This chapter is split into two major sections, the first of which records Smith’s initial visit and tour of Blandford Cemetery, and the second of which is concerned with the Sons of Confederate Veterans Commemoration Celebration that takes place at Blandford Cemetery each Memorial Day. In his first visit to the cemetery, Smith examines how the staff reconcile the site’s ties to Confederate ideology with the modern landscape of civil rights such as the Black Lives Matter movement. He frames their packaging of the cemetery as officiously neutral, with the staff choosing to focus on the site’s historical importance and the beauty of the Tiffany windows installed in the Blandford Church.

There is a latent tension within any person attempting to present a tour of the Blandford Cemetery to a modern audience. On one hand, there is the unequivocal knowledge that the cemetery and church were built to commemorate a cause that campaigned for the continuation of institutionalized slavery. On the other hand, there is the implicit knowledge that most of the people visiting the site have their ancestral roots in the Confederacy and are sympathetic to a nostalgic narrative that casts the Confederacy as a “lost cause” that campaigned for the rights of the Southern states. It is this group of white Southerners that Smith explicitly attempts to engage with when he visits their memorial event in May.

The second half of the chapter, in which he relates the proceeding of the Memorial Day event and his conversations with several attendees, Smith grapples with how the narrative of the Civil War—by far the bloodiest war fought on American soil—has been shaped and reshaped through the centuries. All the attendees Smith speaks with throughout the day vehemently deny that slavery played a major role in causing the Civil War, instead citing the importance of defending states’ rights against federal tyranny and preferring to refer to the war as “The War of Northern Aggression.” This conception of the Civil War, Smith notes, is a result of a methodical campaign by Confederate veterans to reframe the war and their involvement after the fact. 

Even though this narrative of the Civil War being caused by Northern aggression, or the importance of Southern independence, is largely a fabrication of post-war propaganda, Smith notes that this story is central to the way these people conceptualize their history. This historical illusion is central to the Southern white population because it allows them to commemorate and memorialize their ancestors while side-stepping the racial and deeply divisive aspects of their ancestors’ legacy. While both the Sons of the Confederate Veterans and the Daughters of the Confederacy publicly denounce the concept of white supremacy and extremist organizations today, Smith points out that the history of each group is entangled with the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. The origin and growth of these groups was at first propagated through a series of mutually beneficial endorsements on all sides and cannot be separated from the systematic oppression of Black people in the years following emancipation.

Analysis

One of the pivotal questions that Smith examines in this chapter is to what degree commemoration of one’s family ancestry can be separated from the larger historical narrative. Many white Southerners feel as though their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy do not receive the recognition and honor given to Union soldiers, despite the fact that many believed they were fighting and dying for the freedom of their state. However, although no one individual—especially at an infantry level—can be held responsible for the atrocities committed by the Confederacy, there is still the undeniable fact...