Abstract
I have chosen the figure of Robert E. Lee to act as a lens in which to understand the origin of the Lost Cause Myth and its perpetuation into the modern age. My central argument is that the collective memory of Lee in Northern and Southern states, particularly in regards to the Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy, encouraged post-Civil War Reconstruction to fail. I assert in this paper that Lee was uniquely positioned between North and South to occupy this role, in a way that his fellow secessionists were not. The seeds of the Lost Cause mythology and postwar defiance were planted in the Southern memory by the efforts of memory societies like the United Daughters of the Confederacy, or UDC, and their appropriation of Lee as a gallant figure. Yet there was collusion in this effort on behalf of the North which took many forms, particularly in an effort to utilize Lee as a symbol of Reunion, wherein the North was complicit in accepting surrender from a man who could be equally worthy in defeat. I engage with primary sources, including personal accounts from individuals who knew, and interacted with Lee, his own correspondences, as well as various modern political screeds and a number of existing scholarly works on the Civil war written over the last 150 years. While Lee is the central figure, he is primarily utilized as a lens to view the issues of Secession, States rights, Slavery, Reconstruction, Reunion and Memory. This is not an effort to exonerate or glorify Lee, nor is it an attack on his character. Rather, this is intended to be a disambiguation of fact and sentiment that remains politically neutral.