God and General Longstreet

About this book

This is a short book by Connelly and Bellows, but it is still one of the better ones on the Lost Cause. This work is more about the Southern mind and how Southern writers built up the Lost Cause and how it has evolved up until this book was originally published in the early 1980s. It also gives an excellent look at how Robert E. Lee became the symbol of the South, which Connelly wrote an entire book about as well. What emerges is the Lost Cause evolved from petty in-fighting about who was to blame for Confederate defeat (hence the Longstreet part of the title) to the creation of an image of the South that was both romantic and tragic. Connelly and Bellows argue that by World War I, the entire nation embraced this image and the dual image of the South has remained.