the last year of the civil war, a great overview account of and -- a few of my fellow historians have different feelings of pope sheridan, what he was coming out with at the time. two of the components were robert e. lee, stonewall jackson. when robert e. lee died in 1870, the elevation of him. what people did not realize is that one gentleman whose star fell was james longstreet with the elevation of robert e. lee , because a lot of the writings in the formation of lost cause second court

jackson or second court leaders. they do not understand that the economy between robert e. lee and james longstreet. when they were core commanders in 1862 and early 1863, lee went with longstreet. lee and longstreet argued. leeann long street -- lee and long street debated. this was unfathomable because when lee gave jackson orders, jackson went off and followed. when jackson told you where you are going -- [laughter] phillip: you followed. there is a reason lee went with longstreet. longstreet lost a few children to this disease. he liked to gamble, he liked to joke, he was a fun, jovial guy. he had staff offers -- officers who liked to joke. jackson, though, you could probably hear a pin drop at his headquarters.

his chief of staff, his father, all staunch episcopalians. that direction. but of course longstreet had the , nerve to say that lee is partly to blame for gettysburg. he also had the nerve to take a republican position as a port collector in new orleans. and he also had the audacity to kind of write what he remembered , and unfortunately adding fuel to the fire. so james longstreet, by 1927, as one of the first photos showed, is written out of the remembrance. he is not even included in some of these ceremonies in richmond, virginia. these two gentlemen unknowingly also helped form the lost cause. grant's plan to strike at many points simultaneously in 1864 kind of played into the collective memory of the lost

cause and what they are trying to perpetuate. the union army used what advantages they had, but the only reason they used that advantage is they had more men, so they could fight at different points along the way. they could try to use overwhelming industry and man power to strike at the confederacy simultaneously. grant would write that the resources of the enemy and his numerical strength was inferior to us, an obvious statement to make, but also played directly into the hands of what jubal early and the lost cause was trying to perpetuate, saying that we fought the good fight, but in the end, overwhelming numbers and industry suppress -- suppressed us. that plays into charles rangel right. ainwright.les w

he said, "as it is, the rebellion has one out rather than been suppressed." he wrote that shortly after appomattox. that is an interesting quote. "worn out rather than suppressed." lincoln wrote multiple times during the war, "put in all your men at the next engagement." he understood that if you have the numerical strength, use it. these played into what the lost cause is trying to perpetuate, that it was a manpower issue. but did they know that in 1861? were they trying to obscure the fact of those four years of what the war initially started? few other modern historians, david bryce, said conservative traditions by which the entire country could guard itself

against racial, political, and industrial disorder, is why the lost cause has filtered and strengthened throughout the years. it also helped in the remembrance, the failure of reconstruction, but the remembrance, the happy reunion, the great pictures of union and confederate veterans shaking at the wall. it also, one drawback, muted the voice, the role, of what african-americans played in the conflict. all these tenets have come into our cultural being, have added to our remembrance of these four years of the civil war. we now have still today memberships, united daughters of the confederacy that are high, memberships in the united confederate veterans.

you also have literature abounding on robert e. lee, you have literature abounding on stonewall jackson. the only equivalent in the northern camp might be abraham lincoln. are there any, though, i have spent the last 25 minutes, 30 minutes expounding lost cause -- are there any truths to this perpetuation to this remembrance of the southern confederacy? you could say that lee and his men did fight under adverse conditions in terms of manpower and as the war progressed. one of the famous quotes is the repeating sharps carbine that the union could load on sunday and unload the rest of the week, and how unfair was that? seven shots compared to one. this many fights on the personal

level for the institution of slavery -- no. there are myriad reasons why our ancestors fought for the southern confederacy. there are a myriad of reasons why they continue to persevere, there are a myriad of reasons why they survived around petersburg. there is a reason why all the -- on the march, even to appomattox, when things looked destitute, there are still thousands that were willing to follow robert e. lee. there are things we can take from robert e. lee to study. his stoicness. he understood. he was one of the first modern military leaders that we had. he understood the enemy, he understood his own subordinates , for the most part. now, gettysburg, maybe he thought richard ewell was a little more like stonewall

jackson. not opening that can of worms, though. did the lost cause due to early confederates? it filled a gap, a yearning. god has to be on our side. god is also on the other side. but why did the four years of war angle the way it did? why did the four years of war lead to our cities being destroyed, lead to now estimates over 300,000 confederate calvaries. -- casualties. another 32,000 confederates who would die within a year or two after the war of wounds received during the conflict. why did we lose? it is a great question. it is a question that we still, according to facebook, according to cnn, according to fox news,

whatever news outlet. still the defining moment, why we continue to understand what happened in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865. recently, a great historian who has written great books on the battlefield we are standing on now, on the campaign in 1864. gordon was asked -- how do you explain what had happened when one dastardly act in charleston passed? he said, what do you view on the flag? what do you view on the causes of why people commemorate their ancestors who thought and the -- who fought in the southern confederacy? how do you reconcile that the southern confederacy was perpetuated on the cornerstone of alexander stephenson's speech that said the cornerstone of

confederacy is slavery? he said you can go a little deeper, from the macro to the micro, is that a host of reasons motivated southerners of the civil war era to become soldiers. they included concepts of duty, of honor, even of manhood, but by joining the confederate war machine, all of them, irrespective of their personal motivation, advance their nation's political agenda, which was the perpetuation and territorial expansion of human bondage. interesting. the quote resonated because working here at fredericksburg battlefield, you are getting started of how and why to remember, people want to come and walk in the same footsteps, commemorate why my ancestors joined up, but at the same time trying to combat what we know

now in 2006 compared to 1862 or even 1866. the lost cause put into the concept of how to reconcile 1865 may not look as well now in 2015, but we need to continue to study, because the lost cause is a major component of american cultural, political history. it also needs to be understood as just one view, one view only of the american civil war. so simply put, how do we define what is the lost cause? it is a cultural movement dominated regionally in which the aim is to reconcile traditional white antebellum or prewar society equal to defeat of the confederate states of america. why did it persist? why does it still persist?

the reconciliation undertone. accepted as the easiest way to reconcile the north and south factions. alan nolan, who has done extensive work on the iron brigade, extensive work on leave he said, a facilitated reunion, a sign of respect and living northerners, the lost cause became publishers in a white man's phenomenon as the price of reunion into the united states. one of the pictures that has permeated the background -- and i'm not sure if you have noticed i have kind of covered it up, but as ucd soldier in the back,

it is a painting, labeled the lost cause. there it is. still learning how to use the quicker here. -- clicker here. it depicts what came, what greeted southern soldiers. i thought this painting was very relevant to the lost cause mythology. signifies four years of struggle. it signifies what faced confederate soldiers when they returned home. , why the past,re and how to explain how to understandd how to four years of warfare in the united states.

molly started writing in the bloody autumn book four years ago, time starts to fly. back some ofo peel what early road after the war. but it was something that eventsed, even current can try to go back to the speeches of 1865, 1875. it was one of those things that interested me for years, because it is unknowingly shaped so much of my academic and my professional career as a park ranger. time, it isthe same amazing to me that we have so many people still interested, so

many views of why the south lost to the war. cause, does it have value? and how to commemorate what is the most defining moment of the american military history. i leave you with one last quote. talk is to keep the lost cause into our defining the collection of the civil war. 20thlso to try to avoid century mindset put on and how years of years of historians trying to grapple with this topic, how did the south lose? with that, i would like to thank everyone for coming out to the second symposium. i like to open the floor for questions. if you want to throw something. [laughter]

>> that picture shows a man who did not own any place slaves. -- slaves. i assume he did not sit on the juleps.sipping he had a different reason to be. what was it, what from the mountains, the guy who did not have a plantation, the person who maybe was a marginal farmer, and yet he fought? what was in his brain, what made him do that? phillip: great question. reasons whymyriad average confederates, average southerners who did not own slaves, fought for the confederacy. you have reasons of protecting

home and heart. protecting their way of life. one confederate soldier was captured in -- picking berries, why are you fighting, because you guys are down here was the quote. but if you look at states rights or the reason why the union were invading, that's why i'm fighting, or even looking at war policy initially. it is only a few hot has -- kick the 11 states out of the union. permeated things that through southern society is that this gentleman may not have owned slaves, but he also knew with the institution of slavery, he will not ever be on the bottom rung of the south. there is always someone below him. that was a message. thehave the chance to reach

top, you are never going to be at the bottom. that could have been effective. others joined because it was the greatest adventure of their life. you go to war, the whole community is going, you have the pressure or stigma of being the man who does not go to war. when i think about what you just said, i will say one thing. americans don't like to lose. having said that, i would like to have you comment about -- i read aman and biography about him years ago. he was kind of a big player in this. early lived down the street from him. have you read anything about

this, and what would the your comment? is he a player in perpetuating the lost cause. , onen two pulitzer prizes for washington and london for the lead papers. douglas southall he is a great historian and admirer, hero worshiper of washington lee. you have to take both of those into it. you have to look at some of the markers he helped write around richmond, virginia that became copied throughout virginia. he wrote the basis of them in the 1920's. douglas freeman did look at lee's attributes in a positive light. he said, look how many casualties he caused to the north,, he held out. you takeso said when

those numbers, what is the percentage he lost compared to grant. douglas freeman, his washington book, lee books are amazing part of the history. they are also it -- written in a certain direction, and written -- andy who admired sometimes you need to step back and be a little more objective. did he do a great job of writing? thousands of people have read the washington life, one of the georgee made me read at washington's birthplace when i started there. they figured if you can get through that but you can read any other book. he's a great historian.

>> most of the time when we talk about the war, and is into that somatic --. but we never continue the threat on reconstruction or the military occupation of the confederacy. i would ask, as you look at the writings of jubal early, he's writing it when the south is still militarily occupied, does that play into the writings and thinking, to bring that to a conclusion and propelled the lost cause? the last thing you want to do once you lose is the occupied. of yourt want that part egos, so to speak. phillip: it does. lots of confederates, that specter of northern occupation loomed.

you also understand, why did i ,ive up four years of my life .hat happened it was got against us. valor orion your on devotion. what was it, was it someone else. we also had the north occupying, how quickly can we end this. you do have a loss of control of the political machine these reconstructive governments. stateve the whole counties. 16 whole other state. there is that specter. into, as thee you havection ends,

the industry of the united states picking up and you have a question of manhood. and greater stories of the spanish-american war. goingndustry american was -- america was going through a revolution. this is one boys and men had honor, devotion. , the united that states stepping up to the world seen a little bit. flexing its muscles and saying you still have a military prowess. to help remember the forefathers of the 1860's and why we are occupied through 1877. progresses america into the 20th century. >> this is getting back to why men fund the civil war. and the big turnouts in the beginning. my great great grandfather was a in north carolina.

cap law andted and order. they fought the yankees when they raided inland. gettysburg, he was placed in the army of northern virginia and the 27th north carolina at age 20 -- 38. he was drafted. blended the south institute at draft and how did that compared to when the north did? i know they were drafted riots in the north because they saw a casualty figures and people did not want to participate. when did that come about? phillip: the confederacy past action -- they passed the conscription law. it has different amendments throughout the next two or three years. what is amended -- amazing is through volunteering construction, the confederacy puts in close to a million men

into arms. figure. an astronomical the problem is when you take most of the men and put them into the military, what happens to the industry, infrastructure, what happens to anything else? removeancipation, you that labor force. they start to crack the foundations in that way. 61, and that is something, why did men fight or join up? we have great quotes from george patton, who said you cannot find patriotism in a foxhole. colorful quotes about why men fight. confederacy has that in 1861 because of a myriad of decisions -- had that act because the war was going to last longer.

the north had to do it also. they shut down recruiting offices because they felt like the war was going to end shortly. you have substituted and then expansion into junior and senior reserves, especially in north carolina. they are scripting everyone from 16 to 55 or 60. >> one more question. we can look at the lost cause now as a selective interpretation, even distortion of history, for the purpose of getting a handle on the present of the people who invented the lost cause, and even to control the present to reconcile the past. we can even see that happening now, maybe in a different way

there is a strong line of thought these days, it seems, of not a lost cause but maybe an is acause, in which there selective reinterpretation, or distortion of history to try to really just wipe out certain memories of the south and the past and what it stood for. again for the purpose of controlling the present. i think when we are dealing with that, we can kind of compared two. we historians sin the middle, because we try to look at things realistically and objectively and look at it from the if of the people at the time, and say this is what they thought and felt, and this is how we should think about it. i just wanted to know what you thought about that. phillip: thank you for the comment and question.

on my professional experience as a park ranger and in my academic career, we have a tendency to look at history and everything fits into neat little but this -- boxes. and that we look at our own lives and it is messy and uncontrollable. lost cause gave us these little boxes to put the memory in. we struggle to talk about issues. not everyone is going to greet -- agree on the cause and that is what makes history so great. that is why we have these discussions and roundtables. as a park ranger, one of the things they taught me is that washington grew up with slavery. he was nursed by a slave, he was playing with children who were enslaved. but they tried to apologize is putting a 21st century mindset

on something we cannot understand because we have not lived there. years, ibo may think facebook was the really nation of american society. but we are in the middle of it -- people may think facebook was the ruination of society but we are in the middle of it. sotloff causes one way to look at that history, but you need to have audible ways. you have two or three resources and go to the end. but realized the people in 1865, 1875, even in the 20th century -- they were writing from their experience and also in the current environment they were living in. the study, you have to realize near it ours,es we can't see the future, we can only understand the present. the benefit is that history moves one way, so you don't have to worry about the train coming

backwards. you can remember the last station, but you are headed to the next station. an interesting and the lost cause as a public relations campaign. to general order number nine and the establishment of overwhelming , that was the foundational document of the lost cause, one of those lost cause icons set get there first with the most men. which sounds an awful lot like you need a lot of power. lee says in at way, so that selective choice of what you are choosing to remember and how really does shape the overall campaign. thank you so much for your insights today. [applause]

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