ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines the adaptation of Gloria Victis imagery in the post-Civil War (1861-1865) United States, where Confederate monuments reimagined military defeat as moral victory. Focusing on the work of Alsatian-American sculptor Frederick Ruckstuhl, this chapter argues that the Lost Cause movement aligned itself with transnational commemorative strategies developed in post-1871 France. Southern elites used public sculpture to legitimize a new racial and political order, transforming defeat into redemption while reinforcing white supremacy under Jim Crow. By tracing the circulation and transformation of Gloria Victis motifs across the US South, the chapter demonstrates that Confederate commemoration drew not only on regional memory but also on international visual and ideological frameworks of nationalist defeat.
