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The Lost Cause ideology that emerged after the Civil War and flourished in the early twentieth century in essence sought to recast a struggle to perpetuate slavery as a heroic defense of the South. As Adam Domby reveals here, this was not only an insidious goal; it was founded on falsehoods. The False Cause focuses on North Carolina to examine the role of lies and exaggeration in the creation of the Lost Cause narrative. In the process the book shows how these lies have long obscured the past and been used to buttress white supremacy in ways that resonate to this day. Domby explores how fabricated narratives about the war’s cause, Reconstruction, and slavery—as expounded at monument dedications and political rallies—were crucial to Jim Crow. He questions the persistent myth of the Confederate army as one of history’s greatest, revealing a convenient disregard of deserters, dissent, and Unionism, and exposes how pension fraud facilitated a myth of unwavering support of the Confederacy among nearly all white Southerners. Domby shows how the dubious concept of "black Confederates" was spun from a small number of elderly and indigent African American North Carolinians who got pensions by presenting themselves as "loyal slaves." The book concludes with a penetrating examination of how the Lost Cause narrative and the lies on which it is based continue to haunt the country today and still work to maintain racial inequality.
Reviews:
A fascinating, original, and highly readable book that makes a meaningful contribution to understanding the Lost Cause and Civil War memory. In The False Cause, Adam Domby has written a highly-readable and pointed assessment of the South’s postwar narratives about the Civil War, veterans, and slavery itself. He makes a compelling case that the Lost Cause, a narrative based on misrepresentation and, in some instances, outright lies, provided the justification for white supremacy, veterans' pensions, and African American disenfranchisement. While a case study of North Carolina, this book is a valuable addition to the historical literature on how the post-Civil War South reinvented itself and why, to this day, we still contend with the Lost Cause revisionism of the southern past. From street names to local politics to tourist attractions around the Lowcountry, the institution of slavery is arguably the single-most-significant historical theme still affecting Charleston, now a city which attracts millions of visitors each year and thousands of new residents each month. A just-released book by College of Charleston history professor Adam H. Domby examines the fallacies of the Confederate narrative which still define how many people see our diverse, growing state. That The False Cause was released and has gained so much attention with the debate over monuments intensifying makes sense, as the origins of the book itself have to do with the fight over the 'Silent Sam' memorial on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Yet I suspect the book will be useful for years to come, both as a primer to think about the crafting of the Lost Cause narrative, and to spark deeper discussions about how communities shape—and reshape—public memory for political, social, and cultural causes.
Adam H. Domby is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Charleston.
