The lost cause and Reunion in the confederate cemeteries of the north

Ned Crankshaw, Joseph E. Brent, Maria Campbell Brent

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The states that formed the Union during the American Civil War contain the remains of 26,000 Confederate prisoners of war. The United States neglected Confederate prisoners’ graves after the war, but in the late nineteenth century the Lost Cause movement appropriated the cemeteries as repositories of Confederate symbolism and rituals. This was part of the broader Southern campaign to reconcile defeat, to reassert southern partisanship, and to normalize the Jim Crow South. The parallel reunion movement in the North valorized the South by elevating military duty to a moral imperative while sidestepping the conflict over slavery. The reunion sentiment inspired the work of the Commission for Marking Graves of Confederate Dead, which resulted in systematic placement of monuments to Confederates in federal cemeteries. Confederate cemetery landscapes in the North represent changing interpretations of the meaning of the dead: a utilitarian burial process and War Department neglect of rebel graves, Lost Cause landscape production, assertions of the Americanism of Confederates, and expressions of reconciliation by the federal government. Encapsulated in these politicized landscapes are the white South’s need for a narrative to support white supremacy and of the North’s abandonment of racial justice as it sought reconciliation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-21
Number of pages21
JournalLandscape Journal
Volume35
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Keywords

  • Cemeteries
  • Confederate monuments
  • Lost Cause
  • Racism
  • War memorials

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nature and Landscape Conservation

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