SOURCES of CONFEDERATE NATIONALISM, 1848-1865 Paul DH Quigley a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of T
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PATCHWORK NATION: SOURCES OF CONFEDERATE NATIONALISM, 1848-1865 Paul D. H. Quigley A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by: Professor Harry L. Watson Professor William L. Barney Professor W. Fitzhugh Brundage Professor Laura F. Edwards Professor Lloyd Kramer ©2006 Paul D. H. Quigley ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Paul D. H. Quigley Patchwork Nation: Sources of Confederate Nationalism, 1848-1865 (Under the direction of Professor Harry L. Watson) “Patchwork Nation” explores white southerners’ conceptions of nationalism during the American Civil War era. The core impetus of Confederate nationalism was the desire to preserve slavery, but my emphasis is on the broad range of intellectual, cultural, and personal sources that white southerners drew upon as they engaged the concept of nationalism in their lives. Investigating these sources pushes our understanding of Confederate nationalism in three previously neglected directions: outward, backward, and inward. White southerners conceived of Confederate nationalism in light of what they already knew about the concept. Nationalism was then enjoying a golden age in Europe, and transatlantic intellectual currents greatly influenced ideas about nationalism in the American South. Hence our turn outward. But the nationalism with which white southerners were most familiar was antebellum American nationalism, in which most of them had been enthusiastic participants. Hence our turn backward. In defining a new nationalism, they replicated many aspects of the old, in both substantive and conceptual terms. Such replication generated a persistent problem that will concern us throughout: how could the South retain the nationalism of a country from which it had voluntarily departed? Our final turn takes us inward, into the sphere of everyday life. Confederate nationalism came to matter to individual white southerners because of the ways they connected it to their personal identities and the fabric of their daily lives. Thus they defined individual iii responsibility to the nation by using ideas about manhood and womanhood, morality and religious beliefs, sacrifice and daily suffering. Connections between individuals and the nation were especially intense when they involved perceptions of shared victimhood at the hands of the northern enemy. When this sense of victimhood came to encompass not just slavery and politics but personal fears as well, it became the most potent source of nationalism of all. The image of a patchwork captures the way that white southerners drew on all of these resources in conceiving of Confederate nationalism and in defining their individual connections to it. This was a nationalism crafted by many hands, using varied materials, with a pattern that emerged only in the making. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It gives me great pleasure to thank those who have helped me along the way. From our very first encounter (involving a delayed flight, a flat car battery, a tropical downpour, and a terrific dinner) my advisor, Harry Watson, has offered crucial support and guidance. His ability to crystallize the core issues of any essay, chapter, or talk is exceptional, and I have benefited greatly from his searching criticism as well as his judicious professional advice. My other UNC committee members—William Barney, Fitz Brundage, and Lloyd Kramer— have all made valuable contributions, especially Bill, whose extraordinary command of nineteenth-century U.S. history has inspired me in seminars and in this dissertation as well. Special thanks goes to Laura Edwards, who has provided generous support from across the Duke-UNC divide. In a wonderful graduate seminar, Laura got me excited not just about the stuff of history but about the way we conceptualize it, and she has been helping me work out the implications ever since. In addition to my committee members, I wish to thank other historians who have offered helpful comments on aspects of this project: Barbara Hahn, Don Doyle, Drew Gilpin Faust, Joseph Glatthaar, Rose Stremlau, and Montgomery Wolf. Several institutions have helped make my research possible. I always used to wonder why historians’ acknowledgements raved so effusively about library personnel, and thanks to the staff of the following archives I now know why: Alabama Department of Archives and History; Duke University’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library; the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the South Carolina Historical Society; the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina; the v Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill (especially the inimitable Laura Clark Brown); and the Virginia Historical Society (especially Nelson Lankford and Frances Pollard). My research at these libraries was made financially possible by several generous grants and fellowships. The William R. Kenan, Jr. Foundation funded the first five years of my graduate education, and the Doris Quinn Foundation supported a year of writing. Research trips were funded by the George Mowry Fund of the UNC history department, UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South, the Andrew W. Mellon fellowships at the Virginia Historical Society, the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, and the South Caroliniana Library’s William Gilmore Simms Research Fellowship. The biggest thanks of all goes to the driver who ran over a copy of this dissertation. I had momentarily placed the manuscript on top of my car while I strapped my baby into her car seat. Then I drove off. The dissertation tried to hang on, but, alas, its will to live proved insufficient. Thank you, driver, whoever you are, for only running over it once (I know you could have reversed and done it again), and for ensuring that your tire tracks did not obscure anything too important. On second thought, the biggest thanks should go to my parents, who have been tremendously supportive in this, as in everything, and to Mindy, without whom I could not imagine having done this at all. While I was busy producing close to three hundred pages of moderately interesting academic prose, Mindy was busy producing close to seven pounds of endlessly captivating baby. She and Alice mean the world to me, and I look ahead with great excitement to our lives together. So far (gurgles notwithstanding), Alice appears to be little interested in my thoughts on Confederate nationalism. Nonetheless, it is my special wish that, vi in time, she should grow up to learn an important lesson from this dissertation. Never, dear Alice, leave anything important on the roof of your car. Not even for a second. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………...ix INTRODUCTION: NATIONALISM AND ITS SOURCES…………………………………1 Chapter I. ANTECEDENTS: AMERICAN NATIONALISM IN...……………………23 THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH II. DREAMS: SOUTHERN NATIONALISM BEFORE………………………66 NATIONHOOD III. THE PINCH: THE SECTIONAL CRISIS HITS HOME…………………..113 IV. DEFINITIONS: NATIONAL IDENTITY AND NATIONAL…………….159 RESPONSIBILITY IN THE EARLY CONFEDERACY V. WAR: FORGING BONDS OF NATIONALISM IN………………………212 BLOOD AND SACRIFICE BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………..260 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ADAH: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama. DU: Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. SHC: Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. SCHS: South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, South Carolina. USC: South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina. VHS: Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia. ix INTRODUCTION: NATIONALISM AND ITS SOURCES For Charles Fenton James, Confederate nationalism was no abstraction. From the trenches near Richmond in February 1865, beleaguered not only by federal troops but by desertion and desperation all around, James wrote to his sister with a prescription for Confederate success. In doing so, he revealed an understanding of nationalism with deep roots in the fabric of his life, and hers. The fate of the Confederacy, he asserted, rested in the hands of all white southerners. “Let ‘duty before pleasure’ be the motto of all,” he wrote. “There is work for all. There is a responsibility resting upon all and let no one shrink from meeting it.” This understanding of the individual’s responsibility to the nation was shaped by the lessons of other times and places. “Edmund Burke,” he explained, “said that ‘nations are never murdered but they sometimes commit suicide.’ God forbid that we should be guilty of such folly. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning. Shall it be said of our people that they exceeded Nero and fiddled and danced while the land was draped in mourning?” James’s reference to fiddling and dancing led him to the very heart of the matter, as he went on to relate his broad understanding of white southerners’ national responsibilities to the particular case of his sister. Despite the ongoing war, she had been attending dances. This struck James as being not only inappropriate but downright dangerous. What, he asked, would happen if everyone spent their time attending dances? “Would it not be calculated to bring the curse of God upon us? … Both sacred and profane history will tell you of the wickedness of the people bringing the direct curses upon the nation. Why may it not be the case with us”? If his sister continued dancing, he implied, the fate of the nation, and of the men such as himself who were fighting on its behalf, would be imperiled. He left no doubt as to the gravity of this matter, warning her, When you desire to go to these dancing parties, first think of your responsibility, not only to your God but to your country and to your defenders. The people of the South have got to be worthy of freedom before they will get it. Every one has a duty to perform … and on the faithful performance of that duty depends the success of our cause.