Lost Cause In The Title

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Out of curiosity, I decided to compile a list of adult nonfiction or biographical books related to the American Civil War that included the phrase "Lost Cause" in their title or subtitle. This is a thought exercise, not a comprehensive bibliography of Lost Cause writings.

I'm skipping the many editions of Pollard's original work with that title and going with the earliest edition of each book I found. My search engine is WorldCat - essentially a catalog of (most but not all) library catalogs, both regular libraries and universities. The limitation would be some older books might simply not be held in any libraries and survive only in small numbers in private collections. I've omitted some results I found that were clearly published speeches or offprint periodical articles.

Interestingly, the non-ACW search results included Montcalm: The Hero of a Lost Cause (about the French & Indian War general), Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase, and The Lost Cause: The Trials of Frank and Jesse James.

1867-1899
I found no books besides many editions Pollard's.

1900-1959 (6 in 50 years)
Memories of the Lost Cause: Stories and Adventures of a Confederate Soldier in Lee's Army, and Ten Years In South America by J. M. Polk (1907)
Reminiscences of One Who Suffered in the Lost Cause by Charles Hewitt Hance (1915)
John Slidell: Forgotten Leader in a Lost Cause by Louis Martin Sears (1924)
Judah P. Benjamin, Statesman of the Lost Cause by Rollin Osterweis (1933)
Statesmen of the Lost Cause: Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet by Burton Hendrick (1939)
The Last Days of the Lost Cause: The Capture, Imprisonment, and Trial of President Jefferson Davis by William Schmitt (1949)

1960-1989 (8 in 30 years)
The Real Lost Cause: The Peace Convention of 1861 by Howard Westwood (1963)
The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico by Arthur Saul (1965)
The Myth of the Lost Cause, 1865-1900 by Rollin Osterweis (1973)
Lost Family, Lost Cause: A Story of the McGee Family in Wayne County, Missouri During the Civil War Years by Ivan McKee (1978)
God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and the Southern Mind by Thomas Connelly (1982)
Victory in Defeat: Jefferson Davis and the Lost Cause by Tucker Hill (1986)
The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause by Mark Neely, et al (1987)
Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, The Lost Cause, and the Emergency of the New South, 1865-1913 by Gaines Foster (1989)

1990-1999 (7 in 10 years)
Jubal Early: Champion of the Lost Cause by Charles Osborne (1992)
Jubal A. Early, The Lost Cause, and Civil War History: A Persistent Legacy by Gary Gallagher (1995)
Cullen Montgomery Baker: Champion of the Lost Cause by Robert W. Teel (1995)
Free Speech and the Lost Cause in Arkansas by Fred Arthur Bailey (1995)
Last Order of the Lost Cause: The Civil War Memoirs of a Jewish Family from the Old South by Raphael Jacob Moses (1995)
Lost Cause: John Wesley Hardin, the Taylor-Sutton feud, and Reconstruction Texas by Jack Jackson (1998)
The Battle of Colliersville: Lost Chance in a Lost Cause by Albert Sidney Witherington (1998)

2000-2009 (6 in 10 years)
Edith D. Pope and Her Nashville Friends: Guardians of the Lost Cause in the Confederate Veteran by John Simpson (2003)
Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory by Cynthia Mill & Pamela Simpson (2003)
Leaders of the Lost Cause: New Perspectives on Confederate High Command by Gary Gallagher & Joseph Glatthaar (2004)
Steeds of the Lost Cause: Service Records of Men Named Steed Who Served in the Army of the Confederate States by Paul Steed (2008)
Burying The Dead But Not The Past: Ladies Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause by Caroline Janney (2008)
Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart by Jeffry Wert (2008)

2010-2015 (9 in 6 years)
The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truth" About The "Lost Cause" by James Loewen (2010)
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History by Gary Gallagher & Alan Nolan (2010)
Albert Taylor Bledsoe: Defender of the Old South and Architect of the Lost Cause by Terry Barhart (2011)
Demon of the Lost Cause: Sherman and Civil War History by Wesley Moody (2012)
Enduring Legacy: Rhetoric and Ritual of the Lost Cause by W. Stuart Towns (2012)
Another Look at Six Myths in the Lost Cause by Richard Lee Montgomery (2013)
Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State by Anne Marshall (2013)
Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause by Heath Hardage Lee (2014)
The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won by Edward Bonekemper (2015)

2016-2020 (5 in 5 years)
Fighting for the Lost Cause: The Life and Career of Jubal Early by Charles Rivers Editors (2017)
Gilded Age Richmond: Gaiety, Greed, and Lost Cause Mania by Brian Burns (2017)
Your Heritage Will Still Remain: Racial Identity and Mississippi's Lost Cause by Michael Goleman (2017)
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and American Civil War Memory by David Anderson (2017)
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule (2020)

I omitted 2021-2023.

I'm not sure that I've read any books on this list so I can only offer some general observations about what I can surmise.

• While I omitted Pollard's The Lost Cause from the list, I was surprised by the sheer number of editions and printings of that book over the 150 years after its publication (they have separate listings in WorldCat).
• Of the 41 books, 2/3 were published during the last three decades, and 1/3 during the 2010s. There was not an upsurge after 2015
• at least 18 of 41 (over 40%) are Confederates biographies or memoirs.
• approximately 15 of 41 books with "Lost Cause" in the title actually seem to be some kind of study of the Lost Cause.
• 3 of the 15 were books about women promoting the Lost Cause, and those 3 books came out in a 5 year span.
• The first book to study the Lost Cause, at least that had that term in the title, was not until 1973. There two were books a decade earlier about other "lost causes" related to the Confederacy (the failed peace conference attempting to avert secession and war, and Confederates fleeing to Mexico)
• Jefferson Davis and Jubal Early each have 3 books about them on the list (not surprising)
• The author who appears the most on the list is Gary Gallagher, with 3 books (also not surprising as he talks and writes a lot about history in memory
• I was really surprised that Steeds of the Lost Cause is not about Confederate horses.