Table Of ContentMARCHING IN STEP: THE CITADEL AND POST WORLD WAR II AMERICA
by
ALEXANDER STEPHENS MACAULAY, JR
(Under the Direction of James C. Cobb)
ABSTRACT
In 1941, W.J. Cash predicted correctly that “in the coming days and probably
soon, [the South] is likely to have to prove its capacity for adjustment far beyond what
has been true in the past.” From 1945 to 1995, The Citadel found its “capacity for
adjustment” sorely tested, and the school’s attempts to define, defend, and adapt its
identity to a nation and region undergoing significant cultural, political, and social change
is the subject of my dissertation. Perceived and vigorously marketed as a profoundly
southern institution, The Citadel’s post World War II experience speaks to issues of
southern distinctiveness and should shed light on the South’s real and imagined
relationship with the rest of America. Certain authors have depicted the “Southernization
of America” as a relatively recent phenomenon, and for much of its history, the South has
been viewed as an island within the United States; a region operating outside the ebb and
flow of the American mainstream. In the decades following World War II Citadel
personnel bolstered their defense of the school’s value with conveniently selected
interpretations of the past and with carefully tailored definitions of citizenship. More
often than not, however, these attitudes have reflected rather than stood apart from the
political and cultural values of mainstream American society, and tracking The Citadel’s
appeal as an American, and not just a southern, institution may well lead one to wonder if
the rest of the nation needed “Southernizing” and convince some people to acknowledge
the undistilled Americanism of The Citadel.
INDEX WORDS: The Citadel, American South, Post World War II America
MARCHING IN STEP: THE CITADEL AND POST WORLD WAR II AMERICA
by
ALEXANDER STEPHENS MACAULAY, JR.
B.S., The Citadel, 1994
M.A., The University of Tennessee, 1998
A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSPOHY
ATHENS, GEORGIA
2003
© 2003
Alexander Stephens Macaulay, Jr.
All Rights Reserved
MARCHING IN STEP: THE CITADEL AND POST WORLD WAR II AMERICA
by
ALEXANDER STEPHENS MACAULAY, JR.
Major Professor: James C. Cobb
Committee: Emory Thomas
Bryant Simon
Robert A. Pratt
Thomas G. Dyer
Electronic Version Approved:
Maureen Grasso
Dean of the Graduate School
The University of Georgia
August 2003
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Since I wrote my dissertation on The Citadel, it seems fitting that I thank Citadel
people first. Jane Yates, the school’s archivist and museum director, has been an
invaluable help and a wonderful friend over the past several years. Not only has she
helped me track down sources and find out what happened and when, she has been a
source of encouragement and a voice of reason, letting me know when it was time to get
down to the business of writing. She does a wonderful job with The Citadel Archives
and Museum and I am glad we share a mutual interest in history. The alumni who took
time out of their busy schedules to talk with me about their experiences reinforce the
theory that all not all Citadel graduates fit the same mold. I thank them for their candor
and honesty, and while speaking with them, it became evident that our conversations
were driven by a commitment to improving our alma mater.
The five members of my dissertation committee have set a standard of scholarly
excellence that I doubt I could match, but it would be foolish of me not to try. James
Cobb once characterized his mentoring approach as one of “benign neglect.” I can assure
you, while working with him I have never felt neglected and, if you ever read the
comments he scrawled on rough drafts of this dissertation, the word “benign” would not
pop into your head. What Dr. Cobb has done is provided me with invaluable personal
and professional guidance. His patience with me as well as his interest in me have given
me greater confidence in my own abilities, and besides, it helps to know that if someone
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from Hartwell, Georgia can do this job then surely someone from Walhalla, South
Carolina can excel at it.
Bryant Simon has made me a better writer, a better historian, and a better
basketball player. I find his work ethic, enthusiasm, and intellectual curiosity inspiring,
and I absolutely enjoy every conversation I have with him. As good a scholar and
teacher as he is though, Dr. Simon has been an even better neighbor and friend. Speaking
of good neighbors, Emory and Fran Thomas helped make Hill Street a special place to
live when Eleanor and I first arrived in Athens. Dr. Thomas’ excitement for and interest
in not only my academic work but my (rapidly) growing family means a lot to me, and
although he hails from Virginia, he seems to have a soft spot for South Carolina which
endears him to me even further. I encourage anyone who still thinks that college
professors work and live in an “ivory tower” to visit the bottom floor of Leconte Hall and
talk with Robert Pratt. He exudes confidence without a trace of egotism or pretension,
and besides that, he read my dissertation while on vacation at Myrtle Beach, a fact which
shoots down the theory that teachers get their summers off. My relationship with Dr.
Tom Dyer has been relatively brief, but he has worked hard to help make this dissertation
better in addition to performing myriad other duties for the University of Georgia.
Of course, while these five professors only had to put up with me for brief
periods, my fellow graduate students tolerated my quirks and endless references to
Walhalla on a regular basis. I am absolutely positive I owe all of them a beer; I am not
saying I will buy them one, but at least I acknowledge the debt. I have shared an office
with Anne Marshall for the past five years, and she remains one of the most impressive
individuals I have ever met. I sat next to Jim Giesen at orientation five years ago. He
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thought my name was “Elk” and this is still the nicest thing he has ever called me. Both
of them have made Athens fun for Eleanor, Eliza, Lee, and me. Tammy Ingram may
look dumb, but we all know different, and her passion for fudge, whiskey and tator tots
makes her all the more wonderful. From the days when he would lie to get me to come
downtown and do a shot of El Presidente to his all to infrequent visits back to Athens,
Matt Brodsky has also made my Athens experience memorable as well as a little fuzzy. I
also thank the Drive By Truckers.
My family, of course, are the ones who have made my accomplishments
worthwhile, memorable, and possible. My mother and father do not always agree with
me, but they have always supported me. In doing so, they have given me a sense of
security and comfort that all people should receive and that I truly value. My in-laws
have made me feel welcome from the first day I met them, and they never asked me when
I was going to finish and “get a real job.” To a graduate student, that is a big deal.
My greatest thanks go to Eleanor, Eliza and Lee. I might have been able to write
this without Eleanor’s help, but the finished product would have suffered. Besides,
beyond her editorial and analytical prowess, knowing Eleanor has made me a better
person. I cannot express how much she means to me or how much I love her so I will not
try. I am fairly certain I could have written this without Lee and Eliza. But nothing in
the world compares to walking in the door of our home and seeing a beautiful little girl
running at me, grinning behind her pacifier, saying “heeeeyyyy,” while right behind her,
her equally beautiful brother crawls across the floor and lifts his arms up for me to hold
him. They have provided the inspiration to try to make the world we live in a better
place.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................iv
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1
CHAPTER ONE: “AN AMERICAN EPIC”.........................................................14
CHAPTER TWO: SOARING WITH THE AMERICAN EAGLE.......................59
CHAPTER THREE: BLACK, WHITE AND GRAY.........................................102
CHAPTER FOUR: AN “OASIS OF ORDER”...................................................148
CHAPTER FIVE: AN EPITAPH FOR THE CITADEL, 1970-1975.................183
CHAPTER SIX: THE SPIRIT OF ’76................................................................223
CHAPTER SEVEN: REAGAN’S AMERICA, GRIMSLEY’S CITADEL........272
CHAPTER EIGHT: SAVE THE MALES..........................................................322
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................354
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INTRODUCTION
In his travel guide to the neo-Confederate South, Tony Horowitz calls The Citadel
“arguably the most mummified institution in America.” Numerous observers have
echoed Horowitz’s sentiments. Following a tumultuous and frustrating year as the
school’s president, an embittered Vice Admiral James Stockdale grumbled “the place is
locked in pre-Civil War concrete.” A historian of Charleston and a former professor at
The Citadel claims “perhaps more than any other institution of higher education The
Citadel best reflects the cultural values of the Old South.” In a recent essay, Timothy
Tyson calls the school “perhaps the most hidebound institution in tradition-steeped South
Carolina.”1
While some may find it convenient and even reassuring to depict The Citadel as
timeless and immutable, such an assessment fuels distorted views of the South and the
United States. In Stiffed, Susan Faludi recognizes that “institutions that boast of their
insularity, whether convents or military academies, are commonly pictured in the public
imagination as static, unchanging abstractions, impervious to the ebb and flow of current
events.” She adds though that despite their often purposeful and well cultivated
1 Tony Horowitz, Confederates In the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War (New York:
Vintage Books, 1998), 66; Newsweek, 1 September 1980, 83; Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris,
eds, The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 277;
Timothy B. Tyson, “Dynamite and the ‘Silent South’: A Story from the Second Reconstruction in South
Carolina,” Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights, eds. Jane Dailey, Glenda
Elizabeth Gilmore, and Bryant Simon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 279-280.
1
reputations as bulwarks of tradition, places such as The Citadel have “functioned more as
a barometer of national anxieties than as a stalwart garrison against them.”2
Dismissing The Citadel as backward and archaic contributes to a one-dimensional
assessment of the school’s historical and cultural value and downplays the massive
changes that have occurred in the nation and the South since the end of World War II. In
1941, W.J. Cash predicted correctly that “In the coming days and probably soon, [the
South] is likely to have to prove its capacity for adjustment far beyond what has been true
in the past.” Like the South at large, from 1945 to 1995, The Citadel found its “capacity
for adjustment” sorely tested as well.3
The Citadel was perceived and vigorously promoted as a profoundly southern
institution. Its post World War II experience speaks to issues of southern cultural
distinctiveness and should shed light on the South’s real and imagined relationship with
the rest of America. As the college’s alumni, students, and administrators responded to
the changes in American society, their reform impulse was tempered by the traditional,
regional, and institutional fear that “too much change” would cost the school and its
students their unique identity. Challenges to the college’s rules, regulations, and
traditions met resistance from those who howled that “The Citadel must not become just
another Clemson.”
Frequently, Citadel personnel bolstered their defense of the school’s importance
with conveniently selected interpretations of the institution’s, the South’s, and the
nation’s past. Fitzhugh Brundage has argued that “If characterizations of southern
2 Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (New York: William Morrow and Company,
Inc., 1999), 138.
3 W.J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1941, reprint, New York: Vintage
Books, 1991), 429.
2
Description:In Stiffed, Susan Faludi recognizes that “institutions that boast of their insularity,
whether convents or military academies, are commonly pictured in the public.
