Date of Award
2026
Degree Name
History
College
College of Liberal Arts
Type of Degree
M.A.
Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Dr. Molly Mersmann
Second Advisor
Dr. Robert Dael
Third Advisor
Dr. Cicero M. Fain III
Abstract
This thesis examines the postwar construction of Confederate memory through a comparative study of John Hunt Morgan of Lexington, Kentucky, and Harry Gilmor of Baltimore, Maryland. By tracing how their images were cultivated and institutionalized, this study argues that the “cult of Confederate generals” and local politics were essential in the formation of the Lost Cause. I use this to contribute to the sentiment that the Lost Cause is more of an act of local politics than a passive construction of ideology. Drawing on newspapers, veterans’ writings, commemorative events, monuments, municipal records, and secondary scholarship, this thesis demonstrates how Morgan and Gilmor were mobilized to serve distinct local needs. In Lexington, Morgan’s memory was tied to Kentucky’s contested wartime loyalty and postwar reconciliation politics, allowing assertions of Confederate identity under the guise of Unionist respectability. In Baltimore, Gilmor’s commemoration functioned as an expression of urban Confederate dissent and resistance within a border city marked by federal occupation and enduring sectional tension. By foregrounding local politics and memory work, I aim to continue the process of complicating traditional narratives of Lost Cause formation and highlight the decentralized, negotiated nature of Confederate remembrance. The cults of Morgan and Gilmor reveal how regional identities, civic power struggles, and racial politics shaped the meaning of the Confederate past well into the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with ramifications for the present.
Subject(s)
History.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Influence.
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)
Collective memory --United States.
Memorialization -- United States.
Confederate States of America.
Lexington (Ky.) -- History.
Baltimore (Md.) -- History.
Memory.
Recommended Citation
Alvey, Kyle Robert, "Symbolized memory and the Lost Cause in border states: Confederate commemoration and the politicalization during reconstruction of local memory in Lexington, Kentucky and Baltimore, Maryland" (2026). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 2169.
https://mds.marshall.edu/etd/2169
