Liberal YouTubers

- The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (The Myth of the Lost Cause), American Battlefield Trust, James M. McPherson

As the Civil War drew to a close in 1865, Southerners looked around at the death and destruction that the war had inflicted on their homes, businesses, towns, and families. “The South was not only…conquered, it was utterly destroyed…More than half [of] the farm machinery was ruined, and…Southern wealth decreased by 60 percent,” states historian James M. McPherson. With the abolition of slavery becoming the law of the land in 1865, it became harder and harder for many Southerners to justify the purpose of secession and the war as they grieved over the deaths of nearly 300,000 of their sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands.

Thus, many Southerners set to work to remember the Confederate cause in a positive light. Former Confederate general and one-time commander of the United Confederate Veterans claimed, “If we cannot justify the South in the act of Secession, we will go down in History [sic] solely as a brave, impulsive but rash people who attempted in an illegal manner to overthrow the Union for our Country.” Thus, from the ashes of war, the “Lost Cause” was born. There are six main parts of the Lost Cause myth, the first and most important of which is that secession had little or nothing to do with the institution of slavery. Southern states seceded to protect their rights, their homes, and to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical government...

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/lost-cause-definition-and-origins