Confederate Karens - The Lost Cause of Tyler’s United Daughter’s of the Confederacy
Lonely Confederate Stands Guard Over War Dead At
Oakwood Cemetery
A Visual Education Tool
The South struggled with a sense of identity for many years after the Civil War. At first, the Confederate defeat left the South impoverished and, in many places smoldering in ruin. Later, in many ways, the South still had a sense of separateness reinforced by local antebellum culture. And this is where the Texas United Daughters of the Confederacy left its deep imprint.
As the United Daughters of the Confederacy distributed “medals for historical research” to anyone who meaningfully wrote the myth ideology, chapter members lobbied state and local governments to ensure their version of the past was taught to new generations. It is obvious that the U.D.C. looked back at Confederate history with the future in mind. The goal was to shape today and, therefore, tomorrow. They were forging a praiseworthy tradition, preserving an honorable culture. The lost cause was a sort of civil religion that helped revive a deep sense of Southern pride and dignity. The South struggled with a sense of identity for many years after the Civil War. At first, the Confederate defeat left the South impoverished and, in many places smoldering in ruin. Later, in many ways, the South still had a sense of separateness reinforced by local antebellum culture. And this is where the Texas United Daughters of the Confederacy left its deep imprint. As the United Daughters of the Confederacy distributed “medals for historical research” to anyone who meaningfully wrote the myth ideology, chapter members lobbied state and local governments to ensure their version of the past was taught to new generations. It is obvious that the U.D.C. looked back at Confederate history with the future in mind. The goal was to shape today and, therefore, tomorrow. They were forging a praiseworthy tradition, preserving an honorable culture.
While southern men had largely moved on from the Lost Cause mythology by the 1890s, women were using their roles as mothers and, therefore, leaders to preserve their idealized version of white supremacy for their boys and men and more importantly, posterity. Another meaningful way that the U.D.C. indoctrinated the public was through their efforts to build memorials to the Confederacy. These statues were visual history lessons that would teach for the next one hundred years. Tyler’s U.D.C. chapter would erect such a monument.
On April 9, 1898, the Mollie Moore Davis Chapter of U.D.C. No. 217, Tyler, Texas, was chartered with 81 members. The chapter is named after Mollie Moore, a teenage poet whose family owned a sizeable thriving cotton plantation outside Tyler. Ms. Mollie moved to Tyler-proper during the 1860s. She was a talented young woman known for hosting friends and their soldier beaus who were in town to train to defend the Confederacy in battle. Mollie was known for reciting poems to departing troops. She presented the Douglas’ Texas Battery battle flag at their departure for military service on June 10, 1861. During her time in Tyler, she taught at the Eastern Texas Female College, later known as Tyler Female Seminary, then at Charnwood Institute, one of Tyler’s more pretentious all-white schools. It has been said that the list of early members of the local U.D.C. chapter read like a Who’s Who list. Ladies from Tyler’s most prominent families were members, wives, widows, and daughters of Confederate veterans.
During the Civil War, Tyler was home to a training facility responsible for preparing over 30,000 Texans. While in training, 231 enlistees died of pneumonia, measles, and other diseases. The City of Tyler provided the soldiers with a burial plot of 300 square feet. For a short period after the war, the graves would be cleaned annually, but soon the grounds were overgrown. After the #217 was formed, the chapter secured a deed to the plot. Then the devoted members began to care for the sacred spot faithfully.
[Daughters of the Confederacy], photograph, 1900; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth11922/: accessed May 9, 2023), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Palestine Public Library.
The Mollie Moore Davis #217 soon joined other chapters throughout the South and committed to setting up Tyler’s own “visual history lesson” to educate the living about the honor of the fallen. When adjusted for inflation, a contract was made with the Morris Brothers Marble Works to furnish the monument for $5000 or almost $160,000.00 in today’s dollars. The Daughters spent years fundraising. The ladies gave formal teas, hosted elaborate dinners, set up festive bazaars, and accepted donations to raise the entire total, but often, funds came in through friends giving just a few dollars here and there.
After eight years of fundraising, the statue was ordered from Morris Brothers Marble Works (possibly from Memphis, TN). After discovering that the chapter had failed to plan for a lot curb or filling for the plot, the members set to work fundraising for the added expense. The Daughters were once again set back when after all preparations had been achieved and the monument was shipped to Tyler, the face of the statue had a sizeable purple vane. The setbacks seemed like a curse. Yet the women persisted.
“The Confederacy gave to the World its best type of Soldier”
The Confederate monument was finally unveiled on July 7, 1909. At the base of the monument, the inscription reads: Facing north (think Union Territory) “The Confederacy gave to the World its best type of Soldier. 1861-1865” Facing east toward the sunrise (think The South Shall Rise Again): “Fame has erected another monument to the honor and valor of the Confederate Soldier, more enduring than this and towering into the skies.” Mrs. Cone Johnson, U.D.C. #217 Chapter President, was later credited for her “determination and dogged spirit to see the finish.”
Note: A few months before the unveiling, James Hodge was lynched on the courthouse square. Super attorney Mr. Cone Johnson, a very well-respected and well-connected politician and the husband of UDC’s local chapter president acted as the defense attorney for the men who lynched James Hodge. Shockingly, all charges were dropped and no men served time. Strange considering the entire town witnessed the ugly affair.
The day was spectacularly celebrated. The afternoon was kicked off with a picnic for the remaining Confederate veterans; it was held on the east side of the courthouse. As stores closed, the townspeople began to gather for the festivities. The gathered veterans posed for a group picture, and then the large Bell rang out from the top of the courthouse. A procession line soon started to form. The Tyler Kid Band, with 89 Confederate Veterans headed by the Commander of Albert Sidney Johnson Camp, took the lead. Townsfolk fell into line, and then the short march began toward the newly renamed city cemetery.
It was estimated some five thousand or more were gathered on the grounds of Oakwood Cemetery, among them a number of choirs from all the area churches. Children dressed in white scattered flowers over the newly restored Confederate dead plot. For decades to come, this would be remembered as the happiest occasion the Mollie Moore Davis U.D.C. Chapter ever experienced. The celebration was more than a veneration of the dead but also a lesson in the cause of White Supremacy.
The July 10, 1909 issue of The Tyler Semi-Weekly Courier Times reported one of the speeches that accompanied the ceremony: [Tyler’s] “cemeteries and public squares contain a history of men and events associated with the war written in imperishable bronze and marble, and though their inscriptions are brief yet they speak more eloquently and teach more truly than all the records of history’s pages.” The history lesson that the Tyler U.D.C. chapter intended citizens to learn was revealed as the speech continued: “this monument . . . becomes a silent but eloquent witness to the youth and to coming generations of the righteousness of the South’s cause and of our belief in its righteousness.”[1]
Unidentified veteran of United Confederate Veterans Albert Sidney Johnston Camp No. 48 wearing Southern Cross of Honor - C.R. Yancy, Photographer, Tyler, Texas
The next 65yrs of U.D.C. history would pass by unremarkably until 1974 when the Molly Moore Davis chapter would place a flagpole at Oakwood Cemetery to fly, specifically, the Confederate flag. In 1997 the chapter would begin work on having the place designated a historic cemetery. After 100 years of leaning on the city, Tyler finally agreed to make provisions to care for Oakwood Cemetery in perpetuity. The city started a trust fund devoted to the cemetery, which will receive taxpayer dollars until it reaches $1,000,000 dollars.
The chapter didn’t stop there with its efforts to remind the county of its proud antebellum history. The chapter also engaged in more formal education efforts (proselytizing). Maxine L. Herbst, President of Mollie Moore Davis #217, [2] said the chapter worked tirelessly to ensure U.D.C. approved “historical books and magazines (were distributed) in public schools and libraries.” The literature was required to teach the lost cause. It was a concerted propaganda campaign.
There were small acts of service in which the ladies would engage, such as delivering Christmas gift baskets to veterans. But more importantly, the chapter would bestow the Southern Cross of Honor medals on the deserving. In total, the chapter bestowed 126 crosses. Nationally, 78,761 crosses were awarded by 1959 when the program ended.
The Southern Cross of Honor medal had a la cross pattée form with which was engraved with the Confederate Battle Flag and the de facto motto of the Confederate States of America, “Deo Vindice” which means “God will vindicate” or in context, God will justify and prove the cause of white supremacy (see Declaration of Causes of Seceding State, Constitution of the Confederate States, Article 1, Section 9(4)). Stephanie McCurry, professor of history at Columbia University, explains it well when she wrote, “The Confederates built an explicitly white-supremacist, pro-slavery, and antidemocratic nation-state, dedicated to the principle that all men are not created equal. Emboldened by what they saw as the failure of emancipation in other parts of the world, buoyed by the new science of race, and convinced that the American vision of the people had been terribly betrayed, they sought the kind of future for human slavery and conservative republican government that was no longer possible within the United States.”[3]
Confederate Vice President Alexander H Stephens’s famous Cornerstone Speech clarifies the purpose of the new rebel nation, “[I]ts foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”[4]
The C.S.A. was baptized into this great lie. Stephens, the Vice President of the C.S.A. went on to say, “Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders “is become the chief of the corner”—the real “corner-stone”—in our new edifice.” Make no mistake; the white supremacist ideology is what the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s Cross engendered. Today, la cross pattée can often be found on flags, tattoos, and hate material used by white supremacists and white nationalists.
The latest notable lesson the Mollie Moore Davis U.D.C. chapter provided was the preservation of Camp Ford, a Civil War training camp, and later the P.O.W. camp. With the help of a generous benefactor, the ladies purchased 8.1 acres of land, which would later be deeded to the Smith County Historical Society. The Society would ensure the camp would be restored into a historical site to teach future generations of Smith County’s contribution to the lost cause.
Addendum: In 2014 some local members of the #217 seceded and formed their own local UDC Chapter #2704 named after Col. Richard B. Hubbard. It lasted for a term even shorter than the Confederacy.
Sources
1. Tyler Semi-Weekly Courier Times, 10 July 1909, newspaper clipping at Smith County Historical Museum, Tyler, Texas; “Monument Erection,” newspaper clipping, 12 May 1998, vertical file: UDC, Tyler Public Library, Tyler, Texas.
2. Maxine Loveless Herbst | Obituary. (2020, September 16). Tyler Morning Telegraph. https://tylerpaper.com/obituaries/maxine-loveless-herbst/ article_127e4d31-3a83-5bb9-8a9b-dc8618413bc5.html.
3. McCurry, S. (2020, June 21). The Confederacy Was An Antidemocratic, Centralized State. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ archive/2020/06/confederacy-wasnt-what-you-think/613309.
4. Schott, Thomas E. (1996). Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography. p. 334.
