Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - American History Myth of Lost Cause Myth of Lost Cause Nicholas Sheldon February 22, 2001 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. Cooke’s 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. Lee’s prominence changed quickly though when a group of his former staff officers and subordinates set about enshrining his memory in Southern history. From this time on the Southern Historical Association waged an unrelenting campaign to deify the South. In 1889, another former hero John B. Gordon took control of the Association. Gordon had founded the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), and by 1898 there were 1,084 chapters with each named after a Confederate hero. At its apex in 1903 it had over 80,000 members, one third of all living Southern veterans and in conjunction with its sister organization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, published the Confederate Veteran, which printed the “correct” view of the history of the war for future generations. This view centred around Robert E. Lee. The Southern Historical Papers continued to be published until 1914 and followed the same vein of Southern glory and legend. The fact that he myth of the lost cause found its basis in Jubal Early’s ego, which was to build him into something he wasn’t, (a good soldier,) does not deter from the fact that he hit a nerve and used the pen to achieve success beyond his excessive imagination. As more and more organizations were formed in the South to extol the memory of the Confederacy, the myth became fact and is now accepted. This is not to say that there is not a lot of truth in it. The fact that it is more a matter of embellishment than fiction only serves to increase the belief. Bibliography: Word Count: 563
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