Historians can do rigorous military or political history without endorsing the cause(s) for which historical actors fought. In fact, failure to practice judicious interpretation of evidence is partly how we ended up with the Lost Cause. That kind of history matters. A thread. /1

The bitterness of Confederate defeat helped give birth to the Lost Cause. One of their first assaults was upon the military history of the War of the Rebellion (a term they often rejected, btw). They rewrote the war until it suited their narrative. /2

https://hgreen.people.ua.edu/transcription-carr-speech.html

We have the "Grant the butcher," the "inevitability of Confederate defeat," and, more recently, "Black Confederate" tropes, because CW military history was distorted and sometimes even ceded to LC idealogues. Same goes for its political history. /3

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Children_U_D_C_Catechism_for_1904

Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were, at times, very effective military leaders. The historical record is clear about that. Conceding that fact doesn't confer legitimacy to the cause for which they fought. It actually explains the CS's tenacity. /4

Understanding Confederate martial skill actually highlights the sophistry of LC claims that the CSA's demise was inevitable. It wasn't, at all. This is something that military and political history and careful practitioners of the art remind us of. /5

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/causes_of_confederate_defeat_in_the_civil_war#start_entry

Clearly-reasoned, well-implemented military and political history should actually serve as a kind of antidote to the distorted thinking that fuels the Lost Cause. So... support CW military and political history. /end

https://lsupress.org/books/detail/upon-the-fields-of-battle/