Content deleted Content added
ce |
|||
| (12 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 6:
[[File:Confederate Reunion Parade Richmond.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[George Washington Custis Lee|Custis Lee]] (1832–1913) rides on horseback in front of the [[Jefferson Davis Memorial (Richmond, Virginia)|Jefferson Davis Memorial]] in [[Richmond, Virginia]] on June 3, 1907, reviewing the Confederate Reunion Parade.]]
The '''Lost Cause of the Confederacy''' (or simply the Lost Cause) is an American [[pseudohistory|pseudohistorical]]<ref>{{cite news |last=Duggan |first=Paul |date=November 28, 2018 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2018/11/28/feature/the-confederacy-was-built-on-slavery-how-can-so-many-southern-whites-still-believe-otherwise/ |title=The Confederacy Was Built on Slavery. How Can So Many Southern Whites Think Otherwise? |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=March 2, 2020 |archive-date=April 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200416212916/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2018/11/28/feature/the-confederacy-was-built-on-slavery-how-can-so-many-southern-whites-still-believe-otherwise/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The Black and the Gray: An Interview with Tony Horwitz |journal=Southern Cultures |date=1998 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=5–15 |doi=10.1353/scu.1998.0065 }}</ref> and [[historical negationist]] myth<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/lost-cause-definition-and-origins |title=American Battlefield Trust, October 30, 2020, updated March 25, 2021 |date=October 30, 2020 |access-date=June 2, 2021 |archive-date=June 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602214043/https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/lost-cause-definition-and-origins |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine | first=Molly | last=Ball | title=Stonewalled | magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] | date=June 7–14, 2021 | page=54 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-the-lost-cause/2021/01/14/78853464-55f9-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html |url-access=registration |title=Five Myths About the Lost Cause |date=January 14, 2021 |first1=Karen L. |last1=Cox |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=June 2, 2021 |archive-date=April 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414185416/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-the-lost-cause/2021/01/14/78853464-55f9-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> that claims the cause of the [[Confederate States of America|Confederate States]] during the [[American Civil War]] was just, heroic, and not centered on [[slavery in the United States|slavery]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=bfb284f1-9b32-4419-ad7b-205953ac2c73 | agency=Associated Press | title=Confederate Symbols Are Making Way for Better Things | newspaper=Los Angeles Times | date=February 27, 2021 | page=A-2 | access-date=May 23, 2021 | archive-date=May 23, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210523192823/https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=bfb284f1-9b32-4419-ad7b-205953ac2c73 |url-status=live }}</ref
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 [[Flagellation|whippings]]. Slaves' families 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.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/retropod/last-seen-ads-1/ |newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |date=December 20, 2019 |title=Last Seen Ads |first=Mark |last=Rosenwald |series=Retropod |access-date=December 29, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229111208/https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/retropod/last-seen-ads-1/ |archive-date=December 29, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> Lost Cause proponents ignore these realities, presenting [[Slavery as a positive good in the United States|slavery as a positive good]] and denying that alleviation of the conditions of slavery was the central [[Origins of the American Civil War|cause of the American Civil War]].<ref name="False Cause">{{Cite book|last=Domby|first=Adam H.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dJ24DwAAQBAJ|title=The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy In Confederate Memory|
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 [[List of Confederate monuments and memorials|Confederate monuments]] and [[White supremacy in U.S. school curriculum|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 supremacy|white supremacist]] policies such as [[Jim Crow laws]].<ref name="Cox" /><ref name="auto">{{cite book|author=David W. Blight|title=Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266|year=2001|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|isbn=978-0-674-00332-3|page=259|archive-date=June 10, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610020739/https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266|url-status=live}}</ref> White supremacy is a central feature of the Lost Cause narrative.<ref name="auto"/>
==
[[File:Edward A. Pollard, National Cyclopedia of American Biography.jpg|thumb|Edward A. Pollard published several works about Lost Cause ideology. Those books have led to debates about the origins of the Civil War.]]
[[File:The Union as It Was.jpg|thumb|right|The image "The Union As It Was" was published in ''Harper's Weekly'' in 1874. On a pseudo-heraldic shield are a black family between a lynched body hanging from a tree and the remains of a burning schoolhouse, with the caption "Worse than Slavery". The supporters are a member of the White League and a hooded KKK member, shaking hands in agreement with the Lost Cause.]]{{blockquote | quote=They say that history is written by the victors, but the Civil War has been the rare exception. Perhaps the need for the country to stay together made it necessary for the North to sit silently and accept the South's conception of the conflict. In any case, for most of the past 150 years, the South's version of the war and [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]] has held sway in our schools, our literature and, since the dawn of feature films, our movies.|source=Mick LaSalle, ''[[The San Francisco Chronicle]]'', 2015<ref name="LaSalle2015">{{cite news | newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] | title=Romanticizing Confederate cause has no place onscreen | date=July 24, 2015 | first=Mick | last=LaSalle | url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/Romanticizing-Confederate-cause-has-no-place-6403446.php | access-date=July 8, 2020 | archive-date=July 8, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200708114300/https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/Romanticizing-Confederate-cause-has-no-place-6403446.php | url-status=live }}</ref>}}The movement that took ''The Lost Cause'' for its name had multiple origins,
▲The Lost Cause's multiple origins include its main argument that slavery was not the [[Origins of the American Civil War|primary cause]], or not a cause at all, of the Civil War.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|editor-first=Aaron|editor-last=Sheehan-Dean|title=A Companion to the U.S. Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-bfQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT837|year=2014|publisher=Wiley|page=837|isbn=978-1-118-80295-3|archive-date=April 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420060013/https://books.google.com/books?id=-bfQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT837|url-status=live}}</ref> Such a narrative denies or minimizes the explanatory statements and constitutions published by the seceding states, and the wartime writings and speeches of Confederate leaders such as [[Confederate States of America|CSA]] Vice President [[Alexander H. Stephens|Alexander Stephens]]'s [[Cornerstone Speech]], instead favoring the leaders' more moderate postwar views.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Coates|first1=Ta-Nehisi|title=What This Cruel War Was Over The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it.|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/|website=The Atlantic|access-date=June 13, 2017|date=June 23, 2015|archive-date=May 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190513024042/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/|url-status=live}}</ref> The Lost Cause argument stresses [[secession]] as a defense against a Northern threat to a Southern way of life and says that the threat violated the [[states' rights]] guaranteed by the [[Constitution of the United States]]. The Lost Cause's assertion that any state had the right to secede was strongly denied by the North. It portrays [[Slavery as a positive good in the United States|slavery as more benevolent than cruel]]. Confederate generals are characterized as saintly and Christ-like in Southern iconography, as deeply religious, and as flawless generals portrayed in Lost Cause monuments.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Lost Cause |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/ |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |publisher=Virginia Humanities |access-date=February 1, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Medlin |first1=Eric |title=The Lost Cause |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/lost-cause |website=North Carolina Encyclopedia |publisher=North Carolina Government and Heritage Library |access-date=February 6, 2024}}</ref>
=== Origin of the term ===
The term "Lost Cause" first appeared in the title of an 1866 book by the Virginian journalist [[Edward A. Pollard]], ''The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates''.<ref>Ulbrich, p. 1221.</ref> According to Pollard the term was created at the request of his publisher in New York City, who feared that Pollard's original title would not be catchy enough to sell books. Pollard later wrote in ''[[Appletons' Journal|Appleton's Journal]]'', <blockquote>This titular description of our late war [The Lost Cause], which has become so popular on the Southern side, originated with the present writer [Pollard]. Shortly after the war he prepared to write a history of it. He offered the work he designed to a New York publisher, who thought well of it, but objected to the title, "History of the War," etc. The work thus entitled might be confounded with some other inferior memoirs of the war which the writer had already composed, mere annals," First Year of the War," etc. "Could not some title be found more unique and captivating, and not quite so heavy?" The writer promised to think of such a title. The next day he presented himself to the publisher and said, "I have thought of a name for the work I design: it is ''The Lost Cause''. You see the bulk of the people in the South were persuaded that we really contended for something that had the dignity and importance of a cause, the cause of constitutional liberty (though God only knows what the sequel might have demonstrated). I think there is something of proper dignity in the word Cause; then ''The Lost Cause'' is an advertisement of something valuable that is gone; besides, the associations of the title are tender and reverential, there is a strain of mourning in it. How do you like it?" "Excellently well," replied the publisher; "it is just the thing." The title proved an instant success, and has since become monumental. The words "The Lost Cause" have been incorporated into the common popular language of the South; and the universality of their reception implies a significance that is itself interesting.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Walsh |first=William S. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030801203&seq=662 |title=Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities |publisher=J.B. Lippincott Company |year=1892 |edition=Gale Research Company Edition, 1966 |pages=658 |language=English}}</ref></blockquote>Pollard promoted many of the themes of the Lost Cause such as stating states' rights were the cause of the war and Southerners were forced to defend themselves against Northern aggression. He dismissed the role of slavery in starting the war and understated the cruelty of American slavery, even promoting it as a way of improving the lives of Africans. Pollard's revisionist history continues to have an effect on how slavery and the Civil War are taught in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Williams |first1=David |title=Lost Cause Religion |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/lost-cause-religion/#:~:text=Pollard%20and%20his%20postwar%20books,maintain%20their%20sense%20of%20honor. |website=New Georgia Encyclopedia |publisher=University of Georgia |access-date=February 6, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The New South |url=https://web-clear.unt.edu/course_projects/HIST2610/content/05_Unit_Five/16_lesson_sixteen/02_nw_south.htm |website=University of Northern Texas |access-date=February 6, 2024}}</ref> For example, in 1866 Pollard wrote:
{{blockquote|We shall not enter upon the discussion of the moral question of slavery. But we may suggest a doubt here whether that odious term "slavery", which has been so long imposed, by the exaggeration of Northern writers, upon the judgement and sympathies of the world, is properly applied to that system of servitude in the South, which was really the mildest in the world; which did not rest on acts of debasement and disenfranchisement, but elevated the African, and was in the interest of human improvement; and which, by the law of the land, protected the negro in life and limb, and in many personal rights, and, by the practice of the system, bestowed upon him a sum of individual indulgences, which made him altogether the most striking type in the world of cheerfulness and contentment.<ref>{{cite book | first=Edward A. | last=Pollard | title=The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates | year=1866 | page=49 }}</ref>}}
Pollard in ''The Lost Cause'' and its sequel ''The Lost Cause Regained'' drew inspiration from [[John Milton]]'s [[Paradise Lost]] with the intention of portraying the pre-war South as a "paradise" that was lost in its defeat.<ref name="Schivelbusch2003 58">{{Cite book |first1=Wolfgang |last1=Schivelbusch |title=Culture of Defeat |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VcUTAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |year=2003 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |pages=58–60|isbn=978-0-8050-4421-8 }}</ref>
==Tenets==
Line 30 ⟶ 28:
The Lost Cause legend includes the assertion that slavery was not the main dispute between the North and the South and was not the cause of secession. The myth claims that it was merely a matter of time before the South would have given up slavery by its own choice and that it was the trouble-making abolitionists who manufactured disagreement between the regions. Enslaved African Americans were characterized as faithful and happy.<ref name="Nolan200015">{{cite book |last1=Nolan |first1=Alan T. |editor1-last=Gallagher |editor1-first=Gary W. |editor2-last=Nolan |editor2-first=Alan T. |title=The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History |year=2000 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-33822-8 |pages=15–18 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5SJvUWYDBhUC&pg=PA15 |chapter=The Anatomy of the Myth}}</ref><ref name="Piston1990">{{cite book |last1=Piston |first1=William Garrett |title=Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History |year=1990 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-1229-3 |page=158 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n24-UIO3TuUC&pg=PA158}}</ref>
Lost Cause advocates point to a perceived [[Southern chivalry|chivalric tradition of the South]] as evidence for the CSA's cultural and martial superiority to the North,<ref name=NewGeorgia>Williams, David S. [https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/lost-cause-religion/ "Lost Cause Religion"
Lost Cause rhetoric idealized the South as a land of "grace and gentility" where planter aristocrats were indulgent of their cheerful slaves and its manhood had great courage. Whites and blacks are portrayed as joined in support of the South's benevolent and gracious civilization, superior to that of the North.<ref name="Piston1990112">{{cite book |last1=Piston |first1=William Garrett |title=Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History |year=1990 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-1229-3 |page=112 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n24-UIO3TuUC&pg=PA112}}</ref> The Confederate soldier is romanticized as steadfast, dashing, and heroic. Lost Cause doctrine holds that secession is a right granted by the Constitution; therefore, those who defend it are not traitors. Southern military leaders are depicted in Lost Cause hagiography as virtual saints, with Robert E. Lee occupying the preeminent place as a Christ-like figure.<ref name="Nolan2000197">{{cite book |last1=Nolan |first1=Alan T. |editor1-last=Gallagher |editor1-first=Gary W. |editor2-last=Nolan |editor2-first=Alan T. |title=The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History |year=2000 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-33822-8 |pages=197 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5SJvUWYDBhUC&pg=PA197 |chapter=The Anatomy of the Myth}}</ref>
Line 92 ⟶ 90:
In 1907, [[Hunter Holmes McGuire]], physician of Confederate general [[Stonewall Jackson]], published in a book papers sponsored by the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia, supporting the Lost Cause tenets that "slavery [was] not the cause of the war" and that "the North [was] the aggressor in bringing on the war". The book quickly sold out and required a second edition.<ref name="McGuire1907">{{cite book |last1=McGuire |first1=Hunter |last2=Christian |first2=George L |last3=Grand Camp Confederate Veterans |first3=Department of Virginia |title=The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War Between the States as Set Forth in the Reports of the History Committee of the Grand Camp, C.V., of Virginia and other Confederate Papers |date=1907 |publisher=Richmond, Va., L.H. Jenkins |pages=20, 185 |url=https://archive.org/details/confederatecause00inmcgu/page/n23/mode/2up}}</ref>
The German historian [[Wolfgang Schivelbusch]] compared the Lost Cause mythology embraced by the South after the Civil War to the "lost cause" of the ideals held by such Northern intellectuals as [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Henry Adams]], and [[Henry James]], who had strived to establish an American humanism free of mythologizing and were disillusioned that the Union victory was followed by the materialism of [[Gilded Age]] America.<ref name="Schivelbusch2003 98">{{Cite book |first=Wolfgang |last=Schivelbusch |title=Culture of Defeat |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VcUTAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA98 |year=2003 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |pages=98–101|isbn=978-0-8050-4421-8 }}</ref>
====Reunification of North and South====
Line 125 ⟶ 123:
Dixon, a North Carolinian, has been described as:
{{blockquote|a professional racist who made his living writing books and plays attacking the presence of African Americans in the United States. A firm believer not only in white supremacy, but also in the "degeneration" of blacks after slavery ended, Dixon thought the ideal solution to America's racial problems was to deport all blacks to Africa.<ref name=Benbow>{{cite journal|title=Birth of a Quotation: Woodrow Wilson and 'Like Writing History with Lightning'|first=Mark E.|last=Benbow |journal= [[Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era]] |volume= 9 |number= 4 |date= October 2010 |pages= 509–533|doi=10.1017/S1537781400004242 |jstor= 20799409|s2cid= 162913069 }}</ref>{{rp|510}}}} [[File:Uncle Tom's Cabin cover.jpg|thumb|right|Thomas Dixon wrote works to counter the narratives in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''.]]
Dixon predicted a "[[race war]]" if current trends continued unchecked that he believed white people would surely win, having "3,000 years of civilization in their favor".<ref>{{cite news |title= Sees Awful Race War |newspaper= South Bend Tribune |date= February 23, 1903 |page= 1 |url= https://www.newspapers.com/cip/30161077/thomas_dixon_jr_says_race_war_is_coming/ }}{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> He also considered efforts to educate and civilize African Americans futile, even dangerous, and said that an African American was "all right" as a slave or laborer "but as an educated man he is a monstrosity".<ref>{{cite news |title= (Untitled) |newspaper= Chariton Courier |location= [[Keytesville, Missouri]] |date= February 27, 1903 |page= 4 |url= https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5940917/race_war_prediction_by_the_rev_thomas/ |access-date= April 5, 2019 |archive-date= April 13, 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190413200006/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5940917/race_war_prediction_by_the_rev_thomas/ |url-status= live }}</ref> In the short term, Dixon saw white racial prejudice as "self-preservation",<ref>{{cite news |title= Race Hatred |newspaper= Mitchell Capital |location= [[Mitchell, South Dakota]] |date= June 12, 1903 |url= https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30162431/thomas_dixon_jr_on_jews_and_the_negro/ |access-date= April 5, 2019 |archive-date= April 4, 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190404183616/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30162431/thomas_dixon_jr_on_jews_and_the_negro/ |url-status= live }}</ref>
Line 160 ⟶ 158:
===Confederate Heroes Day===
Confederate Heroes Day began as [[Robert E. Lee Day]] in 1931 in [[Texas]], and in 1973 the Texas legislature changed Robert E. Lee Day to Confederate Heroes Day to remember and honor Confederate soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Pauline |title=Why does Texas celebrate Confederate Heroes Day? |url=https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/texas-confederate-heroes-day/285-184ff2aa-9246-4574-9041-8c189fa8e51b |access-date=7 April 2024 |agency=KHOU 11 News Houston |date=2023}}</ref> Historian and former professor at Southeast Missouri State University, W. Stuart Towns, considers Confederate Heroes Day a manifestation of Lost Cause ideology.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Towns |title=Enduring Legacy Rhetoric and Ritual of the Lost Cause |date=2012 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=9780817317522 |page=140 |url=https://
===Confederate History Month===
Line 168 ⟶ 166:
===UDC Support of the Ku Klux Klan===
{{Further|United Daughters of the Confederacy}}
[[File:UDC-marker-fort-sanders-tn1.jpg|thumb|The [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] helped promulgate the Lost Cause
The Lost Cause became a key part of the reconciliation process between North and South by virtue of political argument, outright sentimentalism, and white Southerners' [[Commemoration of the American Civil War|postwar commemorations]].<ref name="Blight2009266">{{cite book |last1=Blight |first1=David W. |title=Race and Reunion |date=2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02209-6 |page=266 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266}}</ref> The [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] (UDC) is a major organization and has been associated with the Lost Cause for over one century.<ref>{{Cite book|title= Race and reunion: the Civil War in American memory|last=Blight |first=David W.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy portrayed the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) as saviors of white women and children and saviors of the South from what they thought was a majority black rule. UDC member [[Laura Martin Rose]] wrote articles for the ''[[Confederate Veteran]]'', praised the KKK as saviors, and described the movie, ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'', as "more powerful than all else in bringing about the realization of 'things as they were' during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]]", and wrote a primer for school children about the KKK. In 1914, Rose published ''The Ku Klux Klan; or Invisible Empire'' and believed Klan violence was necessary by stating Klan violence "delivered the South from a bondage worse than death". Rose wrote her book so Southern children would know that the history of the KKK was created by Confederate veterans, saying: "inspire them with the respect and admiration for the Confederate soldiers, who were the real Ku Klux, and whose deeds of courage and valor, have never been surpassed".<ref>{{cite web |title=The Connection Between the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the KKK |url=https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/blog/the-connection-between-the-united-daughters-of-the-confederacy-and-the-kkk/ |website=Atlanta History Center|date=December 9, 2022 }}</ref> UDC historian [[Mildred Lewis Rutherford]] also supported the KKK and said:<ref name="archives.law.nccu.edu"/><ref>{{cite web |title=United Daughters of the Confederacy |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/united-daughters-of-the-confederacy/ |website=Encyclopedia of Virginia |publisher=Virginia Humanities |access-date=February 7, 2024}}</ref> "[t]he Ku Klux Klan was an absolute necessity in the South at this time. This Order was not composed of 'riffraff' as has been represented in history, but of the very flower of Southern manhood. The chivalry of the South demanded protection for the women and children of the South."<ref name="archives.law.nccu.edu">{{cite journal |last1=Holmes |first1=Scott |title=Do Public Confederate Monuments Constitute Racist Government Speech Violating the Equal Protection Clause? |journal=North Carolina Central Law Review |date=2019 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=33–34 |url=https://archives.law.nccu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1792&context=ncclr |access-date=February 7, 2024}}</ref>
In 1917, the UDC commemorated the KKK's founding in 1866 by former Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, with a plaque on a building where the Klan was founded.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Borrman |first1=Kaitlan |title=Power in Traditional Gender Roles: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and White Southern Women 's Search for Authority |journal=Legacy |date=2018 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=4 |url=https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=legacy |access-date=22 March 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Wetherington |first1=Mark |title=Ku Klux Klan |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/ku-klux-klan/ |website=Tennessee Encyclopedia |publisher=Tennessee Historical Society |access-date=22 March 2024}}</ref> In 1926, in [[Concord, North Carolina]], the UDC commemorated the KKK with a monument. The inscription is "In Commemoration of the 'KU KLUX KLAN' during the Reconstruction period following the 'WAR BETWEEN THE STATES' this marker is placed on their assembly ground. The original banner (as above) was made in Cabarrus County. Erected by the DODSON-RAMSEUR Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. 1926."<ref name="archives.law.nccu.edu"/>
Line 178 ⟶ 176:
[[File:Stone Mountain, Knights of Ku Klux Klan, portrait of William Joseph Simmons (NBY 9536).jpg|thumb|right|An image of Stone Mountain with Knights of the Ku Klux Klan on horses, and a portrait of William J. Simmons]]
The largest Confederate memorial in the United States is located near Atlanta, Georgia, at [[Stone Mountain]]. Caroline Helen Jamison Plane was the president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) chapter in Atlanta and in 1915 planned a project to carve a memorial of Confederate figures at Stone Mountain. After watching the movie, ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'', Plane also wanted Ku Klux Klan members carved into the mountain's face. Plane wrote a letter to the sculptor, [[Gutzon Borglum]], who was involved with the KKK, about the project and her idea of including KKK members in the Stone Mountain carving inspired by the movie. She wrote: "Since seeing this wonderful and beautiful picture of Reconstruction in the South, I feel that it is due to the Ku Klux Klan which saved us from Negro domination and [[Carpetbagger|carpet-bag]] rule, that it might be immortalized on Stone Mountain".<ref name="Bernard2020">{{cite news |last1=Bernard |first1=Diane |title=The creator of Mount Rushmore's forgotten ties to white supremacy |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/03/mount-rushmore-gutzon-borglum-klan-stone-mountain/ |access-date=20 March 2024 |agency=The Washington Post |date=2020}}</ref> The 1915 film ''The Birth of a Nation'', inspired Methodist preacher William J. Simmons to reestablish the KKK at Stone Mountain by burning a cross and initiating 16 new Klansmen. In 1948, Stone Mountain was the location chosen for the KKK to initiate 700 new members. For decades this location served as a meeting place for Ku Klux Klan rituals.<ref>{{cite web |title=A photograph of William J. Simmons, the founder of the Second Ku Klux Klan, 1921. |url=https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/second-ku-klux-klan-and-the-birth-of-a-nation/sources/1737 |website=New Georgia Encyclopedia |publisher=Digital Public Library of America |access-date=20 March 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Condensed History of the Stone Mountain Carving |url=https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/app/uploads/2021/01/Condensed-history-of-Stone-Mountain.pdf |website=Atlanta History Center |publisher=Atlanta Historical Society, Inc. |access-date=20 March 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Deneen |title=Revisiting the preacher who used Christianity to revive the Ku Klux Klan |url=https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2018/04/10/revisiting-the-preacher-who-used-christianity-to-revive-the-ku-klux-klan/ |access-date=20 March 2024 |agency=The Salt Lake Tribune |date=2018}}</ref>
[[File:Stone Mountain Carving 100 0871.jpg|thumb|Stone Mountain carving]]
Caroline H. J. Plane persuaded the owners of Stone Mountain to let the UDC
===Women's club movement===
[[File:Arizona Federation of Colored Women's Clubs in 1909.jpg|thumb|right|Black women's clubs, such as the Arizona Federation of Colored Women's Clubs in 1909, and teachers, advocated against Lost Cause literature in schools.]]
The [[Woman's club movement in the United States|women's club movement]] was racially divided. White women's club and suffrage activism refused to include Black women. White women's clubs successfully lobbied for the imposition of a [[White supremacy in U.S. school curriculum|racist Lost Cause curriculum in schools]]. White women's literary clubs advocated that only Lost Cause literature written by former Confederates and their children should be read. Some of the white women who were members of the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] (UDC) were also members
The UDC led the deployment of Lost Cause textbooks in Southern schools
[[File:View of the Boy's Bathroom at Hoffman-Boston High School - DPLA - 3a7fdfe34fff2d5c79b25142e590ca08.jpg|thumb|right|Lost Cause textbooks taught African American students in segregated schools.]]
[[Mamie Garvin Fields]] was a [[Civil rights movement|civil rights]] activist, teacher, and African American women's club member from [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]], South Carolina, who advocated against Lost Cause narratives in Charleston's segregated schools. As a child, she attended Shaw School in Charleston; she later remembered white teachers there teaching about the Lost Cause. After she finished school, Lost Cause ideology continued to be taught to black students, and some [[School segregation in the United States|segregated schools]] had white teachers teaching it to black students. African American teachers refused to teach black students using Lost Cause textbooks. Black teachers taught their students about [[Frederick Douglass]] and other historic African Americans.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=Marie |title="Drill into us... the Rebel Tradition": The Contest over Southern Identity in Black and White Women's Clubs, South Carolina, 1898-1930 |journal=The Journal of Southern History |date=2000 |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=554–555 |doi=10.2307/2587867 |jstor=2587867 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2587867 |access-date=January 24, 2024}}</ref>
The Senate of Virginia in 1950 responded to the growing activism of civil rights activists against white supremacy and created the Virginia History and Textbook Commission to publish Lost Cause textbooks. Virginia's Lost Cause textbooks erased Native American history. Virginia's NAACP chapter
In October 2015, outrage erupted online following the discovery of a Texan school's geography textbook, which described slaves as "immigrants" and "workers".<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error|title= Why Calling Slaves 'Workers' Is More Than An Editing Error|newspaper= NPR|date= October 23, 2015|access-date= January 3, 2019|archive-date= January 4, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190104021551/https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error|url-status= live|last1= Isensee|first1= Laura}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/publisher-promises-revisions-after-textbook-refers-to-african-slaves-as-workers.html|title= Texas Mother Teaches Textbook Company a Lesson on Accuracy|first1= Manny|last1= Fernandez|first2= Christine|last2= Hauser|date= October 5, 2015|access-date= January 3, 2019|website= [[The New York Times]]|archive-date= February 21, 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210221083218/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/publisher-promises-revisions-after-textbook-refers-to-african-slaves-as-workers.html|url-status= live}}</ref> The publisher, [[McGraw-Hill]], announced that it would change the wording. Until the 2019–2020 school year, the Texas social studies [[Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills|curriculum]] required teaching that slavery was a tertiary cause of the Civil War behind "[[states' rights]]" and "[[sectionalism]]". The updated curriculum describes the "expansion of slavery" as having a "central role" in bringing about the Civil War, but sectionalism and states' rights remain.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Daley |first1=James |title=Texas Will Finally Teach That Slavery Was Main Cause of the Civil War |journal=Smithsonian Magazine |date=November 19, 2018 |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/texas-will-finally-teach-slavery-was-main-cause-civil-war-180970851/ |access-date=May 6, 2023 |quote=While the board's Democrats, who first proposed the change in language in September, wanted to update standards to elucidate the central role that slavery played in the Civil War, the Republican-dominated board succeeded in keeping states' rights issues and sectionalism on as "contributing factors" for the Civil War. The resulting compromise, according to the board, will teach "the central role of the expansion of slavery in causing sectionalism, disagreements over states' rights, and the Civil War."}}</ref>
Line 196 ⟶ 195:
==="Faithful slaves" monuments===
[[File:Mary Church Terrell - cph.3b47842.jpg|thumb|right|Mary Church Terrell and other Black women advocated against the United Daughters of the Confederacy's plan to erect a "Mammy" monument in Washington, D.C.]]
In 1904, the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] (UDC) campaigned for the erection of "[[Loyal slaves monument|faithful slaves]]" monuments in Southern states to commemorate the history of "loyal" slaves in an effort to erase the horrors of slavery and push the false narrative that enslaved Black people were treated well by their enslavers and were "faithful" to them. Southern Congressmen supported the UDC initiative to erect stereotypical monuments about the "loyal" "[[Mammy stereotype|mammies]]" and "faithful slaves". In 1923, the UDC planned on erecting a "[[Mammy memorial]]" in Washington, D.C. to memorialize the enslaved Black mothers who were "happy" to take care of their enslavers' families and children. This project was supported by the U.S. Senate when it passed bill S. 4119 on February 28, 1923, for the creation of a Mammy statue to be erected on Massachusetts Avenue near a statue of Union General [[Philip Sheridan]]. Black newspapers such as the ''[[St. Louis Argus]],'' ''[[The Chicago Defender]],'' the ''[[Baltimore Afro-American
{{blockquote|Colored women all over the United States stand aghast at the idea of creating a Black Mammy monument in the Capital of the United States. The condition of the slave woman was so pitiably, hopelessly helpless that it is difficult to see how any woman, whether white or black, could take any pleasure in a marble
The Black Mammy had no home life. In the very nature of the case, she could have none. Legal marriage was impossible for her. If she went through a farce ceremony with a slave man, he could be sold away from her at any time, or she might be sold from him and be taken as a concubine by her master, his son, the overseer, or any other white man on the place who might desire her. No colored woman could look upon a
[[File:Loyal slaves monument inscription and carving.jpg|thumb|right|A "loyal slaves" monument with inscription and carving in Confederate Park in Fort Mill, South Carolina]]
Prior to the UDC, a faithful slaves monument was erected in South Carolina in 1896 by Samuel E. White, who was a former cotton mill owner, and by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association. Other Lost Cause monuments were erected in the 1890s and early 1900s in South Carolina.<ref>{{cite web |title=To the Faithful Slaves |url=https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=163805 |website=The Historical Marker Database |access-date=January 30, 2024}}</ref> On June 4, 1914, the UDC erected a loyal slave monument on the grounds of [[Arlington National Cemetery]] in Virginia. The monument stands near the home of former Confederate general Robert E. Lee.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Levin |first1=Kevin |title=The Pernicious Myth of the 'Loyal Slave' Lives on in Confederate Memorials |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pernicious-myth-loyal-slave-lives-confederate-memorials-180964546/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |publisher=Smithsonian Institute |access-date=January 30, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Holloway |first1=Kali |title='Loyal Slave' Monuments Tell a Racist Lie About American History |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/loyal-slave-confederate-monuments-civil-war-slavery/ |access-date=January 30, 2024 |agency=The Nation |date=2019}}</ref>
In 2020, during the [[George Floyd protests]], the UDC's headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, was graffitied and burned by protesters because of its role in the erection of Confederate monuments and perpetuating the Lost Cause ideology. Protestors used the "[[Karen (slang)|Karen meme]]" because the UDC was formed by privileged middle
===Gender roles===
Men had typically honored the role of women during the war by noting their total loyalty to the Cause. Popular literature often depicted elite white Southern women according to the patriarchal stereotype of helpless Southern belles who seek husbands as a lifeline to restore the fortunes of a ruined plantation or to carry them away from it, as if women could not possibly support themselves.<ref name="Censer2003">{{cite book |last1=Censer |first1=Jane Turner |title=The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood, 1865–1895 |year=2003 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-4816-7 |pages=127–128 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K_Lv8ab6GW8C&pg=PA127}}</ref> White women on the plantations did face apparent danger without the presence of their men to serve in the traditional role as protectors.<ref name="Foster1987">{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=Gaines M. |title=Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865-1913 |year=1987 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-977210-0 |pages=30–32 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4G6bCqNKpvwC&pg=PA30}}</ref> Nevertheless, the development of [[Trusts and estates|separate or trust estates]] for white women during the antebellum period had protected their own property from their husbands or their husbands' debtors and allowed them to operate businesses and to manage plantations.<ref name="Censer2003100">{{cite book |last1=Censer |first1=Jane Turner |title=The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood, 1865–1895 |year=2003 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-4816-7 |page=100 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K_Lv8ab6GW8C&pg=PA127}}</ref>
Women took a much different approach to the Cause and their position by emphasizing female activism, initiative, and leadership. When most of the men had left for the war, women had taken command of the homestead, found substitute foods, rediscovered their old traditional skills with the [[spinning wheel]] when factory cloth became unavailable, and had run the farm or plantation operations, including the management of enslaved African Americans the elites considered property.<ref name="Faust1996">{{cite book |last1=Faust |first1=Drew Gilpin |title=Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War |year=1996 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-2255-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DKxC8dNYvu0C&pg=PA51 |pages=46–48, 51}}</ref> According to Drew Gilpin Faust, a campaign was mounted by newspapers and political leaders such as Jefferson Davis, alongside writers of poetry and song, exhorting Southern women to revive the production of cloth goods at home. Many Southern white men were bothered when they discovered that their wives had begun spinning and weaving
==Religious dimension==
Line 215 ⟶ 214:
{{blockquote|Lost Cause ritualistic forms that celebrated their regional mythological and theological beliefs. They used the Lost Cause to warn Southerners of their decline from past virtue, to promote moral reform, to encourage conversion to Christianity, and to educate the young in [[Culture of the Southern United States|Southern traditions]]; in the fullness of time, they related it to American values.<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Reagan Wilson|title=Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lk84N6NnwO0C&pg=PA11|year=1983|publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]]|page=11|isbn=978-0-8203-0681-0|access-date=December 11, 2015|archive-date=June 10, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610135436/https://books.google.com/books?id=lk84N6NnwO0C&pg=PA11|url-status=live}}</ref>}}
Acting in their cultural and religious environments, white Southerners tried to defend what their defeat in 1865 made impossible for them to defend on a political level. The South's loss in what they viewed as a [[Religious war|holy war]]
Poole stated that in fighting to defeat the Republican Reconstruction government in [[South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1876|South Carolina in 1876]], white conservative Democrats portrayed the Lost Cause scenario through "Hampton Days" celebrations and shouted, "Hampton or Hell!" They staged the contest between Reconstruction opponent and Democratic candidate [[Wade Hampton III|Wade Hampton]] and incumbent Republican Governor [[Daniel Henry Chamberlain|Daniel H. Chamberlain]] as a religious struggle between good and evil and called for "[[Redemption (theology)|redemption]]".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Poole |first1=W. Scott |title=Religion, Gender, and the Lost Cause in South Carolina's 1876 Governor's Race: "Hampton or Hell!" |journal=The Journal of Southern History |date=August 2002 |volume=68 |issue=3 |pages=573–598 |doi=10.2307/3070159|jstor=3070159 }}</ref> The white Southern conservatives who committed to the dismantling of Reconstruction called themselves "Redeemers".<ref name="Stowell">{{cite book |last1=Stowell |first1=Daniel W. |editor1-last=Blum |editor1-first=Edward J. |editor2-last=Poole |editor2-first=W. Scott |title=Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction |date=2005 |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=978-0-86554-962-3 |pages=133–135 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=46yZTSn32MsC&pg=PA134 |chapter=Why "Redemption"? Religion and the End of Reconstruction, 1869–1877}}</ref><ref name="Cresswell2021">{{cite book |last1=Cresswell |first1=Stephen |title=Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race: Mississippi After Reconstruction, 1877-1917 |year=2021 |publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi |isbn=978-1-61703-037-6 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lyLdEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA90}}</ref>
Line 221 ⟶ 220:
The popularization of Lost Cause mythology and the erection of monuments to the Confederacy was primarily the work of Southern women, centered in the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] (UDC).<ref name="Nelson2018">{{cite book |last1=Nelson |first1=David |editor1-last=Weitz |editor1-first=Seth A. |editor2-last=Sheppard |editor2-first=Jonathan C. |title=A Forgotten Front: Florida During the Civil War Era |year=2018 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=978-0-8173-1982-3 |pages=197–198 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Is9ZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA197 |chapter=Battles of Olustee: Civil War Memory in Florida}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
The duty of memorializing the Confederate dead was a major activity for Southerners who were devoted to the Lost Cause, and chapters of the UDC played a central role in performing it.<ref>Cynthia Mills, and Pamela Hemenway Simpson, eds. ''Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory'' (U. of Tennessee Press, 2003)</ref> The UDC was especially influential across the South in the early 20th century, where its main role was to preserve and uphold the memory of Confederate veterans, especially the husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers who died in the war. Its long-term impact was to promote by Lost Cause iconography an idealized image of the prewar plantation South as a society
The Southern states set up their own pension systems for veterans and their dependents, especially for widows, because none of them was eligible for federal pensions. The southern pensions were designed to honor the Lost Cause and reduce the severe poverty which was prevalent in the region. Male applicants for pensions had to demonstrate their continued loyalty to the Lost Cause. Female applicants for pensions were rejected if their moral reputations were in question.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Green |first1=Elna C |title=Protecting Confederate Soldiers and Mothers: Pensions, Gender, and the Welfare State in the U.S. South, a Case Study from Florida |journal=Journal of Social History |date=2006 |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=1079–1104 |id={{Project MUSE|200137}} |doi=10.1353/jsh.2006.0039 |s2cid=143859995 }}</ref>
In [[Natchez, Mississippi]], the local newspapers and veterans had a role in the maintenance of the Lost Cause mythos. However, elite white women were central in establishing memorials such as the Civil War monument, which was dedicated on [[Memorial Day]] 1890. The Lost Cause enabled women noncombatants to lay a claim to the central event in their redefinition of [[History of the Southern United States|Southern history]].<ref>Melody Kubassek, "Ask Us Not to Forget: The Lost Cause in Natchez, Mississippi". ''Southern Studies'', 1992, Vol. 3 Issue 3, pp. 155–70.</ref>
The UDC was quite prominent but not at all unique in its appeal to upper-class white Southern women. "The number of women's clubs devoted to [[filial piety]] and history was staggering", stated historian [[W. Fitzhugh Brundage]]. He noted two typical
Brundage concluded that in their heyday during the first two decades of the 20th century:
Line 238 ⟶ 237:
===Confederate generals===
[[File:Robert E. Lee monument, Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia LCCN2017660610.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Robert E. Lee Monument (Richmond, Virginia)|Robert E. Lee monument]] was erected in 1890 in Richmond, Virginia. In 2020, the Lee monument was graffitied during the [[George Floyd protests]] and under the [[Levar Stoney|Stoney]] government was removed in 2021. Other Confederate monuments were removed on [[Monument Avenue]] during and after the George Floyd protests.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Evans |first1=Whittney |last2=Streever |first2=David |title=Virginia's Massive Robert E. Lee Statue Has Been Removed |url=https://www.npr.org/2021/09/08/1035004639/virginia-ready-to-remove-massive-robert-e-lee-statue-following-a-year-of-lawsuit#:~:text=Northam%20announced%20plans%20to%20remove,the%2061%2Dfoot%2Dtall%20memorial |website=NPR Public Radio |access-date=February 1, 2024}}</ref>]]
The character of Robert E. Lee and the doomed [[Pickett's Charge]] were powerful symbols of the Lost Cause.<ref name="Connelly1978">{{cite book |last1=Connelly |first1=Thomas Lawrence |title=The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society |year=1978 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-0474-3 |page=108 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kz96tHrXIWcC&pg=PA108 |quote=In scores of books, and hundreds of speeches and articles, the South made Lee's character the climax of the Lost Cause argument.}}</ref><ref name="Reardon2012">{{cite book |last1=Reardon |first1=Carol |title=Pickett's Charge in History and Memory |year=2012 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-7354-0 |page=80 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nox9ECm7dUEC&pg=PA80 |quote=But it was the funeral of one, not the mourning of many, that showed the nation just how much the effort of Pickett's men at the Confederacy's high tide had established them as one of the chief symbolic
Alan T. Nolan describes Lee as a "visible sign of the elevation of the Lost Cause" in the South's folk history after the war.<ref name="Gallagher2006">{{cite book |last1=Gallagher |first1=Gary W. |title=Lee and His Army in Confederate History |date=2006 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-5769-4 |page=267 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3AUnwEttYjsC&pg=PA267}}</ref> Nolan further observes that by the 1980s, the excellence of Lee's generalship was the consensus of standard reference sources and dogma in popular sources such as the [[The Civil War (book series)|Time-Life ''The Civil War'' series]]. He cites the ''[[Encyclopedia Americana]]'' calling Lee "one of the greatest, if not the greatest, soldier who ever spoke the English language" in its 1989 edition, and the ''Encyclopedia Britannica'' edition of the same year describing him similarly.<ref name="Nolan2000">{{cite book |last1=Nolan |first1=Alan T. |title=Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History |date=2000 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-9843-7 |page=59
Among Lee's subordinates, the key villain in Jubal Early's view was General Longstreet. Although Lee took all responsibility for the defeats, particularly the one at Gettysburg, Early's writings place the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg squarely on Longstreet's shoulders by accusing him of failing to attack at dawn on July 2, 1863, as instructed by Lee. In fact, however, Lee issued no such order and never expressed dissatisfaction with the second-day actions of his "Old War Horse". Because Gettysburg was perceived as the "high tide of the Confederacy", the loss there was seen to have led to the failure of the entire war to achieve independence for the South, the blame for which was hung on Longstreet's disinclination to attack. These charges stuck because Longstreet was already disparaged by many high-profile Southerners due to his reputation as a "[[scalawag]]", caused by postwar endorsement of and cooperation with his close friend and [[in-law]], President Grant. Furthermore, Longstreet advised white Southerners to cooperate with [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], in an effort to control the black vote, a fact that was unappreciated by his fellows. He also joined the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] and accepted a federal position.<ref name="Piston2013">{{cite book |last1=Piston |first1=William Garrett |title=Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History |date=2013 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-4625-0 |pages=ix–xi, 107, 138–139 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X3_QDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR9}}</ref>
Following the war, the national media, including Northern newspapers and magazines, printed articles that contributed to a trend of portraying Lee as the unconquerable Southern general who was victorious even in his surrender at
Grant said in an 1878 interview that he rejected the Lost Cause notion that the South had simply been overwhelmed by numbers. Grant wrote, "This is the way public opinion was made during the war and this is the way history is made now. We never overwhelmed the South.... What we won from the South we won by hard fighting." Grant further noted that when comparing resources, the "4,000,000 of negroes" who "kept the farms, protected the families, supported the armies, and were really a reserve force" were not treated as a southern asset.<ref>{{cite book |author=David W. Blight |title=Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266 |year=2001 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-00332-3 |page=93; 266 |access-date=December 11, 2015 |archive-date=June 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610020739/https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Line 255 ⟶ 254:
Contemporary historians overwhelmingly agree that secession was motivated by slavery. The most important of secession's numerous causes were preservation and expansion of slavery. The confusion may come from blending the causes of secession with the causes of the war, which were separate but related issues.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
According to [[Henry Louis Gates, Jr.]], "the Lost Cause was fundamentally based on white supremacy". He posits that [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] understood, even beyond [[realpolitik|political realities]], that the falsified narrative of the Lost Cause was anti-
Scholar [[Peniel E. Joseph]] explained in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine that Du Bois, an African American author, [[Civil rights movement|civil rights activist]], and [[Pan-Africanism|Pan-Africanist]], published ''[[Black Reconstruction in America]]'' in 1935 to expose the myths and lies of the Lost Cause. Du Bois wrote about African American excellence in business and politics, about Black progress in democracy, and how their success received white supremacy backlash.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Joseph |first1=Peniel |title=The Perils and Promise of America's Third Reconstruction |url=https://time.com/6211887/america-third-reconstruction/ |access-date=January 31, 2024 |agency=Time Magazine |date=2022}}</ref>
Line 265 ⟶ 264:
Davis labeled many of the myths that surround the war "frivolous", including attempts to rename the war by Confederate partisans. He stated that names such as "[[War of Northern Aggression]]" and "[[War Between the States]]" (the latter expression having been coined by Alexander Stephens) were just attempts to deny the fact that the American Civil War was an actual civil war.<ref>Davis, ''The Cause Lost'', p. 178</ref> He said, "Causes and effects of the war have been manipulated and mythologized to suit political and social agendas, past and present."<ref>Davis, ''The Cause Lost''{{page needed|date=February 2024}}</ref> Historian [[David Blight]] said a key to the Lost Cause is "its use of white supremacy as both means and ends".<ref name="auto"/> Historian [[Allan Nolan]] wrote: "[T]he Lost Cause legacy to history is a caricature of the truth. The caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter. Surely it is time to start again in our understanding of this decisive element of our past and to do so from the premises of history unadulterated by the distortions, falsehoods, and romantic sentimentality of the Myth of the Lost Cause."<ref>Gallager and Nolan, p. 29</ref>
[[Wolfgang Schivelbusch]] described the American South's reaction to defeat as comparable to that of [[French Third Republic|France]] after the [[Franco-Prussian War]] and [[Weimar Republic|Germany]] after the [[First World War]], specifically with the myth and ideals of [[revanchism]] and the [[stab-in-the-back myth]].<ref name="Schivelbusch2003 89">{{Cite book |first=Wolfgang |last=Schivelbusch |title=Culture of Defeat |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VcUTAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA89 |year=2003 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |pages=89–91}}</ref> Unlike the other two, which lost relevance after the French victory in World War I and Germany's defeat in [[World War II]] respectively, the Lost Cause
==="War Between the States"===
{{See also|Names of the American Civil War}}
The leaders of the Lost Cause movement began to emphasize the expression "War
Gaines M. Foster writes that almost no one used the expression "War of Northern Aggression" in the late 19th century. Stephens made passing reference to a "war of aggression", and other former
==Cultural references==
Line 304 ⟶ 303:
In both ''The Clansman'' and the film, the Klan is portrayed as continuing the noble traditions of the antebellum South and the heroic Confederate soldier by defending Southern culture in general and Southern womanhood in particular against rape and depredations at the hands of the [[freedmen]] and Yankee [[carpetbaggers]] during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]]. Dixon's narrative was so readily adopted that the film has been credited with the revival of the Klan in the 1910s and 1920s. The second Klan, which Dixon denounced, reached a peak membership of 2–5 million members.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/second-klan/509468/|title=When Bigotry Paraded Through the Streets|first=Joshua|last=Rothman|date=December 4, 2016|website=The Atlantic|access-date=January 3, 2019|archive-date=January 10, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110120823/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/second-klan/509468/|url-status=live}}</ref> The film's legacy is wide-reaching in the history of American racism, and even the now-iconic cross burnings of the KKK were based on Dixon's novel and the film made of it. The first KKK did not burn crosses, which was originally a Scottish tradition, "[[Bidding stick#Scotland|Crann Tara]]", designed to gather clans for war.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3xhhv4|title=Were Scots responsible for the Ku Klux Klan?|website=BBC Guides|access-date=January 3, 2019|archive-date=October 23, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023030843/http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3xhhv4|url-status=dead}}</ref>
===Later literature and films===
The romanticization of the Lost Cause is captured in
====Post-1920s literature====
Line 319 ⟶ 317:
David W. Blight wrote:
{{blockquote|From this combination of Lost Cause voices, a reunited America arose pure, guiltless, and assured that the deep conflicts in its past had been imposed upon it by otherworldly forces. The side that lost was especially assured that its cause was true and good. One of the ideas the reconciliationist Lost Cause instilled deeply into the national culture is that even when Americans lose, they win. Such was the message, the indomitable spirit, that Margaret Mitchell infused into her character [[Scarlett O'Hara]] in ''Gone With the Wind'' ...<ref>{{cite book |author=David W. Blight |title=Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3R-yvmpYaqAC&pg=PA266 |year=2001 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-00332-3 |pages=283–84 |access-date=December 11, 2015 |archive-date=June 10, 2016
Southerners were portrayed as noble, heroic figures, living in a doomed romantic society that rejected the realistic advice offered by the [[Rhett Butler]] character and never understood the risk that they were taking in going to war.
====''Song of the South''====
The 1946 Disney film ''[[Song of the South]]'' is the first to have combined live actors with animated shorts.<ref name=indiewire1>Sergio (February 4, 2016). [https://web.archive.org/web/20170930123525/https://www.indiewire.com/2016/02/regarding-song-of-the-south-the-film-that-disney-doesnt-want-you-to-see-2-156540/ "Regarding 'Song of the South' – The Film That Disney Doesn't Want You to See."] ''IndieWire.com''. Retrieved January 22, 2019.</ref> In the framing story, the actor [[James Baskett]] played [[Uncle Remus]], a former slave who apparently is full of joy and wisdom despite having lived part of his life in slavery. There is a common misconception that the story takes place in the [[Antebellum South|prewar]] period and that the African-American characters are slaves.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Cohen, Karl F. |title=Forbidden animation : censored cartoons and blacklisted animators in America|year=1997|publisher=McFarland & Co|isbn=0-7864-0395-0|location=Jefferson, N.C.|oclc=37246766 }}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Korkis|first=Jim|title=Who's afraid of the Song of the South? : and other forbidden Disney stories|publisher=Theme Park Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-9843415-5-9|pages=68}}</ref> One critic writing for [[IndieWire]] said, "Like other similar films of the period also dealing with the antebellum South, the slaves in the film are all good-natured, subservient, annoyingly cheerful, content and always willing to help a white person in need with some valuable life lesson along the way. In fact, they're never called slaves, but they come off more like neighborly workers lending a helping hand for some kind, benevolent plantation owners."<ref name=indiewire1 /><ref name="
====''Gods and Generals''====
The 2003 Civil War film [[Gods and Generals (film)|''Gods and Generals'']], based on [[Jeff Shaara]]'s 1996 [[Gods and Generals (novel)|novel]], is widely viewed as championing the Lost Cause ideology with a presentation favorable to the Confederacy<ref name="
Writing in the ''Journal of American History'', the historian [[Steven E. Woodworth]] derided the movie as a modern-day telling of Lost Cause mythology.<ref name="
{{blockquote|''Gods and Generals'' brings to the big screen the major themes of Lost Cause mythology that professional historians have been working for half a century to combat. In the world of Gods and Generals, slavery has nothing to do with the Confederate cause. Instead, the Confederates are nobly fighting for, rather than against, freedom, as viewers are reminded again and again by one white southern character after another.<ref name="
Woodworth criticized the portrayal of slaves as being "generally happy" with their condition. He also criticized the relative lack of attention given to the motivations of Union soldiers fighting in the war. He excoriates the film for allegedly implying, in agreement with Lost Cause mythology, that the South was more "sincerely Christian". Woodworth concluded that the film through "
The historian William B. Feis similarly criticized the director's decision "to champion the more simplistic-and sanitized-interpretations found in post-war 'Lost Cause' mythology".<ref name="Movie Review: Gods and Generals"/> The film critic [[Roger Ebert]] described the movie as "a Civil War movie that [[Trent Lott]] might enjoy" and said of its Lost Cause themes, "If [[World War II]] were handled this way, there'd be hell to pay."<ref>{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=Gods and Generals: Movie Review |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gods-and-generals-2003/ |access-date=June 7, 2017 |archive-date=June 17, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170617143117/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gods-and-generals-2003 |url-status=live }}</ref>
The consensus of film critics was that the movie had a "pro-Confederate slant".<ref name="
==See also==
| |||