Synopses & Reviews
The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners' national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people—white women and slaves—and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise.
Wartime scarcity of food, labor, and soldiers tested the Confederate vision at every point and created domestic crises to match those found on the battlefields. Women and slaves became critical political actors as they contested government enlistment and tax and welfare policies, and struggled for their freedom. The attempt to repress a majority of its own population backfired on the Confederate States of America as the disenfranchised demanded to be counted and considered in the great struggle over slavery, emancipation, democracy, and nationhood. That Confederate struggle played out in a highly charged international arena.
The political project of the Confederacy was tried by its own people and failed. The government was forced to become accountable to women and slaves, provoking an astounding transformation of the slaveholders' state. Confederate Reckoning is the startling story of this epic political battle in which women and slaves helped to decide the fate of the Confederacy and the outcome of the Civil War.
Review
[McCurry] has written a staggeringly smart analysis of the politics of the Confederacy--indeed, she has written one of the most illuminating and creative studies of 19th-century American political life, period...I have been waiting for McCurry's second book to be published since I read Masters of Small Worlds over a decade ago; it is a triumph of political history, and it was well worth the wait. Lauren Winner
Review
Good history teaches readers about the past, excellent history offers perspective on the present. By this standard, Stephanie McCurry's Confederate Reckoning surely achieves excellence...McCurry offers a carefully researched and well-grounded frontal assault, examining secession's causes and actualities. She quickly disposes of the claims that the war was really about anything other than slavery, demonstrating that fanciful patinas such as "states rights" merely meant linguistic obfuscation of that brutal reality...As modern citizens decry government actions and hearken back to an ideal that never was, so too did the South assert a wish to return to a fictional revolutionary era utopia. This desire allowed them to not only ignore the long odds against their success, just as Tea Partiers fail to consider their program's (such as it is) absurd contradictions...McCurry shines a light on the South's brutal reality and thus encourages us to cast a cold analytical eye on our own. Jim Cullen - History News Network
Review
Combining the best of the tradition of writing history "from the bottom up,"with prodigious research, and a red thread of analytical brilliance, Confederate Reckoning dramatically reshapes our understanding of the history of slavery and the Civil War. Walter Johnson, author of < i=""> Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market <>
Review
This is a major book [that] permanently rewrites the history of the Confederacy. James L. Roark, author of < i=""> Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction <>
Review
Analyzing the experience of women, African Americans, and others often placed at the margins of Confederate history, McCurry powerfully challenges readers to get beyond high politics and storied military campaigns to engage a profoundly complicated, and often surprising, story of struggle and change amid seismic events. Gary W. Gallagher, author of < i=""> The Confederate War <>
Review
McCurry strips the Confederacy of myth and romance to reveal its doomed essence. Dedicated to the proposition that men were not created equal, the Confederacy had to fight a two-front war. Not only against Union armies, but also slaves and poor white women who rose in revolt across the South. Richly detailed and lucidly told, Confederate Reckoning is a fresh, bold take on the Civil War that every student of the conflict should read. Tony Horwitz, author of < i=""> Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War <>
Review
Forceful and elegantly written...this book [is] a landmark piece of Civil War historiography. Books - & - amp; Culture
Review
The sesquicentennial of the Civil War now looms on the horizon, promising its own deluge of books of every size, shape and description. We will be fortunate indeed if in sheer originality and insight they measure up to Confederate Reckoning...McCurry challenges us to expand our definition of politics to encompass not simply government but the entire public sphere. The struggle for Southern independence, she shows, opened the door for the mobilization of two groups previously outside the political nation--white women of the nonslaveholding class and slaves...Confederate Reckoning offers a powerful new paradigm for understanding events on the Confederate home front. Jordan Magill - San Francisco Book Review
Review
Building upon her work over almost two decades, McCurry presents a new history of the South's experience during the war. It is an account that foregrounds social history as contrasted with military history, and in this respect it is of a piece with much of the pathbreaking new scholarship on the war. It moves political history from the study of elected politicians and government institutions to an exploration of power in all its dimensions...Perhaps the highest praise one can offer McCurry's work is to say that once we look through her eyes, it will become almost impossible to believe that we ever saw or thought otherwise...Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South is a book about politics that stretches far beyond the ballot and the statehouse, all the way into plantations and farms and families and communities across the South...McCurry has helped to transform our understanding of the Confederacy--and of its impossibility...At the outset of the book, McCurry insists that she is not going to ask or answer the timeworn question of why the South lost the Civil War. Yet in her vivid and richly textured portrait of what she calls the Confederacy's "undoing," she has in fact accomplished exactly that. And in doing so McCurry has written also a paean to social justice and to democracy, commitments and aspirations we would be well-served to make the heart of our Sesquicentennial commemorations. Eric Foner - The Nation
Review
and#8220;In vigorous prose Perry Jamieson narrates the military campaigns of the Civil Warand#8217;s final months on the two principal fronts in the Carolinas and Virginia. This bookand#8217;s clarity of organization and accuracy of description, coupled with interpretive insights, enable the reader to grasp both the details and the larger picture of the warand#8217;s end.and#8221;and#8212;James M. McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prizeand#8211;winning
Battle Cry of Freedomand#160;
Review
and#8220;An engaging narrative of how the final six months played out and the military and political decisions that led to the final outcome. . . .and#160;Crisp, page-turning.and#8221;and#8212;Judkin Browning, author of The Seven Daysand#8217; Battles: The War Begins Anew
Review
and#8220;The last spring of the Civil War witnessed a series of compelling episodes that assured Union triumph after four tumultuous years that reshaped the republic. Perry D. Jamieson does full justice to the unfolding drama in a narrative rich in biographical detail, perceptive analysis, and scrupulous attention to the geographical sweep of the story.and#8221;and#8212;Gary W. Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia and author of The Union War
Review
"
Music Along the Rapidan provides a model for how we might consider music in this difficult period of American historyand#8212;one that looks beyond who published what where and seeks rather to understand how, when, why, and under what circumstances Americans experienced music."and#8212;
Civil War Book ReviewReview
and#8220;Delightfully readable. A complete study of the Civil War where it meets music and national life.and#8221;and#8212;Randal Allred, professor of English at Brigham Young Universityand#8211;Hawaii
Review
and#8220;This is a truly remarkable, one-of-a-kind, book. The product of decades of passionate work, A Lincoln Dialogue somehow feels as current as the newest social media. Interweaving powerful documents with eloquent commentary, the story here evokes the tumultuous years of Lincolnand#8217;s presidency in ways more conventional books simply cannot. The story unfolds before us with surprises at every turn, familiar events suddenly made unfamiliar by new voices and new angles of vision.and#8221;and#8212;Edward L. Ayers, president of the University of Richmond and author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America
Review
and#8220;There is no [other] work that provides the extensive and complete documents selected for this book. Rawleyand#8217;s unique approach will make a significant contribution to the existing literature.and#8221;and#8212;Charles M. Hubbard, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Institute for the Study of Leadership and Public Policy at Lincoln Memorial University
Review
andquot;The true value of this book is Jamiesonand#39;s in-depth portrayal of the armies and their leaders, heroes and fools as they struggled to the bitter end.andquot;andmdash;Kirkus
Review
andquot;[A Lincoln Dialogue] is a unique look at Abraham Lincolnand#39;s presidency.andquot;andmdash;James E. Potter, Nebraska History
Review
andquot;Jamieson covers the many facets of his history with extraordinary precision and verve, offering rich biographical detail, solid research, appropriate maps and illustrations, and spot-on analysis.andquot;andmdash;John Carver Edwards, Library Journal
Synopsis
When Gen. Robert E. Lee fled from Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, in April 1865, many observers did not realize that the Civil War had reached its nadir. A large number of Confederates, from Jefferson Davis down to the rank-and-file, were determined to continue fighting. Though Union successes had nearly extinguished the Confederacyand#8217;s hope for an outright victory, the South still believed it could force the Union to grant a negotiated peace that would salvage some of its war aims. As evidence of the Confederacyand#8217;s determination, two major Union campaigns, along with a number of smaller engagements, were required to quell the continued organized Confederate military resistance.
In Spring 1865 Perry D. Jamieson juxtaposes for the first time the major campaign against Lee that ended at Appomattox and Gen. William T. Shermanand#8217;s march north through the Carolinas, which culminated in Gen. Joseph E. Johnstonand#8217;s surrender at Bennett Place. Jamieson also addresses the efforts required to put down armed resistance in the Deep South and the Trans-Mississippi. As both sides fought for political goals following Leeand#8217;s surrender, these campaigns had significant consequences for the political-military context that shaped the end of the war as well as Reconstruction.
Synopsis
In December 1863, Civil War soldiers took refuge from the dismal conditions of war and weather. They made their winter quarters in the Piedmont region of central Virginia: the Unionandrsquo;s Army of the Potomac in Culpeper County and the Confederacyandrsquo;s Army of Northern Virginia in neighboring Orange County. For the next six months the opposing soldiers eyed each other warily across the Rapidan River.
In Music Along the Rapidan James A. Davis examines the role of music in defining the social communities that emerged during this winter encampment. Music was an essential part of each soldierandrsquo;s personal identity, and Davis considers how music became a means of controlling the acoustic and social cacophony of war that surrounded every soldier nearby.
Music also became a touchstone for colliding communities during the encampmentandmdash;the communities of enlisted men and officers or Northerners and Southerners on the one hand and the shared communities occupied by both soldier and civilian on the other. The music enabled them to define their relationships and their environment, emotionally, socially, and audibly.
Synopsis
The words of Abraham Lincoln have been immortalized in speeches and enshrined in policies and practices, and none of those words, spoken or written, has gone unnoticed or wanted for a response. It is this broader contextand#8212;the wider conversation about Lincolnand#8217;s wordsand#8212;that this book discusses. The final project of James A. Rawley, a preeminent historian of the Civil War era,
A Lincoln Dialogue cross-examines Lincolnand#8217;s major statements, papers, and initiatives in light of the comments and criticism of his supporters and detractors.and#160;
and#160;Drawn from letters and newspapers, pamphlets and reports, these statements and responses constitute a unique documentary examination of Abraham Lincolnand#8217;s presidency. Rawleyand#8217;s careful selection and his judicious interweaving of historical analysis and background invite us into the dialogue and allow us to hear the voices of American history in the making.
and#160;
About the Author
James A. Rawley (1916and#8211;2005) was the Carol Adolph Happold Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Nebraskaand#8211;Lincoln. His many books include The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History, revised edition (Nebraska, 2009), and Abraham Lincoln and a Nation Worth Fighting For (Nebraska, 2003). William G. Thomas is the John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities and a professor of history at the University of Nebraskaand#8211;Lincoln. He is the author of several books, including The Iron Way: Railroads, the Civil War, and the Making of Modern America.
Table of Contents
- Prologue: The Confederate Project
- Who Are the People?
- The Brothers’ War
- Antigone’s Claim
- Soldiers’ Wives and the Politics of Subsistence
- Women Numerous and Armed
- “Amor Patriae”
- “Our Open Enemies”
- The Fall
- Epilogue: Confederate Reckoning
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- Index