Nicholas SheldonFebruary 22, 2001 American HistoryLab # 2 The Myth of the Lost Cause Following the defeat of the Confederacy, momentum gathered to enshrine the myth of the lost cause that would transform the Southern soldier living and dead, into a veritable hero. In order to come to terms with defeat and a look of failure in the eyes of God, Southerners mentally transformed their memories of the antebellum South. It quickly became a superior civilization of great purity that had been cruelly brought down by the materialistic Yankees.At the head of this revival was the memory of Stonewall Jackson, closely followed by Robert E. Lee. Other generals of the Confederacy who had died during the war followed, as did those who would pass on later.D.H. Hill published Land We Love, a magazine devoted to Literature, Military History and Agriculture. In 1869 Hill sold out to a Baltimore periodical, New Eclectic, which in the same year became the Southern Magazine, the official organ of the Southern Historical Association. In 1871 it changed its name to the Southern Magazine and together with a later periodical, Southern Bivouac, kept the memory of the war alive and fresh in the public mind.The most prominent of the writer of the period was John Esten Cooke, who was related by birth and marriage to virtually all the prominent families of Virginia. He helped enshrine the Confederate dead into chivalric knights and symbols of the lost cause. Cookes impressive literary output polarized Southern perceptions of the war, transforming the stigma of defeat into a badge of honor that Confederate veterans could wear proudly. His portrayal of the war as a wonderful adventure, in which participation was an honor.When Lee died in 1870 he was one of a significant number of Confederate heroes running second to Jackson. Lees prominence changed quickly though when a group of his former staff officers and subordinates set about enshrining his memory in Sou...
