Back قضية الكونفدرالية المفقودة Arabic Изгубената кауза на Конфедерацията Bulgarian Lost Cause of the Confederacy Breton Lost Cause Czech Konføderationens Fortabte Sag Danish The Lost Cause German Causa Perdida de la Confederación Spanish جنبش ازدست‌رفته مؤتلفه Persian Lost Cause Finnish Cause perdue des États confédérés d'Amérique French

Lost Cause of the Confederacy

"Lost Cause" redirects here. For other uses, see Lost Cause (disambiguation).

Custis Lee (1832–1913) rides on horseback in front of the Jefferson Davis Memorial in Richmond, Virginia on June 3, 1907, reviewing the Confederate Reunion Parade.
Mississippi Secession Convention (1861)

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply the Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical[1][2] and historical negationist myth[3][4][5] that argues the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery.[6][7] First enunciated in 1866, it has continued to influence racism, gender roles, and religious attitudes in the Southern United States into the 21st century.[8][9]

Beyond forced unpaid labor and denial of freedom to leave the slaveholder, the treatment of slaves in the United States often included sexual abuse and rape, the denial of education, and punishments such as whippings. The families of slaves were often split up by the sale of one or more family members; when such events occurred, the family members in question usually never saw or heard from one another again.[10] Lost Cause proponents ignore these realities, presenting slavery as a positive good and denying that alleviation of the conditions of slavery was the central cause of the American Civil War.[11] Instead, Lost Cause proponents frame the war as a defense of states' rights and of the Southern agrarian economy against supposed Northern aggression.[12][13][14] Lost Cause proponents attribute the Union victory to greater numbers and greater industrial wealth, while they portray the Confederate side of the conflict as being more righteous and having greater military skill.[11] Modern historians overwhelmingly disagree with these characterizations, noting that the central cause of the war was slavery.[15][16][17]

The Lost Cause reached a high level of popularity at the turn of the 20th century, when proponents memorialized Confederate veterans who were dying off. It reached a high level of popularity again during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s in reaction to growing public support for racial equality. Through actions such as building prominent Confederate monuments and writing history textbooks, Lost Cause organizations (including the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans) sought to ensure that Southern whites would know what they called the "true" narrative of the Civil War and would therefore continue to support white supremacist policies such as Jim Crow laws.[8][18] White supremacy is a central feature of the Lost Cause narrative.[18]

  1. ^ Duggan, Paul (November 28, 2018). "The Confederacy Was Built on Slavery. How Can So Many Southern Whites Think Otherwise?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 16, 2020. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  2. ^ "The Black and the Gray: An Interview with Tony Horwitz". Southern Cultures. 4 (1): 5–15. 1998. doi:10.1353/scu.1998.0065.
  3. ^ "American Battlefield Trust, October 30, 2020, updated March 25, 2021". October 30, 2020. Archived from the original on June 2, 2021. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
  4. ^ Ball, Molly (June 7–14, 2021). "Stonewalled". Time. p. 54.
  5. ^ Cox, Karen L. (January 14, 2021). "Five Myths About the Lost Cause". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
  6. ^ "Confederate Symbols Are Making Way for Better Things". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. February 27, 2021. p. A-2. Archived from the original on May 23, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
  7. ^ Janney, Caroline E. (December 7, 2020). "The Lost Cause". Encyclopedia Virginia. Archived from the original on February 24, 2021. Retrieved September 9, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Cox, Karen L. (2019). Dixie's Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture. University Press of Florida. ISBN 9780813064130. OCLC 1258986793.
  9. ^ Wilson, Charles Reagan (2011). Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920. University of Georgia Press.
  10. ^ Rosenwald, Mark (December 20, 2019). "Last Seen Ads". Washington Post. Retropod. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
  11. ^ a b Domby, Adam H. (February 11, 2020). The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy In Confederate Memory. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-4376-3. OCLC 1151896244. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020.
  12. ^ White, C. (July 23, 2011). Journeys in Social Education: A Primer. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 102. ISBN 978-94-6091-358-7.
  13. ^ Craven, Avery O. (1953). The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848–1861: A History of the South. LSU Press. p. 339. ISBN 978-0-8071-0006-6.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gallagher1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Finkelman, Paul (June 24, 2015). "States' Rights, Southern Hypocrisy, and the Crisis of the Union". Akron Law Review. 45 (2).
  16. ^ McPherson, James M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 0-19-503863-0. OCLC 15550774.
  17. ^ McPherson, James M. (2007). This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War. Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 3–9. ISBN 978-0-19-531366-6. OCLC 74915689.
  18. ^ a b David W. Blight (2001). Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Harvard University Press. p. 259. ISBN 978-0-674-00332-3. Archived from the original on June 10, 2016.
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