Southern Historical Society

Dabney H. Maury founded the Southern Historical Society on April 15, 1869, in New Orleans. Maury and the eight other founding members donated family papers, books, and artifacts to the society to form its initial collection. Its first publication began in 1876 and continued until 1959. The society was officially organized on May 1, 1869; signatories included Braxton Bragg, J. E. Austin, Dabney H. Maury, B. M. Harrod, Simon Bolivar Buckner, S. H. Buck, A. L. Stuart, George Norton, and C. L. C. Dupuy. The first officers were Benjamin Morgan Palmer, president; Braxton Bragg, vice–president for Louisiana; Robert E. Lee, vice–president for Virginia; John C. Breckinridge, vice–president for Kentucky; and Alexander H. Stephens, vice–president for Georgia. On August 25, 1873, a letter from a writer in Charlottesville, Virginia to the editor of The New York Times said:The meeting of the Southern Historical Society might seem like a harmless affair. Its ostensible object is to make a defense in history of "the Lost Cause." The spirits in this movement are mainly the military chieftains of the rebellion. …As a mere nursery of military vanity, and a desperate effort to write the Confederacy and its leaders into some measure of posthumous fame, it might be permitted to pass with a sneer at its folly. But I am constrained to believe that its real purposes are hidden, and are by no means so innocent as they appear. == Seal ==

In October 1888, the executive committee adopted a seal for the society, adapted from the great or broad seal of the Confederate States of America by Robert A. Brock; the seal was engraved, pro bono, by Mr. M. S. O'Donnell of Malden, Massachusetts. The circular seal has the motto: "The Southern Historical Society, Organized May 1, 1869; Deo Vindice". Its central device is a man on a horse, with the text "Re–organized Aug.15.1873" surrounded by a wreath of assorted plants. == Publications ==

In 1869, the society started publishing editorials and reports in The New Orleans Picayune and The Land We Love, a literary and agricultural magazine published by former Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill. == Legacy ==

According to modern historians, the organization's purpose was to promote the Lost Cause in its publications. Historian Alan T. Nolan quotes from the advertisement for subscriptions to the organization's publication, and comments, "Writing whose purpose is to 'vindicate' the 'name and fame' of the South's 'great struggle' plainly proceeds from an advocacy premise". Historian Gaines Foster said it was an "avowedly" historical organization, which "eventually became important in the Confederate tradition" and, through their publications, a group of Virginian pro-Confederacy writers "refought the war,". The society established itself at Richmond, Virginia, which became the home of the American Civil War Museum. It influenced the Sons of Confederate Veterans and activists in favor of public display of the Confederate battle flag. Historians use the society's journal as a source for Civil War research and an example of how historical memory can be shaped to serve external goals. One modern historian notes, "For historians today, the Southern Papers serve as a storehouse of information concerning the Confederacy. Second, only to the War of the Rebellion records, the Papers represent the largest collection of battle accounts, unit rosters, and other primary material about the southern armies during the Civil War." == Notable members and contributors ==

• Alexander Hunter (novelist) • Edward Porter Alexander • Robert H. Anderson • Joseph E. Brown • Henry W. Ogden • William Terry • Robert Toombs • Isaac R. Trimble • Zebulon Baird Vance • Charles S. Venable • Severn Teackle Wallis • Gabriel C. Wharton • Cadmus M. Wilcox • Robert E. Withers == References ==