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Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and the Archetypes of American Masculinity

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Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and the Archetypes of American Masculinity Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 KNIGHTS, PURITANS, AND JESUS: ROBERT E. LEE, JEFFERSON DAVIS, STONEWALL JACKSON, AND THE ARCHETYPES OF AMERICAN MASCULINITY By Wilm Kirk Strawbridge A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Mississippi State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Department of History Mississippi State, Mississippi April 2011 Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 Copyright by Wilm Kirk Strawbridge 2011 Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 KNIGHTS, PURITANS, AND JESUS: ROBERT E. LEE, JEFFERSON DAVIS, STONEWALL JACKSON, AND THE ARCHETYPES OF AMERICAN MASCULINITY By Wilm Kirk Strawbridge Approved: __________________________________ __________________________________ Jason Phillips Anne Marshall Associate Professor of History Assistant Professor of History (Dissertation Director) (Committee Member) __________________________________ __________________________________ James Giesen William Hay Assistant Professor History Associate Professor of History (Committee Member) (Committee Member) __________________________________ __________________________________ Peter Messer Gary Myers Associate Professor of History Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences (Graduate Coordinator) Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 Name: Wilm Kirk Strawbridge Date of Degree: April 30, 2011 Institution: Mississippi State University Major Field: History Major Professor: Dr. Jason Phillips Title of Study: KNIGHTS, PURITANS, AND JESUS: ROBERT E. LEE, JEFFERSON DAVIS, STONEWALL JACKSON, AND THE ARCHETYPES OF AMERICAN MASCULINITY Pages in Study: 257 Candidate for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy I interpret Civil War romanticism by looking at well-known archetypal characters such as the knight, the Puritan, and the Christ figure. I argue that sectional reunion occurred, in part, because Americans shared a common celebration of the Christian/chivalrous hero expressed through stories about the lives and personalities of leading figures of the Civil War. Western traditions like Christianity and its medieval warrior code, chivalry, conditioned Americans to seek heroes who conformed to a certain pattern that resembled the knightly ideal. Chivalry did not crowd-out other forms of masculine behavior, but during the nineteenth century, the British century, Americans had not yet created a man in their own image. That would come later with the twentieth century’s most favored man: the cowboy. Americans created Robert E. Lee as a knight figure resembling Western heroes such as King Arthur. Unlike the more controversial Confederate notables Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, the Lee figure offered Americans the genteel, Christ-like, Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 hero who could be made to represent all of white America. Davis was too defiantly unreconstructed to ever affect much sectional agreement, and Jackson simply could not be made to fit the chivalrous pattern. Thus, Lee allowed southerners to identify themselves as uniquely chivalrous and honorable compared to the modern North. At the same time, the Lee figure provided northerners the opportunity to romanticize a charming, orderly, Old South while rejecting the violent, narrow-minded, states' rights South best symbolized by Davis. I prefer to interpret commentary about the Civil War as storytelling and do not use terms such as the Lost Cause or Civil War memory. High-ranking officers, the common solider, and those who never participated in the Civil War each told stories about it. Due to the large number of stories told, certain common themes became evident in American interpretations of the Civil War era. Common stories include: Lee at Appomattox, Jackson's unmerciful marches against Union forces, and Davis (almost) eluding capture dressed as a woman. Taken together the sub-stories reveal much about the grand narrative of the Civil War, and how Americans, though succeeding to a great extent, failed to completely reunite. Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 DEDICATION Thanks to a great mentor, Jason Phillips. I must also dedicate this work to Zac, Billy and Lynda Strawbridge, and to Jenny. ii Template Created By: Damen Peterson 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... ii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 2. KING ARTHUR REBORN: ROBERT E. LEE AND THE SOUTH ...................20 3. THE IDEAL SOUTHERNER: ROBERT E. LEE AND THE NORTH ...............58 4. JACKSON’S WAY: STONEWALL JACKSON AND THE SOUTH .................94 5. THE HERO IN TRANSITION: STONEWALL JACKSON AND THE NORTH ....................................................................................................128 6. TIME ON THE CROSS: JEFFERSON DAVIS AND THE SOUTH .................156 7. THE TYRANT-KING: JEFFERSON DAVIS AND THE NORTH ...................192 8. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................230 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................242 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Historian Charles Reagan Wilson called “Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis” the three foremost “saints and martyrs” of “The Lost Cause.” He readily admitted that other men, and women, gained status as celebrated if not deified southern icons, but these clearly ranked above all others. Lee, Davis, and Jackson “were said to epitomize the best of Christian and southern values.” Southerners used many methods to display devotion to their saints. They erected statues, created poems and songs, and recited speeches. The images of the South’s great triumvirate were recognizable enough even to those who had forgotten how they long ago earned their fame. White southerners made clear that no other Confederate men better represented the South in all its aspirations and past glories. With sincere devotion, southerners even into the twentieth- century remembered their birthdays and visited their gravesites. Lee, Jackson, and Davis were the leading men of the South’s most trying hour, and defeat could not tarnish their sacrifices for the Confederate cause. From the close of the Civil War forward, there has been some strange, deeply-ingrained bond between the South and the three men they 1 chose to personify their values. Each left a different legacy and therefore southerners interpreted them in at least a slightly different manner. For many North and South, Lee was the most talented general of the war. Americans revered Lee for his character at least as much as they did his impressive record as a Confederate general. Lee’s legacy cast a shadow longer than most 1 any other in American History. In contrast, Davis was a lightning rod of criticism during his Confederate administration and remained so long after the end of the war. His actions during the last weeks of the Civil War followed him, for better and for worse, until the day of his death. As for Jackson, he represented probably the greatest “what if” of the entire Civil War. His early success in the Shenandoah Valley and at other battles in Virginia cemented his reputation—until a bullet ended his life. For some southerners Jackson ranked with Lee or even above him, and many reasoned that, if he had lived, the Confederacy would have won. Northerners both admired his success and feared his wrath; thankful that Jackson was not there at Gettysburg to turn the tide toward the South. Davis, Lee, and Jackson were the most discussed Confederate leaders, the most despised and the most respected, the most successful and the most unsuccessful. For southerners, each said something a little different about the South, its past, and its glories. Therefore, Lee, Davis, and Jackson became an integral part of who southerners believed they were. Wilson came closer to describing the relationship between the South, Lee, Davis, and Jackson, and all of the various symbols of the Confederacy than did most others. Wilson rightly recognized how southerners mingled religious imagery with stories about the Confederacy. Postwar southerners emphasized the pure Christian morality of the Confederacy despite its defeat. They talked about its leading men, eager to explain to the North that Lee, Jackson, Davis and others exemplified Christian values and thus the superiority of the society that produced them. Southerners compared the trials of its representative men to Christian heroes of the past, including Christ himself. Indeed, it was vital that southerners imagined the Confederacy and its leaders as virtuous and Christian due to the reality that the Union actually triumphed in the war. The theme thus has been: we may have been overcome by northern strength, but the greatness of our 2 morals, character, etc., stands unquestioned. Wilson interpreted southern fondness for remembering the Confederacy as a “civil religion.” It had its saints, rituals, holy days, and sacred literature. There may have been no official “Church of Robert. E Lee,” no group of worshippers who met every week and prayed to the Confederacy, but southern glorification of the past held many of the trappings of Western religion. For Wilson, the southern fervor, one might say obsession, to recognize and preserve its Confederate 2 heritage resembled religious enthusiasm. It was not uncommon that Americans described the
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