Some twenty years ago I had planned to write a full-length study of John Pelham—known in the South as the Gallant John Pelham—and the making of myth. The business of earning a living and other distractions, however, intervened to keep that project from being completed. I finally abandoned it as a lost cause of my own. Recently, however, I came across a notice of a book on the Alabama artillerist entitled The Perfect Lion, by Jerry H. Maxwell (University of Alabama Press, 2011). I gather that it is the very sort of book I had aimed to write.
Which brings us to my theme today: John Pelham and the “myth” of the Lost Cause. Now, to clarify and to anticipate the rest of this essay, I have to say that there are two versions of the Lost Cause. One of these originated in the original states of the Southern Confederacy. The other version originated north of the old surveyor’s line a bit later. That’s the Yankee version.
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I despise the term 'Lost Cause', because I seceded about a half-century ago.
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Ergo, my cause is won.
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I think relying on distant centralized government agents to formally announce an official secession qualifies as 'a lost cause'.
The good folks in Richmond in the early 1860s were probably acting with the best of intentions... while painting big targets on their foreheads.
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Me?
I am invisible.
I seceded about a half-century ago.
Delete:) !