Civil War Seminar Professor Warder May 26Th, 2021
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The Politicization of Civil War Memory Richard J. Kipphut HIST-495-01: Civil War Seminar Professor Warder May 26th, 2021 2 Introduction The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.1 Civil War monuments and memorials are tangible symbols that represent the loss a divided nation suffered through the political turmoil that arose between the Union and the Confederacy during the war. These symbols help to connect the past to the present that assist in conveying the meaning of a collective historic memory, though brief in nature as these tributes tend to be. Created during a time of immense anguish and sorrow, they helped to diminish the inconsolable bereavement that accompanies death and erected throughout cities and towns after the war. For future generations, the loss of the historic significance of these monuments tend to fad the further removed they become from the events that occasioned their construction. Lost, are the heroic deeds that produced these memorial artifacts. Yet memorial art, seen through the aesthetic lens, perpetuates the ethos of the culture by keeping the heroic memory alive through their physical imagery. As a result, war monuments guided by memory, were instrumental in shifting the country’s political posture away from a pre-war iconoclasm belief that government, and by extension the military, were restrictive of civil liberties and not worthy of active consideration. This shift created a greater patriotic acceptance that a liberal government was far more 1 “First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln,” March 4, 1861. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp 3 beneficial to the political health and welfare of a representative democracy through effectual participation. In many ways, Civil War monuments and memorials are political statements, and not merely emblems to the dead. Their raison d’être are largely shaped by their connection to other actors,2 not just the families of the fallen. As Antoine Prost states, “exemplary scholarship on war memorials has combined analysis of sponsors’ identities and fund-raising strategies, the location selected for a work, its design and inscriptions, and the long-term uses of the memorial space”3can direct political discourse among the participants. The design and inscription were also, by all accounts the area where heated contention was the most severe, for it held the greatest significance to its sponsors and the community. Would the future monument recognize the citizen-soldier, the military commander, or the solemn victory?4 Each city or town had to choose its own political path. After the war, monuments became a cottage industry with trade journals listing a variety of choices. Some were of the lone soldier, while others incorporated allegory figures with soldiers and sailors standing guard along the periphery; and which monument or statue a city or town selected, reviled to some degree their political affiliation. There were a host of sculptors who were vying for recognition among the various clientele who were in the market for 2 Individuals, civic organizations, or stack holders who have an emotion connection to the events. 3 Antoine Prost, “Monuments to the Dead.” Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past 3, no. 2 (1997): 307–32. 4 Thomas J. Brown. Civil War Monuments and the Militarization of America. (The University of North Carolina Press, 2019), 7-9. 4 monuments, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, James Batterson, Martin Milmore, Daniel Chester French, Randolph Rogers, and Casper Buberl to name a few. Of all the monuments that were available for sale, a large majority of New Hampshire cities and towns selected the lone citizen- soldier to best represent the ideals that each monument committee were attempting to convey to the population at large. Another interesting element in the committee’s selection is whether the citizen-soldier was a sentinel, with his rifle at the ready, or at parade rest, with the butt of the rifle at his feet. What does this say about the committee? Was it an aesthetic or a political choice?5 Though there were other factors at work that contributed to the political shift within the country after the war, the commemoration of Civil War monuments played an important role. Society began to recognize that the sacrifice these soldiers gave to the public good was a value that was worthy of a social commitment to the ideals that these monuments represented.6 Yet, do theses memorials represent us, or are they somehow foreign to our social understanding of the events that unfolded during these conflicts? Are there other social forces at work that make us question how we view social upheaval in the abstract; or are we exempt from the shifting societal assumptions that thrust us forward with the passage of time? We are inclined to believe that New Hampshire is in some way immune from the shifting attitudes of Civil War memorials that is currently consuming the Southern States because with victory comes political privilege. Still, we must not beguile ourselves with false praise, for there are always hidden influences at work that can dismantle even the most ardent 5 Thomas J. Brown. The Public Art of Civil War Commemoration: A Brief History with Documents. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004), 24. 6 Brown, 37. 5 harbor of convictions held deep within our collective consciousness, only to be untethered from its protected mooring of complacency on the journey to social awareness. Societal norms and mores must operate within a limited and fixed structure for there to be any shared understanding of their role in guiding and directing social convention of a given society. In essence, norms and mores direct how citizens interact with one another, and to a larger degree, determine which social principals require allegiance to a social structure that must maintain control; since without these standards of decorum, appropriateness, and leadership mechanisms, our system of behavior would cease to exist in its present form. Polite society gets its cues, not just from social interaction, but also from collective memory. Thus, memory becomes the linchpin that connects our historic understand of which social conventions must take precedence when determining the proper response and sentiment within a judicial public display, be it the act of morning or the act of commemoration, they each follow a predetermined avenue of conduct; and memory is the driving force behind this communal behavior. War Memorials as Political Memories War memorials acquire their landscape definition from sentiment, utility, social purpose, and historical interpretations. Social purpose of identity and service can be used to express sacred and nonsacred sentiment for war memory, but honor and humanitarianism are used only to symbolize the sacred in memorials.7 7 James M. Mayo, “War Memorials as Political Memory.” Geographical Review 78, no. 1 (January 1988): 62 https://www.jstor.org/stable/214306. 6 War memorials reside within the sphere of a social, cultural, and political landscape. Their very existence predicated upon the understanding of its citizen that the memorial is a larger reflection of their belief in the social legitimacy of the struggle or sacrifice that brought about its inception. One cannot, at least within a limited sense, commemorate a cause that is deemed illegitimate with any wanton fervor that is essential to the reverence of a war memorial within the hearts of its citizens. There must be a pact between parties of the honor offered to further the commemoration of the memorial in question. Remembrance is not just merely a thought process recalling information, but rather a vehicle for providing the needs of the present. Without which, commemoration would not be possible. The social compact within the community prior to the erection of a given memorial requires that the sacred and the utility merge within a moral and spiritual sentimental framework, thereby giving it value. Though the scared and hallow are more immediately evident, the utilitarian aspect can be somewhat illusive. The utility of these memorials tends to reside in non-traditional structures such as schools or hospitals, where sacred and utility merge more readily, yet there are critics, most notably veteran groups, which say they diminish the dignity of the dead by anointing a pedestrian structure with such reverence. Though communities have a shared interest, the financial sponsorship of a non-traditional memorial dictates the allocation of funds, and to what project.8 Prior to planning, funding, designing, and erecting a war memorial, communities must answer a host of questions related to the structure they intend to create. What is the assigned meaning to the memorial? Will it be a singular or a collective memorial? What value, spiritual 8 Mayo, 14 7 or utilitarian? Within a “sense of place”, where will the memorial reside within the landscape? What historical interpretations will it convey?9 The Lineage of Commemoration Figure 1.10 With many northern soldiers interred within national cemeteries, monument production flourished after the war as cities and towns endeavored to pay respect to their native sons who perished in the conflict. The longing by wives and mothers to establish a tangible symbol of 9 John Brinkerhoff Jackson. Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 54. 10 New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery, Boscawen, NH 8 their husband and son’s sacrifice created a surge in war monuments throughout the north. Though the number of new monument construction fluctuated between the 1860s to the 20th century, their construction nevertheless remained firm as communities sought to acknowledge their own contribution to the war effort.11 Also contributing to these memorials by local political leaders and civic groups were the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) and the WRC (Women’s Relief Corps).