Memory and historiography

Monument to the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veteran organization

Cherokee Confederates reunion in New Orleans, 1903

The Civil War is one of the central events in America's collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war's aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war.^[264] The last theme includes moral evaluations of racism and slavery, heroism in combat and behind the lines, and the issues of democracy and minority rights, as well as the notion of an "Empire of Liberty" influencing the world.^[265]

Deeply religious Southerners saw the hand of God in history, which demonstrated His wrath at their sinfulness, or His rewards for their suffering. Historian Wilson Fallin has examined the sermons of white and black Baptist preachers after the War. Southern white preachers said:

God had chastised them and given them a special mission – to maintain orthodoxy, strict biblicism, personal piety, and traditional race relations. Slavery, they insisted, had not been sinful. Rather, emancipation was a historical tragedy and the end of Reconstruction was a clear sign of God's favor.

In sharp contrast, Black preachers interpreted the Civil War as:

God's gift of freedom. They appreciated opportunities to exercise their independence, to worship in their own way, to affirm their worth and dignity, and to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Most of all, they could form their own churches, associations, and conventions. These institutions offered self-help and racial uplift, and provided places where the gospel of liberation could be proclaimed. As a result, black preachers continued to insist that God would protect and help him; God would be their rock in a stormy land.^[266]

Lost Cause

Memory of the war in the white South crystallized in the myth of the "Lost Cause", shaping regional identity and race relations for generations.^[267] Alan T. Nolan notes that the Lost Cause was expressly "a rationalization, a cover-up to vindicate the name and fame" of those in rebellion. Some claims revolve around the insignificance of slavery; some appeals highlight cultural differences between North and South; the military conflict by Confederate actors is idealized; in any case, secession was said to be lawful.^[268] The two important political legacies that flowed from the adoption of the Lost Cause analysis were that it facilitated the reunification of the North and the South, and it excused the “virulent racism” of the 19th century, sacrificing African-American progress to a white man’s reunification. But the Lost Cause legacy to history is “a caricature of the truth. This caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter” in every instance.^[269]

Beginning in 1961 the U.S. Post Office releasedCommemorative stamps for five famous battles, each issued on the 100th anniversary of the respective battle.