14. The myths recommended for teaching in southern schools
Among the lessons suggested for inclusion in Southern school curriculums by the Measuring Rod and endorsed by the UDC and other groups creating the myth of the Lost Cause were that Robert E. Lee had freed his slaves before the war. Another was that more slaveholders served in the Union Army (315,000) than in the Confederate Army (200,000). Both numbers, cited on page nine of the Measuring Rod, were patently false. The Measuring Rod cited several articles and quotes describing the happiness and well-being of the slaves held on Southern plantations during the antebellum period. “They are treated with such great humanity and kindness”, gushed one such entry, which also claimed, “They are oily, sleek, bountifully fed, well-clothed, and well taken care of”.
The horrors of the Confederate camp for Union prisoners of war at Andersonville, well-documented by historians following the war, are blamed on the federal government and the Lincoln Administration in the Measuring Rod. Another suggestion from the Measuring Rod regarding the presentation of the Civil War in history classes called for the rejection of a textbook which, “calls the Confederate soldier a traitor or rebel, and the war a rebellion”. The UDC followed the issuance of the Measuring Rod with a list of books “condemned” by the committees formed by the UDC and other Lost Cause groups, recommending their removal from Southern schools and libraries.