Ghosts of the Confederacy : Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865-1913.
Title:
Ghosts of the Confederacy : Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865-1913.
Author:
Foster, Gaines M.
ISBN:
9780199772100
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (328 pages)
Contents:
Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part One: Coming To Terms With Defeat, 1865 To 1885 -- Chapter One After Appomattox: The Trauma of Defeat -- Chapter Two After Appomattox: The Scars of Defeat -- Chapter Three Ceremonial Bereavement: Memorial Activities -- Chapter Four Ghost Dance: The Failed Revitalization Movement of the Virginians -- Chapter Five Toward a Reunited Nation: Signs of Reconciliation -- Part Two: Celebrating The Confederacy, 1883 To 1907 -- Chapter Six Toward a New South: Social Tensions -- Chapter Seven The Confederate Tradition in Transition: Developments in the Eighties -- Chapter Eight The Confederate Celebration: Its Organizational Structure -- Chapter Nine The Confederate Celebration: Its Interpretation of the War -- Chapter Ten The Confederate Celebration: Its Ritual Activities -- Chapter Eleven The South Vindicated: The Spanish-American War and Its Aftermath -- Part Three: The Waning Power Of The Confederate Tradition, 1898 To 1913 -- Chapter Twelve Changes in the Celebration: The Declining Importance of the Confederate Tradition -- Chapter Thirteen Academic Missionaries: The Challenge of the Professionals -- Conclusion -- Frequently Used Abbreviations -- Notes -- Appendix 1 Confederate Monuments Erected in the South, 1865-1912 -- Appendix 2 Occupational Structure of Selected Groups of Veterans -- Appendix 3 Occupational Structure of Selected Groups of Sons of Confederate Veterans -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.
Abstract:
After Lee and Grant met at Appomatox Court House in 1865 to sign the document ending the long and bloody Civil War, the South at last had to face defeat as the dream of a Confederate nation melted into the Lost Cause. Through an examination of memoirs, personal papers, and postwar Confederate rituals such as memorial day observances, monument unveilings, and veterans' reunions, Ghosts of the Confederacy probes into how white southerners adjusted to and interpreted their defeat and explores the cultural implications of a central event in American history. Foster argues that, contrary to southern folklore, southerners actually accepted their loss, rapidly embraced both reunion and a New South, and helped to foster sectional reconciliation and an emerging social order. He traces southerners' fascination with the Lost Cause--showing that it was rooted as much in social tensions resulting from rapid change as it was in the legacy of defeat--and demonstrates that the public celebration of the war helped to make the South a deferential and conservative society. Although the ghosts of the Confederacy still haunted the New South, Foster concludes that they did little to shape behavior in it--white southerners, in celebrating the war, ultimately trivialized its memory, reduced its cultural power, and failed to derive any special wisdom from defeat.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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