Lost Cause
The "Lost Cause" was a set of beliefs common in the white American South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that described the Confederate campaign as one launched against great odds and heroic despite its defeat. The beliefs endorsed the virtues of the antebellum South, viewing the American Civil War as an honorable struggle for the Southern way of life, while minimizing or denying the central role of slavery. While it was not taught in the North, the "Lost Cause" narrative did win acceptance there and helped the process of reunifying American whites.
Yale Professor Roland Osterweis summarizes the content that pervaded "Lost Cause" writings:
The Legend of the Lost Cause began as mostly a literary expression of the despair of a bitter, defeated people over a lost identity. It was a landscape dotted with figures drawn mainly out of the past: the chivalric planter; the magnolia-scented Southern belle; the good, gray Confederate veteran, once a knight of the field and saddle; and obliging old Uncle Remus. All these, while quickly enveloped in a golden haze, became very real to the people of the South, who found the symbols useful in the reconstituting of their shattered civilization. They perpetuated the ideals of the Old South and brought a sense of comfort to the New.
The "Lost Cause" beliefs were founded upon several historically inaccurate elements. These included the claim that the Confederacy started the Civil War to defend states' rights rather than to preserve slavery, and the related claim that slavery was benevolent, rather than cruel.
Historians, including Gaines Foster, generally agree that the "Lost Cause" narrative also "helped preserve white supremacy." Most scholars who have studied the white South's memories of the Civil War or the Old South conclude that both portrayals present a past society in which whites were in charge and blacks were faithful and subservient. Supporters typically portrayed the Confederacy's cause as noble and its leadership as exemplars of old-fashioned chivalry and honor, defeated by the Union armies through numerical and industrial force that overwhelmed the South's superior military skill and courage. Proponents of the "Lost Cause" movement also condemned the Reconstruction that followed the Civil War, claiming that it had been a deliberate attempt by Northern politicians and speculators to destroy the traditional Southern way of life.
Response to Devastation
Many white Southerners were devastated economically, emotionally, and psychologically by the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865. Before the war, many Southerners proudly felt that their rich military tradition and superior dedication to the concept of honor would enable them to prevail in the conflict. When this did not happen, white Southerners sought consolation in attributing their loss to factors beyond their control, such as the Union Army's physical size and overwhelming brute force.
The term "Lost Cause" first appeared in the title of an 1866 book by the historian Edward A. Pollard: The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates. However, it was the articles written by General Jubal A. Early in the 1870s for the Southern Historical Society that firmly established the "Lost Cause" as a long-lasting literary and cultural phenomenon. The 1881 publication of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis, a two-volume defense of the Southern cause, provided another important text in the history of the "Lost Cause." Davis blamed the enemy for, "whatever of bloodshed, of devastation, or shock to republican government has resulted from the war." He charged that the Yankees fought, "with a ferocity that disregarded all the laws of civilized warfare." The book remained in print and was often used to justify the Southern position and to distance it from slavery.
Memorial associations such as the United Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Ladies Memorial Associations integrated "Lost Cause" themes to help Southerners cope with the many changes during this era, most significantly Reconstruction. These institutions have lasted to the present, and descendants of Southern soldiers continue to attend these meetings. Today, education is a high priority of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which collects documents and gives aid to historical researchers and top college scholars. The organization also provides financial help to elderly members and aids, "homeless shelters, homes for battered women and children, hospital associations, and food banks."
New South
Historians have emphasized how the "Lost Cause" theme helped white Southerners adjust to their new status and move forward into what was called the "New South." Hillyer argues that the Confederate Memorial Literary Society (CMLS), founded by elite white women in Richmond, Virginia, in the 1890s, exemplifies this solution. The CMLS founded the Confederate Museum to document and defend the Confederate cause and to recall the antebellum mores that the New South's business ethos was displacing. According to Hillyer, by focusing on military sacrifice, rather than on grievances regarding the North, the Confederate Museum aided the process of sectional reconciliation. By depicting slavery as benevolent, the museum's exhibits reinforced the notion that Jim Crow was a proper solution to racial tensions that had escalated during Reconstruction. Lastly, by glorifying the common soldier and portraying the South as "solid," the museum promoted acceptance of industrial capitalism. Thus, the Confederate Museum both critiqued and eased the economic transformations of the New South, and enabled Richmond to reconcile its memory of the past with its hopes for the future. This allowed it to leave the past behind as it developed new industrial and financial roles.
A memorial to Confederate soldiers
The United Daughters of the Confederacy helped promulgate the "Lost Cause" ideology through the construction of numerous memorials, such as this one in Tennessee.