The Regent’s “Confederate Reckoning” and the Myth of the Confederacy 0

Radio Times looks at the symbolism and the reality of the Civil War:

We’re coming into the 150th anniversary of the American South’s first organized attempt to secede from the Union. Our guest, University of Pennsylvania professor of history STEPHANIE MCCURRY, looks at the Confederate War through the experience of the South’s women and slave struggles in her new book, “Confederate Reckoning.” We’ll talk to her about how women and slaves influenced the demise of the Confederacy, including how they took on the Jefferson Davis government on government enlistment, and tax and welfare policies.

A listen helps illumate the strength of the Confederate myth.

Stephanie McCurry, at the beginning of the interview (slightly edited for conciseness):

This issue of the Civil War gets new salience . . . because of our own (“heightened political” was the adjective in the preceding sentence–ed.) moment. This guy in Virginia, the Governor, I mean this situation in Virginia, I think, . . . is a case in point, that the uses of the Civil War and of history in general, but especially of slavery and the defeat of slavery in the Civil War are about the politics of the moment. It always has uses. . . . politicians don’t feel any real obligation to be accountable to the . . . truth of the past.

. . . slavery and the Civil War can be run through a mill that serves political interests in the moment. What you see with the Republican Governor is the uses of the Civil War but not of slavery, so it has to be pruned out of that discussion or he can’t use it for what he wants to use it for, so the idea of a shared history without any reference to slavery is absolutely implausible. And it’s not a shared history. . . . African-Americans and white Virginians who had ancestors in that state 150 years ago . . . don’t have a shared history. They have two histories of one event. . . .

You can’t just make it about sacrifice and honor.

Follow the link to listen.