The "Lost Cause," the title of Edward A. Pollards 1866 history of the Confederacy, first referred to the South's defeat in the Civil War, but in time it came to designate the regions memory of the war as well.
Appomattox brought defeat, desolation, and despair to the white South. Almost at once, Southerners began to memorialize their failed cause, establishing Confederate Memorial Day and dedicating funeral monuments to the Confederate dead. These activities, usually held in cemeteries, evoked mourning and melancholy even as they honored the soldiers. They formed part of a larger process through which white Southerners assimilated defeat.