This week’s prompt asked you to consider how, when, and why Confederate officials began to embrace the idea of enlisting slaves as soldiers, and if this Confederate measure could be called “emancipation.” Adam’s post offers a detailed explanation of how and when Confederates embraced the enlistment of the enslaved as “essentially a last ditch effort.” Craig also explains the how, when, and why of Confederate “Emancipation.” Although he approached Levine’s book with skepticism, he found Confederate Emancipation’s argument convincing because it “ranged across multiple factions” to provide a maximal explanation for slave enlistment, and because Levine’s arguments tied into our previous discussions in this course. Jocelyn’s post takes on Prompt 2, and analyzes Union emancipation in tandem with “Confederate Emancipation.” Jocelyn succinctly argues, “Despite the differences in their concepts of emancipation, though, the Confederacy’s and Union’s reasons for emancipation were surprisingly similar.”

Could differences and similarities between Union and Confederate “Emancipation” reveal something about understandings of masculinity as well as race? What do debates over emancipation – among northerners and southerners – suggest about the co-construction of race and gender?

Many of you were surprised at Lincoln’s complex views of race and slavery as you examined the Lincoln Documents on Slavery. This week I’d like to point you to two posts. Alex and Juri agree that Lincoln’s understanding of race influenced his attitude toward slavery and what could be done about it. Alex identifies Lincoln’s “segregationist sentiment” – his prejudge against African Americans and concerns about racial coexistence that, he argues, “worked to delay emancipation until Lincoln felt it was absolutely necessary for victory.” Juri holds a similar view of Lincoln. He argues, “I believe that perhaps because of Lincoln’s belief in white superiority, he was not eager to free slaves, unless it benefited the Union.”

Should these views held by Lincoln lead historians to label him a “racist,” as some of you did in your posts? What does calling Lincoln a “racist,” “white supremacist” or “segregationist” illuminate, and what does it obscure?

As we begin to work with primary documents on the Dowling monument, it will be especially useful for everyone to read each other’s blog posts. As you discovered this week, the Houston Public Digital Archives on Dowling contain many rich documents that merit a close, careful, and critical reading. By analyzing these documents and building on the research and interpretations of others, we can develop “maximal explanations” to answer our questions about the monument. This week I’d like to point you to two posts:

Kat concentrates on what might seem a smaller piece of the Dowling puzzle: the names inscribed on the monument. Yet her examination of the Dick Dowling Monument Association Records reveals that as Mr. D.D. Bryan complied the roster, he faced a large and disturbing problem: some of Dowling’s men were deserters. This finding has important implications; as Kat explains, “that the Davis Guards had deserters takes away from [Cotham’s The Confederacy’s Thermopylae’s] image of valiant men choosing to stay at all costs.”

Craig examines newspaper articles and the 1997 rededication ceremony program to trace changes in the way Dowling has been remembered since 1905. By analyzing the language used to describe Dowling in these documents, Craig finds that since the 1950s Dowling’s Irish heritage and civic work has been emphasized, rather than his Confederate military service. But this finding has led him to ask a question many of you also had: “Was the Civil Rights movement a causative factor for this shift in public memory of the monument?”

In light of this shared – and important – question, I’m posting a snippet from another primary source. At the Annual Convention of the Texas Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1957, Julie Dunn gave her official report as the Chairman of the Division’s Radio and Television Committee:

OUR MEMBERSHIP SHOULD AWAKEN TO THE VAST OPPORTUNITIES OF TV AND RADIO, FOR A MINIMUM OF EFFORT EXERTED RESULTS CAN BE OVERWHELMING.

On March 4, 1957, in cooperation with Mr. Barthold, Program Director of KUHT-TV, channel 8, the University of Houston presented “The War Between the States” on TV. A series of ten television lectures called – “The Confederate Debut”. This series of bi-weekly programs was given in conjunction with the Military Science and Tactics Department of the University, with Captain Richard C. Robbins, Department Assistant, as director. The history of the major battles of the War Between the States was discussed and approached from all military aspects – Maps, Charts, Southern Music, and Photographs as well as scale models of the Battlefields were incorporated into the lectures. Your chairman was in Houston for one of these telecasts.

The schedule for the program from 8:00 to 8:30 P.M. on Mondays and Wednesdays on the nation’s Educational Station – the Radio and TV Film Center – was as follows:

Monday, March 4: “The First Battle of Manassas.”

Wednesday, March 6: “Battle of Shiloh.”

Wednesday, March 13: “Seven Days’ Battle.”

Monday, March 18: “Battle of Chancellorsville.”

Wednesday, March 20: “Battle of Antietam.”

Wednesday, March 27: “Battle of Fredericksburg.”

Monday, April 1: “Battle of Gettysburg.”

Wednesday, April 3: “Battle of Vicksburg.”

Wednesday, April 10: “Battle of Missionary Ridge.”

Monday, April 15: “Strategy and Tactics of General Grant After Assuming Command of all the Union Forces.”

As this series closed all the major TV stations of the State were contacted, asking them to present similar broadcasts in conjunction with their nearest R.O.T.C. They were assured that KUHT and the University of Houston would cooperate, and possibly lend scripts, etc. The response was wonderful, with 3 stations scheduling much the same telecourses. – Julie (Mrs. Keet) Dunn, “Report of Radio and Television Committee,” Sixty First Annual Convention, Texas Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (held in Austin: September 23-26, 1957), p. 66-67. Emphasis and caps in original.

In the posts this week, many of you identified a shift away from Confederate memory in the 1950s. What do you make of Dunn’s report? Soon I’ll be talking to the class about the Texas Division of the UDC, so if this quote has sparked any questions, comments, or ideas, I hope you’ll share them with me by commenting on this post, or by sending me an email.

I hope you’ll take a chance to check out others’ blog posts on this “snow day”:

Drawing on her understanding of the role of crisis in party realignment in the U.S., Renee found Kornblith’s article “quite persuasive.” Juri – although he was somewhat bothered by the assumptions Kornblith made as he crafted his counterfactual hypothesis – found Kornblith’s argument a “reasonable” case that “lends doubt to the fundamentalist viewpoint.”

Not everyone found Kornblith convincing. Alex finds too many “leaps of faith” in Kornblith’s theory that the issue of slavery could have faded into the background. Alex explains, “there must have already been heated tensions about the growing institution of slavery, even before the annexation of the Mexican Cession.” Jocelyn adds that Kornblith has not thoroughly considered fundamentalists’ arguments about the importance of economic differences and the role of the Fugitive Slave Law.

At the conclusion of his article, Kornblith acknowledged that counterfactual method could never resolve the debate between revisionists and fundamentalists. However, he hoped his article would encourage readers reflect on “how different factors interacted to bring war in 1861, rather than at another date.” Was Kornblith successful in this goal, even for those of you who disagreed with the shape that his counterfactual hypothesis took? How useful would this methodology be for navigating other debates in Civil War historiography?

…the idea for this study took root in class one day when students and I were discussing [James McPherson’s] For Cause and Comrades. Discussion remained lively until I asked students what made Union and Confederate soldiers different from each other. Sometimes dead silence in response to a question simply means students have not read the book, but on that day, they had been chatting right along up until that point. The student silence led me to resolve that before settling for the notion that 620,000 Americans killed one another because they all agreed on everything, I wanted to take another, more consciously comparative, look (227 n.16).

Hello everyone,

As you all have pointed out, the Dick Dowling monument diverges from other Civil War monuments in important and interesting ways. Your classmates have intriguing ideas about why this might be so, and what these differences might mean.

Courtney and others point out how unusual it was that Dowling’s Irish heritage was emphasized, and ask what this might reveal about the status of Irish citizens in Houston at the time.

Stephanie notes that the many differences between the Dowling statue and typical Civil War monuments may mean that this monument was designed to achieve different goals entirely.

As Victor explains, the Dowling memorial at Sabine pass emphasizes vigor and masculinity, while the Houston statue depicts Dowling as a “more placid” and civilized gentleman. Was this more a reflection of the ideals of those who erected the statue, or might it reveal anything about conceptions of gender in early 20^th century Houston more generally?