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The Founding Generation of the Confederate Museum
JOHN M. COSKI AND AMY R. FEELY
Tbe LOllisialla table at fter several days of chill and damp, T. Johnson, of Maryland, who took the oppor- tbe COI!fe(ierate baz(ttlr, \ / \ 22 Februaly-George Washington's tunity to vindicate the Confederate cause. In Ric/JIIlOlUi, Virginitl, I /1 1903. Flllid-raisillg birthday-1896 dawned bright high oratorical fever, Johnson recounted the /J{/Z{W/"S s/}()Ilso/"ed by and sunny in Richmond, Virginia. "crimes" perpetrated against the South during ('IJiltede/"lIte /I'Olllel/'S It was in happy contrast to a cold and after the war and offered unreconstructed lliZllti01IS Mended ideology wilb exotic decoratiolls and rainy da y exactly thirty-four years earlier. sentiments so strong that reconciliationists in tllld ligbtbearled ellterlaill- On that day in 1862, Jefferson Davis had been the audience must have squirmed in their mellt. The ';f{reat 0./ formally inaugurated in Richmond's Capitol seats. The new museum, he remarked, would tbe J'J03 Ricbl/lOlld Square as president of the no-longer-provi- baza(//; declared tbe inau- prove to "all true men and women" that "we guml isslIe 0/ a sional Confederate government. Memories of were right, immortally right, and that the con- published lIell'spa/Jel; tbe the late Confederate president were again on queror was wrong, eternally wrong."2 ConkdlTate, II'ClS to/itnt! everyone's minds; the Richmond house that Preceding Johnson's keynote address was "tbe /I1')//lI/11elll-too long deferred-to tbe Soutb's had served as his official wartime residence a speech by Virginia governor and [cil'ili leadel; .Ie.llers'JIl was to be dedicated that 1896 day as the new Confederate veteran Charles T. O'Ferrall, who D(li'is, tbe .first and Confederate Museum. At two o'clock in the paid homage to the women who founded and l'residel/t (if tbe Confedemte afternoon, the building opened to thousands administered the new museum and to their States o!America, tbe model gel/t/el/ltIll, CbriStillll lind of visitors. The museum's officers-all of immediate foremothers. "History," O'Ferrall patriot." n,l' bazaar included them women-greeted their guests in what observed, "is replete with bright and beautiful tables, ll'itb illlfil'idual had been the central parlor of the three-story examples of woman's devotion to home and (/JeHIC!s lind S(f!.llClture sou- {len irs. rejJresentillg ellcb of executive mansion. Close by, in the home's hirthland, of her fortitude, trials and sufferings tbe jiml/er COl!lederate former state dining room, ladies served in her country's cause, and the women of the states. 7Z,e l.ouisillllCl tllble, refreshments, including oysters and other del- Confederacy added many luminous pages to "D,ul'lI tbe ollered icacies. Like the dining room, each of the what had already been most graphically writ- l.ouiSi{/IIt1-II/(fde cups lIl/d Sllucers as fiJI' rooms had been assigned to one of the south- ten." "Yes," he added, tbe el'ellt. "U/le alligators ern or border states that had belonged to or are Oil stile at tbe supported the Confederacy. Eventually, war those spartan wives and mothers. with L()lIi5it/lla boolh," Iloted tbe Conkdt:fate, "liS lt'etl as a "relics" from those states would fill their husbands or sons, or both, at the front, slIjJerb collectioll o./fJotter), respective rooms. But on that day, owing to directed the farming operations, sup- /lit/de alld sellt by tbe the crush of people, the rooms appeared porting their families at home and sup- l)lI/)ils of tbe Nell'co/ilb sparse, decorated only with appropriately col- plying the armies: they s<:'\\'ed. knitted, ('ollege ill ,Veil' Orlealls." (l'botogm/Jb, b)' Huestis R ored bunting, festoons, flags, flowers, palm wove and spun: then in the hospitals COok, NiCI.I/1IOI;d, Vilgillia, leaves, and occasional portraits on mantels they were ministering angl'ls. tllrning l')IJ3.) and walls. I the heated pill()\\,. smoothing the \\Tin- Fk'lJl()r S. Ilrockenhrough LlhralY. The of the The ceremony's keynote address \vas by kled cot. cooling the parched lips, C(IJlk'dlT'll'I' former Confederate brigadier general Bradley stroking the burning bro\\,. staunching 131 ...-'
132 The First Memorial Day, the flowing blood, binding up the gap- for those monuments. As in the cert'mom petersburg, Virginia. ing wounds, trimming the midnight dedicating the former "Confederate Wom ell led tbe postwar memorial movement in taper, and sitting in the stillness, only House" as a ne\'.· museum. the leadership of tbe Soutb. TIJeir organiza- broken by the groans of the sick and women in memorializing the Confederacy tiolls-frequently continu- wounded, pointing the departing spirit was considered proof of their undying dem- atiollS of ll'artime groups _maintained cemeteries, the way to God, closing the sightless tion to what southerners then called the "Lost created Illonuments, and eyes and then following the bier to a Cause." It was on those occasions that organi- establisbed tbe holiday, Hollywood [Richmond's Hollywood zations such as the Confederate Museum and Memorial Day. In Petersburg, Virgillia, women gathered Cemetery] or one humbler spot. . . . the United Daughters of the Confederacy on 9 june-the day the But amid flame, carnage, death and developed and disseminated the orthodox wartime siege of lhe city lamentations, though their land was southern interpretation of the Civil War and began-to decorate so/- reddening with blood, and their loved the role of southern women in the conflict. diers' graves. (Paper print, c(/. /865,) ones were falling like leaves in Organizations of self-styled "Confederate Eleanor S. Brockenbrough autumn, they stood like heroines- women" warrant and are now receiving atten- LibralY, The Museum of the Confederacy firm, steadfast and constant. tion for their role in shaping the twentieth- century southern perception of the Civil War. I "And now, why is it we are here?" The Confederate Museum and its parent O'Ferrall asked the people gathered about the organization, the Confederate Memorial rooms of the former Confederate executive LiteralY Society, offer a particularly revealing mansion. case study of such turn-of-the-centlllY south- ern women's organizations. Studies of The answer is ready upon every Confederate women and of the Confederate tongue, Southern women's love for the memorial period have, however, traditionally memories of a generation ago; ignored the museum.' And yet, four years Southern women's devotion to the older than the UDC, the Confederate cause which, though enveloped in a Memorial Literary Society created the most cloud of defeat, yet is circled in a blaze important institutional embodiment of Lost of glory, has called us from our fire- Cause sentiment. sides and businesses to this spot. The The Confederate Museum, like so many daughters and granddaughters of the southern memorial organizations of the time, women who did so much to make this was founded by women who had lived in the sunny clime of ours so classic and rich Confederate States of America. They were the in traditions of that period by dedicat- wives, daughters, and sisters of men who ing this structure as a depository of fought for and governed the Confederacy.
Confederate cards and relics. j Their museum gave three-dimensional expression to the collective memory of the Neither the ceremony nor the rhetoric war-to the home front as well as the battles. were unusual. Both, in fact, were typical of Its founders conceived of the museum as a the dedications and memorials that occurred complement to the written histories, the peri- frequently throughout the South at the turn of odic rituals, and the monuments and markers the century. Equally typical at these events that seemed to occur everywhere in the South were women-specifically middle- and at the turn of the centlllY. Moreover, the insti- upper-class white women-playing important tution'S founding generation-those \\'()men roles. Women tended and decorated the sol- who had personal memories of the diers' graves in the cemeteries where the first Confederacy-lived well into the 1930s, thereby monuments were placed. Moreover, they providing a continuity that maintained the were often the most successful fund-raisers museum's original concept long into the
133 f:4ClNG PAGE: twentieth century. Their work, therefore, formal speeches by politicians and othl'r Lii"- Elizabeth Rutherford provides a window into how southern Ellis. A Columbus, Georgia, nitaries, but the role of the women ll'O/llen's group is generally women remembered and commemorated the the same. Even though they continul'd to credited with the establish- Confederacy, the \,-var, and their own wartime organize the annual event, the of till' ment of the South's experiences. Hollywood Memorial Association typical" Memorial Day in 1866. Their leadel; Elizabeth waited in carriages a few blocks from Rutherford Ellis, is identi- he Confederate Museum traces its orga- cemetelY, then discretely fell in at thl' rl'ar of fied on this photograph as nizational roots to one of the many the parade as it neared the cemetery gates. "the first to propose & keep Memorial day by placing women's memorial associations created While at least the wives of dignitaries joined powers on soldiers graves immediately after the Civil War. After several their husbands on the platform. no WOll1an April 25th 1866." (Paper discussions throughout the winter of spoke at the earliest Memorial Da y cerl'- print, ca. 1866.) Eleanor s. llrockenbrough 1865-1866, a group of prominent women on monies. Libraty, The Museum of the 3 May 1866 met at Saint Paul's Episcopal Although orchestrating the annual ceremo- Confederacy Church and formed the Hollywood Memorial ny was its primalY business, the association Association of the Ladies of Richmond. was one of the most ambitious in the South. According to a resolution adopted that day, The organization raised money through mem- the association's purpose was "to collect bership dues, with direct appeals to individu- funds to be applied in Enclosing, arranging, als and groups throughout the South, and by returning & otherwise placing in order the events traditionally associated with women's graves of Confederate dead, interred in organizations, such as theatrical tahleaux and Hollywood CemetelY, so that the tombs of bazaars. In the spring of 1R67, for example, our fallen Soldiers may be permanently pre- the Hollywood Memorial Association held a served from oblivion & their last resting fund-raising bazaar, selling and auctioning places saved from the slightest appearances of various crafts and "war relics." The event net- neglect or want of care." The association met ted more than $18,000. The association used six more times in preparation for its first the funds to improve the grounds of the Memorial Day services at Hollywood cemetery's soldiers' section and to erect there Cemetery.6 one of the earliest Confederate monuments: :1 On 31 May, only four weeks after that first ninety-foot-high granite pyramid, dedicated formal meeting, an estimated twenty thou- on 9 November 1869. With partial financi:ti sand people turned out for the memorial ser- assistance from the Virginia General vices. Shopkeepers even closed their stores so Assembly, the association was also ahle to Richmonders could attend. The association's exhume the bodies of nearly three thousand members gathered at a Main Street church to Confederate soldiers from the Gettyshurg hat- prepare the flowers and wreaths brought to tlefield and move them to Holly\vood for the city from surrounding counties and towns, reburial. By 1873 the grim project of repatri:l- and transportation companies offered their tion was complete, but the debt incurred ill omnibuses for carrying the flowers to the coordinating the huge effort hampered till' cemetery. Although the women had planned association for decades afterward ..' and coordinated the event and decorated the The Hollywood Memorial Association graves, it was the veterans of Richmond's var- not unique in the South, It was not even till' ious Confederate military units who played first women's memorial organization in the the major public role. They marched in a city of Richmond. Two weeks before the parade from downtown into the cemetery, ciation's own initial gathering, another IllL'L't- then visited the graves of their fallen com- ing had occurred at Saint John's FpisCOP:ti racies and leaders. Subsequent Memorial Day Church to arrange for the care of another clus- services were more elaborate and featured ter of Confederate soldiers' graves. this one :It
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135 To the Ladies of the South. Tile Lee .1le1l1orial Associatioll's Williaill ,Velsoll Pel/dle/(JII directed bis fU1ld·raising appeal to soutberll ll'OII!e1l. Their illl'oll'emel1t, Pendleton acknOll'ledged, ll'as "tbe To THE L.\DIES OF' THE SOUTH: surest und readiest way of" raising tbe necessmy TilE I,RE MEl!OIl[AL incorporateel hy tllD Leg-i"lntllrc of Virl,(illia, \l'a" Jitllds. Although Pendleton orgnni7-e,1 for the plll'pMe of placing II suitable memorial of (+"'1. H. K LEE over l,isrcllluiu;, which I'l".1 I"'lIl'aiit {eJr tbe ''j)articular means. .. tho CIII'p,,1 of IVnshillgton and Lee Univ"rsity, at T.oxingtoll, Va. At the "nl,(g,',tion of ,",". LEE, II,,' to the discretion of tbe selected as the .leHign of the nlcmoriai a Knrcophagus with a fnll Hixt'd, Hguro of LEE to he Cllt frolll the purest marhle. A contmet has b('cn ma,le with Mr. Valentirll', till.' dbtill!;lIi"hc,1 L"dies," be l'ecommended . sculptor, for the preparation anll creetion of this memorial, nlHl the caHt "f the work in pl""!1'1' I"" hel'lI eacb groujJ bold fund-rais- already completell. In it. Vet·), imprt'8Sivo likeness (0 our helove,1 Command"I' the fig-urI' is 1I 136 Oakwood Cemetery on Richmond's north directed to caring for soldiers' graves and side. Apparently without any centralized coor- erecting monuments in Confederate cemeter- dination, groups met all over the South to ies. By the time a younger generation of honor the Confederate war dead. Before the Richmond women resurrected a by-then- end of 1866, Memorial Day traditions had moribund Hollywood Memorial Association in been established in eight former Confederate 1886, Confederate memorial activities had states. "We cannot raise monumental shafts entered a second, or "celebration," phase. By and inscribe thereon their many deeds of that time, memorials to Confederate soldiers heroism, but we can keep alive the memory more commonly took the form of granite or of the debt we owe them by dedicating, at marble monuments on courthouse lawns, least one day in each year, to embellishing each one dedicated with festive ceremonies their humble graves with flowers," wrote the celebrating the rightness and righteousness of secretary of the Columbus, Georgia, memori- the Confederate cause, lost though it was. al association-the group later recognized as Celebrations of the Confederacy flourished the founder of Confederate Memorial Day. beginning in the mid-I880s, reached their apogee "Let the soldiers' graves, for that day at least," in the first decade of the twentieth century, she continued in an open letter in March then waned with the passing of the conflict's 1866, "be the Southern Mecca to whose shrine veterans in the years after World War I. While her sorrowing women, like pilgrims, may they eventually dwindled in frequency, scale, annually bring their grateful hearts and floral and importance, the celebrations even then offerings. "9 never completely disappeared from the social The ladies' memorial associations were landscape of white southerners. It was during able to spring up so quickly after 1865 the height of the celebration period that because in both form and substance they southern memorial groups erected and dedi- were extensions of women's wartime activi- cated the most ambitious and famous ties. Mourning the dead had long been a tra- Confederate monuments, including those ditional province for women, but the scale of among the national battlefield parks and death during the Civil War had greatly magni- along Richmond's Monument Avenue. 11 fied their role. Organizing for mourning was, The expansion of memorial activities in in fact, a natural extension of organizing on the 1880s brought a new kind of women's behalf of the war effort itself. Many of the memorial organization: the local auxiliary ladies' memorial associations thus grew dedicated to supporting veterans' organiza- directly from the wartime soldiers' aid soci- tions. The groups' purpose was to raise funds eties. Associations in Fredericksburg and and coordinate social activities for the various Winchester, Virginia, for example-both of veterans' "camps," or local chapters, and for which challenged Columbus, Georgia, for the the soldiers' homes that began to proliferate honor of founding Confederate Memorial in the late 1870s. For example, the ladies' aux- Day-were former Confederate aid societies iliary for Richmond's prestigious Robert E. Lee redefined for new roles. 10 Camp, No.1, United Confederate Veterans, These and other Confederate memorial held a bazaar in 1884 to raise the initial funds activities evolved in the half-century between for the Lee Camp soldiers' home. Different 1865 and 1915. The immediate postwar asso- from the older memorial associations, the ciations were products of what has been auxiliaries dedicated themselves not to the called the "bereavement" phase of the south- memory of the dead, but to the welfare of the ern memorial movement. While the associa- "living monuments" among them. 12 tions hoped to vindicate the Confederate From such auxiliaries grew perhaps the cause, their primary emphasis was initially most famous sOllthern women's organization, 137 the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As essay on a Confederate subject. The cc lI1te.'it early as 1890, a ladies' auxili,uy for a Missouri created a furor in 1909 when the prize \\as soldiers' home had chosen the name given to a woman whose essay on Rohert E. "Daughters of the Confederacy" in honor of Lee conflicted with the orthodox interpreta- President Jefferson Davis's youngest child, tion of the South's motives in the war." Varina Anne. Four years earlier, John Gordon, As early as 1894, within its first year. the as commander of the United Confederate United Daughters of the Confederacy had Veterans, had dubbed the same "Winnie" endorsed a pro-southern textbook as a cor- Davis-born in the White House of the rective to the allegedly pro-northern texts Confederacy during the war-the "Daughter then dominating the market. Five years later, of the Confederacy." By 1894, then, it came as in 1899, the UDC began the movement to no surprise when a number of ladies' auxil- make the term "War between the Staks" the iaries gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, and official name for the 1861-1865 conflict. Kate adopted the same phrase within the name of Mason Rowland, the woman most closely its new federation: the National Association of associated with that fight, was also an active the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The member and early officer of the Confederate UDC's purposes were to be "social, literary, Memorial Literaty Society." historical, monumental, benevolent and hon- So quickly did the UDC grow, and so orable in every degree, without any political powerful was its reach, that it overwhelmed signification whatever." More specifically, the the much older and more local monument UDC was "to instruct and instill into the associations. Under the leadership of Katie descendants of the people of the south a Walker Behan, of New Orleans, the other proper respect for and pride in the glorious associations decided in 1900 to join together war history, with a veneration and love for the as the Confederated Southern Memorial deeds of their forefathers, which have created Association. Formed six years after the (JI)C, such a monument of military renown and to the organization continued to meet into the perpetuate a truthful record of the noble and 1930s but never enjoyed its counterpart's chivalric achievements of their ancestors."13 influence or public profile. I!. The UDC grew rapidly in numbers and in It was within the context of this height- influence. By 1900, the organization included ened Confederate memorial activity that the 412 chapters and nearly seventeen thousand Hollywood Memorial Association enjoyed a members in twenty states and territories. renaissance in 1886 and four years later Much of the UDC's work was predictably decided to rescue the former Confederate memorial. Chapters spearheaded fund-raising White House. After the reinterment of the drives for monuments to Jefferson Davis in Gettysburg dead, the association had entered Richmond, Virginia, and in Fairview, a decade of almost complete inactivity. Kentucky. They gathered funds for a Despite the organization's many accomplish- Confederate monument for the Shiloh battle- ments, noted the recording secretary in IH<)'i, field, and even the "faithful slave" monument the "death and removal from the city of so at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. They also many of the most energetic members" had "so awarded distinguished service medals to thinned the ranks of the Association that it Confederate veterans. Tens of thousands of languished, and with difficulty kept up \\ith UDC dollars went to endow scholarships for its work." Reviving public interest in the female and male descendants of Confederate annual Memorial Day celebration became the veterans at colleges and universities through- association's primary objective. In particular. it out the country. The UDC also initiated an wished to answer the R. E. Lee Camp's call for annual cash prize awarded to the author of an measures "to strengthen, in those now grc)\\ing 138 Virginia Tellt badge, influential families in Richmond. That wealth Memorial Bazaar, Richmond, Virginia. and influence, along with her leadership in A baz(/ar beld in April the newly established Association for the 1893 cO/lstiluted the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, led to her CO/lfederate Memorial Litertll:)' Society's first unanimoLls election in Febnl 139 OFFICERS OF TIlE CONFEDERATE l\IDIORIAL LITERARY SOCIETY. council to deed the mansion to the organiza- fore voted to create an "adjunct" organization tion as a "Memorial Hall and Museum of initially called the Southern Memorial Literary Confederate relics." A committee met with Society. The new organization's members- Mayor (and Confederate veteran) James essentially the same women who constituted Taylor Ellyson four days later and reported the parent association's membership-met, that he was in favor of the proposal. An changed the name to the more specific unfortunate technicality arose when the city Confederate Memorial Literary Society, and on attorney declared that Richmond could not 31 May 1890 signed the charter. In due time, deed property to a memorial organization. It on 5 January 1891, the city council voted for- could, however, transfer property to a society mally to deed the Davis mansion to the soci- dedicated to educational, or literary, pursuits. ety as soon as the new Central School was The Hollywood Memorial Association there- complete. The trdnsfer OCCUlTed on 3 June 1894 140 Officers oftbe -the eighty-sixth anniversary of Jefferson ing a Confederate Museum comhined these COlifederate Memorial Davis's birth.'" two distinct, but interrelated, memorial and Literary Society. At the urging 0/ Belle Bryan, a The organization that assumed control of educational roles for southern women. wea/tb)' a IItI active the Davis mansion was a mirror of The museum in the 1H90s was thus simply Riclilllonder and new pres- Richmond's elite white power structure. The another manifestation of the same devotion to ident of tbe Hollywood Memorial Association, the society's leaders were the daughters and the Confederate soldier and the Confederate CMlS Il'lIS created in 1890 wives of high-ranking officers in several local cause that had been expressed in the late 10 SIll'e tbe Davis Mansion, veterans' organizations. And although women 1860s in tending soldiers' graves and erecting recreating it as a "repository of CO/lfederate relics . .. a composed the society's entire active member- monuments. The task of that "band of loyal Museum fill' the preserva- ship, men influenced its governance through women," CMLS president Sally Archer tion of records or relics formal and informal channels. Typical of most Anderson explained to the UDC in 1916, was of tiny kind of the women's patriotic and historical organizations "to perpetuate the memory of a people over- Confederacy" Bryan served as president (if the CMLS of the era (except, notably, the United come, but not conquered, and also to give the from UNO until her death Daughters of the Confederacy), the CMLS, as world the true history of that period, despite in 19 I O. (lllustration from it became more familiarly known, created a the garbled or erroneous statements often reunio/l program, United Confederate men's advisory board populated primarily by found in text-books." Discharging this duty, as 18')6.) the husbands and fathers of its leaders. The a later officer described it, made the museum Eleanor S. llrockenbrough original body also included three men whose "a memorial to the work of Southern women."'! Library, The Museum of the Confederacy positions-as city engineer, mayor, and chair- In expressing those sentiments the man of the city council's school committee- founders were not merely paying homage to had been instrumental in acquiring the Davis their foremothers; they were commemorating mansion. The school committee chairman their own lives. Most of the museum's was the father of one of the society's officers; founders were too young to have been the mayor was the husband of another. The involved in the wartime soldiers' aid societies other board members were influential politi- or in other aspects of the war effort, or in the cians or businessmen and virtually all were immediate postwar memorial associations. Confederate veterans and relatives of CMLS But almost all were children of the leaders. While the society's charter did not Confederacy whose personal experiences- specify the duties of the advisory board, in or, at least, personal memories-emphasized practice the women consulted the men about loyalty to the Confederate cause. financial, property, and legal matters. 2l Before she married Joseph Bryan, Isobel Whatever the role of the male advisers, it Stewart was a "special pet" of General Robert was nevertheless a strong article of faith E. Lee; her home outside Richmond, Brook among the society's founders that the Hill, had been the scene of several wartime Confederate Museum "emanated from the skirmishes. The museum's first house regent, brains of a band of women, and has been car- Isabel Maury, was a cousin of famed ried on by women ever since."22 This was a Confederate naval officer Matthew Fontaine significant point of pride. And, more impor- Maury and during the war had lived in the tant, it was true. Because ritualistic mourning house where Maury conducted his experi- had traditionally been regarded as a woman's ments with underwater fuses. Her home was role, southern women had been delegated as a block away from the Davis family, and the leaders of the postwar memorial associa- Maury-among the oldest of the museum's tions. That role, in turn, had by the 1890s founders-had sometimes visited the evolved so that the preservation of historic Confederate White House. Two of Matthew structures and regional tradition had also Fontaine Maury's daughters, Mary and Lucy, become defined as an appropriate role for were also among the museum's founders and women. 23 The work of creating and maintain- served as long-time committee chairwomen. 141 While their father lived in Richmond during April 1861 but soon died of typhoid. the war, they had endured the Federal occu- Janet, her mother, and her sister endured pation of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Mary the trials of war without the assistance of Maury had joined her father in England when men, save a "faithful" slave. That experience the Confederate government transferred him had an obvious influence in shaping Janet overseas on special service. Randolph's character as a strong, independent Lora Hotchkiss Ellyson was a niece of woman. She particularly remembered when Jedediah Hotchkiss, the school teacher who in 1863 her mother traveled to Philadelphia to won Confederate immortality as "Stonewall seek material assistance from relatives. jackson's map maker." She had lived in the Arrested in Alexandria and jailed as a spy, the upper Shenandoah Valley during the war and elder Janet Weaver received a parole and recalled concerts held "to raise funds to send finally arrived in Philadelphia. She was, how- wagons of supplies to troops and the sewing ever, detained for four months because she and knitting parties, and the convalescent refused to take an oath of allegiance to the whom we nursed to health in our home on United States government. "Think of it! foul' the farm." In her Richmond childhood, long- months without hearing from her two little time corresponding secretary and yearbook girls," Janet Randolph wrote a half-century chairwoman Virginia Morgan Robinson had later. "If she had taken the oath.of allegiance wrapped bandages for the wounded and dec- to the United States she would have been orated the graves of Confederate soldiers. allowed to come home, but no, she would Katherine Clay Stiles, one of the few non- not do this and swear not to help the cause Virginians among the early leaders, spent her she held so dear." young adulthood in Georgia and regaled her The family's loyalty to the Confederacy CMLS colleagues with eyewitness stories of was tested severely, as Warrenton, on the General William T. Sherman's campaign of southern border of "Mosby's Confederacy," destruction. 21 was behind Federal lines for much of the war. The founder who recorded her wartime The Weavers boarded, befriended, and cared memories in the greatest detail was Janet for a succession of sick and wounded men, Weaver Randolph. 26 Steeped in Confederate Confederate and Union. Janet Randolph nur- tradition, Randolph was the founder and tured memories of life under military occupa- guiding spirit of the UDC's Richmond chapter tion: of pleading unsuccessfully with a as well as one of the Confederate Memorial Federal general to allow a wounded Literary Society's most active and influential Confederate soldier to continue his convales- leaders. Her recollections of the war years cence in the Weaver home; of the kindness of constitute a kind of prologue for her subse- another Federal officer who responded gen- quent memorial work. Born near Warrenton, erously to her request to purchase sugar, cof.- Virginia, in 1848, Janet Weaver spent the fee, and tea as a present for her teacher; and entire war in the Warrenton area, forty miles of her own proud spurning of an invitation to southwest of Washington, D.C. Although they a ball held by a Federal cavalry regiment. owned a 179-acre farm and at least three "How my mind goes back, and the slaves, her parents had been unionists before thoughts come thick and fast of the trials of the war and maintained close ties with family those years," Randolph wrote in 1913, "but members in the North. After Virginia seceded, misery loves company, and that was the re 142 cm!/ederate Museum, wrote to a female friend: A(Ii'isOl)' Board badge. 17N CO/l/i'derate Memorial Liter(//T Society opened tbe Oh! the thought is sickening that after COlljedl'ftlte Museum in all the hardships, and suffering our /IN J)ill'is ,1/al1sioll on 22 noble men have endured, and the Febrt/my 1896. Tbis badge U'tlS worn at a reception many precious lives, that have been jor Varina Howell Davis sacrificed to gain our independence, and be/" dallgliter Margaret that at last we should have to submit to belt! on 30 Jlme 1896 in conjullctioll witb tbe si."Ctb the hated yankees, the very thought reunioJl (1/ United makes my blood run cold. I3ut it can- Confederale Veterans. not be that their lives have been given J)Olltltirllls jmm Mrs. Dallis up for nothing, and a day of reckoning jormed tin imjJortant com- pO/lellt 0/ the museum's must come although it may be far distant..f' early collections. (Blue stllinet badge with gold She later recalled that her involvement in lellers, ca. 1896.) of memorial work began before the end of the war. "Sunday after Sunday," the women of Warrenton "carried their offerings of love to place on these unkept, unknown graves ... only to have their work destroyed by the invaders of their Home."'" For Janet Weaver and for many of her CMLS colleagues, their marriage to a Confederate veteran reinforced this determi- nation not to forget the sacrifices of the South's soldiers. Although she had been engaged immediately after the war to a young veteran of Colonel John S. Mosby's Partisan Rangers, Weaver did not marry until 1880. Her husband, Norman V. Randolph, had also served with Mosby's rangers and after the war earned the rank of major in a militia company. Active in the Lee Camp of Confederate veter- ans, Randolph served as a member of the until only the house was left. A neighbor gave board of trustees of the Lee Camp soldiers' them a cow and the women sewed and knit- home and as its president from 1891 until his ted to earn their living, "so we managed to death in 1903. Typical of such couples, Janet exist." During and immediately after the war, Randolph became head of the Lee Camp the women relied on the assistance of their ladies' auxiliary and spent fifteen years col- former slaves: "We would have starved to lecting and disbursing money for the benefit 2 death if the Negroes had not shared with us of the soldiers' home. <1 the rations given them by the United States Like Janet Weaver Randolph, raised in government. " loyal Confederate households and lllarried to The feelings that seventeen-year-old Janet men who became increasingly involved in Weaver expressed at the end of the war pre- veterans' activities, the founders of the saged her subsequent work with Confederate Confederate Museum perceived their work as memorial organizations. In July 1865 she a sacred tmst to be discharged in the memc)lY 143 of Confederate soldiers. Urging her CMLS col- Jefferson Davis, one of the daughters of leagues to meet the challenges of the future, Robert E. Lee, the sister of Kentucky general Belle Bryan in 1899 spoke of their "high call- John Hunt Morgan, and the daughter of ing as custodians of so much that is dear to Confederate cavaltyman and South Carolina our healts, & necessary to the education of governor Wade Hampton. The vice regents the generations to come."3<' As society mem- were Richmond women who, ideally, had bers proudly remembered in subsequent some personal connection to the state they decades, establishing the museum and ensur- represented. Their function, however, was ing its survival fulfilled their trust as custodi- more practical than the regents': to oversee ans of a heritage. the collections and exhibits created within the From 1890 to 1896, the women of the rooms named for each of the southern and Hollywood Memorial Association and the several of the border states in the new museum. Confederate Memorial Literary Society laid the It was in these positions that the most active groundwork for transforming the Davis man- CMLS leaders such as Lora Ellyson, in behalf sion into the Confederate Museum. The build- of the Virginia Room, and Janet Randolph, for ing had become dilapidated after a quarter- the Tennessee Room, served. 12 centUlY as a school and required repairs and Collections of artifacts and mementos for fireproofing before it could be considered a the "State Rooms" began filling the homes of safe repository for artifacts. To raise money CMLS members four years before the museum for this new undertaking, the women once opened. What the society first acquired, and again sponsored a bazaar. Held at a local how it did so, reflected the new institution's armory in April and May 1893, the Memorial purpose and ideology. According to its char- Bazaar raised over $30,000, a remarkable sum ter, the society's purpose was to collect "all that was divided evenly between the museum books and other Iiterdry productions pertain- and a campaign to complete a Richmond mon- ing to the late war between the States, and of ument to Confederate soldiers and sailors.l' those engaged therein; all works of art or sci- The organizational structure, ideology, and ence, all battle-flags, relics, and other attitude of the Confederate Museum had emblems of that struggle; and to preserve and begun to take shape long before its official keep the same for the use of said Society and opening on 22 February 1896. The operating the public.">j An appeal for donations distrib- framework of the CMLS, even the distribution uted throughout the South in early 1892 of space within the museum itself, closely fol- detailed the plans for the "Permanent lowed Belle Bryan's original concept. In addi- Museum for Confederate Relics": tion to the customary organizational officers (president, vice presidents, recording secre- The clothes, the arms, the money, the tary, corresponding secretary, and treasurer) belongings of the Confederate soldier, and the usual committees, the CMLS created a and of the women whose loyal enthu- series of regents and vice regents representing siasm kept him in the field, are properly the states that had joined or supported the objects of historical interest. Confederacy. Appointed primarily to win The glory, the hardships, the hero- prestige and influence for the museum ism of the war are a noble heritage for throughout the South, the regents were our children. To keep green such prominent women within their respective memories and to commemorate such states, often women highly placed in state virtues, it is our purpose to gather divisions of the UDC or related to prominent together and preserve in the Executive Confederate veterans. Among the first regents, Mansion of the Confederacy the sacred for example, were the widow and daughter of relics of those glorious days.li 144 lllllb{llul /l'onl by ,Jlajor J0/111 B. em)' tit the battle oj BeI/1el C/mrcb, Virgil/itl, /0 jlllle 1861. Tbe Cr)//Ji'derate Museum's regents (/J/{I I'ice regents great attention on Ibe careJill dOClLmelltation of items accejJted into tbe collection. Artifacts, like tbe 186/ bUlbttlld, were often acco/lljJ{l/lied by written labels outlilling tbeir indi- vit/lltli signiJlcance to Cmt/eden/te history Tbe ilem, jJresented to tbe fIIuseUIIl the .{(n·mer olfi- cbittlrell, bad served a IIseflll pUljJose: since tbe ojJjJOslllg arlllies that early tTl tbe war bad not yet at/o/lted a "distinctille uni- Jimn,"Cm:J! tint! hisfellow soltliers "1I'ore wbite bat bands tbat they might be known jivm tbe Federal soldiers." CllI)' tater served as a member (!! the COT/federaie Museum's AdlJIsmJ' Boa I'd. (CojJjJerjJlate-/Jrillted cot/on, witl> ink, 1861,) Thl: MlISl:lIlll of' the Confl:tinacy 145 "Relic" was an accurate and revealing term pieces of the ropes used in 1890 to pull the to describe the objects sought and received. equestrian statue of R. E. Lee through the Along with the uniforms and possessions of streets of Richmond to its place on Monument famous Confederate heroes came curiosities Avenue. jS and oddities valued because of their some- To the members of the CMLS and other times close and sometimes tangential associa- southerners, the assembled relics offered dra- tions with those same heroes: a brick from the matic testimony to the virtues of the home where J. E. B. Stuart died, a brooch Confederate leaders and soldiers and to the made from the hoof of Turner Ashby's horse, hardships they suffered in their noble, but locks of hair belonging to Thomas J. ultimately hopeless, fight. The ideology was "Stonewall" Jackson and Robert E. Lee, a bit apparent in notes made by CMLS Relics of mane from Lee's horse, Traveller, and Committee member Mary Maury Werth on the 146 Board of Latly Managers, first donations-donations that she collected Richmond museum was not the first of its Jeffersoll Davis MOllumellt from members of her own distinguished fam- As.wcialioll, Richmolld, kind, A year before the society's formation, Virgillia. III 1899 ily, Many of the first objects were associated the Louisiana Historical Society received its ,,/I·//lale with the Confederate commerce raider charter and, in IH91, dedicated its O\vn jefferso/l /)at'is MOllument Shenandoah, the vessel that continued to Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans. Associatio/l wrllecl to fbe U/lited /)tlugbters prey on Union shipping for months after the Within a decade, the hall included more than ('o/ljedeml)' to belfJ mise surrender at Appomattox until the crew at last fifteen thousand artifacts, requiring the con- tbe jU/lds needed to com- learned of the Confederacy's collapse. Werth struction of an annex onto the original build- plete tbe /)o!'is monument pliil//led jill' the city. donated photographs of the ship's captain, ing. Unlike the CMLS, administen:d by Assllming/it/l responsibility James 1. Waddell, who turned the women, the Louisiana museum was the idea jor tbe jund-raising, tbe Shenandoah over to the British rather than of local Confederate veterans' organizations, ll'OIlU!1l secured the re1nail1- ing $70,000 o!'er tbe next surrender the vessel to U.S. authorities, and of and much of its collections came from those eigbt years. (Pbotograpb, by Lieutenant Dabney Minor Scales, "whose same groups. ill (,'eOl:'{e Cook, 1902.) hands," Werth wrote, "hauled down the flag What most distinguished the Hichmond Mildred Rutherford that never surrendered." She also donated Scrapbooks, Vol. 7, Eleanor institution from its potential rivals was its S. Brockenhrough Library, items related to the war service of her hus- claim to being the paramount Confederate The Mus('un] of the band, James Werth, of the Fourth Virginia museum. It was an ambitious goal, particularly (:'lJ1J'c,iL'r,]('Y Cavalty, including the last ration of coffee since the museum had been founded at a time issued to his mess before the surrender at of intense competition among southern cities Appomattox. "This table-spoon full," she and states for the monuments, institutions, noted, "a ration for 12 men!"j(, and any other tangible associations with the Similar kinds of objects testified to the Confederacy, Even the body of Jefferson spirit and patriotism of women on the Davis, moved from New Orleans to Hichmond Confederate home front. Establishing the link in 1893, had created a spirited rivalry over between home front and battlefield were sev- which city should have the honor of caring eral silk flags made by women-sometimes for the remains of the Confederate president.5') out of their own dresses-for local militalY The Confederate Museum's system of State units. There were also many samples of plan- Rooms, combined with its regional appeals tation-made homespun cloth-presented as for donations of funds and artifacts, suggested the South's answer to the North's attempts at just how determined the institution was. economic strangulation. More engaging were Though located in Richmond, it was not to be the examples of Confederate home-front a merely local entity. Supporting a museum ersatz, or substitutes: a shoe made of raccoon located in the fortner Confederate executive skin, a sleeve pattern made of newspaper, mansion was, the Confederate Memorial pants fashioned from cow hair, and buttons Literary Society insisted, the patriotic duty of made of persimmon seeds. Other objects pro- all southerners, 10 vided material evidence of how Confederate The leaders of the CMLS saw an opportu- women resisted and undermined "Yankee" nity to strengthen their claim to primacy when dominance: a pair of socks that Mrs. Hugh a wealthy Confederate veteran proposed the Lee, of Winchester, Virginia, knitted with fab- creation of a "Battle Abbey" of the South. ric she unravelled from a Union army tent and "The mementos of the struggle of the South a wad of surgical lint made by two sisters for civil liberty and the evidences of her glo- working secretly at night in the attic of their rious prowess in the field are scattered . , . Unionist family'S Washington, D.C., home and over the country," observed Charles smuggled to Confederate hospitals,r Broadway Rouss. And "should they not," he Such relics and testimonials were hardly asked, "be collected and provision made for unique to the CMLS and, in fact, the their preservation as a rich inheritance for our 147 children and a patriotic lesson for generations Memorial Association. J. Taylor Ellysoll repre- to come?" Both points were familiar ones to sented Richmond's case before a \eteran-; the Confederate Museum's far-reaching Relic committee and cited the Coni'cderalL' Committee. Rouss, though, went further: he Museum, its building, grounds, and colb'- estimated that a memorial hall could be built tions in his bid. In subsequent years. for $200,000 and hinted that he might provide Richmond's representatives to the half the amount if Confederate veterans could Confederate Memorial Association-many of raise the other half. 11 them members of the Confederate l'vluseuI1l's MalY Maury Werth saw Rouss's offer as advisOly board-consulted with the kaders ()f "fulfilling & perpetuating the very objects for the Confederate Memorial Literary Societ y to which the Confederate Memorial Literary decide the best location and exact mtme of Society was established" and recommended the still-unconstructed Battle Abbey. On sev- action "to secure the valuable cooperation & eral occasions in the ensuing decade, Ellys()n assistance of so zealous a Confederate as Mr. assured the society that the institute would Rouss." Several husbands of the society's not threaten the museum. In fact, he said members-particularly Lee Camp soldiers' "there was a unanimous wish on the pa rt (>I' home president Norman Randolph-thus the C.M.A. to place the Abbey under the man- appealed to Rouss to locate the proposed agement of the ladies, as it would be impolitic memorial hall on the grounds of the museum to have two such organizations in one city."'; ancl entrust its management to the society. Ellyson's assurances to the Confedl'rate While Rouss pledged publicly not to create an Memorial Literary Society's leaders were institution that "threatened or endangered the indicative of the gender relationships within memorial fabric which our noble women the southern memorial movement. In its first have erected, with so much loving devotion public statement, the Confederate Memorial and unremitting toil," he avoided promising Association's executive committee left littk his Battle Abbey to the CMLS. He confided to doubt that while the Battle Abbey was a crea- a number of veterans' organizations that he ture of the veterans, it was to be placed in the wanted his project to be "national in charac- hands of Confederate women. ter," and implied that the Confederate Museum, despite its pretensions, was still a For, in whose hands could this sacred distinctly Richmond institution. Nevertheless, trust more properly be placed, ami the society's officers and advisers remained so with more certainty of success, tha n confident that Rouss would present his into those of the gentle women of the memorial hall to the museum that they agreed South, who have never faltered or in 1896 to raze the outbuildings surrounding failed in the performance of any duty, the White House of the Confederacy in order either in war or in peace, imposed to create a "little park" in anticipation of an upon them for the Southern cause? To adjacent Battle Abbey. It was no accident that the ladies, who did everything for the Bradley T. Johnson in his 22 February 1896 Southern cause, during the "sixties" keynote address had referred to the museum except fight its battles, and who as a "Battle Abbey."il encouraged Confederate soldiers by The existence of the museum did play an their smiles, their cheers, their match- important role in 1898 when Richmond veter- less patriotism, fOltitute [sic] and self- ans succeeded in securing their city as the site sacrifices, we appeal for aid, with the for a memorial hall, formally called the assurances that every assistance will be Confederate Memorial Institute and adminis- rendered them to accomplish any work tered by a newly formed Confederate they may undertake, which we further 148 MO/llltllellt to "Our confederate Dead," Ho/l)'1II0oti Cemetery, Richt/wlld, Virginia. Olle (if tbe earliest C01ifederate memorials. tbe stone pyra- mid at liollywood CemetelJ' was dedicated Oil 6 NOl'ember 1869. The t/istinctifle lalldmark- built of stones care- fillly fit together without nlortar-was intended as a "Memorial 6ranite Pile- jl)l/'{//nidal in form . .. clad with IJines and roses." Its COllstfllcti()n, h(}lVever, dic- tated that the cemetery remove any growlb, Jin' fear thickening flilles in time topple tbe 11l0/lU/Iletlt. 77.Ie JlJ'1"Imid serlled as tbe logogram for I/le cemetery itself and for the /lolly wood Memorial Association. (Stereograph, by David ll.Anderson, assure them shall be done under their Randolph) asking that the United Confederate Ricbmond, Virginia.) EIe'lnor S. Brockenbrough own organizations in such manner and Veterans limit the number of women included Lihrary, The Museum of at such times as they shall prescribe, in in its formal activities "because the the Confederacy their respective states.'11 Confederate Reunions have been of late years an entertainment for the Sponsors and Maids Behind this inflated rhetoric lay a realistic of Honor instead of for the Veterans. "1, assessment of the interrelationships within In response to this resolution, the United Confederate memorial organizations. By 1900, Confederate Veterans' adjutant general com- leaders of Confederate veteran and other male posed a three-page paean to southern wom- associations had come to depend on, and anhood that was excessive even by the stan- enjoy, the work of their female counterparts. dards of the day. The veterans, he confessed, Some of this dependence was symbolic and were guilty of idoliZing southern women, but promoted the traditional view of southern they were militantly unrepentant: "Never was women as objects to be protected and vener- devotion more intensely sincere and idola- ated. For example, as part of the evolving rit- trous, never was worship more richly ual of United Confederate Veterans' reunions, deserved." The adjutant agreed to forward the the former soldiers increasingly surrounded UDC resolution to the various camps, but themselves with female sponsors, usually declined to endorse it. "Even if it were possi- women of their own generation, and with ble for the Reunions to become an entertain- adOring younger women as maids of honor, ment for the Sponsors and Maids of Honor usually their daughters and granddaughters. instead of for the Veterans, as the resolution Both age groups were clearly there for rea- recites, it would be but doing simple justice to sons beyond simple gratitude for wartime sac- the descendants of the nohle Women of the rifices. Women became so much a part of vet- Confederacy" for their memorial work. "In erans' gatherings that the United Daughters of honoring them we hut honor ourselves," he the Confederacy at its 1898 annual convention concluded in an inversion of the usual passed a resolution (introduced by Janet relationship between Confederate veterans 149 and southern women.']" placing a wreath upon the head of a southern Confederate veterans in several instances woman with the other hand. Janet Randolph decided to express their gratitude to southern was among the numerous women who women by erecting monuments to them opposed the idea of any monument to the rather than to the usual military and political southern female. If the veterans wished to figures-even as southern women at the same honor the South's women, she replied, they time erected monuments to prominent should donate money to the Confederate Confederate veterans. Debate raged within Museum's endowment fund. At Randolph's several organizations about the design of a suggestion, both the Confederate Memorial prototype monument. After much arguing Literary Society and the Virginia Division of back and forth, the veterans finally settled on the United Daughters of the Confederacy a female figure representing "Fame" gingerly passed resolutions urging that very alternative. ,- cradling a wounded soldier in one arm and Randolph and many other women in both 150 R. E. Lee Camp No.1, organizations prided themselves on their we even dared hope for." It was Randolph Ulliled C01!federate more substantive work on behalf of who convinced her CMLS colleagues to con- VelerllllS, Richmond, Virgil/ia. C/ose ll'ol'king Confederate veterans and the Confederate tribute an additional percentage of the pro- relatiollsbi/Js with illjlllen- cause, Indeed, Confederate veterans were ceeds and thereby complete the fund-raising lilIl /JIeJII/Jel's of often woefully dependent on women for for the monument. On 3 June 1907, Davis's Ric/)/JIolld's R. E. Lee Camp jI/YJI'ed to be /Jotb a bless- assistance in funding monuments and other ninety-ninth birthday, the largest crowd ever ing tllld tl ClIl'se jiJI' tbe ventures. For example, the society's highly gathered for a Confederate memorial dedica- COl/fedemte successful 1893 bazaar had also benefited a tion watched as dignitaries unveiled the Davis u'onWfl fiJl/lldas. Wbile the memorial effort begun years earlier by an monument. I? /It!tertllls'jlllllllcia/, legal, (/nd jlolitical connections eager local committee of veterans. Two men The completion of the Davis monument sometimes jJJ"()lIed invalu- instrumental in that effort subsequently was a milestone in the histolY of women's able, tbe mell's own orga- became members of the museum's advisory memorial associations. Women and men had nizatiollal objectilles occa- siolltllly clasbed witb those board, Richmond mayor]. Taylor Ellyson and worked together before to honor Confederate of the museum. Tbe veter- city engineer Wilfred E. Cutshaw, had heroes, but often with considerable uneasi- a/ls' wisb to locate a Battle appealed to the women of both the ness. It was, after all, only after nearly two Abbey neal' tbe lee Camp soldiers' home prooed to be Hollywood Memorial Association and the decades of bitterness between rival men's and an especial(J' coutentious Confederate Memorial Literary Society for women's organizations that Richmond had at issue. Tbe /Ilell a/so limited help in raising money for the half-completed last been able in 1890 to unveil a monument tbe iudil'idlUlI freet/om in the jmlJlic monument to Confederate soldiers and to Robert E. Lee."1 The Davis monument rep- arella.l.ielltenallt sailors. The 1893 bazaar exceeded all expec- resented the ascendancy of southern women (iollernor J lily/or Ellyson tations and, as Belle Bryan hoped, was "a as fund-raisers and organizers. (center), (/ lIIember (if tbe Grand Victory" for the civic-minded women The accomplishments of the Confederate museum's Advisory Board, R chastised bis lI'ije, Lora of Richmond." Museum itself further solidified the reputation Ellyson, jiJr The construction of a monument to and confidence of postwar "Confederate aPl)eell'illg />ejiJl'C a com- Jefferson Davis in Richmond posed an even women." The museum, for example, received mittee of tbe Virginia (ieneral Assembly in 1<)03 more difficult challenge. In the early 1890s, several large and important manuscript col- and dem(/nded sbe never veterans had grandly announced plans for an lections, including the original Southern (10 it again. elaborate $250,000 memorial. By 1899, how- Historical Society Papers, and purchased sig- Eleanor S. Brockenhrough Library, The Muselllll of the ever, J. Taylor Ellyson as president of the nificant sets of paintings and watercolors by Confederacy Jefferson Davis Monument Association had lit- Conrad Wise Chapman and William Ludwdl tle choice but to confess to the United Sheppard, both Confederate veterans. The Daughters of the Confederacy that the veter- collections grew so qUickly that in 1898 the ans "found they had promised more than they museum published a catalog of more than could accomplish." He then asked the women two hundred pages describing the contents of to assume the task of completing the monu- the various State Rooms. Museum officer ment. The UDC agreed to do so. While veter- Lizzie Cary Daniel noted in the Widely read ans remained as officers of the association, Confederate Veteran magazine, published in most of the fund-raising labors fell to a central Nashville, that a new museum building or committee chaired by Janet Randolph. By the annex was "fast becoming a necessity." A sec- spring of 1903, the women had almost ond catalog published in 1905 required an reached tl1eir revised target of $70,000. That additional sixty-five pages. The collection May the monument association and the CMLS received a prestigious endorsement in 1905 cosponsored a bazaar patterned after the 1893 and 1906 when the United States War effort, with the proceeds to be divided Department entrusted to the museum 2'iO bat- between the Davis monument project and the tle flags captured from Confederate military museum endowment fund. The event suc- units during the war." ceeded, Randolph repOlted, "far beyond what The Confederate Museum exhibited its 151 htCING PAGE: growing collection of artifacts in rapidly b