16thVA
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2008
- Location
- Philadelphia
This is a subject I don't see historians generally discussing, but I think it was one of the earliest and most widespread of all the memorial practices for the war. My great grandfather was named for Stonewall Jackson and my own name is from the war, though I don't think my dad was aware of it since it was his name too. The only thing I could find on the internet was an old blog post on African-Americans named after Confederate leaders, though I think those namings are just popular choices of the time and not for war memory. My premise is that these names were used in the few dacades after the war and made as a statement. Here's that blog post on African-American names from 2009
http://www.vastpublicindifference.com/2009/07/jeff-davis-general-lee-and-stonewall-j.html
I used the 1880 census to look at my home state and I found dozens of young men named for Stonewall beginning in 1862, there were also dozens more named for Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
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