3. Former Union generals recognized and opposed the views of the Lost Cause
In 1868 George Henry Thomas, a Union general and a native of Virginia, wrote in a report to his superiors of the emerging propaganda campaign engineered by former officers of the Confederacy. Observing the insertion of noble values into the Confederate’s reasons for war, Thomas wrote, “This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism…” Thomas viewed with growing alarm the terrorist activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the territory he commanded during Reconstruction. His warnings fell on deaf ears in Congress, already concerned more with potential political patronage in the returning Southern states.
George Henry Thomas was one of the more tragic stories in an era permeated with them. Raised on a Virginia plantation which included scores of slaves, Thomas experienced first hand the myth of happy and contented blacks loyal to their beneficent masters. He chose to honor his oath to his country at the outbreak of the war, rather than return to serve Virginia. Following a successful career in the Union Army and warning of the development of the propaganda campaign which led to the Lost Cause, Thomas died while commanding the Military Division of the Pacific in San Francisco. None of his relatives attended his funeral, having denounced him in perpetuity for serving against the Confederacy.