On 5 June 2020, Richmond City Council arrived at a unanimous decision. An equestrian statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee would be taken down, along with those of four other Confederate dignitaries, on Monument Avenue in the city of Richmond, Virginia. This was a particularly significant gesture. Richmond had been the capital of the Confederate States of America from May 1861 onward, and Lee was the general who surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on 9 April 1865, thereby ending the American Civil War. This decision came at a time when, across the nation’s public spaces, many memorials of Confederate America were already being defaced, dismantled or destined for demolition, as a result of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
Around 620,000 Americans lost their lives during the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. The death toll was greater than in any other armed conflict the nation has been involved in at any time. Among the visible legacies of this period of internecine warfare are the many memorials that remind us about the Confederacy, the vanquished side in the Civil War. Cessation of hostilities did not, however, automatically resolve the wide-ranging differences between the northern Union of States and the southern Confederacy of States.
During the years preceding the Civil War, a noticeable North-South divide was to emerge in America. The South had a predominantly agricultural economy, in which cash crops such as cotton and tobacco were grown on large farms, or plantations, worked by slaves of African origin, who were themselves treated as commodities in a market economy. On the other hand, the North was undergoing rapid industrialisation. Northern America was wealthier, more populous, had a larger army and navy, and had invested to a much greater degree in vital infrastructure, including roads, railroads, canals, and factories.
A developing ideological split only served to widen the economic divide. The South was heavily dependent on slave labour, while the North was abolishing slavery, providing sanctuary for runaway slaves, and resisting any further expansion of the slave trade within its territories. In addition, the South displayed many early neo-liberal economic tendencies. Southern leaders resented tariffs that the North was placing on its industrial goods, believing instead in an economy with no protective tariffs, low taxes, minimal Federal governmental control over the states, and limited state investment in infrastructure.
Southern states seceded from the Union during 1860 and 1861. South Carolina was the first state to secede, on 20 December 1860, and was followed in short succession by the other states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas). The Confederate States of America were formed on 4 February 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama (“the Cradle of the Confederacy”). Matters came to a head on 12 April 1861, when Confederate troops seized Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina, from Union forces after a 34-hour siege. Following this incident, four more states, those of the upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia) joined the Confederacy, along with the Territory of Arizona and the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. The 48 pro-Union counties of Virginia then broke off to form the new state of West Virginia.
For the first, and only, time in its history, the United States of America ended up with a new self-proclaimed “independent” state within its borders- one which was neither officially recognised by itself nor had any formal diplomatic relations with any other nation of the world. The military history of the Civil War, which included 384 “significant” battles, is well documented and also well commemorated, in the form of many memorials, museums, and live re-enactments, and requires no further mention here. It is the aftermath that we need to understand.
Immediately after the surrender of the Confederacy, the eleven economically devastated Confederate states entered the so-called Reconstruction Era, when slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution and erstwhile Confederates were amnestied and gradually assimilated back into mainstream American life. But many Southerners resented and actively resisted any moves towards “reconstruction”. The 14th (equal protection under the law) and 15th (giving black men the right to vote) Amendments failed to gain sufficient traction within the South. A new narrative, that of the “Lost Cause” began to emerge, which portrayed Confederate life in highly romanticised terms. In this narrative, even slavery was depicted as a benign and mutually beneficial system of coexistence.
Southern opposition to Northern imposition led to “Jim Crow” laws, which perpetuated segregation between blacks and whites, and also encouraged a new fashion for Confederate memorials and memorabilia, which took off in a big way during the 1890s. Statues of Confederate generals and politicians began to appear in locations throughout the South, and also in many parts of the North. This gradually continued over the years, so that even the Statuary Hall of the US Capitol building in Washington DC acquired eleven Confederate statues. According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, there are currently as many as 1,503 Confederate memorials throughout America, of which 718 are statues or memorials.
Many Confederate memorials were funded by taxpayers’ money or through voluntary subscriptions, driven by the enthusiastic support of organisations such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The Confederate battle flag became an especially popular fixture, in public spaces, on private properties, and on the exteriors of automobiles. Shrines to the Confederacy appeared and were opened to the public, permitting reflection on, and nostalgia for, the glories of the Confederacy. These shrines remain popular destinations to the present day, in such places as Stone Mountain, Georgia (rock carvings); Biloxi, Mississippi (the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library); and Montgomery, Alabama (the First White House of the Confederacy). Six Southern states even passed laws to protect Confederate memorials, laws which were repealed by a seventh state- Virginia- earlier this year.
While blacks and some liberal whites were offended by public displays of affection to the Confederacy, white supremacists appropriated certain Confederate symbols as their own, starting with prominent groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Many people noted that Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine African Americans attending a Bible study meeting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on 17 June 2015, had been seen posing with the Confederate battle flag on many occasions. These observations sparked a nationwide grassroots movement, calling for the removal of Confederate symbols from public places and for the renaming of roads, parks, schools, military bases and other places named after Confederate figures.
Nevertheless, Confederate identity remains strong in many parts of the US, including several pockets in the North. Like most merchandising and marketing initiatives in America, the range of Confederate memorabilia available for sale is mind-blowing. You can readily buy these artefacts online or in shops. You can collect flags, uniforms, badges, headgear, books, photographs, coins, medals, calendars, fridge magnets, belt buckles, not to mention all-important military hardware (firearms, swords, bayonets and the like). Many Americans continue to staunchly profess Confederate sympathies and tenaciously cling on to their Confederate “heritage”, while others supportive of their cause cite the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, in their support.
America’s severe internal divisions are reflected today in a seemingly irreconcilable dispute between supporters and opponents of Confederate sentimentality. Even President Trump has taken sides and declared where his sympathies lie, in no uncertain terms. It is true that history cannot be undone, nor rewritten. What can be done, though, is to render it more palatable for public consumption. Many Confederate relics are worthy of preservation, in museums and memorials where all can freely visit and then reflect upon, and form opinions about, what actually took place. But, as shown by the cyclical nature of human history, memories are short, lessons seem not to be learnt, and nothing actually changes in the long run.
Ashis Banerjee.