After the Civil War and Reconstruction ceased, the South 's Lost Cause was introduced to the southern United States by ex-confederates. A very politically influenced movement, the Lost Cause, while building a legacy for the controversial Redemption, was subject to backlash for it 's false interpretations of what slavery was like as well as how they interpreted the event of the Civil War. Even with all of its misinterpretations and falsities, however, the Lost Cause influenced the memories of many of the Civil War, Redemption, and slavery for generations to come. The lost cause was spurred by ex Confederates as a way to get back at the union and to prove that the Confederate spirit was not lost, even though the Civil War had ended years ago. As seen from articles from Confederate Veteran Magazine, the Confederate spirit was upheld throughout the years, mostly by women who felt the need to avenge husbands, brothers, and fathers ' deaths . They did things like erect monuments and statues in honor of heroic Confederate leaders, and taught their version of Civil War history in their schools. Together, many ex Confederates and their supporters formed the southern democratic political party, that upheld the Confederates beliefs and ways of life. Their opposers, the southern republicans, were mercilessly attacked repeatedly by the democrats, in an attempt the avenge the Confederacy. The lost cause split the south …show more content…
The Lost Cause was an outlet for many southerners to show their unshakable Confederate pride and in the process of the movement, political complications arose. The Lost Cause also spread hypocritical deceptions about the Civil War, slavery, and redemption, because the information and recollections were given by ex confederates who were very biased. However, it managed to influence many people on the workings of society during the years prior, during, and following the Civil War, making the Lost Cause a very powerful, if not important movement in the United
2. The “Lost Cause” McKim is referring to is the defeated belief of Confederacy. This is what the “Lost Cause” is because the Confederate’s belief, McKim’s side of the
David Blight, is a detailed study of the ways that Americans chose to remember the Civil War during the first fifty years following the conflict. Blight argues that throughout this period Americans used the two expression to remember and give meaning to the war with rhetorical effectiveness throughout the excerpt. Blight accomplishes the main theme of competing memories with different ideals of the Civil War seeking to overcome the issue for reunion. A majority of America’s white community chose to obscure the Civil War’s racial meaning behind a front of attitudes that acclaimed both Northern and Southern soldiers. Later Blight uses the themes of ending the war with a push for national reconciliation to demonstrate how the country’s efforts
Reconstruction was in process because of the war. The Civil war destroyed much of the south. In many groups it was not wanted such as the KKK. The KKK was a group against equal rights throughout African Americans. Other groups supported the Reconstruction such as Freedmen, African Americans who were freed during the war, and Carpetbaggers, people who went south to help the reconstruction in the south.
For Northerners, empathy was easier to practice. As the notion of emancipation became more widely discussed by politicians during the abolitionist movement tensions between the North and the South rose. The idea that the nation could eradicate the lifeblood of the southern plantations was deemed unacceptable and the southern states felt helpless. The South fought for state’s rights which is synonymous with slavery as that was the most important right they were fighting for, and the North fought to keep the South from seceding, largely due to South’s interest in maintaining slavery as
The United States Civil War is possible one of the most meaningful, bloodstained and controversial war fought in American history. Northern Americans against Southern Americans fought against one another for a variety of motives. These motives aroused from a wide range of ideologies that stirred around the states. In James M. McPherson’s What they fought for: 1861-1865, he analyzes the Union and Confederate soldier’s morale and ideological components through the letters they wrote to love ones while at war. While, John WhiteClay Chambers and G. Kurt Piehler depict Civil War soldiers through their letters detailing the agonizing battles of war in Major Problems in American Military History.
Despite the many years after the Civil War ended in 1865, the war’s significance was still great enough to have caused such controversy with the public over its meaning. In David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion, the meaning of the war changes throughout the period of Reconstruction not due to the misconception of it solely, but due to what we wanted to interpret from the war (or rather, what we remembered from the war that eventually changed over time). Blight argues, “I am primarily concerned with the ways that contending memories clashed or intermingled in public memory, and not in developing professional historiography of the Civil War” (Blight, Prologue). With this being said, the meaning of the Civil War changed through what people felt and
With the conclusion of the Civil War, the infrastructures of both the North and the South had been destroyed by the exhaustive cost of fighting. The North, however, had the advantage of winning the war and the supposed power of decision making, and northern political leaders had their dreams of Reconstruction, and differing ideas about how the southern states should be treated in response to the opposition. This mishandled responsibility had overwhelming repercussions, and the southern states fell into a state of further tension and chaos. Although there were many northerners fighting for rights of people in the South, overall, the South did not receive fair treatment from the North.
The Civil War was the most destructive battle in American history. The hurricane of a battle lasted for four years and is responsible for 785,000-1,000,000 Union, Confederate, and slave casualties. The battle was fought for the overall emancipation of slaves, and the Union succeeded in fulfilling that goal. You would think that after that war and after slavery was abolished once and for all, everyone would be happy and everyone would join together and sing Kumbaya; however, that's not exactly what happened. The Reconstruction Era was more destructive for slaves than the war itself.
Once the Civil War ended in 1861, the United States had to undergo a long period of Reconstruction. There was a large amount of lives loss from the war and America had lost a lot of money as well as resources from the war effort. The Southern states were rejoining the Union and now slaves were free to find their own living. This led to the Republicans, ex-Confederates, and freed slaves all forming their own agendas during the Reconstruction period. However, not everyone was as successful as they hoped to be.
The American civil war led to the reunion of the South and the North. But, its consequences led the Republicans to take the lead of reconstructing what the war had destroyed especially in the South because it contained larger numbers of newly freed slaves. Just after the civil war, America entered into what was called as the reconstruction era. Reconstruction refers to when “the federal government established the terms on which rebellious Southern states would be integrated back into the Union” (Watts 246). As a further matter, it also meant “the process of helping the 4 million freed slaves after the civil war [to] make the transition to freedom” (DeFord and Schwarz 96).
The South decided to continue to fight about the ‘Carpet-Bag’ government and resisted the North’s help when it was offered. Reconstruction slowly died when the South kept resisting the help from the North. In the South, people such as the KKK took control of the South and the North got sick of it. Southerners resisted help and decided to use an corrupt government and ideas in the South.
Reflection on the Reconstruction Period The reconstruction period was a time of cause and effect. It was a time when in order to rebuild the strength of society economically, socially, and politically after a the loss of life and stability in the civil war. In the socratic seminar we discussed how the during the reconstruction period the goal was to ‘fix’ the south as in the eyes of the government, they were the cause of the problem.
The last major Confederate armies surrendered to the United States in April of 1865. The war bankrupted the South, left its roads, farms, and factories in ruins, and all but wiped out an entire generation of men. The southern states were occupied by Union soldiers, rebuilt, and gradually re-admitted to the United States over the course of twenty difficult years known as the Reconstruction Era.
There was a politically correct remembrance of the Confederacy in that men felt so strongly about their beliefs they were willing to wage war and die for them, many felt that should be honored. My own understanding of the South’s passion with the Civil War is much like Tony Horwitz, In that the War is so intriguing and interesting because it involves the country I live in and the beliefs that are so passionately felt to this day. Born and raised in California I believed racism to be dead and the surprise I received moving to the panhandle of Texas was discomforting. The Civil War has a unique way of luring
This including the electing of Abraham Lincoln made the southern states feel like they were going to lose control of the political choices in the southern territories, which would have lead to them not having control over their area in general (American Civil War History). These events are all effects where the underlying problem was the conflict of slavery that was between the north and south states. Showing how much of a factor it was during the civil war era. Making it one of the largest causes of why the civil war broke