Lost Cause of the Confederacy

Did You Know?

• The term 'Lost Cause' was inserted at the request of Edward A. Pollard's New York City publisher, who feared the original title would not be catchy enough.
• Pollard's 1866 book dismissed the role of slavery in starting the war and promoted slavery as a way of improving the lives of Africans.

History

After the Civil War, many white Southerners felt crushed economically, emotionally, and psychologically. They had expected their strong military background to bring victory, so they later comforted themselves by blaming their defeat on things like the Union's greater size and raw power. General Jubal A. Early's 1870s articles for the Southern Historical Society turned this mindset into a lasting cultural and literary movement. Another key work was Jefferson Davis's 1881 book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which defended the South. Davis accused the North of causing all the bloodshed and devastation, claimed Union soldiers fought with savage disregard for civilized rules, and tried to separate the Southern cause from the issue of slavery.

United Daughters of the Confederacy

For more than a century, the United Daughters of the Confederacy has promoted the Lost Cause narrative. The group depicted the Ku Klux Klan as protectors of white women and children and as rescuers of the South from what they claimed was Black majority rule. UDC member Laura Martin Rose wrote for the Confederate Veteran, calling the Klan saviors and praising the film The Birth of a Nation for helping people understand Reconstruction as it really was. She also created a school primer about the Klan. In her 1914 book The Ku Klux Klan; or Invisible Empire, Rose argued that Klan violence was necessary, saying it freed the South from a fate worse than death. She wrote so Southern children would respect Confederate veterans as the true founders of the Klan. UDC historian Mildred Lewis Rutherford agreed, stating the Klan was essential and made up of the South’s finest men, not criminals. In 1917, the UDC placed a plaque in Pulaski, Tennessee, marking the Klan’s 1866 founding by former Confederate soldiers. In 1926, the group erected a monument in Concord, North Carolina, on the Klan’s assembly ground, with an inscription honoring the organization during Reconstruction.

Symbols

After the war, Robert E. Lee and Pickett’s Charge became central icons of the Lost Cause. A speaker from the Missouri United Confederate Veterans described a new Southern faith built on this myth, treating the Confederacy as immortal and the South as holy ground. Lee himself took on a near-divine status in Southern memory. His troops were remembered as utterly loyal, following him into any battle no matter the odds. His victories at Second Bull Run and Chancellorsville became legendary, and even though he took full blame for Gettysburg, Southerners and most historians rarely criticized him until recent decades. Alan T. Nolan saw Lee as a clear marker of how the Lost Cause shaped Southern folk history. By the 1980s, standard reference works like the Encyclopedia Americana and Encyclopedia Britannica called him one of the greatest English-speaking soldiers ever, and popular series like Time-Life’s The Civil War treated his generalship as unquestioned fact.

Contemporary historians

Contemporary historians overwhelmingly agree that secession was motivated by slavery, with its preservation and expansion being the most important causes. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Lost Cause was fundamentally based on white supremacy, and W. E. B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction challenged Lost Cause adherents by locating the struggles and achievements of Black Americans at the center of Reconstruction's story. Charles Reagan Wilson has described how by the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, progressive African Americans and white southerners have succeeded in dismantling much of the collective memory of the Lost Cause in the South. Scholar Peniel E. Joseph said Du Bois published Black Reconstruction in America in 1935 to expose the myths and lies of the Lost Cause, writing about African American excellence in business and politics and how their success received white supremacy backlash. According to historian Kenneth M. Stampp, each side supported states' rights or stronger federal power only when convenient, and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who said slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy at the war's start, later said the war was about states' rights and became an ardent defender of the Lost Cause myth.