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Lost Cause of the Confederacy

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General Ulysses S. Grant receiving Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
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Appomattox Exposes the Dangers of Myths Replacing History

Historians have revealed that the story Americans long learned about the end of the Civil War was a myth.
by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on April 9, 2025
The Virginia monument, an equestrian statue on a pedestal with solders at its base.

The Contested Origins of Gettysburg’s Virginia Monument

Jon Tracey discusses the history of the creation of the Gettysburg Virginia Monument and the true reason it was erected.
by Jon Tracey via Emerging Civil War on December 16, 2021
Monument to the Niños Héroes, six carved pillars with a statue in the center.

The First Lost Cause: Transnational Memory

A comparison of the "Lost Cause" narratives from the Confederacy and Mexico's side of the Mexican-American War.
by Niels Eichhorn via Muster on November 30, 2021
Cartoon depiction of a confederate statue, its hat falling off as it is lifted off a pedestal covered in graffiti about love and justice

After the Lost Cause

Why are politics so consumed with the past?
by Benjamin Wallace-Wells via The New Yorker on June 24, 2021
Gettysburg Battlefield, with monuments visible in the distance

We Need to Talk About Confederate Statues on U.S. Public Lands

At places like the Gettysburg battlefield and Arlington National Cemetery, there's a new, escalating conflict over monuments that honor the Lost Cause.
by Alex Heard via Outside on September 28, 2020
A history textbook open to a chapter called "How the Negroes Lived Under Slavery," with an illustration of a wealthy white man shaking the hand of a smiling enslaved African American man whose well-dressed family looks on while white laborers work.

The Lies Our Textbooks Told My Generation of Virginians About Slavery

State leaders went to great lengths to instill their gauzy version of the Lost Cause in young minds.
by Bennett Minton via Washington Post on July 31, 2020
People raising their fists and gathered around the Robert E. Lee Memorial in Richmond, Virginia

Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

A whole vision of history seems to be leaving the stage.
by David W. Blight via The New Yorker on July 1, 2020
Collage of military uniforms and a Confederate general over a photo of troops training on a military base.

The Lost Cause’s Long Legacy

Why does the U.S. Army name its bases after generals it defeated?
by Michael Paradis via The Atlantic on June 26, 2020
A man adjusts a protest sign at the base of the Confederate memorial known as the “Lost Cause” in Decatur, Ga.
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Removing Lost Cause Monuments Is The First Step in Dismantling White Supremacy

African American activists have long coupled these efforts with fighting against racist laws and racial violence.
by Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders via Made By History on June 19, 2020
Protesters in front of a Confederate monument hold a banner that reads "Take the statue down."

Ole Miss’s Monument to White Supremacy

New evidence shows what the 30-foot-tall Confederate memorial was actually meant to commemorate.  
by Anne Twitty via The Atlantic on June 19, 2020
Portraits of John Adams (left) and John Quincy Adams (right).

The Fall of the House of Adams: Charles Francis Adams Jr. on Race and Public Service

A look inside America’s first political dynasty.
by Douglas R. Egerton via We're History on November 25, 2019
Crowd gathered around statue for Stonewall Jackson memorial dedication, Charlottesville, 1921.

UVA and the History of Race: The Lost Cause Through Judge Duke’s Eyes

A profile of UVA graduate R.T.W. Duke Jr., who presided over the 1924 dedication of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville.
by Elizabeth R. Varon via UVA Today on September 4, 2019

Tom Petty: A Cool, Gray Neo-Confederate?

Michael Washburn explains what we can glean from the failure of Tom Petty's 1985 concept album "Southern Accents."
by Michael Washburn, Connor Goodwin via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 5, 2019

United Daughters of the Confederacy & White Supremacy

In an open letter, an encyclopedia editor stands behind the use of the term "white supremacy" to describe the UDC's work.
by Brendan Wolfe via Encyclopedia Virginia on August 30, 2018
Inside the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, AL.
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How the New Monument to Lynching Unravels a Historical Lie

Lies about history long protected lynching.
by Nina Silber via Made By History on May 2, 2018

On Statues, History, and Historians

A case study from Texas in how Lost Cause mythology was promoted and reified.
by Rich Heyman via Process: A Blog for American History on March 8, 2018
Drawing of a black man holding a shovel (out of frame).

Arlington Is More Than a Cemetery

Arlington House’s transformations mirror our own.
by Jackie Roche via The Nib on January 22, 2018
Lithograph by Winslow Homer titled "Thanksgiving Day in the Army" depicting soldiers pulling apart a wishbone.

A Confederate Curriculum

How Miss Millie taught the Civil War.
by Jonathan Zimmerman via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 6, 2017

Guardians of White Innocence

The Sons of Confederate Veterans want to convince Americans that Southern heritage isn’t about slavery. Is it a lost cause?
by Katy Waldman via Slate on September 25, 2017

The South's Penchant for Confederate Street Names, Mapped

A new project tallies the streets named after Confederate leaders alongside those named after civil rights personalities.
by Tanvi Misra via CityLab on August 25, 2017

The Pernicious Myth of the ‘Loyal Slave’ Lives on in Confederate Memorials

Statues don’t need to venerate military leaders of the Civil War to promulgate false narratives.
by Kevin M. Levin via Smithsonian on August 17, 2017

The Lost Cause Rides Again

The prospective series takes as its premise an ugly truth that black Americans are forced to live every day: What if the Confederacy wasn’t wholly defeated?
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on August 4, 2017

The Myth of the Kindly General Lee

The legend of the Confederate leader’s heroism and decency is based in the fiction of a person who never existed.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on June 4, 2017
Soldiers walking past a sign that says Fort Liberty.

Pete Hegseth Just Did the Funniest Thing Imaginable

It’s Fort Bragg again. So why are Confederate heritage groups so mad?
by Kevin M. Levin via Slate on February 12, 2025
Colorful, brightly lit interior of Washington Cathedral.

Reclaiming Medievalism

Washington Cathedral’s break with Confederate memory.
by Richard Utz via Medievalists.net on January 14, 2025
Cover of "A Great Disorder" by Richard Slotkin, depicting the outline of the United States made out of cracked stone, overlaid with the American flag.

American Mythology

Is the United States a prisoner of its own mythology?
by Tom Zoellner via Los Angeles Review of Books on October 4, 2024
Cover of "A Great Disorder."

In Need of a New Myth

Myths to explain American history and chart a path to the future once helped to bind the country together. Today, they are absorbed into the culture wars.
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on June 26, 2024
A historical marker outside Fendall Hall, a plantation.

Historical Markers Are Everywhere In America. Some Get History Wrong.

The nation's historical markers delight, distort and, sometimes, just get the story wrong.
by Laura Sullivan, Nick McMillan via NPR on April 21, 2024
Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."
by Kathleen Belew, Richard S. Slotkin via Public Books on April 19, 2024
Yale Civil War memorial

A Yankee Apology for Reconstruction

The creators of Yale’s Civil War Memorial were more concerned with honoring “both sides” than with the true meaning of the war.
by David W. Blight via The Atlantic on February 16, 2024
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