Loyalty on the Line by Graham David K.;

Author:Graham, David K.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2018-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Confederate Memories

The first issue of the Confederate Veteran magazine appeared in 1893, and the magazine ran continuously until 1932. It served, represented, and promoted the voices of various postwar Confederate organizations, including the United Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Confederate Southern Memorial Association, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Through the issues of the magazine, these organizations attempted to not only promote their own Civil War memories but also counter northern interpretations of the war. Additionally, the magazine provided opportunities to discuss and debate the place of particular states in the legacies of the conflict, namely, deeply divided Maryland.34

The majority of the essays in the Confederate Veteran as well as the speeches and reports of the Maryland division of the UDC focused on the positive contribution Marylanders made to the Confederacy and its cause. These reflections appreciated the sacrifice Confederate Marylanders made in spite of the Unionist status of the state. They did not shy away from remembering the “tyranny” of northern policies toward the border state and the Unionist sentiment within the state. In many ways, praising Confederate Maryland and regretting Union Maryland bolstered the growing ideology of the Lost Cause by confirming the arguments put forth in the early Confederate histories of the late 1860s. Nevertheless, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the ability of the truly heroic citizens of the state to rise above and beyond Unionist impulses bolstered Confederate Maryland while diminishing the legacy of the rest of the state. Through this process, Confederate Marylanders maintained their dual-identity, but their status as Confederate veterans was uplifted while their Maryland ties were subsumed.

Native Baltimorean and New York attorney H. Snowden Marshall touched briefly but pointedly on Civil War Maryland at the dedication of Confederate Memorial Hall in Richmond, Virginia, in 1921. The hall was known as the “Battle Abbey of the South” and designed to maintain archives and a portrait collection donated by the R. E. Lee Camp of the United Confederate Veterans. Marshall was one of the event’s featured speakers, and in his speech he covered a variety of Civil War topics. During the course of his address, he recounted the roles of various states in the conflict, including two border states. “Maryland and Missouri were overrun before state action could be taken,” he said. He continued by stating that the two states “have nothing to be ashamed of” because the “best people of each of these states found their way to spend their lives and fortunes in the great cause in which their people were engaged.” Marshall’s remarks were some of many that characterized Maryland and its citizens in this way.35

Numerous outside veterans and essayists commended the Maryland Confederate soldiers who cast their lot with the South and the Confederacy. The Confederate Veteran reported favorably on an 1894 Confederate Memorial Day service in Maryland. “Maryland sent 20,000 of her best and bravest, the scions of families representing her gracious aristocracy, and her equally honorable yeomanry, into the armies of the Confederacy,” the article stated.

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