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A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era
This series seeks out the best new scholarship on the U.S. Civil War era, particularly works that connect the war to the major themes of the era and that integrate the social, political, economic, and cultural experiences of the period with military events.
Series Editors: Orville Vernon Burton and Elizabeth R. Varon
Colossal Ambitions
Confederate Planning for a Post–Civil War WorldLeading politicians, diplomats, clerics, planters, farmers, manufacturers, and merchants preached a transformative, world-historical role for the Confederacy, persuading many of their compatriots to fight not merely to retain what they had but to gain their future empire. Impervious to reality,... More
Newest Born of Nations
European Nationalist Movements and the Making of the ConfederacyFrom the earliest stirrings of southern nationalism to the defeat of the Confederacy, analysis of European nationalist movements played a critical role in how southerners thought about their new southern nation. Southerners argued that because the Confederate nation was cast in the same mold as its... More
The Worst Passions of Human Nature
White Supremacy in the Civil War NorthThe American North’s commitment to preventing a southern secession rooted in slaveholding suggests a society united in its opposition to slavery and racial inequality. The reality, however, was far more complex and troubling. In his latest book, Paul Escott lays bare the contrast between progress... More
Slavery and War in the Americas
Race, Citizenship, and State Building in the United States and Brazil, 1861-1870In this pathbreaking new work, Vitor Izecksohn attempts to shed new light on the American Civil War by comparing it to a strikingly similar campaign in South America--the War of the Triple Alliance of 1864–70, which galvanized four countries and became the longest large-scale international conflict... More
American Abolitionism
Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into ReconstructionThis ambitious book provides the only systematic examination of the American abolition movement’s direct impacts on antislavery politics from colonial times to the Civil War and after. As opposed to indirect methods such as propaganda, sermons, and speeches at protest meetings, Stanley Harrold... More
Preserving the White Man's Republic
Jacksonian Democracy, Race, and the Transformation of American ConservatismIn Preserving the White Man’s Republic, Joshua Lynn reveals how the national Democratic Party rebranded majoritarian democracy and liberal individualism as conservative means for white men in the South and North to preserve their mastery on the eve of the Civil War.Responding to fears of African... More
A Strife of Tongues
The Compromise of 1850 and the Ideological Foundations of the American Civil WarNear the end of a nine-month confrontation preceding the Compromise of 1850, Abraham Venable warned his fellow congressmen that "words become things." Indeed, in politics—then, as now—rhetoric makes reality. But while the legislative maneuvering, factional alignments, and specific measures of the... More
The War Hits Home
The Civil War in Southeastern VirginiaIn 1863 Confederate forces under Lieutenant General James Longstreet, while scouring Southside Virginia for badly needed supplies, threatened the Union garrison in Suffolk. For the residents of surrounding Nansemond, Isle of Wight, and Southampton Counties, the Suffolk campaign followed an... More
Daydreams and Nightmares
A Virginia Family Faces Secession and WarThe decision of the eventual Confederate states to secede from the Union set in motion perhaps the most dramatic chapter in American history, and one that has typically been told on a grand scale. In Daydreams and Nightmares, however, historian Brent Tarter shares the story of one Virginia family... More
Lincoln's Dilemma
Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War EraThe Civil War forced America finally to confront the contradiction between its founding values and human slavery. At the center of this historic confrontation was Abraham Lincoln. By the time this Illinois politician had risen to the office of president, the dilemma of slavery had expanded to the... More
Apostles of Disunion
Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil WarIn late 1860 and early 1861, state-appointed commissioners traveled the length and breadth of the slave South carrying a fervent message in pursuit of a clear goal: to persuade the political leadership and the citizenry of the uncommitted slave states to join in the effort to destroy the Union and... More
The First Republican Army
The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil WarAlthough much is known about the political stance of the military at large during the Civil War, the political party affiliations of individual soldiers have received little attention. Drawing on archival sources from twenty-five generals and 250 volunteer officers and enlisted men, John Matsui... More
War upon Our Border
Two Ohio Valley Communities Navigate the Civil WarWar upon Our Border examines the experiences of two Ohio River Valley communities during the turmoil and social upheaval of the American Civil War. Although on opposite sides of the border between slavery and freedom, Corydon, Indiana, and Frankfort, Kentucky, shared a legacy of white settlement... More
Gold and Freedom
The Political Economy of ReconstructionHistorians have long treated Reconstruction primarily as a southern concern isolated from broader national political developments. Yet at its core, Reconstruction was a battle for the legacy of the Civil War that would determine the political fate not only of the South but of the nation.In Gold and... More
Longstreet's Aide
The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J GoreeOne of the Confederacy's most loyal adherents and articulate advocates was Lieutenant Grant James Longstreet's aide-de-camp, Thomas Jewett Goree. Present at Longstreet's headquarters and party to the counsels of Robert E. Lee and his lieutenants, Goree wrote incisively on matters of strategy and... More
Intimate Reconstructions
Children in Postemancipation VirginiaIn Intimate Reconstructions, Catherine Jones considers how children shaped, and were shaped by, Virginia’s Reconstruction. Jones argues that questions of how to define, treat, reform, or protect children were never far from the surface of public debate and private concern in post–Civil War Virginia... More
Marching Masters
Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil WarThe Confederate army went to war to defend a nation of slaveholding states, and although men rushed to recruiting stations for many reasons, they understood that the fundamental political issue at stake in the conflict was the future of slavery. Most Confederate soldiers were not slaveholders... More
Confederate Visions
Nationalism, Symbolism, and the Imagined South in the Civil WarNationalism in nineteenth-century America operated through a collection of symbols, signifiers citizens could invest with meaning and understanding. In Confederate Visions, Ian Binnington examines the roots of Confederate nationalism by analyzing some of its most important symbols: Confederate... More
Frederick Douglass
A Life in DocumentsFrederick Douglass was born enslaved in February 1818, but from this most humble of beginnings, he rose to become a world-famous orator, newspaper editor, and champion of the rights of women and African Americans. He not only survived slavery to live in freedom but also became an outspoken critic... More
Worth a Dozen Men
Women and Nursing in the Civil War SouthIn antebellum society, women were regarded as ideal nurses because of their sympathetic natures. However, they were expected to exercise their talents only in the home; nursing strange men in hospitals was considered inappropriate, if not indecent. Nevertheless, in defiance of tradition,... More
A Separate Civil War
Communities in Conflict in the Mountain SouthMost Americans think of the Civil War as a series of dramatic clashes between massive armies led by romantic-seeming leaders. But in the Appalachian communities of North Georgia, things were very different. Focusing on Fannin and Lumpkin counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains along Georgia’s northern... More
Reconstructing the Campus
Higher Education and the American Civil WarThe Civil War transformed American life. Not only did thousands of men die on battlefields and millions of slaves become free; cultural institutions reshaped themselves in the context of the war and its aftermath. The first book to examine the Civil War’s immediate and long-term impact on higher... More
Civil War Talks
Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow VeteransGeorge S. Bernard was a Petersburg lawyer and member of the 12th Virginia Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. Over the course of his life, Bernard wrote extensively about his wartime experiences and collected accounts from other veterans. In 1892, he published War Talks of Confederate Veterans... More
The Enemy Within
Fears of Corruption in the Civil War NorthStoked by a series of major scandals, popular fears of corruption in the Civil War North provide a unique window into Northern culture in the Civil War era. In The Enemy Within, Michael Thomas Smith relates these scandals—including those involving John C. Frémont’s administration in Missouri,... More
The Big House after Slavery
Virginia Plantation Families and Their Postbellum Domestic ExperimentThe Big House after Slavery examines the economic, social, and political challenges that Virginia planter families faced following Confederate defeat and emancipation. Amy Feely Morsman addresses how men and women of the planter class responded to postwar problems and how their adaptations to life... More