Jubal Early - Legacy

Legacy

Early's original inspiration for his views on the Lost Cause may have come from General Robert E. Lee. In Lee's published farewell order to the Army of Northern Virginia, the general spoke of the "overwhelming resources and numbers" that the Confederate army fought against. In a letter to Early, Lee requested information about enemy strengths from May 1864 to April 1865, the period in which his army was engaged against Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg). Lee wrote, "My only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth to posterity, and do justice to our brave Soldiers." Lee requested all "statistics as regards numbers, destruction of private property by the Federal troops, &c." because he intended to demonstrate the discrepancy in strength between the two armies. He believed it would "be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought." Referring to newspaper accounts that accused him of culpability in the loss, he wrote, "I have not thought proper to notice, or even to correct misrepresentations of my words & acts. We shall have to be patient, & suffer for awhile at least. ... At present the public mind is not prepared to receive the truth." All of these were themes that Early and the Lost Cause writers would echo for decades.

Lost Cause themes were also taken up by memorial associations, such as the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. To some degree, this concept helped the (white) Southerners to cope with the dramatic social, political, and economic changes in the postbellum era, including Reconstruction.

Early's contributions to the Confederacy's final days were considered very significant. Some historians contend that he extended the war six to nine months because of his efforts at Washington, D.C., and in the Valley. The following quote summarizes an opinion held by his admirers:

Honest and outspoken, honorable and uncompromising, Jubal A. Early epitomized much that was the Southern Confederacy. His self-reliance, courage, sagacity, and devotion to the cause brought confidence then just as it inspires reverence now.

— James I. Robertson, Jr., Alumni Distinguished Professor of History, Virginia Tech; Member of the Board, Jubal A. Early Preservation Trust

Early was an outspoken believer in white supremacy and despised the abolitionists. In the preface to his memoirs, Early wrote about former slaves as "barbarous natives of Africa," whom he believed were "in a civilized and Christianized condition" as a result of their enslavement. He continued:

The Creator of the Universe had stamped them, indelibly, with a different color and an inferior physical and mental organization. He had not done this from mere caprice or whim, but for wise purposes. An amalgamation of the races was in contravention of His designs or He would not have made them so different. This immense number of people could not have been transported back to the wilds from which their ancestors were taken, or, if they could have been, it would have resulted in their relapse into barbarism. Reason, common sense, true humanity to the black, as well as the safety of the white race, required that the inferior race should be kept in a state of subordination. The conditions of domestic slavery, as it existed in the South, had not only resulted in a great improvement in the moral and physical condition of the negro race, but had furnished a class of laborers as happy and contented as any in the world.