Diane Miller Sommerville
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643304
- eISBN:
- 9781469643588
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643304.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Examines the psychological impact of the Civil War on Confederate soldiers who suffered debilitating psychological and emotional wounds that sometimes resulted in institutionalization in insane ...
More
Examines the psychological impact of the Civil War on Confederate soldiers who suffered debilitating psychological and emotional wounds that sometimes resulted in institutionalization in insane asylums, or in suicidal behavior. Historians have not focused on Civil War participants as victims of war trauma until recently. This chapter deepens our understanding of these experiences by asserting that external war-related pressures like witnessing death and mayhem combined with internal pressures like fear of masculine failure or being called a coward heavily taxed soldiers and their psyches. Factors that contributed to psychological distress among Confederate servicemen include: exposure to battle, fear of being called a coward, fear of failure, youthfulness, homesickness, and depression.Suicide offered southern white men a way to maintain mastery and control over their deaths in war zones where chaos and disorder prevailed. Attitudes toward Confederates who killed themselves during the war were more supportive and less stigmatizing than one might think. Many soldiers also ended up institutionalized in asylums after being diagnosed as insane. Caregivers and family members rarely connected signs of mental distress with wartime experiences.Less
Examines the psychological impact of the Civil War on Confederate soldiers who suffered debilitating psychological and emotional wounds that sometimes resulted in institutionalization in insane asylums, or in suicidal behavior. Historians have not focused on Civil War participants as victims of war trauma until recently. This chapter deepens our understanding of these experiences by asserting that external war-related pressures like witnessing death and mayhem combined with internal pressures like fear of masculine failure or being called a coward heavily taxed soldiers and their psyches. Factors that contributed to psychological distress among Confederate servicemen include: exposure to battle, fear of being called a coward, fear of failure, youthfulness, homesickness, and depression.Suicide offered southern white men a way to maintain mastery and control over their deaths in war zones where chaos and disorder prevailed. Attitudes toward Confederates who killed themselves during the war were more supportive and less stigmatizing than one might think. Many soldiers also ended up institutionalized in asylums after being diagnosed as insane. Caregivers and family members rarely connected signs of mental distress with wartime experiences.
Peter S. Carmichael (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643205
- eISBN:
- 9781469643229
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643205.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
As the war drew to a close in Virginia, veterans from both armies collected relics to validate their service to their respective causes. They gathered many different objects, such as tree branches, ...
More
As the war drew to a close in Virginia, veterans from both armies collected relics to validate their service to their respective causes. They gathered many different objects, such as tree branches, paper currency, paper documents, army boots, battle flags, and jewelry. But the Confederate keepsakes could serve another, more dire purpose, by underscoring racial solidarity among whites in the postwar South.Less
As the war drew to a close in Virginia, veterans from both armies collected relics to validate their service to their respective causes. They gathered many different objects, such as tree branches, paper currency, paper documents, army boots, battle flags, and jewelry. But the Confederate keepsakes could serve another, more dire purpose, by underscoring racial solidarity among whites in the postwar South.
David T. Gleeson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607566
- eISBN:
- 9781469612508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469607566.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter describes the support for Irish Confederate soldiers. Support from home was vital both for encouraging Irish soldiers to stay in the army and to highlight to native white southerners ...
More
This chapter describes the support for Irish Confederate soldiers. Support from home was vital both for encouraging Irish soldiers to stay in the army and to highlight to native white southerners that the entire Irish community was behind the Confederacy. Civilian leaders of the Irish in the South embraced the Confederate national project and most became advocates of a “hard-war” policy. However, as the war became increasingly costly, and Irish civilians began to suffer directly the deprivations and hardships of conflict, Irish support for the Confederacy waned.Less
This chapter describes the support for Irish Confederate soldiers. Support from home was vital both for encouraging Irish soldiers to stay in the army and to highlight to native white southerners that the entire Irish community was behind the Confederacy. Civilian leaders of the Irish in the South embraced the Confederate national project and most became advocates of a “hard-war” policy. However, as the war became increasingly costly, and Irish civilians began to suffer directly the deprivations and hardships of conflict, Irish support for the Confederacy waned.
Caroline E. Janney
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807831762
- eISBN:
- 9781469602226
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882702_janney.7
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter discusses the series of Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress in March of 1867, prompted by former Confederate soldiers parading through the streets, the southern press's tirade against ...
More
This chapter discusses the series of Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress in March of 1867, prompted by former Confederate soldiers parading through the streets, the southern press's tirade against Reconstruction policies, southern whites' treatment of freedmen, and President Andrew Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. The first of the acts stipulated the terms by which the southern states might reenter the Union. Each of the eleven Confederate states, excluding Tennessee, would be required to write a new constitution that provided for manhood suffrage, to approve the new constitution by a majority of voters, and to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Equally important, the act divided the region into five military districts, whose commanders could use the army to protect life and property.Less
This chapter discusses the series of Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress in March of 1867, prompted by former Confederate soldiers parading through the streets, the southern press's tirade against Reconstruction policies, southern whites' treatment of freedmen, and President Andrew Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. The first of the acts stipulated the terms by which the southern states might reenter the Union. Each of the eleven Confederate states, excluding Tennessee, would be required to write a new constitution that provided for manhood suffrage, to approve the new constitution by a majority of voters, and to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Equally important, the act divided the region into five military districts, whose commanders could use the army to protect life and property.
James J. Broomall
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469651989
- eISBN:
- 9781469649771
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469651989.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
As southern men transitioned to becoming soldiers in the Confederate Army, they increasingly began to identify as soldiers. Military attire distinguished soldiers from citizens and established ...
More
As southern men transitioned to becoming soldiers in the Confederate Army, they increasingly began to identify as soldiers. Military attire distinguished soldiers from citizens and established visible bonds among troops. Military encampments similarly promoted a corporate identity but also allowed soldiers to bond in small, personalized space.Less
As southern men transitioned to becoming soldiers in the Confederate Army, they increasingly began to identify as soldiers. Military attire distinguished soldiers from citizens and established visible bonds among troops. Military encampments similarly promoted a corporate identity but also allowed soldiers to bond in small, personalized space.
M. Keith Harris
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469625331
- eISBN:
- 9781469625355
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625331.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
M. Keith Harris examines morale among Confederate soldiers in the trenches around Petersburg. Despite common perceptions among later historians that the siege marked the beginning of an inevitable ...
More
M. Keith Harris examines morale among Confederate soldiers in the trenches around Petersburg. Despite common perceptions among later historians that the siege marked the beginning of an inevitable slide toward Appomattox, Harris shows that many Rebels remained quite upbeat through the summer. Reading forward in evidence from 1864, rather than backward with full knowledge of the war’s outcome, reveals surprising optimism in Confederate accounts. Harris concedes a degree of war weariness but identifies countervailing forces that bolstered morale. Among these were a belief that soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia, under Lee’s leadership, could hold off the enemy at Petersburg, that Confederate armies in Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley could win victories, and that Union military failures could undo Lincoln and his party in November.Less
M. Keith Harris examines morale among Confederate soldiers in the trenches around Petersburg. Despite common perceptions among later historians that the siege marked the beginning of an inevitable slide toward Appomattox, Harris shows that many Rebels remained quite upbeat through the summer. Reading forward in evidence from 1864, rather than backward with full knowledge of the war’s outcome, reveals surprising optimism in Confederate accounts. Harris concedes a degree of war weariness but identifies countervailing forces that bolstered morale. Among these were a belief that soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia, under Lee’s leadership, could hold off the enemy at Petersburg, that Confederate armies in Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley could win victories, and that Union military failures could undo Lincoln and his party in November.
Michael J. Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823245680
- eISBN:
- 9780823252664
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823245680.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This essay contends that there are inconsistencies in the Freedom School's interpretation of the Civil War as simultaneously a redemptive national conflict and the first modern total war. Examining ...
More
This essay contends that there are inconsistencies in the Freedom School's interpretation of the Civil War as simultaneously a redemptive national conflict and the first modern total war. Examining Confederate atrocities against Union soldiers, it argues that white southerners so passionately hated the North that they frequently disregarded the rules of war. He thinks that historians have avoided accounts of atrocities because they represent everything that the war was not supposed to be about: treachery, brutality, and killing without meaning. The unreasoning savagery made the conflict a total war, stripping the Civil War of its ideological and redemptive power.Less
This essay contends that there are inconsistencies in the Freedom School's interpretation of the Civil War as simultaneously a redemptive national conflict and the first modern total war. Examining Confederate atrocities against Union soldiers, it argues that white southerners so passionately hated the North that they frequently disregarded the rules of war. He thinks that historians have avoided accounts of atrocities because they represent everything that the war was not supposed to be about: treachery, brutality, and killing without meaning. The unreasoning savagery made the conflict a total war, stripping the Civil War of its ideological and redemptive power.
David Silkenat
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469649726
- eISBN:
- 9781469649740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649726.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter examines Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. It explores Lee's decision to surrender, their meeting at the McLean ...
More
This chapter examines Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. It explores Lee's decision to surrender, their meeting at the McLean house, and the patrol of Confederate soldiers. It demonstrates how the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse built on earlier surrenders and set the stage for the surrenders that came afterwards.Less
This chapter examines Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. It explores Lee's decision to surrender, their meeting at the McLean house, and the patrol of Confederate soldiers. It demonstrates how the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse built on earlier surrenders and set the stage for the surrenders that came afterwards.
Kathryn Shively Meier
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469610764
- eISBN:
- 9781469612607
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9781469610771_Meier
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
In the Shenandoah Valley and Peninsula Campaigns of 1862, Union and Confederate soldiers faced unfamiliar and harsh environmental conditions—strange terrain, tainted water, swarms of flies and ...
More
In the Shenandoah Valley and Peninsula Campaigns of 1862, Union and Confederate soldiers faced unfamiliar and harsh environmental conditions—strange terrain, tainted water, swarms of flies and mosquitoes, interminable rain and snow storms, and oppressive heat—which contributed to escalating disease and diminished morale. Using soldiers' letters, diaries, and memoirs, plus a wealth of additional personal accounts, medical sources, newspapers, and government documents, this book reveals how these soldiers strove to maintain their physical and mental health by combating their deadliest enemy: nature. It explores how soldiers forged informal networks of health care based on prewar civilian experience and adopted a universal set of self-care habits, including boiling water, altering camp terrain, eradicating insects, supplementing their diets with fruits and vegetables, constructing protective shelters, and most controversially, straggling. In order to improve their health, soldiers periodically had to adjust their ideas of manliness, class values, and race to the circumstances at hand. While self-care often proved superior to relying upon the inchoate military medical infrastructure, commanders chastised soldiers for testing army discipline, ultimately redrawing the boundaries of informal health care.Less
In the Shenandoah Valley and Peninsula Campaigns of 1862, Union and Confederate soldiers faced unfamiliar and harsh environmental conditions—strange terrain, tainted water, swarms of flies and mosquitoes, interminable rain and snow storms, and oppressive heat—which contributed to escalating disease and diminished morale. Using soldiers' letters, diaries, and memoirs, plus a wealth of additional personal accounts, medical sources, newspapers, and government documents, this book reveals how these soldiers strove to maintain their physical and mental health by combating their deadliest enemy: nature. It explores how soldiers forged informal networks of health care based on prewar civilian experience and adopted a universal set of self-care habits, including boiling water, altering camp terrain, eradicating insects, supplementing their diets with fruits and vegetables, constructing protective shelters, and most controversially, straggling. In order to improve their health, soldiers periodically had to adjust their ideas of manliness, class values, and race to the circumstances at hand. While self-care often proved superior to relying upon the inchoate military medical infrastructure, commanders chastised soldiers for testing army discipline, ultimately redrawing the boundaries of informal health care.
Gary W. Gallagher
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832288
- eISBN:
- 9781469606187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807887028_pierson.5
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter discusses the mutiny of the troops stationed at Fort Jackson against their officers. The Confederate soldiers in Fort St. Philip may have sympathized with the mutineers, but even without ...
More
This chapter discusses the mutiny of the troops stationed at Fort Jackson against their officers. The Confederate soldiers in Fort St. Philip may have sympathized with the mutineers, but even without them the revolt in Fort Jackson was the largest mutiny in the Civil War. Despite the mutiny's size and strategic importance, historians have not examined it in any detail. Thus the mutinous Confederates are still something of a mystery. The search for their motives will lead one to New Orleans and beyond. The chapter will reveal unpleasant truths about the Civil War but also uncover the hopes of the ordinary men and women who chose to embrace the United States as their best hope for happiness. A short history of the Union military campaign to recapture New Orleans will both clarify the importance of the Fort Jackson mutiny and offer some ideas about why the revolt occurred.Less
This chapter discusses the mutiny of the troops stationed at Fort Jackson against their officers. The Confederate soldiers in Fort St. Philip may have sympathized with the mutineers, but even without them the revolt in Fort Jackson was the largest mutiny in the Civil War. Despite the mutiny's size and strategic importance, historians have not examined it in any detail. Thus the mutinous Confederates are still something of a mystery. The search for their motives will lead one to New Orleans and beyond. The chapter will reveal unpleasant truths about the Civil War but also uncover the hopes of the ordinary men and women who chose to embrace the United States as their best hope for happiness. A short history of the Union military campaign to recapture New Orleans will both clarify the importance of the Fort Jackson mutiny and offer some ideas about why the revolt occurred.
Victoria E. Bynum
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833810
- eISBN:
- 9781469604145
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807898215_bynum.7
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter discusses Franny Jordan and how she followed a “squad of soldiers” who had seized her teenaged son with the intention of forcing him into the Confederate Army. Fearful of what lay ahead, ...
More
This chapter discusses Franny Jordan and how she followed a “squad of soldiers” who had seized her teenaged son with the intention of forcing him into the Confederate Army. Fearful of what lay ahead, she stopped at the home of a neighbor and enlisted the aid of two young women in retrieving her son. As the women approached the Confederate soldiers, the soldiers cursed them for daring to challenge their authority. When one of the women retorted that they intended to do “no such thing,” the soldiers surrounded her. Crying out “god dam her,” one man urged the others to “take her along too.”Less
This chapter discusses Franny Jordan and how she followed a “squad of soldiers” who had seized her teenaged son with the intention of forcing him into the Confederate Army. Fearful of what lay ahead, she stopped at the home of a neighbor and enlisted the aid of two young women in retrieving her son. As the women approached the Confederate soldiers, the soldiers cursed them for daring to challenge their authority. When one of the women retorted that they intended to do “no such thing,” the soldiers surrounded her. Crying out “god dam her,” one man urged the others to “take her along too.”
Gary W. Gallagher
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807831588
- eISBN:
- 9781469605203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807887653_sheehan-dean.4
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This book focuses on one of the fundamental questions about the American Civil War: Why did nonslaveholders sacrifice so much to build a slave republic? Nonslaveholders' commitment was not marginal; ...
More
This book focuses on one of the fundamental questions about the American Civil War: Why did nonslaveholders sacrifice so much to build a slave republic? Nonslaveholders' commitment was not marginal; they formed the vast majority of soldiers who fought on behalf of the Confederacy, nor was slavery a tangential concern to the conflict. The political debate over slavery and its expansion drove the North and South to arms, and the shift to emancipation by the North ensured a desolating war. Though relatively brief in comparison to other nineteenth-century wars, the Civil War generated catastrophic losses for both sides. In the book, the inspirations that compelled Confederate soldiers into the war and sustained them in the face of horrific losses are explored.Less
This book focuses on one of the fundamental questions about the American Civil War: Why did nonslaveholders sacrifice so much to build a slave republic? Nonslaveholders' commitment was not marginal; they formed the vast majority of soldiers who fought on behalf of the Confederacy, nor was slavery a tangential concern to the conflict. The political debate over slavery and its expansion drove the North and South to arms, and the shift to emancipation by the North ensured a desolating war. Though relatively brief in comparison to other nineteenth-century wars, the Civil War generated catastrophic losses for both sides. In the book, the inspirations that compelled Confederate soldiers into the war and sustained them in the face of horrific losses are explored.
Diane Miller Sommerville
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643304
- eISBN:
- 9781469643588
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643304.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Aberration of Mind is a social history of suicide in the American South during the Civil War era. The book casts a wide net, focusing on Confederate soldiers and veterans and their families, and the ...
More
Aberration of Mind is a social history of suicide in the American South during the Civil War era. The book casts a wide net, focusing on Confederate soldiers and veterans and their families, and the enslaved and newly freed. The central question is, how did the Civil War and the suffering it generated shape suicidal thoughts and behavior? The author seeks to understand how the suffering experienced by southerners living in a war zone contributed to psychological distress that, in extreme cases, led southerners to contemplate or act on suicidal thoughts. The unprecedented human toll the war took on southerners created a psychological crisis that has not been fully explored. Drawing on sources like letters, diaries, military service records, coroners’ reports, and asylum patient case histories, the work recovers myriad stories, previously hidden, of individuals exhibiting suicidal activity or aberrant psychological behavior linked to the war and its aftermath. In addition to expanding our understanding of the full human costs of the Civil War, the book concludes that southerners transformed the meaning of suicide from an act of cowardice to a heroic symbol of white southern identity. The book fills a neglected niche in an otherwise crowded field of Civil War scholarship – the psychological impact of war and defeat on southerners.Less
Aberration of Mind is a social history of suicide in the American South during the Civil War era. The book casts a wide net, focusing on Confederate soldiers and veterans and their families, and the enslaved and newly freed. The central question is, how did the Civil War and the suffering it generated shape suicidal thoughts and behavior? The author seeks to understand how the suffering experienced by southerners living in a war zone contributed to psychological distress that, in extreme cases, led southerners to contemplate or act on suicidal thoughts. The unprecedented human toll the war took on southerners created a psychological crisis that has not been fully explored. Drawing on sources like letters, diaries, military service records, coroners’ reports, and asylum patient case histories, the work recovers myriad stories, previously hidden, of individuals exhibiting suicidal activity or aberrant psychological behavior linked to the war and its aftermath. In addition to expanding our understanding of the full human costs of the Civil War, the book concludes that southerners transformed the meaning of suicide from an act of cowardice to a heroic symbol of white southern identity. The book fills a neglected niche in an otherwise crowded field of Civil War scholarship – the psychological impact of war and defeat on southerners.
Thomas C. Mackey
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814725269
- eISBN:
- 9780814708286
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814725269.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter explores the cognitive dissonance that Civil War soldiers experienced as they left their ordinary lives, suffused with customary common-law understandings of property, and entered the ...
More
This chapter explores the cognitive dissonance that Civil War soldiers experienced as they left their ordinary lives, suffused with customary common-law understandings of property, and entered the military, where according to the laws of war they could appropriate personal property in a variety of circumstances. Back home, that appropriation might be called “stealing.” During wartime, however, such foraging was often legitimate and necessary. That it was “legal” did not, for many soldiers, lessen their unease. Instead, they felt compelled to explain their behavior to civilian correspondents back home—and to themselves. Examining rarely used personal correspondence by these soldiers, the chapter captures the lived experience of legal pluralism among ordinary Americans who found themselves pulled between two legal orders, civilian and military, in the extraordinary circumstance of a civil war fought at home.Less
This chapter explores the cognitive dissonance that Civil War soldiers experienced as they left their ordinary lives, suffused with customary common-law understandings of property, and entered the military, where according to the laws of war they could appropriate personal property in a variety of circumstances. Back home, that appropriation might be called “stealing.” During wartime, however, such foraging was often legitimate and necessary. That it was “legal” did not, for many soldiers, lessen their unease. Instead, they felt compelled to explain their behavior to civilian correspondents back home—and to themselves. Examining rarely used personal correspondence by these soldiers, the chapter captures the lived experience of legal pluralism among ordinary Americans who found themselves pulled between two legal orders, civilian and military, in the extraordinary circumstance of a civil war fought at home.
James J. Broomall
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469651989
- eISBN:
- 9781469649771
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469651989.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
How did the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction shape the masculinity of white Confederate veterans? As James J. Broomall shows, the crisis of the war forced a reconfiguration of the ...
More
How did the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction shape the masculinity of white Confederate veterans? As James J. Broomall shows, the crisis of the war forced a reconfiguration of the emotional worlds of the men who took up arms for the South. Raised in an antebellum culture that demanded restraint and shaped white men to embrace self-reliant masculinity, Confederate soldiers lived and fought within military units where they experienced the traumatic strain of combat and its privations together--all the while being separated from suffering families. Military service provoked changes that escalated with the end of slavery and the Confederacy's military defeat. Returning to civilian life, Southern veterans questioned themselves as never before, sometimes suffering from terrible self-doubt. Drawing on personal letters and diaries, Broomall argues that the crisis of defeat ultimately necessitated new forms of expression between veterans and among men and women. On the one hand, war led men to express levels of emotionality and vulnerability previously assumed the domain of women. On the other hand, these men also embraced a virulent, martial masculinity that they wielded during Reconstruction and beyond to suppress freed peoples and restore white rule through paramilitary organizations and the Ku Klux Klan.Less
How did the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction shape the masculinity of white Confederate veterans? As James J. Broomall shows, the crisis of the war forced a reconfiguration of the emotional worlds of the men who took up arms for the South. Raised in an antebellum culture that demanded restraint and shaped white men to embrace self-reliant masculinity, Confederate soldiers lived and fought within military units where they experienced the traumatic strain of combat and its privations together--all the while being separated from suffering families. Military service provoked changes that escalated with the end of slavery and the Confederacy's military defeat. Returning to civilian life, Southern veterans questioned themselves as never before, sometimes suffering from terrible self-doubt. Drawing on personal letters and diaries, Broomall argues that the crisis of defeat ultimately necessitated new forms of expression between veterans and among men and women. On the one hand, war led men to express levels of emotionality and vulnerability previously assumed the domain of women. On the other hand, these men also embraced a virulent, martial masculinity that they wielded during Reconstruction and beyond to suppress freed peoples and restore white rule through paramilitary organizations and the Ku Klux Klan.
Kevin M. Levin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781469653266
- eISBN:
- 9781469653280
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653266.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought ...
More
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans’ gains in civil rights and other realms.
Levin also investigates the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army, including personal body servants and forced laborers. He demonstrates that regardless of the dangers these men faced in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield, their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent, Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers, an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history.Less
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans’ gains in civil rights and other realms.
Levin also investigates the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army, including personal body servants and forced laborers. He demonstrates that regardless of the dangers these men faced in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield, their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent, Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers, an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history.
Joseph T. Glatthaar
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834923
- eISBN:
- 9781469603056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877869_glatthaar.16
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter shows how the percentage of personal and family slaveowners tells us much about their background and little of their motivations. However, if we accept the idea that individuals owned ...
More
This chapter shows how the percentage of personal and family slaveowners tells us much about their background and little of their motivations. However, if we accept the idea that individuals owned slaves because they believed in the merits and legitimacy of the institution, and that individuals seceded and fought at least in part to protect family, friends, property, and a way of life that they believed was threatened, then Confederate soldiers' personal attachment to slavery was a powerful motivation in their military service. It was a building block upon which they forged a sense of mission and a spirit of camaraderie. Among those who came from slaveholding families, larger slaveowners were overrepresented, and soldiers who did not own slaves tended to be older than their slaveholding comrades.Less
This chapter shows how the percentage of personal and family slaveowners tells us much about their background and little of their motivations. However, if we accept the idea that individuals owned slaves because they believed in the merits and legitimacy of the institution, and that individuals seceded and fought at least in part to protect family, friends, property, and a way of life that they believed was threatened, then Confederate soldiers' personal attachment to slavery was a powerful motivation in their military service. It was a building block upon which they forged a sense of mission and a spirit of camaraderie. Among those who came from slaveholding families, larger slaveowners were overrepresented, and soldiers who did not own slaves tended to be older than their slaveholding comrades.
Joseph R. Urgo and Ann J. Abadie (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617037122
- eISBN:
- 9781604731637
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617037122.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Photographs, lumber, airplanes, hand-hewn coffins—in every William Faulkner novel and short story, worldly material abounds. This book provides a fresh understanding of the things Faulkner brought ...
More
Photographs, lumber, airplanes, hand-hewn coffins—in every William Faulkner novel and short story, worldly material abounds. This book provides a fresh understanding of the things Faulkner brought from the world around him to the one he created. It surveys his representation of terrain and concludes, contrary to established criticism, that to Faulkner, Yoknapatawpha was not a microcosm of the South but a very particular and quite specifically located place. The book works with literary theory, philosophy, the history of woodworking and furniture-making, and social and intellectual history to explore how Light in August is tied intimately to the region’s logging and woodworking industries. Other chapters in the book include Kevin Railey’s on the consumer goods that appear in Flags in the Dust. Miles Orvell discusses the Confederate Soldier monuments installed in small towns throughout the South and how such monuments enter Faulkner’s work. Katherine Henninger analyzes Faulkner’s fictional representation of photographs and the function of photography within his fiction, particularly in The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!Less
Photographs, lumber, airplanes, hand-hewn coffins—in every William Faulkner novel and short story, worldly material abounds. This book provides a fresh understanding of the things Faulkner brought from the world around him to the one he created. It surveys his representation of terrain and concludes, contrary to established criticism, that to Faulkner, Yoknapatawpha was not a microcosm of the South but a very particular and quite specifically located place. The book works with literary theory, philosophy, the history of woodworking and furniture-making, and social and intellectual history to explore how Light in August is tied intimately to the region’s logging and woodworking industries. Other chapters in the book include Kevin Railey’s on the consumer goods that appear in Flags in the Dust. Miles Orvell discusses the Confederate Soldier monuments installed in small towns throughout the South and how such monuments enter Faulkner’s work. Katherine Henninger analyzes Faulkner’s fictional representation of photographs and the function of photography within his fiction, particularly in The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!
Rodrigo Lazo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479857722
- eISBN:
- 9781479818334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479857722.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter looks at the recent publication of data documenting the contributions of Hispanic Confederate soldiers to the war effort, which contradicts the Hispanic archive's self-image as it has ...
More
This chapter looks at the recent publication of data documenting the contributions of Hispanic Confederate soldiers to the war effort, which contradicts the Hispanic archive's self-image as it has sought to chronicle a history of anti-white-supremacist resistance. By addressing material that is seemingly undesirable, the chapter analyzes the ideological mandates that shape how and why archives are perceived and comprehended. The latter part looks at how contradictions in archival holdings can also incite renewed interest in an archive and support its ongoing development. The chapter's analysis circulates around artifacts such as Colonel Ambrosio José Gonzales' 1853 Manifesto on Cuban Affairs Addressed to the People of the United States and the sympathies of the Reconstruction-era novelist María Amparo Ruiz de Burton.Less
This chapter looks at the recent publication of data documenting the contributions of Hispanic Confederate soldiers to the war effort, which contradicts the Hispanic archive's self-image as it has sought to chronicle a history of anti-white-supremacist resistance. By addressing material that is seemingly undesirable, the chapter analyzes the ideological mandates that shape how and why archives are perceived and comprehended. The latter part looks at how contradictions in archival holdings can also incite renewed interest in an archive and support its ongoing development. The chapter's analysis circulates around artifacts such as Colonel Ambrosio José Gonzales' 1853 Manifesto on Cuban Affairs Addressed to the People of the United States and the sympathies of the Reconstruction-era novelist María Amparo Ruiz de Burton.
Jonathan W. White
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469632049
- eISBN:
- 9781469632063
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469632049.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
The Civil War brought upheaval to America, not only in waking hours, but also at night. Sleeplessness plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided through the sleeping brains of ...
More
The Civil War brought upheaval to America, not only in waking hours, but also at night. Sleeplessness plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided through the sleeping brains of Americans in both North and South. Sometimes the war intruded on soldiers’ and civilians’ nightly visions, vividly bringing the horrors of the conflict to life. For others, nighttime was an escape from the hard realities of life and death in wartime. In this innovative new study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil War-era Americans, and what their dreams reveal about their experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with their deepest fears, desires and struggles while they slept, and how their dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and loneliness that engulfed them. Midnight in America takes readers into the deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War, connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to the broader history of the conflict, confirming poets have known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only revealed in the world of darkness.Less
The Civil War brought upheaval to America, not only in waking hours, but also at night. Sleeplessness plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided through the sleeping brains of Americans in both North and South. Sometimes the war intruded on soldiers’ and civilians’ nightly visions, vividly bringing the horrors of the conflict to life. For others, nighttime was an escape from the hard realities of life and death in wartime. In this innovative new study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil War-era Americans, and what their dreams reveal about their experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with their deepest fears, desires and struggles while they slept, and how their dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and loneliness that engulfed them. Midnight in America takes readers into the deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War, connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to the broader history of the conflict, confirming poets have known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only revealed in the world of darkness.