Missouri's Confederate Leaders
After the War
BY LLOYD A. HUNTER*
In his Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History,
delivered at Louisiana State University in 1949, Professor William
B. Hesseltine examined the postwar careers of 585 Confederate
military and civil leaders who were able to reestablish themselves
after Appomattox. Exploring the opinions and activities of ministers,
educators, industrial managers and politicians, the Wisconsin historian discovered that most of the eminent ex-Confederates clung to
one of two broad policies: either they sought to construct a "new
South" from out of the devastated Dixie, and thus aligned themselves
with the hopes of Robert E. Lee; or they "clung tenaciously to die
values and practices of the Old South," and consequently rallied
around its symbol, Jefferson Davis. Lee's postwar life was a model
for those Southerners who struggled to rebuild their section on
*Lloyd A. Hunter is pastor of the Ivanhoe United Church of Christ at
Raytown and a graduate student in American History at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City. He has a B.A. degree in History from Southern Illinois
University, Edwardsville, and a B.D. degree from Eden Theological Seminary,
Webster Groves.
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