The Founding Generation of the Confederate Museum

i / ;; \i t Ii' ! 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 southern 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.

Load more