Synopses & Reviews
"A careful examination. . . . By stressing the economically based generational component of the Old Dominion's late antebellum political culture, Carmichael has added a new dimension to an old discussion."
-Southern Quarterly "An important vehicle for understanding the relationship between proslavery thought in higher education and the Civil War."
-Reviews in American History "A well-researched and intriguing study. . . . An ambitious project."
-Georgia Historical Quarterly "This excellent study will confirm what teenagers have known forever; that parents are just not cool."
-The NYMAS Review "[Carmichael] contributes significantly to ongoing debates about southern identity, secession, and social, cultural, and ideological continuity across the tumultuous years of Civil War and Reconstruction. . . . Carmichael's engaging study reminds us that there were many versions of southern manliness and honor and many roads to secession."
-Journal of American History "A significant book, a work of intellectual history that explores the beliefs of an important group of Confederates. The narrative moves well and is thought-provoking. Highly recommended."
-The Virginian "Carmichael should be congratulated for offering fresh insights and interpretations that will engage southern and Civil War historians for some time to come. . . . An important, insightful book. It does what a good work of Civil War history should do: it shines new light on an oft-studied period so that we see it in a new way, thus opening up new avenues of thought and potential research."
-H-South
Review
"An important vehicle for understanding the relationship between proslavery thought in higher education and the Civil War."
Reviews in American History
Review
"A well-researched and intriguing study. . . . An ambitious project."
Georgia Historical Quarterly
Review
"This excellent study will confirm what teenagers have known forever; that parents are just not cool."
The NYMAS Review
Review
"[Carmichael] contributes significantly to ongoing debates about southern identity, secession, and social, cultural, and ideological continuity across the tumultuous years of Civil War and Reconstruction. . . . Carmichael's engaging study reminds us that there were many versions of southern manliness and honor and many roads to secession."
Journal of American History
Synopsis
Challenging the popular conception of Southern youth on the eve of the Civil War as intellectually lazy, violent, and dissipated, Peter S. Carmichael looks closely at the lives of more than one hundred young white men from Virginia's last generation to grow up with the institution of slavery. He finds them deeply engaged in the political, economic, and cultural forces of their time. Age, he concludes, created special concerns for young men who spent their formative years in the 1850s.
Before the Civil War, these young men thought long and hard about Virginia's place as a progressive slave society. They vigorously lobbied for disunion despite opposition from their elders, then served as officers in the Army of Northern Virginia as frontline negotiators with the nonslaveholding rank and file. After the war, however, they quickly shed their Confederate radicalism to pursue the political goals of home rule and New South economic development and reconciliation. Not until the turn of the century, when these men were nearing the ends of their lives, did the mythmaking and storytelling begin, and members of the last generation recast themselves once more as unreconstructed Rebels.
By examining the lives of members of this generation on a personal level as well as a generational and cultural level, Carmichael sheds new light on the formation and reformation of Southern identity during the turbulent last half of the nineteenth century.
Synopsis
Looking closely at over one hundred young white Virginians who came of age in the 1850s and '60s, Carmichael argues that the experiences and the characteristics of the last generation to grow up with the institution of slavery force us to reexamine the nature of Southern manhood and the approach and aftermath of the Civil War.
About the Author
Peter S. Carmichael is assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His previous books include Lee's Young Artillerist: William R. J. Pegram and Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee.