Animal Histories of the Civil War Era

Animal Histories of the Civil War Era

Author: Earl J. Hess

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2022-03-30

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0807177156

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Animals mattered in the Civil War. Horses and mules powered the Union and Confederate armies, providing mobility for wagons, pulling artillery pieces, and serving as fighting platforms for cavalrymen. Drafted to support the war effort, horses often died or suffered terrible wounds on the battlefield. Raging diseases also swept through army herds and killed tens of thousands of other equines. In addition to weaponized animals such as horses, pets of all kinds accompanied nearly every regiment during the war. Dogs commonly served as unit mascots and were also used in combat against the enemy. Living and fighting in the natural environment, soldiers often encountered a variety of wild animals. They were pestered by many types of insects, marveled at exotic fish while being transported along the coasts, and took shots at alligators in the swamps along the lower Mississippi River basin. Animal Histories of the Civil War Era charts a path to understanding how the animal world became deeply involved in the most divisive moment in American history. In addition to discussions on the dominant role of horses in the war, one essay describes the use of camels by individuals attempting to spread slavery in the American Southwest in the antebellum period. Another explores how smaller wildlife, including bees and other insects, affected soldiers and were in turn affected by them. One piece focuses on the congressional debate surrounding the creation of a national zoo, while another tells the story of how the famous show horse Beautiful Jim Key and his owner, a former slave, exposed sectional and racial fault lines after the war. Other topics include canines, hogs, vegetarianism, and animals as veterans in post–Civil War America. The contributors to this volume—scholars of animal history and Civil War historians—argue for an animal-centered narrative to complement the human-centered accounts of the war. Animal Histories of the Civil War Era reveals that warfare had a poignant effect on animals. It also argues that animals played a vital role as participants in the most consequential conflict in American history. It is time to recognize and appreciate the animal experience of the Civil War period.


Flora and Fauna of the Civil War

Flora and Fauna of the Civil War

Author: Kelby Ouchley

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2010-11

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0807137995

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During the Civil War, humans impacted plants and animals on an unprecedented scale as soldiers on both sides waged the most environmentally destructive war ever on American soil. In Flora and Fauna of the Civil War, Kelby Ouchley blends traditional and natural history to create a unique text that explores both the impact of the Civil War on the surrounding environment and the reciprocal influence of plants and animals on the war effort. After discussing the physical setting of the war and exploring humans' attitudes toward nature during the Civil War period, Ouchley presents the flora and fauna by individual species or closely related group in the words of the participants themselves. Collectively, no better sources exist to reveal human attitudes toward the environment in the Civil War era.


The Eternal Soldier

The Eternal Soldier

Author: Allison Crotzer Kimmel

Publisher: little bee books

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9781499808636

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This is the untold story of Sallie, a dog whose life as a soldier began in a basket and ended as a Civil War hero. The pup barked and nearly tumbled out of the basket. We laughed, and immediately we knew--she was one of us already. Brindle fur with streaks of brown and black swirled all over her like a patchwork quilt. She was as pretty as an apple tree in full bloom. We called her Sallie. During the Civil War, Sallie came to the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry as a gift from a townsperson, but she quickly became a favorite among her men. She marched with them from battle to battle, always guarding the unit's colors, and even met President Lincoln. And over three long days at the battle of Gettysburg, Sallie stayed with the dead, guarded their bodies, and nearly died herself from hunger and thirst as the conflict raged on. Though she fell in battle, her loyalty was rewarded years later when her men met again on the battlefield at Gettysburg to erect her likeness in bronze so that she might eternally guard them. This beautiful story about a dog's dedication and loyalty shows that bravery comes in all shapes and forms!


An Environmental History of the Civil War

An Environmental History of the Civil War

Author: Judkin Browning

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2020-02-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 146965539X

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This sweeping new history recognizes that the Civil War was not just a military conflict but also a moment of profound transformation in Americans' relationship to the natural world. To be sure, environmental factors such as topography and weather powerfully shaped the outcomes of battles and campaigns, and the war could not have been fought without the horses, cattle, and other animals that were essential to both armies. But here Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver weave a far richer story, combining military and environmental history to forge a comprehensive new narrative of the war's significance and impact. As they reveal, the conflict created a new disease environment by fostering the spread of microbes among vulnerable soldiers, civilians, and animals; led to large-scale modifications of the landscape across several states; sparked new thinking about the human relationship to the natural world; and demanded a reckoning with disability and death on an ecological scale. And as the guns fell silent, the change continued; Browning and Silver show how the war influenced the future of weather forecasting, veterinary medicine, the birth of the conservation movement, and the establishment of the first national parks. In considering human efforts to find military and political advantage by reshaping the natural world, Browning and Silver show not only that the environment influenced the Civil War's outcome but also that the war was a watershed event in the history of the environment itself.


Jack the Cat that Went to War

Jack the Cat that Went to War

Author: Russell Horres

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780615436043

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"Jack was indeed a most unusual cat. His story will lead young readers back to a time when America was at war with itself. It was a time when all people were not treated as equal, and the question of whether the United States would stand as one nation had not been decided ... Beautiful color illustrations bring the story of life with historical accuracy, and children of all ages will delight in learning history through the eyes of Jack."--book jacket flyleaf.


Final Resting Places

Final Resting Places

Author: Brian Matthew Jordan

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2023-09-01

Total Pages: 499

ISBN-13: 0820364576

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Final Resting Places brings together some of the most important and innovative scholars of the Civil War era to reflect on what death and memorialization meant to the Civil War generation—and how those meanings still influence Americans today. In each essay, a noted historian explores a different type of gravesite—including large marble temples, unmarked graves beneath the waves, makeshift markers on battlefields, mass graves on hillsides, neat rows of military headstones, university graveyards, tombs without bodies, and small family plots. Each burial place tells a unique story of how someone lived and died; how they were mourned and remembered. Together, they help us reckon with the most tragic period of American history. CONTRUBUTORS: Terry Alford, Melodie Andrews, Edward L. Ayers, DeAnne Blanton, Michael Burlingame, Katherine Reynolds Chaddock, John M. Coski, William C. Davis, Douglas R. Egerton, Stephen D. Engle, Barbara Gannon, Michael P. Gray, Hilary Green, Allen C. Guelzo, Anna Gibson Holloway, Vitor Izecksohn, Caroline E. Janney, Michelle A. Krowl, Glenn W. LaFantasie, Jennifer M. Murray, Barton A. Myers, Timothy J. Orr, Christopher Phillips, Mark S. Schantz, Dana B. Shoaf, Walter Stahr, Michael Vorenberg, and Ronald C. White


Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare

Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare

Author: Earl J. Hess

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-01-30

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1538174294

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"A unique recounting of the Confederate use of landmines during the American Civil War. Hess uses multiple archival sources to tell a compelling narrative that stresses not only the tactical and technological challenges but also considers the moral stigma attached to this new weapon of war"--


West of Slavery

West of Slavery

Author: Kevin Waite

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2021-04-01

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1469663201

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When American slaveholders looked west in the mid-nineteenth century, they saw an empire unfolding before them. They pursued that vision through diplomacy, migration, and armed conquest. By the late 1850s, slaveholders and their allies had transformed the southwestern quarter of the nation – California, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Utah – into a political client of the plantation states. Across this vast swath of the map, white southerners defended the institution of African American chattel slavery as well as systems of Native American bondage. This surprising history uncovers the Old South in unexpected places, far beyond the region's cotton fields and sugar plantations. Slaveholders' western ambitions culminated in a coast-to-coast crisis of the Union. By 1861, the rebellion in the South inspired a series of separatist movements in the Far West. Even after the collapse of the Confederacy, the threads connecting South and West held, undermining the radical promise of Reconstruction. Kevin Waite brings to light what contemporaries recognized but historians have described only in part: The struggle over slavery played out on a transcontinental stage.