The Lost Cause by Edward A. Pollard is a non-fiction book that explores the history and legacy of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The book was first published in 1866, just a year after the end of the war, and is considered one of the most influential works of the Lost Cause movement, which sought to romanticize and justify the Confederate cause.Pollard, a Virginia journalist and Confederate sympathizer, argues that the South was fighting for noble ideals such as states' rights and constitutional government, ...
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The Lost Cause by Edward A. Pollard is a non-fiction book that explores the history and legacy of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The book was first published in 1866, just a year after the end of the war, and is considered one of the most influential works of the Lost Cause movement, which sought to romanticize and justify the Confederate cause.Pollard, a Virginia journalist and Confederate sympathizer, argues that the South was fighting for noble ideals such as states' rights and constitutional government, and that the North was motivated solely by a desire for power and domination. He also portrays Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as heroic figures who fought valiantly against overwhelming odds.The Lost Cause also includes a detailed account of the major battles and campaigns of the war, as well as an analysis of the political and social factors that led to the conflict. Pollard's writing is characterized by a passionate and often emotional tone, and his arguments are often based more on rhetoric than on historical fact.Despite its flaws, The Lost Cause remains an important historical document that sheds light on the ways in which the Confederacy was remembered and mythologized in the years following the Civil War. It is still widely read and studied today, both for its historical content and for its insights into the cultural and political climate of the post-war South.In this facsimile of the 1866 edition of the standard Southern history of the Confederacy, Pollard, who was the editor of the Daily Richmond Examiner during the war, offers a fascinating historical account that brilliantly conveys the South's cause. The entire war is covered here, from Fort Sumpter to Appomatox, and although it does look at the war from a decidedly southern point of view, it offers insight into what people thought at the time. Profiles of 24 leaders are also featured.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
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Add this copy of The Lost Cause to cart. $107.17, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2010 by Kessinger Publishing.
by E.A. Pollard
Editor of the Richmond Examiner during the War.
A facsimile of the long out-of-print 1866 edition with twenty-four portraits of Confederate Leaders.
In 1866 the first nickel was minted, Alice in Wonderland was written, the ASPCA and the AWCA were founded, the first baseball bunt was laid down in Brooklyn and, on April 2, Insurrection in Virginia was declared officially over. This was also the year in which the South got its own, long-awaited version of the War Between the States, The Lost Cause, the work of the man universally acknowledged as the most able and most prolific Southern writer of the period.
Edward Alfred Pollard was the highly respected editor of the Daily Richmond Examiner from 1861 to 1867, and the author of many other Confederate-based accounts of the Civil War.
"It is impossible to write history as an intelligible whole, and to secure its ends, without preserving a certain dramatic unity i the narrative," Pollard writes in his introduction. In the succeeding chapters he develops a narrative as fluid and dramatic as a first-class novel. This is General Lee's army on its last legs:
"Jaded horses and mules refused to pull; demoralized and badly scared drivers, with straining eyes and perspiring bodies plied their whips vigorously to no effect; difficult place in the road were choked with blazing wagons, fired to save their contents from the enemy... Hundreds of men dropped from exhaustion; thousands threw away their arms; the demoralization appeared at last to involve the officers; they did nothing to prevent the straggling; and many of them seemed to shut their eyes on the hourly reduction of their commands, and rode in advance of their brigades in dogged indifference.
"But in the jade, famished crowd there was yet left something of the old spirit which had made the Army of Northern Virginia famous throughout the world, and inscribed its banners with the most glorious names of the war."
The Lost Cause is a fascinating, brilliantly written book, long overdue on the shelves of modern readers of the North as well as the South.