What Happened to the Confederates?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Ever since the surrender at Appomattox in early April, all across the defeated South Confederate politicians, military officers, and rank-and-file soldiers consider their collectively dismal fate, leaving their offices and commands and trenches behind them. Their government, which had waged a vicious war of secession for the last four years, has simply ceased to exist. The Confederacy is dead. But as the smoke is cleared, a vexing question now confronts the Union. What should become of these men who had fought so determinedly to destroy the United States of America?
I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit. Our guest today is Brigadier General Ty Sidulee, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point. He is the author of Robert E. Lee and Me, A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause. So let's get to the question of this episode. What happened to the Confederates and to the nation they tried to found?
Music
Hello, Ty. Hello, General. Thanks for joining us. Don, great to be here. Let's start out with what happened to the political leadership of the Confederacy, those key figures who shaped the idea of the rebellion and led the war effort. But first, it's really important to understand how total was the defeat at this time and the context of all of this. 1865, the South is in complete economic ruin. What does that look like in the cities and the countrysides?
That's absolutely true. The United States Army has defeated the Confederate Army greater than maybe we've defeated any other enemy in our history. So cities such as Richmond, Atlanta, Columbia, and Charleston are devastated. Burned neighborhoods, damaged rail stations, abandoned factories, ruined warehouses.
How were Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens treated after 1865?
Campaigns through Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee have destroyed bridges, railroad tracks, livestock, crops, farm equipment, all devastated. The economy has collapsed. Confederate money is worthless. White Southern society is in upheaval. There's probably two or three quarters of all adult men are either sick, dead or wounded. So this is a complete and utter devastation.
Well, and the abolition of slavery, of course, strips the South of its main economic engine. I mean, the emancipation of over 4 million enslaved people in the South, so much of the infrastructure, railroads, bridges, major cities like Atlanta, they've all suffered damage without the means to rebuild, which would be that in many cases. Not to mention the loss of life. Close to a quarter of the men who served in the Confederate Army lost their lives. Is that right?
Yeah, quarter dead. And then again, another two thirds. So a total three quarters are either dead, wounded or disabled because they're sick. I mean, this is it is a catastrophic defeat for the white South. Absolutely. And as you said, four million black men, women and children free trying to find their loved ones, reconnect with their children who have been taken from them, reconnect with wives and husbands. It is a society in absolute upheaval.
Yeah, and if the physical devastation of the South wasn't enough, one can only imagine the psychological effects on this entire culture. The disappearance of wealth is immediate. Society is completely disrupted and uprooted.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:00
2
How were Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens treated after 1865?
3:00–20:14
3
Why did many ex-Confederate politicians return to power so quickly?
20:14–31:21
4
What legal and practical reasons prevented treason trials for Confederate presidents and generals?
31:21–42:57