When you said a "National Confederate Museum" I thought I knew what you were trying to say. My thought was what we could consoladate all the museums and instead of what we have have now; local or regional museums that are dedicated to the Civil War or Confederate theme or only partially dedicated to that theme. Using someplace like Montgomery as a host to a "National" Confederate Museum could be a reposatory of all Confederate artifacts from around the nation and would be dedicated to perserve, catalog and display these artifacts in a larger and more dedicated format. Even aligning itself to the Smithsonian, Richmond and New Orleans to share and loan artifacts between it and other "satellite museums" throughout the South. It would be great also have a single database to search to locate Confederate artifacts quickly and be able to see them. How much is tucked away in some podunk little county court house glass display case or library basement, never ever to be seen by the masses, has always bothered me. I have many experiences of "discovering" artifacts I was looking for in the most surprising places after years of searching. Its time to get it together now before even more of it is lost so we can learn more.

You expanded above and past my original thought to include a national history using a Confederate dynamic to show how the Confederacy evolved from pre-Civil War, neigh, pre-United States events and deep rooted cultural history that formed the independent Southern mindset, to post-Civil War affects that were shaped by the existance of that Confederacy and how those affects helped form and shape American history to this very day. [right?]

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David Upton