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Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures
Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty
In Becoming Confederates , Gary W. Gallagher explores loyalty in the era of the Civil War, focusing on Robert E. Lee, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, and Jubal A. Early―three prominent officers in the Army of Northern Virginia who became ardent Confederate nationalists. Loyalty was tested and proved in many ways leading up to and during the war. Looking at levels of allegiance to their native state, to the slaveholding South, to the United States, and to the Confederacy, Gallagher shows how these men represent responses to the mid-nineteenth-century crisis.
Lee traditionally has been presented as a reluctant convert to the Confederacy whose most powerful identification was with his home state of Virginia―an interpretation at odds with his far more complex range of loyalties. Ramseur, the youngest of the three, eagerly embraced a Confederate identity, highlighting generational differences in the equation of loyalty. Early combined elements of Lee's and Ramseur's reactions―a Unionist who grudgingly accepted Virginia's departure from the United States but later came to personify defiant Confederate nationalism.
The paths of these men toward Confederate loyalty help delineate important contours of American history. Gallagher shows that Americans juggled multiple, often conflicting, loyalties and that white southern identity was preoccupied with racial control transcending politics and class. Indeed, understanding these men's perspectives makes it difficult to argue that the Confederacy should not be deemed a nation. Perhaps most important, their experiences help us understand why Confederates waged a prodigiously bloody war and the manner in which they dealt with defeat.
Lee traditionally has been presented as a reluctant convert to the Confederacy whose most powerful identification was with his home state of Virginia―an interpretation at odds with his far more complex range of loyalties. Ramseur, the youngest of the three, eagerly embraced a Confederate identity, highlighting generational differences in the equation of loyalty. Early combined elements of Lee's and Ramseur's reactions―a Unionist who grudgingly accepted Virginia's departure from the United States but later came to personify defiant Confederate nationalism.
The paths of these men toward Confederate loyalty help delineate important contours of American history. Gallagher shows that Americans juggled multiple, often conflicting, loyalties and that white southern identity was preoccupied with racial control transcending politics and class. Indeed, understanding these men's perspectives makes it difficult to argue that the Confederacy should not be deemed a nation. Perhaps most important, their experiences help us understand why Confederates waged a prodigiously bloody war and the manner in which they dealt with defeat.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
About the author
Gary W. Gallagher
104 books89 followersGary W. Gallagher, the John L. Nau III Professor of History at the University of Virginia, is the author or editor of many books in the field of Civil War history, including The Confederate War; Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War; and The Union War.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 28, 2019
Gallagher's essays are always excellent, and these are not exceptions. His argument that Lee, Ramseur and Early became nationalists is convincing and, especially in the case of Lee, interesting. Some of the other claims he makes, such as his argument that the extent of post-war reconciliation between North and South has been exaggerated, are not persuasive. That may be attributable, at least in part, to the brevity of this volume. Prospective readers should be forewarned that this book contains only 90 pages of text, notwithstanding the hefty price tag that is unfortunately the norm with academic presses.
May 29, 2023
Classic Work!!
February 26, 2015
An interesting look at the conflicting loyalties and identities experienced by Confederates. The author does a good job pointing out how the different ways these men thought of their loyalties as the situations changed, but I would have liked to see conclusions more explicitly drawn; it ended up seeming more descriptive than conclusive. Still it's a very interesting and important examination of why and how people ended up "becoming confederates".
March 17, 2014
A look at the big and the not so big names of the Confederacy and how they came to view that national loyalty. Well-written.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews