Synopses & Reviews
For many people, Pennsylvania's contribution to the Civil War goes little beyond the battle of Gettysburg. The North in general has received far less attention than the Confederacy in the historiography of the Civil War—a weakness in the literature that this book will help to address. The essays in this volume suggest a few ways to reconsider the impact of the Civil War on Pennsylvania and the way its memory remains alive even today.
Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War contains a wealth of new information about Pennsylvania during the war years. For instance, perhaps as many as 2,000 Pennsylvanians defected to the Confederacy to fight for the Southern cause. And during the advance of Lee's army in 1863, residents of the Gettysburg area gained a reputation throughout North and South as a stingy people who wanted to make money from the war rather than sacrifice for the Union. But the state displayed loyalty as well and commitment to the cause of freedom. Pittsburgh served as the site for one of the first public monuments in the country dedicated to African Americans. Women of the Commonwealth also contributed mightily through organizing sanitary fairs or helping in ways that belied their roles as keepers of the domestic world. And readers will learn from an African American soldier's letters how blacks helped win their own liberation.
As a whole, the ten essays contained in Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War include courage on the battlefield but reflect the current trends to understand the motivations of soldiers and the impact of war on civilians, rather than focusing solely on battles or leadership. The essays also employ interdisciplinary techniques, as well as raise gender and racial questions. They incorporate a more expansive time frame than the four years of the conflict, by looking at not only the making of the war—but also its remaking—or how a public revisits the past to suit contemporary needs.
Review
“This is a thoroughly engaging and undoubtedly important book whose lucidity disguises a wealth of demanding research.
One of the great virtues of this book is its succinctness: Crubaugh writes with economy and clarity and uses nicely posed questions to guide the reader through the stages of his argument.”
—Peter McPhee, H-France Book Reviews
Review
“In a well-conceived and well-executed study, Crubaugh compares the seigneurial regime with its analogue established by the National Assembly, the justice of the peace, with a focus that is useful on two accounts. It offers a direct comparison of the administration of justice between the Old Regmine and the revolution and it does so in a rural setting: Aunis and Saintonge, which became the Department of Charente-Maritime.
This book is a useful addition to the literature on law and society in southwestern France.”
—Michael P. Fitzsimmons, American Historical Review
Review
“Anthony Crubaugh has produced an interesting and significant contribution to French rural history during both the Old Regime and the revolution. His subject, based on the archives of the Charente-Maritime, is an interesting comparison of seigneurial and revolutionary tribunals of justice and their effects on the local community.”
—David Hudson, History: Reviews of New Books
Review
“A valuable contribution to the literature on the American Civil War. I know of no volume that contains as many key insights into Pennsylvania’s role in the war.”
—J. Matthew Gallman, Gettysburg College
Review
“[Crubaugh’s] original and highly readable volume, quarried from a mass of often unrewarding material, demonstrates superbly how a local study can illuminate larger issues.”
—Malcolm Crook, Modern and Contemporary France
Review
“This work fills a void in the historiography of the state of Pennsylvania in the Civil War. The essays are superbly researched and nicely written. Many very nicely reproduced illustrations add to the attractiveness of the book. You don’t have to be a Pennsylvanian to find this book of interest. I can highly recommend this work to fill a void in the history of the country’s greatest conflict.”
—Michael A. Cavanaugh, Civil War News
Review
“This is a timely and valuable study of the workings of local justice during the French Revolution that examines the institution of the justice and peace, introduced in 1790 as part of a package of reforms, in the light of the revolutionaries’ avowed aim to bring justice to the people and to create a new civic order that would stretch into the smallest village in the land.”
—Alan Forrest, Journal of Modern History
About the Author
William A. Blair is Director of the Civil War Era Center and Associate Professor of History at Penn State and Editor of Civil War History. His previous books are Virginia’s Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy, 1861-1865 (Oxford, 1998) and A Politician Goes to War: The Civil War Letter sof John White Geary (Penn State, 1995).William A. Pencak is Professor History at Penn State and Editor of Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies and Explorations in Early American Culture: An Annual Supplement to Pennsylvania History published for the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.