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A M E R I C A N C I V I L WA R 2 of loss, devastation, and humiliation. The North had completely defeated the Confederacy on the battlefield and had ended Southern hopes of establishing a slaveholding republic. In the wake of their loss, Southern- ers searched for reasons for their defeat, a justification for the war, and a way to reestablish Southern honor. Southerners found answers to their questions and purpose for their sacrifice in a set of beliefs known as the lost cause. Edward A. Pollard, a Virginia journalist and Confederate sympathizer, was the first person to use the term “lost cause.” It appeared in the title of his work, The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Con- federate States (1866). He used the term again in another book published in 1868, The Lost Cause Regained. In his writings, Pollard developed the two central themes of the lost cause. First, the Confederates lost the war because of the superior resources and manpower of the North and not because of any deficiency in the fighting prowess, honor, or courage of the Southern soldier. The second theme was that the primary reason Southern states left the Union was to protect states’ rights rather than to protect the institution of slavery. The misconception that the primary reason for Southern secession was states’ rights rather than slavery originated in Pol- lard’s writings and became a basic tenet of the lost cause paradigm. Pollard and future lost cause writers wanted to construct their own version of secession that would vindicate the Southern cause and favora- bly position the defeated Confederacy in history. Pollard understood that slavery was an anachronism out of line with contemporary economics and morality. Any acknowledgment that Southern states seceded from the Union to preserve slavery would eternally place the Confederacy on the wrong side of history. Pollard rewrote history by removing slav- ery as the primary cause of secession and replacing it with states’ rights. Through the juxtaposition of cause, future students of the war might view Southerners as the champions of constitutional rights and the right- ful heirs to the American revolutionary tradition rather than the villains who fought to perpetuate chattel slavery. How the Story Became Popular While Edward Pollard coined the term “lost cause,” it was later writers who popularized its themes. It was through the writings and lectures of iconic Confederate leaders, such as Jubal Early, Alexander Stephens, and Jefferson Davis, that the themes of the lost cause became embedded in Southern history and identity. Specifically, these three individuals stressed