Assertions of the Civil War’s meaning began well before the formal cessation of hostilities. In poetry, prose, and oratory, Unionists and Confederates staked out claims for the legitimacy of their cause. We continue to lay out these claims well into the twenty-first century, in large measure because we cannot agree on the stakes, let alone on what they mean. Literature has played an outsized role in these conversations in part because of its popularity and accessibility. Equally important, literature has an immediacy that other genres and disciplines lack. By surveying canonical and lesser-known literary works, this essay outlines how generations of Americans have written about the war. And by highlighting narratives and counternarratives, it makes clear that alternative visions always challenged the dominance of the Lost Cause trope.