Wall Street Journal’s Five Best Books on the Confederates’ Lost Cause Southern Association for Women Historians Julia Cherry Spruill Prize Even without the right to vote, members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy proved to have enormous social and political influence throughout the South—all in the name of preserving Confederate culture. Karen Cox traces the history of the UDC, an organization founded in 1894 to vindicate the Confederate generation and honor the Lost Cause. In this edition, with a new preface, Cox acknowledges the deadly riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, showing why myths surrounding the Confederacy continue to endure. The Daughters, as UDC members were popularly known, were daughters of the Confederate generation. While southern women had long been leaders in efforts to memorialize the Confederacy, UDC members made the Lost Cause a movement about vindication as well as memorialization. They erected monuments, monitored history for "truthfulness," and sought to educate coming generations of white southerners about an idyllic past and a just cause—states' rights. Soldiers' and widows' homes, perpetuation of the mythology of the antebellum South, and pro-southern textbooks in the region's white public schools were all integral to their mission of creating the New South in the image of the Old. UDC members aspired to transform military defeat into a political and cultural victory, in which states' rights and white supremacy remained intact. To the extent they were successful, the Daughters helped to preserve and perpetuate an agenda for the New South that included maintaining the social status quo. Placing the organization's activities in the context of the postwar and Progressive-Era South, Cox describes in detail the UDC's origins and early development, its efforts to collect and preserve manuscripts and artifacts and to build monuments, and its later role in the peace movement and World War I. This remarkable history of the organization presents a portrait of two generations of southern women whose efforts helped shape the social and political culture of the New South. It also offers a new historical perspective on the subject of Confederate memory and the role southern women played in its development.

Confederate Finance, first published in 1954, looks at the measures taken by the Confederacy to stabilize its currency and offer a basis for foreign exchange. By the end of the Civil War, the Confederacy had resorted to a number of financial expedients, including the most desperate of measures. The Confederate government seized the property of enemies, levied direct taxes, and placed duties on exports and imports. In addition, donations and gifts were gratefully accepted. All the while, treasury notes flooded the market, and loans were floated in an attempt to continue the Confederacy's existence. Richard Cecil Todd shows how these measures were used by the Confederate government to meet its obligations at home and abroad. He also discusses the organization and personnel of the Confederate Treasury Department.

The Photographic History of the Civil War was first published in 1911 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the great conflict. These volumes were dedicated to the American People in tribute to the courage and the valor with which they met one of the greatest crises that a nation has ever known. A crisis that changed the course of civilization. Contained within are thousands of photographs as well as the rise of photographic journalism during a conflict. This series offers a unique record of one of the greatest conflicts in the history of mankind. Included in this series are maps to mark the battles and line-art decorations that give the reader an authentic feel of the era. The photographs in this series can be viewed as art, history or more importantly journalism. Covering every aspect of war- from the frontline to everyday life- these volumes are a testament to the conflict and the country which emerged from it. Two Years of Grim War is a record of the engagements of the Civil War from August, 1862 to April, 1864. Also contained within is a photographic record of Lee’s rise to power.