Confronting the Lost Cause through Conflict Archaeology: Natural Bridge, Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Lost Cause is an essential underpinning of Jim Crow most visible in Confederate monuments but also in Civil War battles preserved as public monuments. Although it is true that the victors write the history books, there may not have been a push to do so in the case of small-scale engagements, which allowed the fabricated narrative to flourish. One of the main tenets of this narrative is that the war was lost due to the overwhelming logistical advantages of the Northern states. While the archaeological record is not as well suited to combat some of the ideation’s statements as the historical record, the addition of the separate, converging line of evidence from archaeology is a powerful resource for separating lost cause myth from fact. Florida’s Battle of Natural Bridge is a case study for how archaeology and public outreach can help to combat the lost cause in today’s world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2022 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology