Civil War America voices from the home front
Title:
Civil War America voices from the home front
Author:
Marten, James Alan.
ISBN:
9781851095025
9781280711176
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, c2003.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (xiii, 346 p.) : ill.
Contents:
pt. 1. Southern civilians under siege. The last fire-eater : Edmund Ruffin -- Times to try a woman's soul -- A miserable, frightened life : Southern refugees -- "A species of passionate insanity" : women of Vicksburg -- Culture clash : invaders and rebels in the occupied South -- A lukewarm people : home front dissenters in the Confederacy -- "I ain't ashamed of nuthin" : Bill Arp explains the Confederate home front -- pt. 2. Northern society at war. George Templeton Strong and the serious job of journalizing -- Reporting the war : Civil War journalism in the North -- Literary nurses : Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman -- Thinking big : love and advice from Civil War fathers -- A record of munificence : supporting the troops -- "The bloody week" : the New York City draft riots -- pt. 3. The children's Civil War. Rabid partisans among their playmates -- What a difference a war makes -- A Northern boy and a Southern girl -- Playing soldier : Phip Flaxen and the watermelon war -- Oliver Optic's Civil War : Northern children and the literary war for the Union -- pt. 4. African Americans and the war. Havens and hellholes : challenges and opportunities in the contraband camps -- Testing the boundaries : slave lives in the Confederacy -- Free to learn : educating freedpeople -- pt. 5. Aftermaths. "That such a thing could ever happen" : the death of a president -- Out at the soldiers' home : Union veterans -- Children of the battlefield : soldiers' orphans -- Up from slavery : African Americans after the war -- "True soldiers of the Southern cross" : Confederate women and the lost cause -- The devil's Civil War : the stories of Ambrose Bierce.
Abstract:
A revealing compilation of essays documenting the effects of the Civil War and its aftermath on Americans--young and old, black and white, northern and southern. The American Civil War was truly a "people's war," where neighbor fought neighbor and brother fought brother. Families and friends were as painfully divided as North and South. What impact did the bloodiest and mostly costly war in American history have on civilians and their assumptions about race, government, and freedom? Civil War America: Volces from the Home Front describes the myriad ways in which the Civil War affected both Northern and Southern civilians.; Through a unique collection of diary entries, memoirs, letters, and magazine articles, more than two dozen essays chronicle the personal experiences of soldiers and slaves, parents and children, nurses, veterans, and writers. Exploring such wide-ranging topics as Sanitary Fairs in the North, the "illustrated weeklies," children playing soldier, and the care of postwar orphans, most stories communicate some element of change, such as the destruction of old racial relationships, the challenge to Southern whites' complacency, and the expansion of government power. While some of the subjects are well-known-Edmund Ruffin, Louisa May Alcott, Henry Cabot Lodge, Booker T. Washington-most of the witnesses presented in these essays are relatively unknown men, women, and children who help to broaden our understanding of the war and its effects far beyond the home front.
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Electronic Access:
EBSCOhost http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=83865