Burying the Dead but Not the Past: Ladies' Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause

Civil War America

by Caroline E. Janney

Immediately after the Civil War, white women across the South organized to retrieve and rebury the remains of Confederate soldiers scattered throughout the region. In Virginia alone, these Ladies' Memorial Associations (LMAs) relocated and reinterred the remains of more than 72,000 soldiers, nearly 28 percent of the 260,000 Confederate soldiers who perished in the war. Challenging the notion that southern white women were peripheral to the Lost Cause movement until the 1890s, Caroline Janney restores these women's place in the historical narrative by exploring their role as the creators and purveyors of Confederate tradition between 1865 and 1915.Although not considered "political" or "public actors," upper- and middle-class white women carried out deeply political acts by preparing elaborate burials and holding Memorial Days in a region still occupied by northern soldiers. Janney argues that in identifying themselves as mothers and daughters in mourning, LMA members crafted a sympa

Genres: History, Civil War, Historical, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2008

Reviews

[Diane Depew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating view of how the women of the South promoted the Confederate memory and consequently, the development of the concept of "the lost cause." My one criticism of the book, is that the author was repetitive in the narrative.

[David Valentino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ladies of the Lost Cause Memorials

For those interested in how the South memorialized the Civil War and shaped for a long time historical thought on why the war was fought by mythicizing how it was remembered Perdue and past president of The Society of Civil War Historians, Prof. Janney’s monograph makes a very good companion volume to David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. By examining a select group of Ladies’ Memorial Associations (LMAS), she shows how upper class Southern white women attended to the burial of the Confederate dead, paid tribute to the fallen in the first Memorial Day commemorations, and played a major role in propagating the tenets of the Lost Cause effort. In tandem, she illustrates how these women created effective organizations that allowed them to exert political and long lasting historical influence in a fashion resembling a variety of women-driven associations forming nationwide in latter 19th century America.

Immediately after the Civil War ended, the victorious North greatly restricted the political activities of white Southern men to the point where any civic act might be considered treason, even burying war dead. White Southern women of privilege filled the gap by forming LMAS. These organizations raised funds from throughout the South to relocate Confederate dead from scattered battlefields (a function performed for the Northern dead by the federal government) to graveyards in or near their hometowns. Janney examines the associations formed in the towns and cities of Winchester (Shenandoah Valley), Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Lynchburg, and Richmond.

While LMAS dominated the memorialization of the dead in the early years, after Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, men began to contest the women’s authority in the area of memorialization. Too, later in the century, women coalesced into a larger regional organization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (still today a charitable 501 C organization). Among Janney’s points is that Southern white women participated in memorializing their war dead and propagating the cornerstones of Lost Cause long before most historians realized or acknowledged.

Lest you think all this nice to know, be aware that the work of the LMAS and the UDC remain with us today, particularly the memorial statuary you can find in towns throughout the South. And what do these memorials symbolize? The Lost Cause, the underlying bedrock of which can be summarized in two words: white supremacy.

[Ellie Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thesis advisor is an icon living.

[Ginger Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. There are interesting parts, such as the relationship between the Richmond ladies and Jubal Early. But, the continued assertion that the work of the Ladies Memorial Associations was all white supremacy is offensive. I had the same reaction that I did to Dixie's Daughter's: the ladies are given the credit they deserve for their work, but the author judges their motives incorrectly. She doesn't seem to grasp that it had little to do with race and more to do with a deep sense of personal loss. The devastation of the War Between The States is referenced, but I got the impression that it was not clearly understood.

I am glad that the history of the Ladies Memorial Associations was written so their work will be remembered. Some of the story is a little dry with facts and figures, but those are an important part of the story. In the current political climate, I hope that we will remember what these ladies did and have the same strength of purpose to honor our Southern heritage.

[The Overflowing Inkwell]

Very academic: as it is so narrow in scope, it does become repetitive very quickly. Hard to recommend to anyone who is not intensely interested in this specific topic, as it is not a good introduction to the ideas presented due to its academic nature; but also feel like it could have gone into more detail generally, pulling more of the pieces left to the footnotes in the back of the book into the text's narrative, as it still manages to feel like an overview without them.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for comps

[Randi Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book that gave me some insight on the Confederate flag controversy. I felt that the book went on too long for my taste, and it was very academic in nature. What it did give great perspective on was how the women in the southern US felt after the Civil War, and some of their reasons for their dogged determination to memorialize their dead - beyond simply sentimental/familiar concerns.