Confederate Veterans at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

After years of living Los Angeles - within blocks of Hollywood Forever Cemetery, I thought it would be a good idea to find their Confederate monument. Here, surrounding a modest monument to the soldiers of the Confederate Army, one can find the graves of about 30 Rebel soldiers together with a handful of United Daughters of the Confederacy. From what I understand, each year the Daughters hold a memorial exercise near the monument - I have to find out when it is...so I can show up and record it for posterity. I mean...stuff like this needs to be seen by the rest of the world.

Anyway, when I was looking into this monument this morning, I found out that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had issued a "Heritage Violation" against Hollywood Forever for disallowing the placement of Confederate flags on these Rebel graves. Here is the blog post - attacking those pesky "liberals" and demanding satisfaction. Whatever.

Still, it got me thinking. What exactly is a Heritage Violation and how does one go about getting one? Well, I checked with the Sons of Confederate Veterans General Headquarters website and found out "Any attack upon Confederate Heritage, or the flags, monuments, and symbols which represent it, can be termed a Heritage Violation." Well - I suppose that I need to be careful then. It seems that I may already have committed several of these right here on Cosmic America. Maybe even leaning (as pictured above) on a Rebel monument with such affected nonchalance could be a violation. I'll have to check into it.

My SCV friends will need to report me as soon as possible, according to the rules and regulations - because "The more time which passes between a heritage violation and any SCV response, the less likely we [the UCV]are to be successful in correcting the situation."

If you really feel the need to report me - you can do so by following these instructions. At any rate - I had a good time today checking out how much Los Angeles has to offer in terms of Civil War history - there is more here than you might think. We have a major street named after General Rosecrans and everything! And in the end - my own Confederate ancestors would be thrilled that I live so close to a Rebel monument. I even saw a few Alabama soldiers there!

I also understand the the great city of Pasadena has a Civil War monument. I think that will be my next stop. See you then!

Keith

Black Confederates. Really? REALLY??

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

So - I've been on Youtube again. It's a guilty pleasure, really. Last night was a real kicker. I followed a few video "suggestions" to a series of posts on black Confederate soldiers. There seems to be this warped idea out there that there were thousands and thousands of blacks serving as soldiers in the Confederate army. One estimation claimed as many as 90,000 black people shouldered a musket for the glorious CSA. You have got to be freakin' kidding me. 90,000?? That is bigger than the whole Army of Northern Virginia at its grandest.

Now I am not saying that blacks were absent from the military scene. When the ANV (or any other CS army) went somewhere, they took black people with them. They were - you guessed it - slaves. They did what they were forced to do. Laundry, cooking, clearing trees, building fortifications, etc. Slaves were drafted in to Confederate service in others ways too (much to the irritation of their masters). They built fortifications around Atlanta, Richmond and Petersburg, for example. These were the toils of slaves. They were not willingly serving the Confederate cause.

The very idea of this is perverse at best. Imagine - blacks serving a country conceived on the idea of racial inequality and the protection of the "peculiar" institution. Wow. Does that mean that a slave or two may at one time have picked up a musket, maybe - but regiments or even divisions of black soldiers. You think we would have heard of them.

Seriously, I have never seen or heard of a letter written by a Union soldier describing the several regiments of black Confederates he faced in battle. I have never read a newspaper describing black Confederate divisions defending a Rebel position. I am guessing it's because they didn't exist. I mean really, don't you think Ken Burns would have at least said something about this? (Insert Ashokon Farewell theme music here..."Dear Mama - today 90,000 black Reb soldiers marched by...we fear the worst...I have dysentery....blah blah blah.")

Now the prospect of raising limited black troops had crossed a few Rebels' minds. Even Robert E. Lee thought it was a good idea. But nothing of significance ever happened in this regard. Rebels in power decided that if they armed blacks, then what they had been fighting for would have been pretty pointless. Late, late, late in the war CSA Congress finally passed legislation to raise a few black troops as sort of a last ditch effort. And there were reports of a handful of black troops drilling in Richmond early in April 1865. But this was way too little waaaay too late.

Now after the war, some United Confederate Veterans dressed up a few former slaves in Confederate gray and paraded them around, I suppose, to show that the war wasn't about slavery and that blacks were in favor of Confederate independence. Oy. So if you are trying to prove that black people supported the Confederate war effort just stop. Or better yet, show me some real evidence that these thousands and thousands of black soldiers actually existed. Put them on a map, show me the battle reports, anything. Just saying they were around doesn't make it so - evidence does.

Have a look at my friend Kevin Levin's Blog, Civil War Memory for a comprehensive look at this topic - he has spent a great deal of time and effort examining the all claims from the moderate to the bizarre. Another friend, Jaime Martinez just wrote a succinct piece on Black Confederates for the Encyclopedia Virginia that you can check out HERE. And of course, if you have any real evidence that these guys actually existed - please submit in the comment section.

Peace,

Keith

To Bind Up the Nation's Wounds: Reconciliation Reconsidered (redux)

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Reconciliation is a topic that has been very close to my heart for the last decade. Just to open things up, I want to say a few words about the intersection between national reconciliation and the veterans' efforts to commemorate the war.

Commemorative themes have intrigued historians for decades. Their conclusions can best be described by what I have called the reconciliation premise. The premise, in a nutshell, goes something like this: The overwhelming majority of Civil War veterans moved on from the war and let bygones be bygones. The commemorated the war essentially free from controversy and instead, celebrated the mutual valor of all participants. Civil War commemorations were about remembering bravery and fortitude and forgetting divisive issues such as treason and slavery.

Historian David Blight has proposed that reunion rested on the solid ground of shared racism. In short, being able to write the vexing issues of slavery and emancipation out of Civil War memory allowed the veterans to quickly forgive one another and commemorate the war on "southern terms."

Hmmmmm. Well, I can't deny that Civil War veterans, by our standards, shared the racist assumptions of most people in the 19th century. But is this what reconciliation boiled down to? While Blight and his legion of followers make a compelling argument, I believe that they obscure what was really going on.

Reading through the historical records, one can quickly see that veterans left behind a wide range of opinions on the nation, the war, and their former enemies. The proponents of the reconciliation premise would argue that any individual stirring up a sectional fuss was either an Unreconstructed Rebel or a Bloody Shirt Yank - and definitely an anachronism during the reconciliation era.

But here's the problem. Some of the most vehement, the most vocal, and yes...the most sectional, claimed to be reconciliationists at heart. Reconcilationists talked at length about treason, tyranny, slavery, and oppression. And as it turns out, their commemorative efforts were loaded with highly controversial expressions after all.

Maybe then, reconciliation was something altogether different from what historians have led us to believe. I won't give it all away here - you'll just have to stay tuned. But for now, just think of the reconciliationist commemorative ethos as a heated competition.

Most veterans saw reconciliation as a fact. Nothing less. The Union cause had been about reconciling from the very beginning - preserving the Union explicitly demanded it. Former Confederates had little choice in the matter. But the terms of this reconciliation - and how the reunited nation and the world would remember the war - were highly contested. In some ways, this winner of this battle has not yet been determined.

While many historians insist that reconciliaiton was really about forgetting, I disagree. Reconciliation was about remembering - preserving the memories that led them to war in the first place.

Peace,
Keith

For a couple of books that support the reconciliation premise (books that I argue against), see:
Race and Reunion by David Blight
Ghosts of the Confederacy by Gaines Foster

The Search for Civil War Veterans in Los Angeles Is On!

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Now - since I have made the decision to write about veterans in the West, I suppose it would be a good idea to find some to write about. First step...cemeteries. I thought I would go after a couple of hard ones first. I found a few at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in, you guessed it, Hollywood (resting place of Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino and lots of other super famous people). There is at least one more at the Westwood Village Memorial Park (resting place of Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Merv Griffin...really - the list goes on and on). I have got their names, states, and units in order - next step...search the archives and see if they turn up anywhere.

Perhaps the more obvious spot - slated for a trip next week - is the National Cemetery in West Los Angeles. This is on the grounds of the Old Soldiers' Home - aka the Sawtelle Veterans' Home, established in 1887. This cemetery is the resting place of many more Civil War (Union) veterans and a Civil War monument to boot. No kidding. I had lived in LA for decades before I knew there was a Civil War monument here.

Stick around - I'll keep you posted and if you have any leads...I am all ears - especially when it comes to former Confederates. I am certain that some made it here, but few have turned up so far.

Peace,

Keith

The Next Project - Civil War Veterans and Westward Expansion

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

After careful consideration I have decided on the next major project. There were many to choose from, including an analysis of the public reaction to the film The Birth of a Nation, and that one is still on deck.

But I have been thinking about Civil War veterans in the West since my early days in graduate school - when I was concentrating on vets in the East.

So on we go. Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I speak of veterans, national reconciliation, and celebrations of section embedded in their national commitment. In short - northern and southern veterans embraced reunion on respective terms. Any idea that the issues of war were swept under the rug because of some shared racism are simply nonsense (confused? See this post).

My principal question: what happens when we situate these veterans (or perhaps anybody who lived through the war) within a new nationalist context - one that unfolded in the West?

Westward expansion really picked up steam in the latter third of the nineteenth century - former soldiers and their families made their way into this "pristine" part of the country in extraordinarily large numbers. When they made it - they did what you might expect. The talked about their experiences, set up soldiers' homes, built monuments and national cemeteries. I wonder how (or even if) the fact that they were out West made a difference.

For many, the great expanse that was the West of the late-nineteenth century defines America of that age and indeed informs our nationalist culture today. Expressions of nationalism took on a whole new look, feel, and sensibility. I am after the veterans experiential level as the country moved from a North/South to an East/West orientation. What were veterans' contributions to this shift?

Peace,

Keith