The Myth of the Lost Cause :: American America History

The Myth of the Lost CauseFollowing the whelm of the league and to lift the morale of a shattered people impulsion gathered to enshrine the Myth of the Lost Cause which would transform the Confederate soldier living and dead, into a veritable hero.In order to educe to terms with defeat and a look of failure in the eye of God, Southerners mentally transformed their memories of the antebellum South. It became a superior civilization of keen purity which had been cruelly brought down by the materialistic Yankees.At the signal of this revival was the memory of Stonewall Jackson, closely followed by Robert E. Lee (who would ski tow to the prominent position following his death in 1870). Other generals of the Confederacy who had died during the war followed, as did those who would pass on later.D.H. Hill, a friend of Longstreet produce LAND WE LOVE, a magazine devoted to Literature, Military History and Agriculture. In 1869 Hill sold out to a Baltimore periodical, NEW ECLECTIC, wh ich in the aforementioned(prenominal) year became the Confederate MAGAZINE, 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. Filled with poems and stories of loyalty to the LOST CAUSE sent in by veterans. Hill was Stonewall Jacksons brother in law and he filled the magazine with stories, anecdotes and poems of the now legendary general. Other Confederate heroes legitimate their share of attention from a flood of material supplied by readers celebrate Southern dead and using religion to explain the defeat. Book - typography was prolific in the 70s & 80s mainly from veterans but much on the romanticism of the Cause from women.The most prominent of the writer of the period was John Esten Cooke, who was tie in 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 tag of honour that Confederate veterans could wear proudly. His portrayal of the War as a wonderful adventure, in which participation was an honour.When Lee died on 12 Oct. 1870 he was one of a significant number of Confederate heroes running sec to Jackson.