The Former Confederate States’ and the Trauma of Losing The Civil War

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, a deep psychological response took hold of a defeated people, a legacy that is still being perpetrated today.

The lost cause: An ideological fallacy used to heal the wounds of the Confederate’s defeat.

In the grand scheme of history, the victor writes it, but there are times when the victor and the defeated clash over how that history is remembered. This was certainly the case in the United States following the Civil War, where a powerful narrative was crafted by white Southerners to reframe the Civil War. It came to be known as the lost cause.

Lost Cause emerged as a psychological response to the trauma of defeat among former Confederates.

The Lost Cause doctrine served to reshape the very nature and meaning of the war. This version of history, steeped in racial exclusivity, also sought to rewrite the period of reconstruction as a time of oppression rather than one of rebuilding and progress.

In a sense, it was a way of coming to terms with the trauma of defeat and the loss of their way of life-a means of coping with the pain and grief of having to rebuild…