Memory, the Texas Revolution, and Secession: The Birth of Confederate Nationalismin the Lone Star State

It was not an ordinary day at the state capitol in Austin, Texas. Dozens of citizens had gathered in eager anticipation to hear community leaders deliver speeches and raise flags in honor of a newly created nation, the Confederate States of America. The day was July 4, 1861, and many residents continued to celebrate the heritage of a nation with which they had recently dissolved all ties. Prominent attorney Alexander Watkins Terrell contributed to the festivities by speaking on a popular theme that encompassed the day's events. Although a political moderate who had not involved himself in the state's heated secession debates, Terrell offered the crowd an explicit justification for disunion, which he found tangled in the founding of the American nation. He called upon his fellow townspeople to embrace the memory of the Revolutionary generation and remain dedicated to "the faith bequeathed to us by the apostles of '76." Specifically invoking a heroic and virtuous image of George Washington, Terrell offered further national context of a successful revolution against a seemingly tyrannical country. Terrell predicted that the Confederacy's deliverance into independent nationhood would be born out of spilled blood, and he possessed great confidence in ultimate victory. The speech indeed offered a usable foundation with which to legitimize secession and build a loyalty to the new Confederate nation. Confederate nationalism in Texas, however, drew special strength from a revolutionary experience that was closer to home for residents of the Lone Star State.¹

This essay examines how Texans utilized memories of events from their state's recent history to legitimize disunion and war. Rather than relying exclusively on memories of the American Revolution, secessionists in Texas utilized a popular and selective memory of their state's revolution against Mexico as a key part of their justification for disunion. These citizens embraced a deeply romanticized version of the recent revolution and republic that recalled the Alamo, San Jacinto, and the era of national independence. Texans purposely manipulated recollections of these events in order to identify with and welcome the radicalism of secession, the probability of war, and the creation of the Confederacy. Unionists, especially Sam Houston, simultaneously recalled celebrated aspects of Texas's past, although to a much lesser degree and with starkly different interpretations. In spite of their best efforts, however, Unionists lost the ideological battle surrounding secession. Through a celebration of the Lone Star State's past, thousands of Texans identified strongly with the notions of revolution and secession, which ultimately allowed for a rapid acceptance of Confederate nationalism.

Historians have long analyzed the issue of whether the people of the Confederate States of America achieved a distinctive identity and nationalistic unity; they have done so primarily because of the question of internal dissent as a cause of southern defeat. Recent studies have examined the multifaceted loyalties possessed by the population of the South from 1861 to 1865, including home and hearth, region, memory, gender, political and military leaders, and national symbols. Most scholars now agree that a firm foundation of Confederate identity was a significant aspect of the white southern wartime experience. Nationalist support greatly aided the Confederate experiment in lasting as long as it did.²

Admittedly, "identity" and "nationalism" are nebulous terms, but as used in this essay, they describe concepts that were linked in the speeches and writings of Civil War-era southerners. Identity is a unique sense of one's self combined with the characteristics that distinguish one person or group from another. In order to compose a functioning identity, individuals need a "negative reference point" against which they stand in a more favorable light. Once a group identifies internally with a cause, movement, nation, or ideal, the internal cognizance of the group identity is then directed through various channels toward the common goal. Confederate identity did not necessarily require strict emotional associations with traditional national symbols, most notably the presidency or central government. Individual actions that contributed directly to the war effort, such as collective sacrifice, military service, or even a hatred of northerners...