What do you do when your family tree contains so many Confederates and white supremacists, you can’t decide which one to write about first? I’ll start with one of the more well-known ones, at least to Civil War buffs. Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire, my great-grandfather, was apparently one of the architects of the South’s “Lost Cause” narrative. A few years ago, I discovered that he wrote a book, “The Confederate Cause & Conflict in the War Between the States,” published in 1907. His coauthor was a man who may or may not be related to me — George L. Christian. There was a Christian at my high school in Virginia who Mom told me was my third cousin.
