The Lost Cause

Before starting our “pandemic project” to learn more about the Civil War, many of us were not familiar with the term “The Lost Cause.” Now is seems to be really important to reflect on what we’ve learned in our studies and travels. In our Yale class with Dr. David Blight, many of the books we read, and even our tour guide at Antietam emphasized that the Civil War was essentially a struggle around slavery. The Southern states were extremely wealthy as a result of the slave economy they had built and were anxious to expand the slave economy. So most historians see slavery as the essential issue that led to the Civil War. This is where “The Lost Cause” enters in. 

The Lost Cause

Adapted from Wikipedia

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy, or the Lost Cause, is an ideology that advocates the belief that the cause of the Confederate States during the Civil War was a just and heroic one. This ideology includes the belief that slavery was just and moral because the enslaved people were happy, even grateful, and that the system of slavery brought economic prosperity. It emphasizes the chivalric virtues of the antebellum South. It thus views the war as a struggle to “save the Southern way of life” and to protect states’ rights. At the same time, it minimizes or completely denies the central role of slavery and white supremacy in the build-up to, and outbreak of the war. 

One particularly intense wave of Lost Cause activity occurred during World War 1 as the last Civil War veterans began to die out and a push was made to preserve their memories. This is when many of the Confederate monuments began to be added to the battlefields. A second wave of Lost Cause activity occurred as a reaction to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Through activities such as the construction of prominent Confederate monuments and the writing of school history textbooks, the Lost Cause sought to ensure that future generations would know the “true” reasons for fighting the war and therefore continue to support white supremacist policies. The Lost Cause has also evolved into a major element in defining gender roles in the white South, in terms of preserving family honor and chivalrous traditions, as well as shaping religious attitudes. 

So, the question we have been asking ourselves is whether or not there has been an another increased wave of Lost Cause during the last five years and as a result of the racial unrest that was unleashed as a result of George Floyd’s death in 2020. Part of what got us started on this learning journey was asking why are the divisions so deep in our country? But as we’ve learned more about the Lost Cause, we now understand that there are huge sections of our country that still view the Civil War as basically a states rights’ battle that had little to do with slavery and systemic racism.