United Daughters of the Confederacy

Examples of United Daughters of the Confederacy in the following topics:

• Sectionalism and the New South

  • Many white Southerners were devastated economically, emotionally, and psychologically by the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.
  • Many white Southerners were devastated economically, emotionally, and psychologically by the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.
  • Memorial associations such as the United Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Ladies Memorial Associations integrated "Lost Cause" themes to help Southerners cope with the many changes during this era, most significantly Reconstruction.
  • Today, education is a high priority of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which collects documents and gives aid to historical researchers and top college scholars.
  • The United Daughters of the Confederacy helped promulgate the "Lost Cause" ideology through the construction of numerous memorials, such as this one in Tennessee.

• Confederate Diplomacy

  • The United States government considered the Southern states to be in rebellion and refused to grant formal recognition of the Confederacy as a sovereign state.
  • Immediately following the Battle of Fort Sumter, the Confederate Congress proclaimed, "... war exists between the Confederate States and the Government of the United States, and the States and Territories thereof… .”
  • After the war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Britain and France.
  • A war with the United States would be costly to Britain, resulting in the immediate loss of American grain shipments, the end of exports to the United States, and the seizure of billions of pounds invested in American securities.
  • The Trent Affair involved the illegal boarding of a British ship in an attempt to enforce the Union's blockade of the Confederacy.

• International Diplomacy

  • Once the war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Britain and France.
  • They risked losing the large quantities of food imported from the North if they went to war with the United States to gain Southern cotton.
  • The cost to Britain of a war with the United States was high: the immediate loss of American grain shipments, the end of exports to the United States, and the seizure of billions of pounds invested in American securities.
  • However, France's own seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred them from war with the Union in spite of their sympathy for the Confederacy.
  • Several European nations maintained diplomats in place who had been appointed to the United States, but no country appointed any diplomat to the Confederacy.

• Jamestown, Virginia

  • Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts.
  • In 1619, the first documented Africans were brought to Jamestown, though the modern conception of slavery in the future United States did not begin in Virginia until 1660.
  • In 1614, John Rolfe, prosperous and wealthy, married Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, bringing several years of peace between the English and natives.
  • Powhatan's brother, a fierce warrior named Opchanacanough, became head of the Powhatan Confederacy.
  • After several years of strained coexistence, Chief Opchanacanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all.

• The Northwest Territory

  • The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) led to further expansion of the United States into American Indian territory.
  • The Western Confederacy came together in the autumn of 1785 at Fort Detroit, proclaiming that the parties to the Confederacy would deal jointly with the United States, rather than individually.
  • The Northwest Indian War, or Little Turtle's War, resulted from conflict between the United States and the Western Confederacy over occupation of the Northwest Territory.
  • Wayne's legion continued to advance deeper into the territory of the Wabash Confederacy, and defeated the last of the American Indian forces at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794.
  • Following the battle, the Western Confederacy and the United States signed the Treaty of Greenville on August 3, 1795, to end the Northwest Indian War.

• The Aftermath of the War

  • Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war.
  • Some scholars, such as those of the Lost Cause tradition, argue that the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in terms of industrial strength and population.
  • The Confederacy sought to win independence by out-lasting Lincoln.
  • The Confederate government failed in its attempt to get Europe involved in the war militarily, particularly the United Kingdom and France.
  • The abundance of European cotton and the United Kingdom's hostility to the institution of slavery, along with Lincoln's Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico naval blockades, severely decreased any chance that either the United Kingdom or France would enter the war.

• The Treaty of Fort Stanwix

  • The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was one of several treaties signed between Native Americans and the United States after the American Revolution.
  • It was one of several treaties between Native Americans and the United States after the American victory in the Revolutionary War.
  • In this treaty, the Iroquois Confederacy ceded all claims to the Ohio territory, a strip of land along the Niagara river, and all land west of the mouth of Buffalo creek.
  • The general Native confederacy also disavowed the treaty since most members of the Six Nations did not live in the Ohio territory.
  • A series of treaties and land sales between these tribes and the United States soon followed:

• Cotton in the South

  • The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South.
  • The Confederacy thought cotton interests would force Europe to intervene, but this was not the case.
  • Britain did not want war with the United States and, in the spring of 1861, warehouses in Europe were bulging with surplus cotton, which soared in price.
  • Consequently, the strategy proved a failure for the Confederacy.
  • King Cotton was a slogan used by southerner (1860-61) to support secession from the United States.

• Virginia

  • In 1614, John Rolfe, prosperous and wealthy, married Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, bringing several years of peace between the English and American Indians.
  • Powhatan's brother, a fierce warrior named Opchanacanough, became head of the Powhatan Confederacy.
  • After several years of strained coexistence, Chief Opchanacanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all.
  • In 1646, Opchanacanough was captured and killed while in custody, and the Powhatan Confederacy began to decline.
  • Elite planters dominated the colony and would later play a major role in the fight for independence and the development of democratic-republican ideals of the United States.

• Secession of the South

  • Immediately following Fort Sumter, the Confederate Congress declared war against the United States and the Civil War officially began.
  • During the four years of its wartime existence, the Confederacy asserted its independence by appointing dozens of diplomatic agents abroad.
  • The United States issued warnings to Europe (particularly Britain) that threatened hostile relations if the Confederacy was recognized internationally.
  • Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord John Russell, Napoleon III of France, and other foreign leaders showed interest in recognizing the Confederacy, or at least in a mediation in the war.
  • However, Europe remained largely neutral in the Civil War, unwilling to lose trading relations with the United States.