"This book explores the complicated legacies of American Catholics in North and South during and after the American Civil War. When the American Civil War overtook the country in 1861, Catholics fought on both sides of the conflict, but few Catholics supported the evolving war aim for emancipation of the enslaved. Catholic resentment at the nativism directed against them in the decades leading up to the war made them loyal to the pro-slavery Democratic Party, and recent Catholic immigrants feared economic competition from free Blacks. By the late nineteenth century, the Lost Cause became the reigning explanation for why the war had been fought. White Catholics played decisive roles in creating and promoting this ideology of a supposedly noble Southern fight for freedom, not secession to preserve slavery. In both South and North, this narrative of the Civil War dominated public discourse well into the twentieth century. This book seeks to shed light on the legacies of Catholic laypersons, clergy, and colleges during the war years and the puzzle of why Catholics became so closely identified with opposition to Reconstruction and promotion of the Lost Cause after the war"-- Provided by publisher.