The conviction that the American Civil War left a massive legacy to the country has generally been much clearer than the definition of what that legacy is. Did the war, as Ulysses S. Grant believed, bequeath power, intelligence, and sectional harmony to America, or did it, as many have argued since, sow racial and regional bitterness that has blighted the nation since 1865? What, exactly, was the legacy of disunion? This collection explores that question from a variety of angles, showcasing the work of twelve scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom. The essays ponder the role...
The conviction that the American Civil War left a massive legacy to the country has generally been much clearer than the definition of what that legac...
Appointed by Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil War, Samuel Freeman Miller (1816--1890) served on the nation's highest tribunal for twenty-eight tumultuous years and holds a place in legal history as one of the Court's most influential justices. Michael A. Ross creates a colorful portrait of a passionate man grappling with the difficult legal issues arising from a time of wrenching social and political change. He also explores the impact President Lincoln's Supreme Court appointments made on American constitutional history.
Best known for his opinions in cases...
Appointed by Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil War, Samuel Freeman Miller (1816--1890) served on the nation's highest trib...
By the time of the Civil War, the railroads had advanced to allow the movement of large numbers of troops even though railways had not yet matured into a truly integrated transportation system. Gaps between lines, incompatible track gauges, and other vexing impediments remained in both the North and South. As John E. Clark explains in this compelling study, the skill with which Union and Confederate war leaders met those problems and utilized the rail system to its fullest potential was an essential ingredient for ultimate victory.
By the time of the Civil War, the railroads had advanced to allow the movement of large numbers of troops even though railways had not yet matured ...
Though slavery was widespread and antislavery sentiment rare in Alabama, there emerged a small loyalist population, mostly in the northern counties, that persisted in the face of overwhelming odds against their cause. Storey's welcome study explores those Alabamians who maintained allegiance to the Union when their state seceded in 1861 - and beyond. Her extensive, groundbreaking research discloses a socioeconomically diverse group that included slaveholders and nonslaveholders, business people, professionals, farmers, and blacks. Narratives of their wartime experiences indicate in...
Though slavery was widespread and antislavery sentiment rare in Alabama, there emerged a small loyalist population, mostly in the northern counties, t...
In The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience (1970) and The Confederate Nation (1979), Emory Thomas redefined the field of Civil War history and reconceptualized the Confederacy as a unique entity fighting a war for survival. Inside the Confederate Nation honors his enormous contributions to the field with fresh interpretations of all aspects of Confederate life -- nationalism and identity, family and gender, battlefront and home front, race, and postwar legacies and memories. Many of the volume's twenty essays focus on individuals, households, communities, and particular regions of...
In The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience (1970) and The Confederate Nation (1979), Emory Thomas redefined the field of Civil War history an...
Stephen J. Ochs chronicles the intersecting lives of the first black military Civil War hero, Captain Andre Cailloux of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, and the lone Catholic clerical voice of abolition in New Orleans, the Reverend Claude Paschal Maistre. Their paths converged in July 1863, when Maistre, in defiance of his archbishop, officiated at a large public military funeral for Cailloux, who had perished while courageously leading a doomed charge against the Confederate bastion of Port Hudson. The story of how Cailloux and Maistre arrived at that day and what happened as a...
Stephen J. Ochs chronicles the intersecting lives of the first black military Civil War hero, Captain Andre Cailloux of the 1st Louisiana Native Gu...
On July 8, 1860, fire destroyed the entire business section of Dallas, Texas. At about the same time, two other fires damaged towns near Dallas. Early reports indicated that spontaneous combustion was the cause of the blazes, but four days later, Charles Pryor, editor of the Dallas Herald, wrote letters to editors of pro-Democratic newspapers, alleging that the fires were the result of a vast abolitionist conspiracy, the purpose of which was to devastate northern Texas and free the region's slaves. White preachers from the North, he asserted, had recruited local slaves to set the fires,...
On July 8, 1860, fire destroyed the entire business section of Dallas, Texas. At about the same time, two other fires damaged towns near Dallas. Ea...
For many of the forty years of her life as a slave, Azeline Hearne cohabitated with her wealthy, unmarried master, Samuel R. Hearne. She bore him four children, only one of whom survived past early childhood. When Sam died shortly after the Civil War ended, he publicly acknowledged his relationship with Azeline and bequeathed his entire estate to their twenty-year-old mulatto son, with the provision that he take care of his mother. When their son died early in 1868, Azeline inherited one of the most profitable cotton plantations in Texas and became one of the wealthiest ex-slaves in the...
For many of the forty years of her life as a slave, Azeline Hearne cohabitated with her wealthy, unmarried master, Samuel R. Hearne. She bore him f...
A leading proponent of racial equality in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century, Albion W. Tourgee (1838--1905) served as the most articulate spokesman of the radical wing of the Republican party, and he continued to advocate for its egalitarian ideals long after Reconstruction ended. Undaunted Radical presents Tourgee's most significant letters, speeches, and essays from the commencement of Radical Reconstruction through the bleak days of the era of Jim Crow.
An Ohioan by birth, Tourgee served in the Union army and afterwards moved to North Carolina, where...
A leading proponent of racial equality in the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century, Albion W. Tourgee (1838--1905) served...
Historians have long believed that the "frontier" shaped Texas plantation society, but in this detailed examination of Texas's most important plantation region, Sean M. Kelley asserts that the dominant influence was not the frontier but the Mexican Republic. The Lower Brazos River Valley -- the only slave society to take root under Mexican sovereignty -- made replication of eastern plantation culture extremely difficult and complicated. By tracing the synthesis of cultures, races, and politics in the region, Kelley reveals a distinct variant of southern slavery -- a borderland plantation...
Historians have long believed that the "frontier" shaped Texas plantation society, but in this detailed examination of Texas's most important plant...
