As a way to ease the trauma of the Confederate defeat in the Civil War and the resulting Union occupation, many white Southerners sought to justify the cause for which they and their loved ones had fought. Led by figures such as Father Abram Ryan, the "poet-priest of the Confederacy," and groups such as ladies' memorial associations dedicated to creating and maintaining Confederate cemeteries, supporters of the "Lost Cause," as they called it, sought to preserve the memory of their dead.

From the beginning, the commemoration of the Confederacy had religious overtones that developed into a type of civil religion. Just as with any religion, the Lost Cause had its own elaborate ceremonies (parades and memorials), icons (statues of Confederate soldiers), and "saints," especially its "Blessed Trinity" (Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis). Confederate cemeteries became places of pilgrimage...