Flag culture and the consolidation of confederate nationalism

Journal of Southern History

Volumn 68, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 293-332

  Bonner, Robert E ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67649534980     PISSN: 00224642     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3069934     Document Type: Article

References (123)

1. Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South (Baton Rouge and London, 1988)
2. Craig Calhoun, "Nationalism and the Public Sphere," in Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar, eds., Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy (Chicago and London, 1997), 100 (quotation)
3. For two other overviews of recent scholarship on nationalism that both stress the move from "primordialist" to constructivist perspectives, see Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, "Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Culture Representation," in Eley and Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (New York and Oxford, 1996), 3-37, esp. 6-7
4. and Rogers Brubaker, "Myths and Misconceptions in the Study of Nationalism," in John A. Hall, ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, Eng., and other cities, 1998), 272-306
5. The public nature of early American nationalism, and especially its celebratory rites and its manifestation in print, is the theme of David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill and London, 1997)
6. Compare Kenneth M. Stampp, "The Southern Road to Appomattox," in Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (New York and Oxford, 1980), 246-69
7. George C. Rable, The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics (Chapel Hill and London, 1994)
8. and Harry S. Stout, "The Life and Death of the Confederate Jeremiad," James A. Gray lectures at Duke University, 1992 (unpublished manuscript in the possession of the author)
9. Gallagher, Confederate War
10. Robert E. Bonner, "Rebels with Causes, Now and Then," Reviews in American History, 27 (June 1999), 234-42
11. Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag (Cambridge, Eng., and other cities, 1999)
12. This volume takes issue with the very influential argument of Benedict Anderson, whose Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983) linked nationalism to print culture and the rise of the modern novel. Marvin and Ingle redefine the nation as a community of shared sacrifice and blood rather than of text-based imagination and print
13. The experience of Civil War-era flag devotion bears out their critique only in part, since the messages disseminated about blood sacrifice for flags were embodied not only in cloth objects but in the print culture that both Anderson and Faust, in Creation of Confederate Nationalism, have explored
14. and Stuart McConnell, "Reading the Flag: A Reconsideration of the Patriotic Cults of the 1890s," in John Bodnar, ed., Bonds of Affection: Americans Define Their Patriotism (Princeton, 1996), 102-19
15. Faust, Creation of Confederate Nationalism, 82-85
16. James A. Epstein, Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790-1850 (New York and Oxford, 1994)
17. and Harry Saker, The South African Flag Controversy, 1925-1928 (Capetown, Oxford, and other cities, 1980)
18. Scot M. Guenter develops the notion of "flag culture" in American Flag, esp. 44-65
19. Recent works addressing contemporary controversies over the Confederate flag, which intensified in the early 1990s, include Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York, 1998)
20. George Schedler, Racist Symbols and Reparations: Philosophical Reflections on Vestiges of the American Civil War (Lanham, Md., and other cities, 1998), esp. Part One
21. and J. Michael Martinez, William D. Richardson, and Ron McNinch-Su, eds., Confederate Symbols in the Contemporary South (Gainesville, Fla., and other cities, 2000)
22. The most helpful brief overview of the basics of flag design and selection is Devereaux D. Cannon Jr., The Flags of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History (Memphis, 1988)
23. George Henry Preble, History of the Flag of the United States of America (Boston, 1880) remains very helpful, especially 494-531
24. This ceremony is described in full in William C. Davis, "A Government of Our Own": The Making of the Confederacy (New York and other cities, 1994), 241-44
25. and Charleston Mercury, March 8, 1861, p. 1, c. 4
26. The prominent role Confederates had played in the United States provides a glaring contrast to the dynamics involved in symbolic borrowing in India, analyzed in Virmani, "National Symbols under Colonial Domination," 169-97
27. New Orleans Crescent quoted in Augusta Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, January 3, 1861, p. 2, c. 1
28. New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, February 20, 1861, p. 2, c. 2
29. Athens Watchman, March 13, 1861, p. 2
30. Augusta Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, March 9, 1861, p. 2, c. 1 (emphasis in original)
31. The Flag Committee report is partially reprinted in "The Southern Confederacy: The Confederacy Flag," De Bow's Review, 30 (April 1861), 486
32. For a detailed discussion of the congressional decision and the competing opinions on the first design, see Cannon, Flags of the Confederacy, 7-13
33. and Preble, History of the Flag, 501-7
34. Speeches of the Hon. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, Delivered During the Summer of 1858 (Baltimore, 1859), 55 (first quotation)
35. Jefferson Davis, "Remarks in the Special Message on Affairs in South Carolina. Jan. 10, 1861," in Jon L. Wakelyn, ed., Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861 (Chapel Hill and London, 1996), 135 (second and third quotations)
36. For another southern vow to pluck "dishonored stars" from the American flag see Fleetwood Lanneau, Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati, and the '76 Association, July 4, 1857 (Charleston, 1857), 6
37. For the context and the words of Macarthy's song see E. Lawrence Abel, Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861-1865 (Mechanicsburg, Pa., 2000), 52-66
38. "The Bonnie Blue Flag" was issued in at least three broadside editions and fourteen sheet music editions, as listed in T. Michael Parrish and Robert M. Willingham Jr., Confederate Imprints: A Bibliography of Southern Publications from Secession to Surrender (Austin, Tex., and Katonah, N.Y., 1987), 547, 577-78, while its reprinting in the Confederate press and in later songsters circulated it even further
39. Its presentation of reconfigured stars inspired such imitations as Robert F. Carlin, Southern Constellation (Macon, Ga., 1863)
40. and William Gilmore Simms, "Now Wave the Green Palmetto," in Newberry (S.C.) Rising Sun, February 6, 1861, p. 1, c. 2
41. Richmond Daily Dispatch, May 28, 1861, p. 1, c. 4
42. see especially March 9, 1861, p. 1, c. 6
43. A good overview of the Confederate press is provided by J. Cutler Andrews, "The Confederate Press and Public Morale," Journal of Southern History, 32 (November 1966), 445-65
44. [Susan Blanchard Elder], The Confederate Flag. Written by Mrs. C. D. Elder of New Orleans. Music by Sig. G. George, of Norfolk, Va. (New Orleans, 1861)
45. See also Harry Macarthy, Our Flag, or the Origin of the Stars and Bars (New Orleans, 1862)
46. and E. Lawrence Abel's more recent Singing the New Nation, especially chaps. 3 and 5, both document attention to the flag
47. while George L. Mosse stresses efforts to orchestrate song from above in The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (New York, 1975), 137-40
48. The Stars and Bars, undated broadside in the John P. Nicholson Collection (Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.)
49. Ella D. Clark, Adieu to the Star Spangled Banner Forever (New Orleans, 1861)
50. J. S. Prevatt, The Confederate Flag - Red, White, and Blue, undated broadside in the Nicholson Collection
51. [Theodore] Von La Hache, The New Red, White and Blue (New Orleans, 1862)
52. T. B. Russell, Hurrah for Our Flag! (Macon, Ga., 1864)
53. Bigney, "Battle-Field of Manassas," 78 (block quotation)
54. For a full discussion of how the totemic power of the United States flag has elicited the willingness to die on its behalf, see Marvin and Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation, esp. 29-40
55. J. Wright Simmons, "The Martyr of Alexandria," in Bohemian, ed., War Songs of the South, 100-102 (third and fourth quotations on p. 101)
56. Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, May 28, 1861
57. Attakapas (La.) Register, June 20, 1861, p. 2, c. 3 (fifth quotation)
58. B. Wharton, "Stand By Your Flag," in Richmond Daily Dispatch, May 31, 1861, p. 4, c. 1
59. Andrew Devilbliss, To the Memory of Jackson, of Alexandria, Va. ([New Orleans, 1861])
60. and T. F., "Jackson, our First Martyr," in Savannah Daily Morning News, June 3, 1861, p. 1, c. 4 rfseq 101
61. Devilbliss, To the Memory of Jackson (first quotation)
62. Holcombe, "Jackson, the Alexandria Martyr," 148 (ninth quotation)
63. Wharton, "Stand By Your Flag" (tenth quotation)
64. John H. Hewitt, Give Our Flag to the Breeze! A New National Song ([Richmond, 1861]) (first quotation)
65. J. H. H., "Southern Song of Freedom," Richmond Enquirer, May 14, 1861, p. 2, c. 4 (second and third quotations)
66. Natchez Daily Courier, May 25, 1861, pp. 2-3
67. Nashville Union and American, December 22, 1861
68. For other examples of ceremonies where both women and clergy took part see Columbus (Ga.) Enquirer, July 20, 1861, p. 3, c. 1
69. and Marshall Texas Republican, December 21, 1861, p. 2, c. 5
70. Presentation ceremonies are also discussed in George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Urbana and Chicago, 1989), 47
71. Drew Gilpin Faust explores the meaning of sewing as a patriotic activity in Mothers of Invention, 24-25
72. [George W. Bagby], "Editor's Table," Southern Literary Messenger, 32 (January 1861), 75
73. St. George Tucker, "The Southern Cross," Southern Literary Messenger, 32 (March 1861), 189
74. Richmond Whig, August 29, 1861, p. 4, c. 1
75. Miles, Flag Committee report, Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, I, 101 (last quotation)
76. New Orleans Daily Delta, December 21, 1861, p. 1, c. 1
77. and Lucy Virginia French, "The Confederate Flag," in Georgia Crusader, October 17, 1861
78. [George W. Bagby], "Editor's Table," Southern Literary Messenger, 34 (January 1862), 67
79. also reprinted in John M. Daniel, The Richmond Examiner During the War (New York, 1868), 46
80. A fuller account can be found in Robert E. Bonner, Colors and Blood: Flag Passions of the Confederate South (Princeton, 2002; forthcoming)
81. Howard Michael Madaus, The Battle Flags of the Confederate Army of Tennessee (Milwaukee, Wisc., 1976)
82. Joseph H. Crute Jr., Emblems of Southern Valor: The Battle Flags of the Confederacy (Louisville, Ky., 1990)
83. Echoes of Glory. Vol. II: Arms and Equipment of the Confederacy (Alexandria, Va., 1991)
84. Alan K. Sumrall, Battle Flags of Texans in the Confederacy (Austin, Tex., 1995)
85. and Richard Rollins, "The Damned Red Flags of the Rebellion": The Confederate Battle Flag at Gettysburg (Redondo Beach, Calif., 1997)
86. A wealth of information is also contained in Rebecca Ansell Rose, Colours of the Gray: An Illustrated Index of Wartime Flags from the Museum of the Confederacy's Collection (Richmond, 1998)
87. New Orleans Daily Picayune, April 27, 1861, p. 2, c. 2
88. and Madaus, Battle Flags of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, 11-15
89. For the Napoleonic use of martial glory see Matthew Truesdell, Spectacular Politics: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and the Fête Impériale, 1849-1870 (New York and Oxford, 1997)
90. for American emphasis on the experiences of individuals see Fahs, "The Sentimental Soldier in Popular Civil War Literature," 107-31
91. Richmond Enquirer quoted in Charleston Mercury, March 13, 1863, p. 1, c. 2 (second, third, and fourth quotations)
92. "Our Flag and Seal," Southern Illustrated News, 1, no. 28 (March 21, 1863), p. 2 (fifth quotation)
93. Richmond Enquirer, April 24, 1863, p. 2, c. 2
94. Charleston Daily Courier, May 5, 1863, p. 1, c. 1 (Beauregard quotations)
95. "The Flag of the Free Eleven," in Songs of the South, 50-51
96. and on the cover of F. W. Rosier, The Virginian Marseillaise (Richmond, 1864)
97. and Harry S. Stout, "The Life and Death of the Confederate Jeremiad."
98. Tucker, "Southern Cross," 189 (first quotation); Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E. Fields (New York and other cities, 1995), 228-31 (second quotation on p. 230; third quotation on p. 229)
99. A. B. Meek, "Land of My Fathers," 56-58 (first quotation on p. 57)
100. "The Blue Cross," 25-27
101. and "The Lifting of the Banner," 35-37 (second quotation on p. 36), all in Southern Soldier's Prize Songster
102. Alphaeus Homer Albert, Buttons of the Confederacy: A Descriptive and Illustrated Catalog of the Buttons Worn by the Troops of the Confederates [sic] States of America, 1861-65 (Nashville, 1952; Hightstown, N.J., 1963)
103. Mark E. Neely Jr., Harold Holzer, and Gabor S. Boritt, The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause (Chapel Hill and London, 1987), 9 (third quotation)
104. Albert Boime, The Unveiling of the National Icons: A Plea for Patriotic Iconoclasm in a Nationalist Era (Cambridge, Eng., and other cities, 1998), 18 (fourth quotation)
105. Gallagher's Confederate War represents the most sustained attempt to stress the accomplishments of Confederate nationalism
106. it takes direct issue with the quoted claims of Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War, 64
107. Richmond Examiner quoted in "What Subjugation Means," Charleston Mercury, January 12, 1864, p. 1, c. 2-3
108. Albert Pike, "Dixie," in Simms, ed., War Poetry of the South, 92-94
109. Albert Pike, State or Province? Bond or Free? ([Little Rock], 1861), 24 (fourth and fifth quotations; emphasis in original)
110. Richard M. McMurry documents the greater geographical diversity of the Virginia army in Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History (Chapel Hill and London, 1989), 87-90
111. S. H. S., "The Rally," in Richmond Sentinel, March 4, 1865, p. 1, c. 7
112. John H. Hewitt, "The Confederate Flag," in Richmond Evening Courier, March 29, 1865
113. and George M. Fredrickson, Why the Confederacy Did Not Fight a Guerrilla War After the Fall of Richmond: A Comparative View (Gettysburg, Pa., 1996)
114. Robert E. Lee, "General Orders, No. 9," April 10, 1865, in Official Records, Ser. I, Vol. XLVII, Pt. III, 744
115. For the disavowal of political separatism by former Confederates see Paul H. Buck, The Road to Reunion, 1865-1900 (Boston, 1937)
116. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy
117. Jack P. Maddex Jr., The Reconstruction of Edward A. Pollard: A Rebel's Conversion to Postbellum Unionism (Chapel Hill, 1974)
118. Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920 (Athens, Ga., 1980)
119. and Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill and London, 1993)
120. Flag poetry that, in the spirit of the "Conquered Banner," emphasized the final defeat of the Confederacy included "The Confederate Flag," in Mason, comp., Southern Poems of the War, 440-41
121. Louise Wigfall Wright, "The Confederate Flag: 'Requiescat in Pace,'" in Wright, A Southern Girl in '61: The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator's Daughter (New York, 1905), 249-50
122. and Eron Opha Gregory, "The Returned Battle Flags," in The Flags of the Confederate Armies, Returned to the Men Who Bore Them . . . (St. Louis, 1905)
123. A denial of politics - whether racism or treason - is a major theme of neo-Confederate defenses of the flag, as expressed, for instance, in Don Hinkle, Embattled Banner: A Reasonable Defense of the Confederate Battle Flag (Paducah, Ky., 1997)