Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration

Defining Confederate Respectability: Morality, Patriotism, and Confederate Identity in Richmond’s Civil War Public Press

Defining Confederate Respectability Morality, Patriotism, and Confederate Identity in Richmond’s Civil War Public Press Amy R. Minton On March 19, 1862, the Daily Dispatch, Richmond’s most widely circulated newspaper, presented a question to its readers. It encouraged Richmonders to look around at their neighbors and “ask why it is that, with scarcely an exception, the best members of society are the most loyal in their devotion to the South; whilst those who are doubtful are, with scarcely an exception, men who are doubtful in the relations of social life, who are dissolute, or dishonest, or false in their private character, or, if not absolutely vicious, who are weak minded, eccentric, and unstable?” In posing this query, the Dispatch did two things. First, it equated social standing with “private character.” Those “best members” of Confederate society were not necessarily the wealthiest or most politically prominent people, or those with highly placed family connections, but those whose characters were the most sound. Second, the Dispatch explicitly linked those sound character principles to Confederate patriotism. While people with disreputable characters and behaviors were most likely to be unpatriotic , those of good character, it claimed, stood unwaveringly by the South. By forging these connections between character and patriotism, the Daily Dispatch put before its readers a version of Confederate identity that linked moral, social, and political respectability. The Dispatch article was part of a larger effort by Richmond’s Civil War newspapers to create and promote a sense of common Confederate iden- defining confederate respectability K 81 tity and cause among their readers. The city’s five major wartime newspapers —the Daily Dispatch, the Richmond Whig, the Richmond Enquirer, the Richmond Daily Examiner, and the Richmond Sentinel—differed greatly in their views on Confederate politics, economy, and military operations, but they all fervently supported the war. While innumerable examples from personal correspondence, diaries, petitions, and other sources indicate that Confederate identity was contested and often fractured along class, gender, or other lines, the newspapers relentlessly promoted a spirit of nationalism and commonality among the members of the fledgling Confederate nation. In 1862, in response to a debate concerning the military exemption status of printers, the Daily Dispatch highlighted the importance of the press to the war effort. It asked its readers, “who can estimate the value to the Southern cause of the daily appeals of a patriotic press?” Without the “incentives to patriotism and energy which the press daily pours forth,” the public “would sink into apathy and inertion.” Likewise, the Richmond Sentinel asserted that “whatever will promote the cause of public and private virtue, Christian morals, social happiness, popular elevation and intelligence, and a serene dignity of national character, shall at least find unvarying sympathy in the columns of the Sentinel. . . . We shall aim to inculcate correct tastes and sentiments, rather than to seek applause or profit by ministering to bad ones.” In their attempts to foster patriotism, the papers tried to use language and ideas that would unify a diverse and rapidly changing city. At the time of secession, Richmond was both the largest city in Virginia and the state’s social, cultural, political, and economic center. Railroad lines into the city had multiplied over the previous decade and a half, spurring an enormous growth of business, industry, and manufacturing that helped push Richmond’s population to 37,910 people in 1860—23,635 white, 2,576 free blacks, and 11,699 slaves. Rapid expansion produced a voracious need for labor that enslaved African Americans alone could not fulfill, and the 1850s saw a growing population of white and immigrant laborers and artisans settle in the city. The numerous tobacco factories, manufacturing establishments, milling operations, railroads, and financial institutions all helped make Richmond the South’s leading industrial and commercial center, and attracted not only laborers, but businessmen and merchants as well. As the capital of Virginia, Richmond also hosted a sizable number of government officials and clerks. Recognizing that their readership extended across the spectrum of society, the press tried to put forth an image of Confederate citizenship that could appeal to a large part of the many social classes of the Confederate capital. 82 K amy r. minton The Richmond wartime press worked tirelessly to promote the virtues of what might be termed a “patriotic” or “Confederate” respectability that simultaneously projected an image of Confederates as upstanding, moral people...