SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... Public Commemoration of the Civil War and Monuments to Memory: The Triumph of Robert E. Lee and the Lost Cause A Dissertation Presented By Edward T O’Connell to The Graduate School In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Stony Brook University August 2008 Copyright by Edward Thomas O’Connell 2008 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Edward T O’Connell We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Wilbur Miller, Professor, Department of History, Dissertation Advisor Herman Lebovics, Professor, Department of History, Chairperson of Defense Nancy Tomes, Chair and Professor, Department of History Jenie Attie, Assistant Professor, C.W. Post College of Long Island University, Outside Member This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School. Lawrence Martin Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation Public Commemoration and Monuments to Memory: The Triumph of Robert E. Lee and the Lost Cause by Edward T. O’Connell Doctor of Philosophy in History Stony Brook University 2008 This dissertation examines the significance of the Virginia Memorial located on the former battlefield of the Gettysburg Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Dedicated on June 8, 1917 and prominently featuring an equestrian image of Robert E. Lee, this work of public commemorative art represents a dominant voice in the dialogue of the constructed public memory of the causes and the consequences of the Civil War. It signals the legitimacy and wide spread acceptance of the myth of the Lost Cause and its prominent association with the image of the most notable canonical icon of this ideology, Robert E. Lee. iii It represents a public memory and reiteration of the war’s legacy that, as Frederic Douglass declared, forgets the difference “between those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty.” It is this myth that in effect controls the commemorative discourse of the preserved battlefield at Gettysburg and beyond. Today, as it has done since the time of its dedication, the Virginia Memorial remains an important sign post in the nation’s memory of the Civil War and is the result of an ongoing political discussion that continues to take place in the public sphere regarding the structures of power that are inextricably linked with the formation of public memory. It stands as a unique physical marker in the text that comprises the dialogue constructing the nation’s public memory of the Civil War, a unique work of commemorative public art that serves simultaneously as a battlefield monument and war memorial to the Virginians who fought at Gettysburg, and a site specific work of public sculpture in contested civic space. As such, it serves the purposes of seemingly contradictory and antithetical interests while asserting the ideas of both cultural continuity and cultural revision within the constructed symbolic code of America’s commemorative patriotic landscape. Although the Confederacy was defeated in battle it emerged on the field at Gettysburg as victorious in memory. The constructed image and public memory of Robert E. Lee makes this final victory of memory possible. iv Dedication Dedicated to my father, Thomas J. O’Connell “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” — Hamlet, Act I, sc. iii Table of Contents List of Figures………………………………………………………………………viii Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………xi Introduction…………………… …………………………………………………….1 I. Republican Heroes and Rag-Tag Citizens………………………………………14 Celebrating Republican Heroes and the Democratization of Revolutionary Memory in the Early Nineteenth Century………………………………………………………...17 Battlefields, Memory, and Monuments to the Revolution…………………………...22 Revolutionary Memory and Revolutionary Heroes………………………………….30 Appropriation of Memory ………………………………………………...…………32 Elite Veterans and the Ownership of the Revolution’s Memory…………………….34 Heroic Republican Greatness………………………………………………………..35 Peacetime Rituals and Wartime Necessities…………………………………………38 Revolutionary Battlefields………….………………………………………………..41 European Roots and Public Monuments………………………...…………………..45 Early Nineteenth Century Commemoration and the War of 1812…………………..48 National Memory of Veterans and the Mexican American War and the Memory of Conquest……………………………………………………………………………..52 II. The Recomposed Chorus of Union……………………………………………..62 Cultural Attitudes Towards Death, Burial and Remembrance……………………….63 The Northern War Dead………………………………………………………….…..66 Battlefields and Monuments to the Dead and the Living………………………….....72 Preserving Battlefields……………………………………………………………….76 Northern Veterans and Republican Politics…………………………………….……78 Northern Voices of Commemoration………………………………………….……..81 The Physical Space of Commemoration……………………………………………..86 Northern Monuments in Public Civic Space…………………………………………87 Northern Public Memory, Public Monuments, and Reconciliation…….……………90 Design Features of Northern Battlefield Monuments………………….…………….93 vi Design Features of Northern Monuments in Civic Space……………………………98 African Americans and White Woman of the North ……………………….………100 Monument Inscriptions……………………………………………………………..106 Reunions, Reconciliation, Public Memory and Veterans North and South………..108 The Northern Public, Republicans, and Late Nineteenth Century Reconciliation…111 Race, Masculinity, and American Nationalism………………………….…………114 III. Commemorating the Confederacy ……………………….………………….119 Commemorating Defeat…………………………………………………………….122 Ideology of the Lost Cause, Confederate Defeat, and the Problem of National Memory……………………………………………………………………………..124 Burial of Confederate Battle Dead………………………………………………….134 Southern Women……………………………………………………………………138 “Cities of the Dead”………………………………………………………………...144 The New South and Old Veterans…………………………………………………..149 Pride Replaces Mourning…………………………………………………………...153 Design Features of Confederate Monuments………………………………….……157 Monument Inscriptions, Materials, Numbers……………………….………………162 IV. Robert E. Lee as Icon of the Lost Cause……………………….…................169 Lee and the Lost Cause……………………………………………………………..171 Robert E. Lee as Icon of the South and Its Cause ………………………………….175 Lost Cause Imagery …………………………………………………………….......180 The Lee Image………………………………………………………………………186 Lee’s Monument at Lexington……………………………………………………...188 The Monument at Lexington………………………………………………….……197 The South’s Republican Hero………………………………………………………206 Lee’s Monument in Richmond……………………………………………………..211 Dedicating the Monument…………………………………………………………..231 V. The Lee Image and the Construction of Public Memory ……………….......237 From Icon of the South to Icon of the Nation………………………………………239 Dead Soldiers and Public Mourning………………………………………………..242 “Eloquent Memorials of Their Glorious Struggles and Triumphs”………….……..253 Confederates on the Field……………………………………………………..…….268 Public Memory and the Acceptance of the Lost Cause and Lee……………..….….274 Constructing the Memory of an Authentic Patriot …………………………………275 Confederate Monuments at Gettysburg………………………………………..……283 vii Lee Returns to Gettysburg………………………………………………………….287 The Movement to Erect a Monument………………………………………………290 The Confederacy Returns to Gettysburg……………………………………………301 The Dedication and Remarks……………………………………………………….303 Lee Victorious………………………………………………………………………313 Epilogue….…………………………………………………………………………318 Images……………………………………...……………………………………….320 Selected Bibiliography...…………………………….…………………………….340 viii List of Figures Figure 1 : Adalbert J. Volk, Tracks of Armies, 1863. Etching. Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library Museum Figure 2: Currier and Ives, The Lost Cause, 1871. Lithograph. Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum Figure 3 : Southern Illustrated News, cover page, January 17, 1863 Figure 4 : Mathew Brady, photograph of Robert E. Lee, Washington, 1850. The New York Public Library, New York Figure 5 : Christian Daniel Rauch, Tomb of Frederick Wilhelm III, 1840. Marble. Charlottenburg, Berlin Figure 6: Christian Daniel Rauch, Tomb of Louisa, Queen of Prussia, 1810. Marble. Charlottenburg, Berlin Figure 7: Edward Valentine, detail of the Recumbent Figure, 1883. Figure 8: Edward Valentine, detail of the Recumbent Figure, 1883 Figure 9: Tomb of John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, 1336. Various stones. Westminister Abbey, London Figure 10: Edward Valentine, Recumbent Figure of General Lee, 1883. Marble. Lee Chapel, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. Figure 11: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, cover page, June 23, 1883 Figure 12: Anton Hohenstein, General Robert E. Lee, 1867. Lithograph. Division of Political History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Figure 13: Jean-Antoine Houdon, George Washington, 1788. Marble. State Capitol, Richmond ix Figure 14: Gilbert Stuart, Washington (Lansdowne portrait), 1796. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Figure 15: Gilbert Stuart, Washington (Munro-Lenox portrait), 1800. Oil on canvas. The New York Public Library, New York. Figure 16: Antonin Mercie, Lee Monument, Richmond, 1890. Bronze Figure 17: Thomas