New Orleans, LA - Civil War Museum - Official Local Tourism Attractions on Waymarking.com

The Cult of the Lost Cause was a somewhat successful propaganda movement to change the historical parameters of the Civil War, to recast the South as a chivalrous, just society besieged by Northern Aggressors. The mantra of “states’ rights” was recast as the cause of the war, the peculiar institution of slavery was ignored. Small details, such as the inconvenient fact that virtually every Southern county not having an economy revolving around the plantation system voted against succession, from Appalachia to the Ozarks to the Hill Country of Texas, were overlooked. Slaves were portrayed as being happy, they had it so good. Southern heroes, President Jefferson Davis, ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, and General Robert E. Lee were elevated to the place of deities. The South had waged a noble but doomed struggle to preserve their superior civilization, their very own Stepford Village. Confederate monuments and museums were built; organizations such as the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy were formed; reunions of Confederate Veterans and their descendants were held; and holidays such as Lee's birthday were declared; all to honor the heroic society. White supremacist organizations experienced a resurgence. The Cult infiltrated society quite well, even Northern states, most likely culminating with the 1936 movie Gone With the Wind.

This museum harkens back to the Lost Cause. Portraits of Generals and other significant Confederates, with lengthy, gushing narratives line the polished-cypress walls of the museum. The display cases are filled with bric-a-brac belonging to long-gone Confederate heroes. In true fashion, slavery is completely ignored, one display case is devoted to how well freed blackmen were treated by the Confederacy, and a few cases bemoan New Orleans’s treatment at the hands of General ‘Beast’ Butler during most of the war when New Orleans was an occupied city.

The future of the museum is cloudy. The museum is now surrounded by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The board of the Ogden claim they also own Confederate Memorial Hall, housing the Civil War Museum. In a misguided attempt at political correctness, the Ogden arrogantly claims that the museum would be better off as part of the Ogden, with the collection of the Civil War Museum showing the transition from the Old South to the New South, and all vestiges of the Cult of the Lost Cause wiped away.

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