Matthew Quesenberry

Robert E. Lee in Confederate War and Southern Memory:
1863-1885

Abstract:

Robert E. Lee emerged from the American Civil War as one of the conflict’s most enduring and controversial leaders. His command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia established him as one of the most competent generals of the war and his death in 1870 cemented him in the ideology of the Lost Cause. He became a martyr for the white South and eventually became revered as a Christ-like figure. This project analyzes Lee in three different contexts: war, peace, and memory from the years 1863-1885. I argue that three different themes: defeat, resilience, and honor all play a pivotal role in Lee’s handling of the last years of the war and in the forging of his legacy. I conclude that through resilience Lee’s defeats in history become honor in memory. The first chapter establishes the wartime actions of Lee from 1863-1865 that would foreshadow future Lost Cause rhetoric, the second chapter argues that during Lee’s brief tenure as a civilian from 1865-1870 he became the prototype for unreconstructed white Southerners, and the third chapter looks at Lee’s memory in the context of the Lost Cause. In the end, I hope to illuminate the memory of a man who has become foundational to our understanding of the Civil War.

Thesis Advisor: I. Binnington