Bonekemper Edward H - The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won

PRAISE FOR

THE MYTH OF THE LOST CAUSE

In The Myth of the Lost Cause, noted Civil War scholar and author Ed Bonekemper lays bare one of the most persistent and pernicious examples of revisionist history in the annals of America. The subject could hardly be more timely, as states rights advocates deny the root causes of the Civil War, dismiss the ignominious legacy of slavery, and seek to sugarcoat one of the most difficult and tragic interludes in our national history as the romantic last stand of a gallant, noble culture. Important reading for all Americans and for all who wish to understand the Civil War and how its significance was misrepresented in the ensuing century and a half.

DR. PEYTON R. HELM, president and professor of history, Muhlenberg College

This is not a book that believers in the Lost Cause will find comforting. It thoroughly, effectively, and convincingly demolishes the long-held mythologyas only Bonekemper can. It is must-reading for all Civil War scholars and buffsbut be prepared to have long-held beliefs put to the test.

JOHN F. MARSZALEK, professor emeritus of history and executive director, Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, Mississippi State University

Ed Bonekemper has written a thought-provoking, even controversial, look at how ex-Confederates came to frame the Civil Wars military history and how that history has shaped the reputations of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. This new work is well worth the read.

JEFFRY D. WERT, author of A Glorious Army and eight other Civil War books

It is remarkable that even 150 years after the Civil Wars guns fell silent so many still believe and are influenced by the ideas of the Lost Causethe most egregious of which is that slavery had absolutely nothing to do with the conflict. Bonekemper does an exemplary job of breaking down those myths and offering a better understanding of our nations most tragic moment, what the conflict was really about, and why ultimately the Confederate nation collapsed.

JONATHAN A. NOYALAS, author of Civil War Legacy in the Shenandoah: Remembrance, Reunion, and Reconciliation and ten other Civil War books

The myth of the Lost Cause continues to hold sway in many parts of American popular culture, from the belief that secession had little to do with slavery, to the contention that Ulysses S. Grant was a butcher. In this deeply researched book, Edward H. Bonekemper III draws on his wealth of knowledge about the Civil War and his skills as an attorney to provide a point-by-point refutation of the key tenets of the Lost Cause mythology.

JONATHAN W. WHITE, author of Emancipation, the Union Army and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln

Winners do not always write the history books. For generations, legions of writers and historians perpetuated the myth of the Lost Cause, contending that the Civil War was not a struggle over slavery, but rather the hopeless effort of heroic leaders who defended local, home rule. In this vigorously argued book, Bonekemper refreshingly winnows fact from fiction, tackling the Lost Cause tenet by tenet. Clearly written and thoroughly documented, this welcome addition to the literature issues an indictment against the myth that is at once powerful, important, and timely.

BRIAN MATTHEW JORDAN, assistant professor of history, Sam Houston State University, and author of Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War

THE MYTH OF THE LOST CAUSE

Copyright 2015 by Edward H. Bonekemper III

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First e-book edition 2015: 978-1-62157-473-6

Originally published in hardcover, 2015

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Susan and her Dad.

CONTENTS

T his is a book I have felt compelled to write for a number of years as I encountered too many people with mistaken impressions about the Civil War. Their viewpoints are an outgrowth of the Myth of the Lost Cause, which some Confederate leaders fostered to justify their causing and losing the Civil War. At the heart of the myth is the contention that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. It had everything to do with it.

Other facets of the Myth include the idealization of slavery, the adoration of Robert E. Lee and denigration of Ulysses S. Grant, the insistence that the South had no chance of winning the war, blaming James Longstreet (not Lee) for losing the Battle of Gettysburg, and condemning the North for waging total war.

This book is intended to examine and refute each of these components of the Myth of the Lost Cause.

W inners write the history of wars. So it is said. Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne agreed: Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision. It did not work out quite that way.

To the contrary, a coterie of disappointed Southerners, aided by many other conveniently forgetful and purposely misleading

As early as 1871, the former slave Frederick Douglass expressed his concern about the revival of secessionism in the South, describing the spirit of secession as a deeply rooted, devoutly cherished sentiment, inseparably identified with the lost cause, which the half measures of the Government towards the traitors has helped to cultivate and strengthen.