WEBVTT - The Lost Cause 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.920 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.639 I'm Tracy Vie Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Holly, this 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.120 has been a weird year. What show that's a totally 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.680 normal I live in a closet. I mean, it's been 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.240 a weird year in general, has been a really weird 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.920 year to work on this podcast. We recorded an episode 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.159 back in March where we talked about some of that 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.440 and how just strange it was to be working on 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.760 the show and living in this moment that was clearly 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.760 historically significant, that moment being the pandemic at that time, 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.480 and that sense of strangeness has really continued. It also, 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.720 i think escalated with the other things that have also 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:56.880 happened since then. Yes, future historians will have quite a 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.680 lot of layers to peel on this onion that is. Yeah, 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.320 So like this whole sense of very surreal uh, stuff 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.959 like that went on through the widespread protests against police 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.720 brutality and racism that started in the late spring and summer, 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:18.640 and now as we're recording this, the truly bizarre afterlife 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:23.480 of the presidential election. For most of this year has 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.320 really felt like either we just wrote an episode that's 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:31.080 suddenly not relevant anymore, or we've been working on episodes 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.760 feeling like they're just gonna come out in this black hole. 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:35.600 If we don't know what the world is going to 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.800 be like, then is this gonna seem really tone deaf 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.880 when it publishes in a week and a half. Yeah, so, um, 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.080 we're recording this on December one. Who knows what the 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.560 world is going to be like when it actually gets 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.520 to people's feeds. In a way, with all this just bizarre, strange, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.800 disorienting chaos that we have all been living through, the 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:02.360 election has felt uniquely disord orienting because there are clear 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.680 historical precedents for the pandemic and the protests and the 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.480 conditions that led to the protests, and we have talked 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.560 about a lot of those things on the show before. 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:17.320 But while there have been disputed elections in the United States, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.520 we don't really have a one to one comparison to 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:27.160 a sitting president having clearly lost the election making all 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:33.160 kinds of baseless and often verifiably false claims about having 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:40.920 actually won it in all caps yes. However, another piece 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.400 of this very strange post election season is this attempt 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.720 to just promote the idea that the election was somehow 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.560 rigged in favor of President elect Joe Biden. And so 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.440 if we look at things more generally and we talk 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.640 about attempts to create a narrative to reframe a loss 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.160 so that it will be more favorable to the losing side, 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.760 there are definite precedents for that in history, and one 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.280 of them is the subject of today's episode, which is 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.440 the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, which 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.080 was a distortion of the history of the US Civil 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.720 War that is still affecting the world today. Just a 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.760 heads up that we cannot possibly delve into every conceivable 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.880 nuance of this in an episode. UH. One of the 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.800 many books about how the Civil War is remembered is 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.520 called Race and Reunion The Civil War in American Memory. 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:38.280 That's by David W. Blight. And not counting the notes 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.520 and the index of that book, it is almost four 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.280 hundred pages long, and the author describes that as a 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.560 quote synthetic and selective work on a vast topic. So 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.400 we are kind of looking at the big picture overview 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.720 of this and not every conceivable facet of it. So 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:02.280 the Lost Cause was part ideology, part social movement. Since 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.800 its purpose was to promote an a historical interpretation of 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.400 the U. S. Civil War, we gotta start with a 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.360 recap of what exactly the Lost Cause was trying to undermine. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.520 Although there were other factors that played a much smaller role, 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.440 the primary issue that drove the U. S. Civil War was, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.880 of course slavery. You can certainly make the argument that 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.679 the North went toward to preserve the union, but under 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.720 that argument, the reason the Union was in jeopardy in 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.919 the first place was still slavery. And this was not 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.400 a new division. Disagreements over slavery and efforts to accommodate 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.520 slave states for the sake of keeping the union together. 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.320 Let's go all the way back to before the drafting 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.880 of the U. S. Constitution, and they're represented in the 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.359 Constitution itself. So all the language that we're about to 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.640 talk about still exists in the Constitution today, although the 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.560 thirteenth and fourteenth Amendments supersedes some of it. Article one, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.279 Section two sets up the framework for the House of 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.680 Representatives and how members of that body will be apportioned. 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.120 It reads, in part quote, Representatives and directs taxes shall 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.480 be apportioned among the several states which may be included 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.320 within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.920 be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.200 including those bound to service for a term of years, 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:26.160 and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.919 So this is known as the three fifths Compromise. And 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:35.000 even though it doesn't specifically mention slavery, everyone understood that 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.600 other persons here met enslaved Africans. Southern states wanted their 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.960 enslaved population to count for the purpose of apportionment, and 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.080 that would give those states more legislative power and help 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.400 protect the institution of slavery. They did not want their 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.200 tax burden to increase by that amount, though, so this 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.040 solution was to count three fifths of the enslaved population. 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.760 Article one, section nine address us the international slave trade, 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.520 though again without using that language, it reads quote, the 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.000 migration or importation of such persons as any of the 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.760 states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.480 be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.640 eight hundred and eight, But attacks or duty may be 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.520 imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.359 In other words, while the government could impose attacks or 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.719 a duty on enslaved people brought into the country, it 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.400 could not ban the international slave trade. Before eight and then, 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.440 Article four came to be known as the fugitive slave clause. Quote. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.240 No person held to service or labor in one state 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.960 under the laws thereof escaping into another, shall, and consequence 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.080 of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.920 service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.280 claim of the party to whom such service or labor 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.000 maybe do Delegates from the slaveholding states would not have 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.039 accepted the Constitution without these provisions, each of which protected 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.720 slavery and the interests of enslavers and slave states, And 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.160 over time, the growth of anti slavery sentiments and abolition 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.880 movements in the northern states became increasingly threatening to the 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.120 slave states of the South. To be clear, there were 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.600 also abolitionists in the South, including enslaved people advocating for 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.920 their own liberation and liberating themselves, but the national balance 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.600 of power between North and South is what we're really 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.840 focused on here. Beginning in about eighteen twelve, the United 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.200 States started intentionally admitting new states into the Union in 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:46.440 pairs one slave and one free state to maintain this 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:51.119 purported balance, and this continued until eighteen fifty, when California 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.119 became the first free state admitted without a corresponding slave state. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.880 The Compromise of eighteen fifty was a collection of laws 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.680 meant to diffuse some of the tension from this shift, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.600 one of those being a much stronger Fugitive Slave Act. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.360 In eighteen fifty four, the Republican Party was established to 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.480 try to resist the expansion of slavery into the western 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.640 territories of the United States. By the election of eighteen sixty, 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.560 it was widely believed that the election of a Republican 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.040 president would spell the end of slavery and would prompt 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.720 slave states to secede from the Union. This came to 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.240 pass after Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected as president on 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:35.240 November six, eighteen sixty. After Lincoln's election, Senator John J. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:40.040 Crittenden of Kentucky proposed a collection of constitutional amendments and 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.040 Senate resolutions, some of which would make slavery permanent and 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.520 part of the country, to try to head off a 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:51.520 secession crisis. Unsurprisingly, this proposal was supported by the slave 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.080 states but denounced by the free states, so it failed. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.320 And then on December eighteen sixty, South Carolina became the 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.480 first eight to announce that it was seceding from the Union. 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.199 South Carolina issued a declaration of the immediate Causes which 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.800 induce and justify the Secession of South Carolina from the 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.960 Federal Union. This document read, in part quote, an increasing 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.200 hostility on the part of the non slaveholding states to 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.520 the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.080 their obligations, and the laws of the general Government have 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.600 ceased to affect the objects of the Constitution. Other states 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.760 issued similar documents when they succeeded. They're going to have 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.160 a couple of examples. This one's from Georgia. Quote. For 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.439 the last ten years, we have had numerous and serious 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.800 causes of complaint against our non slaveholding Confederate states with 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.880 reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:52.199 to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:57.599 and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.160 to us in reference to that property and by the 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.680 use of their power in the federal government have striven 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.400 to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.920 territories of the Republic. This is from Mississippi quote. Our 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.960 position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery. The 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.120 greatest material interest in the world. Its labor supplies the 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.600 product which constitutes by far the largest and most important 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.559 portions of commerce on the earth. These products are peculiar 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.559 to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.760 an imperious law of nature, none but the black race 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.600 can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.040 become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.720 is a blow at commerce and civilization. Texas and Virginia 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.200 issued similar documents containing similar sentiments as well, and while 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.880 some of these documents did also spend a significant amount 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.439 of space discussing states rights in general, the rights that 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:01.120 were being discussed all circled back to slavery. They included 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.720 things like the right to take enslaved people into free 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.480 states without there being freed as a consequence. So these 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.640 documents supported the slave states rights to maintain slavery, but 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.280 not really the free states rights to outlaw or restrict it. 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.360 A Constitution of the Confederate States was adopted on March eleventh, 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:24.960 nineteen one. Unlike the US Constitution, this one made several direct, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.600 specific references to slavery and enslaved people. Ten days later, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.200 Alexander Stephens, vice President of the Confederate States of America, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.560 delivered what came to be known as the Cornerstone Speech. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.360 It said that this new constitution had quote put at 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:45.479 rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:50.679 African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.360 of the Negro in our form of civilization. This was 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.719 the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.760 So yeah, there were, of course cultural and economic differences 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.480 between the North and the South, and other issues that 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:07.840 you can cite as contributing factors in all of this, 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:13.320 but there is overwhelming documented evidence that the biggest issue, 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.480 and the one that was the most important, was slavery. 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.960 It seems unlikely that the Confederate States would have shied 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.200 away from that stance had they won the war. Slavery 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.200 was right there in the Confederate States Constitution, including the 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.960 clause quote no bill of attainder ex post facto law 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.920 or law denying or impairing the right of property in 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:37.960 negro slaves shall be passed. But instead the Confederacy suffered 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.679 a humiliating defeat that left the question of how the 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.120 nation could possibly be whole again and how the South 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.440 could envision itself after this turn of events, And we're 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.440 going to talk about that after we pause for a 0:12:50.440 --> 0:13:01.319 sponsor break. After the US of A War, there were 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.520 a lot of questions about how to reunite the country, 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.240 like what would states have to do to be readmitted 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.600 into the Union? What would former confederates have to do 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.040 to earn some kind of pardon, How could the places 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.680 that had suffered material damage as a result of the 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.320 war be rebuilt? And how could the social, economic, and 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.240 political injustice that had both enabled and grown from the 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:29.400 existence of slavery be addressed and rectified. We have talked 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.920 about a lot of this in previous episodes of the 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.560 show that relate to the period of U s history 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.200 known as Reconstruction, and those episodes include our two part 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.840 on Robert Small's that we put out as a Saturday 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.920 Classic this summer, and our two part on the Wilmington's 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.480 coup that came out in a lot of these questions 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.560 were practical, like would former Confederate leaders have to stand trial? 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.040 What kind of services would be provided for formerly enslaved people? 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.760 Where would the money come from to pay for those services? 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.600 But some of these questions were a little bit more abstract, 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.160 like what did this mean for white Southern identity? How 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.520 could the Southern States defend themselves from mockery, shame, and 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.439 accusations of treason from the white Southern point of view. 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.280 Answers to a lot of these more nebulous questions rested 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.440 on a set of ideas that came to be known 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.400 as the Lost Cause. That's a term that was popularized 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.080 by the eighteen sixties six book of the same name 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.240 by Edward Pollard of Virginia. The biggest and most important 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.800 piece of the Lost Cause myth was that the Civil 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.640 War had not been about slavery. Southern States had succeeded 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.560 over the issue of states rights, and that had been 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.720 the cause of the war. According to this idea, still 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.520 here it on occasion. I don't know if on occasion 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:50.600 is even strong enough. And being super polite, even though 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.280 the Lost Cause narrative claimed that the Civil War was 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:58.640 not about slavery. It also reimagined slavery itself. According to 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.560 Lost Cause proponents, slavery was not an evil institution. Enslavers 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.400 in this version of the story are benevolent. They looked 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.960 after their enslaved workforce, providing housing, clothing, and food, and 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.360 generally giving enslaved people a better life than they would 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:18.040 have had otherwise. Also, according to this narrative, enslaved people 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:23.400 were happy, grateful, loyal, dedicated to their enslavers. Folded into 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.200 all of this was the idea that people of African 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.640 descent weren't capable of handling their own affairs, that they 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.600 somehow needed the guidance and supervision of their enslavers. Even 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.080 though the Lost Cause took great pains to minimize the 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.720 documented horrors of slavery, it also contended that slavery was 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.120 well on its way to dying out on its own. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.120 Sort of a corollary to this reimagining of slavery was 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.680 the myth of the Black Confederate, which became way more 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:58.200 popular later on, uh in the nineteen seventies in particular, 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.680 like it had kind of a heyday. This was the 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.800 idea that enslaved black people were so loyal and cared 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.440 for that they willingly volunteered to fight for the Confederacy, 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.640 and enormous numbers estimates for how many Black Confederates they're 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.360 supposedly were are all over the place. There anywhere from 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.920 five hundred to a hundred thousands such soldiers, depending on 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.720 who you read. The reality is that enslaved Africans were 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.400 a massive source of labor within the Confederate army. They 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:31.480 worked as body servants, cooks, and manual laborers. But they 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.040 weren't soldiers and they were not volunteers. They were enslaved. 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.320 Confederate forces also captured and enslaved free black people in 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.160 the places they moved through or occupied during the war. 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.280 Historian Kevin m Levin has written a whole book about 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.840 this called Searching for Black Confederates. The Civil Wars most 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:54.240 persistent myths. Yeah, people like to use photos of soldiers 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.400 posing with their enslaved servants as like some kind of 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.000 evidence that there were a whole lot of soldiers and 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.840 that the person the picture is really depicting is enslaving. 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:07.760 The person next to them like that is not a 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.520 volunteer soldier who went with him. So the lost cause 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:17.320 ideology also framed the South's defeat as something that was inevitable. 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.760 Under this ideology, Confederate generals were brilliant, they were gifted 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.720 in their strategy and their tactics, and the South was 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.760 defeated only because the North had superior numbers and resources. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.240 So the ideas the South was just overwhelmed. So it 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.720 wasn't that Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders failed 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.840 to develop an effective strategy to offset the fact that 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.680 the Northern states were more industrialized and more densely populated. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.440 It was just that there was no strategy that ever 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.560 would have been enough. This idea that the Confederate war 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.199 effort was doomed from the beginning is the source of 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:57.560 that lost cause Moniker. Within this reframing, Confederate generals were 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:03.080 universally gentlemen. All of the soldiers were noble and gallant. 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.000 White women were also perfect examples of Southern femininity. They 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.040 had sacrificed for the cause of freedom and had borne 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:15.240 up under immense struggle. More broadly, Antebellum life in the 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:20.359 South was described as universally genteel and refined, with plantations 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:25.720 romanticized as idyllic, expansive homes and fields rather than the reality, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.520 which was that they were slave labor camps. Yes, so 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:29.920 I want to take a minute for like a more 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.600 personal note. I understand that for a lot of people 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.679 this this history is very personally important to them and 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.120 their families. If you're about to write us an angry 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.479 email about your second or third great grandfather who served 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.360 for the South, I have second and third great grandfathers too, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.320 So I get it. Like you want to think that 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.560 your ancestors were on the right side of history, but 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:57.399 they really just were not in this case. Eventually, proponents 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.720 of the Lost Cause ideology started to read frame the 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:05.080 period of reconstruction as well, and under this idea, reconstruction 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.679 was not an attempt to repair the damage of the 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.000 war and to address injustice. It was an effort to 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:15.560 just punish the South and exact retribution. And Northerners who 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.119 came to the South to assist with this whole process, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.680 We're not, according to Lost Cause proponents, motivated by altruism 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.960 or philanthropy. According to the Lost Cause, they were unscrupulous, 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.320 corrupt carpetbaggers who were only in it for the money, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.040 money that they were going to get illegitimately. So we 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.680 referenced Edward Pollard's book The Lost Cause earlier, and while 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.600 that book did popularize this term, the movement itself is 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.359 not something that just started and ended with one book. 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.919 It was much bigger. Glimmers of the Lost Cause ideology 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.959 were present at least as early as General Robert Elie's 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.240 farewell address, also called General Order Number nine, delivered the 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.439 day before he surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, and that 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.439 began quote, after four years of arduous service, marked by 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.640 unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:11.119 been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.240 need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.520 fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.440 I have consented to this result from no distrust of them, 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.680 but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.399 would compensate for the loss that would have attended the 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:31.359 continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.159 sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.160 their countrymen. After the war was over. White Southern women's 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.359 groups that had been focused on providing aid during the 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:47.400 war started instead focusing on memorializing the fallen and honoring 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:52.000 returning soldiers. And some of this certainly included absolutely legitimate 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.960 work like burying the dead and holding funerals and helping 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:58.480 to care for women and children who had lost their 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:03.160 husbands and fathers. But running alongside all of that work 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.640 were efforts to reinforce the idea of the Southern War 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:12.680 Effort as this noble, doomed endeavor that was not about slavery. 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.120 In the late eighteen sixties, men's veterans groups became part 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.840 of this effort as well. The Southern Historical Society was 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.800 established in April of eighteen sixty nine to ensure that 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.879 this version of Civil War history would be remembered. Former 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:32.359 Confederate General Jubil A. Early was the Southern Historical Society's 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.840 first president and was a major proponent of the Lost Cause. 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:40.359 Although many Confederate memorials were built much later, which we 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.040 will talk about, some were raised in the years immediately 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.400 after the war was over. In April of eighteen sixty six, 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.439 Jefferson Davis, who had been president of the Confederate States 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.040 went on a tour to dedicate memorials and multiple cities, 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:59.840 including Montgomery, Alabama, in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia. Prominent Confederate 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:04.000 years were also lionized after their death, depicted as noble, 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:09.440 nearly flawless heroes and eulogies and early biographies. This included 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.280 Robert E. Lee, who died on October twelfth, eighteen seventy. 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.199 Biographies written shortly after his death characterized him as a 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.919 devout Christian who hated slavery, even though his cruelty to 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.560 his own enslaved workforce, including breaking up their families in 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.520 either ordering or carrying out the whipping of people who escaped, 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:33.720 was documented. His opinions on the supremacy of the white 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:37.880 race were also very well documented. Yeah, he was definitely 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.240 a Christian, but that did not somehow undo the other part. 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.960 Jefferson Davis was similarly eulogized after his death on December 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:50.280 six nine. More than a hundred thousand mourners paid their 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:53.560 respects as his body lay in state in New Orleans, Louisiana, 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:56.879 and then from there his remains were taken by train 0:22:57.040 --> 0:22:59.760 to their final resting place in Richmond, Virginia, and in 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:03.240 the train made stops along the way, with the crowds 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.880 honoring his passing by laying magnolia blossoms on the tracks 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:10.320 and firing their guns into the air. At Sometimes these 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.879 crowds were so large the train had to stop so 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.879 they could be cleared away. Not every former Confederate figure 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.879 was similarly treated, though. For example, after the war, former 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:25.080 Confederate General William Mahone became one of the leaders of 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.919 the Readjuster Party in Virginia. This party was a coalition 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:32.919 of black and white political leaders that dominated Virginia politics 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.800 from eighteen seventy nine to eighty three, with many black 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:40.320 members of the coalition being elected into state and federal office. 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.520 Mahones presence at Confederate reunions had to be sort of 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:48.800 explained away, with organizers stressing that everyone should remember his 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:53.440 wartime service rather than focusing on his political career. By 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:57.800 the eighteen nineties, the Lost Cause ideology was immensely popular 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:00.200 in the South, and it was gaining traction else are. 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:04.320 The magazine Confederate Veteran was launched in eighteen ninety three, 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.040 and by nineteen hundred it had more than twenty thousand subscribers, 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:10.680 and it was by far the most popular and widely 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:14.080 read journal in the South. The United Daughters of the 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:17.840 Confederacy was established in eighteen ninety four and was heavily 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:21.960 involved in promoting the Lost Cause myth. In eighteen ninety six, 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:25.520 the Confederate Museum, which was initially focused on a Lost 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:29.360 Cause interpretation of the war, was opened in Richmond, Virginia. 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:34.359 Historians and commentators criticized the Lost Cause ideology. Throughout all 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:37.560 of this, there were grains of truth to it, such 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:40.040 as that there were white women who had made huge 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:43.920 sacrifices during the war and soldiers who had volunteered out 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:46.800 of a sense of patriotic duty, but a lot of 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:50.159 it was just flatly false. Critics pointed out that the 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:53.520 Lost Cause narrative tried to erase all kinds of horrors, 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.720 including the existence of the Ku Klux Klan and the 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:00.600 practice of lynching, while also leaning on racist depictions of 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:04.320 black people that allowed the clan and lynching to flourish. 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:08.119 Black leaders and their white allies also noted that accepting 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:11.680 the false tenets of the Lost Cause meant abandoning Black 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:15.560 Americans in the work of reconstruction and erasing the horrors 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:20.760 and ongoing destructive legacy of slavery. Abolitionists and other reformers 0:25:20.800 --> 0:25:24.800