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Emancipation and the Army of the Cumberland
Issues: Turn of the Century
1)
By the
turn of the century, veterans of the Army of the
Cumberland had both a problem and an advantage in terms
of their memory of the war. First, the former
Union soldiers had to reconcile their role as
emancipators in the1860s with an1890s world where
America was instituting national racial segregation and
creating an international empire that involved rule over
"colored peoples." Being tied to African
American freedom was a risky legacy by the1890s.
Second, America had industrialized in the years after
the war. The new integrated, centralized,
corporate-driven national economy had made the older
order of regional markets and town-and-farm locales
obsolete. Even the leadership of the former
Confederacy acknowledged this fact when they put
together a program for Southern industrialization after
Reconstruction that came to be known as the "New
South." Having fought for the permanence of
national union, Army of the Cumberland veterans had thus
acted as unconscious prophets of the future.
2)
Reconciling the emancipation legacy proved to be no
problem. As already noted, because these veterans
were silent on Reconstruction, they could readily
portray themselves as soldiers who ended the slave
system, and that alone. This limited form of
liberation, in turn, blended perfectly with America's
reach for empire in the1890s. When Americans
contemplated fighting for Cuban independence, they said
they would end Spain's corrupt rule over the island, a
rule over what was a mixed race population. When
they talked this way their words dovetailed perfectly
with Army of the Cumberland veterans who described
ending the rule of a corrupt slaveowner class thirty
years previously. In neither situation were the
newly freed people promised any degree of equality or
any commitment beyond the end of their immediate
oppression.
3) As
bearers of the future national industrial economy, Army
of the Cumberland veterans had the advantage of being on
the right side of history. Their take on this,
however, had more to do with disciplined character than
factories. In1860, Americans in all regions were
an individualistic lot. Self-assertion, even
outright defiance of authority, was prized as manly
independence. Consistent with this, the memoirs
describe the recruits' early rowdiness as well as their
ineptness with soldiering. However, the memoirs
discuss how the men learned to blend personal initiative
with group discipline in a mass organization. The
army became their school on how to behave in a society
driven by large institutions. In this respect,
according to the veterans, their army service made them
superior to their Confederate opponents and to the
slaves they liberated. They loved to contrast what
they described as their own steadiness of purpose and
their perseverance with what they called Confederate
impetuosity. In a similar tone, they described
themselves as cool-handed and self-controlled as opposed
to African Americans, whom the memorialists referred to
with comical stereotypes.
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