How The Struggles Faced By The United Daughters Of The Confederacy

Reconstruction American was a time of immense change in the United States. The end of the war brought about new struggles for Americans as the South attempted to reconcile with their loss of the civil war economically, politically and socially. A new sense of “patriotism” to the Confederacy rose up from the end of the war and infiltrated its way into all aspects of people’s lives. The United Daughters of the Confederacy were and still are a group that promotes a revisionist version of the American Civil War. One of their main goals is to, “cultivate ties of friendship among our women, whose fathers, brothers, sons (and in numberless cases) mothers shared common dangers, suffering, and privations, and to perpetuate honor, integrity, valor and
This means that they were able to wield a significant amount of power over the ideas of the people who were a part of the organization (Heyse). After the success of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the group formed another organization called the Children of the Confederacy. This was the main way they were able to influence public education in the South. In 1897 The Confederate Veteran wrote that it could not be expected that the Southern school would teach that the South had lost or that their fight was not honorable (Osterweis). Or also in the Nashville American where they wrote, “the nobleness, the chivalry, the self-denial, the bravery, and the tireless endurance of the Confederate soldier should be instilled into every Southern child” (Osterweis). This represents the widespread belief of Confederate veterans and their families that they were not willing to teach an accurate version of the Civil War. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children joined the Children of the Confederacy as an after-school club. They were required to learn from textbooks written by members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. (Heyse) These textbooks promoted UDC ideals, “To honor and
There were many southern evangelicals who could not understand why God would punish them in this way. They truly believed that God was on their side in the war and that God supported slavery. When the South lost the war these extremely religious people were unable and to reconcile the loss of the war with their faith (Wilson). Some claim that religion was the main promoter of the Lost Cause movement Wilson argues in his book that the ministers in the South, “used the Lost Cause to warn Southerners of their decline from past virtue, to promote moral reform, to encourage conversion to Christianity, and to educate the young in Southern traditions”. (Wilson) So while the promotion of the Lost Cause movement by religious organizations was significant it didn’t reach the widespread influence of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Due to the impact that the United Daughters of the Confederacy had in multiple aspects of people’s