Lost Cause

The Lost Cause is a pseudohistorical ideology and cultural narrative that romanticizes the Confederate States of America, denying that slavery was central to the Civil War and portraying Confederate leaders as heroic defenders of states’ rights and a noble way of life. It was promoted after the Civil War through art, literature, and memory projects to revise the war’s meaning and justify southern defeat, shaping claims that distorted portraits and mapped Confederate generals onto heroic archetypes.

Claims that use this term

• Valentine presented distorted ‘types’, not realistic portraits, to perpetuate Lost Cause myths
• Lost Cause art mapped Confederate generals onto Christian literary heroes.