Relies of reconciliation: the Confederate Museum and Civil War memory in the New South.

This article examines the Confederate Memorial Literary Society (CMLS), an organization of elite white women in Richmond, Virginia who founded the Confederate Museum in the 1890s. Faced with the plunder of Civil War relics and cultural homogenization on northern terms, the CMLS founded the Confederate Museum to document and defend the Confederate cause and to uphold the antebellum mores that the New South's business ethos threatened to erode. In the end, however, the museum's version of the Lost Cause served the New South. By focusing on military sacrifice, the Confederate Museum aided the process of sectional reconciliation. By depicting slavery as benevolent, the museum's exhibits reinforced the notion that Jim Crow was a just and effective means of managing postwar southern society. Lastly, by glorifying the common soldier and portraying the South as "solid," the museum promoted obedience to the mandates of industrial capitalism. Thus, the Confederate Museum both critiqued and eased the economic transformations of the New South.

The eye disease of Jefferson Davis (1808-1889).

The only Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, led a long and eventful life. He was a Mississippi planter, a husband, a father, West Point graduate, war hero, congressman, senator, secretary of war, and finally President of the Confederate States of America. In many ways he was a study of contrast with his northern counterpart Abraham Lincoln. Davis was personally courageous and a rich, educated, southern aristocrat who did not deeply understand the political process or have the refined personal skills necessary to work well with others. Prior to his Presidency he served with distinction in two wars, but as a result of his confederate activity and pro-slavery philosophy he is one of the least discussed famous Americans. Davis's health was a constant problem and he suffered an almost fatal attack of 'malaria' in 1836. In the winter of 1857-1858, he again was seriously ill and by the end of February 1858, a chronic, relapsing, ocular inflammatory condition began. Using historical evidence from multiple sources, this paper will propose a diagnosis of the Confederate President's ocular condition and consider how this could have influenced his military and political decisions.