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The Confederate Triumvirate: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the Making of the Lost Cause, 1863-1940

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The Confederate Triumvirate: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the Making of the Lost Cause, 1863-1940 University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School June 2020 The Confederate Triumvirate: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the Making of the Lost Cause, 1863-1940 Aaron Lewis University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Other History Commons, and the United States History Commons Scholar Commons Citation Lewis, Aaron, "The Confederate Triumvirate: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the Making of the Lost Cause, 1863-1940" (2020). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8463 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Confederate Triumvirate: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the Making of the Lost Cause, 1863-1940 by Aaron Lewis A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Department of History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: K. Stephen Prince, Ph.D. John M. Belohlavek, Ph.D. Julia K. Irwin, Ph.D. Antoinette Jackson, Ph.D. Date of Approval: June 25, 2020 Keywords: Civil War, Reconstruction, Memory, South Copyright © 2020, Aaron Lewis Dedication To my parents and grandparents, my friends and colleagues, and to my wife and best friend, Victoria Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of so many people. My advisors and mentors, Dr. Prince, Dr. Belohlavek, Dr. Irwin, and Dr. Jackson, provided me with invaluable feedback that made this project a reality. Of the thousands of emails in my inbox, I estimate that over 75 percent of them are questions, answers, and rough drafts from them regarding the research and writing process. I am especially thankful for the advice from my colleagues in the USF History Department: Paul Dunder, Christina Hotalen, Charles Harris, and Michael LoSasso. Equally as valuable was the administrative staff in USF’s History Department. Tami Davis, Theresa Lewis, and Sue Rhinehart all worked tirelessly to keep me informed about deadlines and forward documents to keep the process moving until its full completion. I am indebted to the staffs at the Virginia Historical Society and Washington and Lee University for their guidance and care in pulling thousands of documents for my research. A special thanks is also due to Dr. Gary W. Gallagher who met with me during my research to offer his advice on my dissertation. My high school history teacher, Dr. John Mercer, instilled in me a love of history that culminated in this dissertation. My parents, David and Stephanie, always checked in to see how I was progressing and strove to understand my topic, which allowed me to hone an oral description of my research. A special thanks to my wife, Victoria, who listened to hours of diatribes about my research and arguments, who understood why I was frustrated or in a sour mood, and who worked tirelessly to support my dream. I will never be able to thank her enough. Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Soldier and Saint?: Stonewall Jackson Southern Religiosity ..................................21 The Cult of Jackson: The Early Years of the Civil War and Confederate Nationalism ..................................................................................................................23 “Who can fill his place!”: Death, Mourning, and the Future of the Confederacy .................................................................................................................39 “What If?”: The Postwar Memory of Jackson, 1865-1889 ................................................52 Chapter Two: Robert E. Lee and White Southern Redemption .....................................................67 “Country be damned…You are the country to these men”: Lee, the Civil War, and the 1860s........................................................................................68 “My Boys”: Robert E. Lee as President of Washington College ......................................91 “The day is not distant when all citizens of this great Republic will unite in claiming Lee as their own”: Lee, Monuments, and the Lost Cause in the 1880s ................................................................................................................103 Chapter Three: The Fall and Rise of Jefferson Davis: His Memory as a Scapegoat to Lost Cause Icon ..............................................................................................................................133 1865-1869: “Though encased in prison, he will yet live”: Imprisonment, Conspiracy, and a Man Without a Country ...............................................................136 1870-1879: Hardships, Rebuilding, and the Battle of the Books ....................................155 1880-1889: Jefferson and Winnie Davis and Their Ascendancy into Lost Cause Heroism ...................................................................................................173 Chapter Four: The Confederate Triumvirate, the Lost Cause, and White Supremacy, 1890-1940 ..............................................................................................................................188 The Confederate Triumvirate in Monuments and Memorials .........................................190 Undying Symbols of the Lost Cause ...............................................................................208 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................241 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................268 i List of Figures Figure 1: Death of Stonewall Jackson ...........................................................................................60 Figure 2: Stonewall Jackson’s Statue in Richmond, VA, 1875 .....................................................62 Figure 3: Recumbent Figure of Lee at Washington and Lee University .....................................129 Figure 4: Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis portrait ..........................................................................184 Figure 5: Robert E. Lee Statue in Statuary Hall ..........................................................................205 ii Abstract While numerous historians have studied and written about the lives and deeds of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, fewer have conducted analyses of these three individuals’ popular memories. This study considers how the memory of these three Confederate leaders formed the foundation of the Lost Cause. From 1863 through the 1940s, white southerners held each of these three men in high esteem, proclaiming them as heroes to the dead Confederate ideology. Orators and writers who built the Lost Cause in South consistently utilized their memories to argue in favor of the righteousness of the Confederate cause and the legality of secession. Jefferson Davis himself spoke out strongly in favor of these ideals in the 1870s and 1880s. Robert E. Lee also played a large role in the creation of his perfect memory. While Stonewall Jackson did not actively contribute to his own popular memory, his prowess on the battlefield and his martyrdom during the war provided plenty of fodder for memorialization. These three men became the ultimate representations of the Confederacy and the white South. The adulation felt towards them culminated in the massive, stone relief at Stone Mountain, Georgia. This study examines how the popular memories of each man were shaped by them and those around them in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. iii Introduction In the summer of 1914, Stone Mountain stood as a massive natural landmark overlooking the Georgia landscape, untouched by man. It was during that summer that Atlanta attorney and son of a Confederate veteran William H. Terrell first proposed that Stone Mountain should serve as a memorial to the Confederacy. He argued that the mountain’s incredible size and ability to withstand the elements made it the perfect location for “a story of one of the most remarkable events that ever illuminated a people’s history.”1 Terrell made his mark by advocating for the memorial in an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution in May 1914. Three weeks later, John Temple Graves, an Atlantan editor of the New York American, echoed Terrell’s comments and published a lengthy editorial in the June 14 issue of the Georgian. This editorial was much more detailed than Terrell’s and argued that Stone Mountain’s size was nature’s way of asking for a memorial to the Confederacy. He declared that the memorial should be a seventy feet high statue of Robert E. Lee in full Confederate uniform. Although the proposed Lee statue
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