It is often said that victors write history. After the Civil War, however, the Confederates did. Why? The answer lies with Confederate general Jubal A. Early.
In Immortal Confederacy, Kathryn J. Shively approaches Early critically, showing how he is better understood as a historian than a mythologist. This reframing explains the pernicious durability of the Lost Cause. Early's use of emerging historic methods--such as primary sources, citations, numerical data, peer review, objective tone, and archives building--enabled his revanchist narrative to appear as truth. Early alleged that overwhelming odds caused Confederate defeat, the war hinged on James Longstreet's failure at Gettysburg, and Robert E. Lee was the war's principal hero, moving discussion from African American civil rights and the war's broader meanings to a narrower tale of military affairs. Early's multifaceted historical campaign in writing, the archives, and commemoration also launched a new wave of Confederate nationalism, one which denigrated his enemies and excluded Black Americans and women from Civil War history.