Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana
Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana

Author: Michael D. Pierson

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2016-11-02

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0807164402

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In July 1862, Union Lieutenant Stephen Spalding wrote a long letter from his post in Algiers, Louisiana, to his former college roommate. Equally fascinating and unsettling for modern readers, the comic cynicism of the young soldier’s correspondence offers an unusually candid and intimate account of military life and social change on the southern front. A captivating primary source, Spalding’s letter is reproduced here for the first time, along with contextual analysis and biographical detail, by Michael D. Pierson. Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana lifts the curtain on the twenty-two-year-old’s elitist social attitudes and his consuming ambition, examining the mind of a man of privilege as he turns to humor to cope with unwelcome realities. Spalding and his correspondent, James Peck, both graduates of the University of Vermont, lived in a society dominated by elite young men, with advantages granted by wealth, gender, race, and birth. Caught in the middle of the Civil War, Spalding adopts a light-hearted tone in his letter, both to mask his most intimate thoughts and fears and distance himself from those he perceives as social inferiors. His jokes show us an unpleasantly stratified America, with blacks, women, and the men in the ranks subjected to ridicule and even physical abuse by an officer with more assertiveness than experience. His longest story, a wild escapade in New Orleans that included abundant drinking and visits to two brothels, gives us a glimpse of a world in which men bonded through excess and indulgence. More poignantly, tactless jests about death, told as his unit suffers its first casualties, reveal a man struggling to come to terms with mortality. Evidence of Spalding’s unfulfilled aspirations, like his sometimes disturbing wit, allows readers to see past his entitlement to his human weaknesses. An engrossing picture of a charismatic but flawed young officer, Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana offers new ways to look at the society that shaped him.

Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana
Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana

Author: Michael D. Pierson

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2016-11-02

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0807164399

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In July 1862, Union Lieutenant Stephen Spalding wrote a long letter from his post in Algiers, Louisiana, to his former college roommate. Equally fascinating and unsettling for modern readers, the comic cynicism of the young soldier’s correspondence offers an unusually candid and intimate account of military life and social change on the southern front. A captivating primary source, Spalding’s letter is reproduced here for the first time, along with contextual analysis and biographical detail, by Michael D. Pierson. Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana lifts the curtain on the twenty-two-year-old’s elitist social attitudes and his consuming ambition, examining the mind of a man of privilege as he turns to humor to cope with unwelcome realities. Spalding and his correspondent, James Peck, both graduates of the University of Vermont, lived in a society dominated by elite young men, with advantages granted by wealth, gender, race, and birth. Caught in the middle of the Civil War, Spalding adopts a light-hearted tone in his letter, both to mask his most intimate thoughts and fears and distance himself from those he perceives as social inferiors. His jokes show us an unpleasantly stratified America, with blacks, women, and the men in the ranks subjected to ridicule and even physical abuse by an officer with more assertiveness than experience. His longest story, a wild escapade in New Orleans that included abundant drinking and visits to two brothels, gives us a glimpse of a world in which men bonded through excess and indulgence. More poignantly, tactless jests about death, told as his unit suffers its first casualties, reveal a man struggling to come to terms with mortality. Evidence of Spalding’s unfulfilled aspirations, like his sometimes disturbing wit, allows readers to see past his entitlement to his human weaknesses. An engrossing picture of a charismatic but flawed young officer, Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana offers new ways to look at the society that shaped him.

Garden of Ruins
Garden of Ruins

Author: J. Matthew Ward

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2024-05-29

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0807182370

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J. Matthew Ward’s Garden of Ruins serves as an insightful social and military history of Civil War–era Louisiana. Partially occupied by Union forces starting in the spring of 1862, the Confederate state experienced the initial attempts of the U.S. Army to create a comprehensive occupation structure through military actions, social regulations, the destabilization of slavery, and the formation of a complex bureaucracy. Skirmishes between Union soldiers and white civilians supportive of the Confederate cause multiplied throughout this period, eventually turning occupation into a war on local households and culture. In unoccupied regions of the state, Confederate forces and their noncombatant allies likewise sought to patrol allegiance, leading to widespread conflict with those they deemed disloyal. Ward suggests that social stability during wartime, and ultimately victory itself, emerged from the capacity of military officials to secure their territory, governing powers, and nonmilitary populations. Garden of Ruins reveals the Civil War, state-building efforts, and democracy itself as contingent processes through which Louisianans shaped the world around them. It also illustrates how military forces and civilians discovered unique ways to wield and hold power during and immediately after the conflict.

The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War
The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War

Author: Lorien Foote

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 697

ISBN-13: 0190903058

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Assembles contributions from thirty-nine leading historians of the American Civil War into a coherent attempt to assess the war's impact on American society

Confederate Cities
Confederate Cities

Author: Andrew L. Slap

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 022630020X

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When we talk about the Civil War, it is often with references to battles like Antietam, Gettysburg, Bull Run, and, perhaps most tellingly, the Battle of the Wilderness, which all took place in the countryside or in small towns. Part of the reason this picture has persisted is that few of the historians who have studied the war have been urban historians, even though cities hosted, enabled, and shaped southern society as much as in the North. The essays in Andrew Slap and Frank Towers s collection seek to shift the focus from the agrarian economy that undergirded the South to the cities that served as its political and administrative hubs. By demanding a more holistic reading of the South, this collection speaks to contemporary Civil War scholars and classrooms alike not least in providing surprisingly fresh perspectives on a well-studied war."

The Blue & Gray Almanac
The Blue & Gray Almanac

Author: Albert Nofi

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2017-08-19

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1612005535

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“Help[s] readers to examine this period in history with a more cultural perspective than other books have . . . clear, concise, and crisp . . . fascinating” (San Francisco Book Review). • During the final days of the war, some Richmond citizens would throw “Starvation Parties,” soirees at which elegantly attired guests gathered amid the finest silver and crystal tableware, though there were usually no refreshments except water. • Union Rear-Admiral Goldsborough was nicknamed “Old Guts,” not so much for his combativeness as for his heft—weighing about three hundred pounds, he was described as “a huge mass of inert matter.” • 30.6 percent of the 425 Confederate generals, but only 21.6 percent of the 583 Union generals, had been lawyers before the war. • In 1861, J.P. Morgan made a huge profit by buying five thousand condemned US Army carbines and selling them back to another arsenal—taking the army to court when they tried to refuse to pay for the faulty weapons. • Major General Loring was reputed to have so rich a vocabulary that one of the men remarked he could “curse a cannon up hill without horses.” • Many militia units had a favorite drink—the Charleston Light Dragoons’ punch took around a week to make, while the Chatham Artillery required a pound of green tea leaves be steeped overnight. • There were five living former presidents when the Civil War began, and seven veterans of the war, plus one draft dodger, went on to serve as president. These stories and many more can be found in this treasury of anecdotes, essays, trivia, and much more—including numerous illustrations—that bring this historical period to vivid life.

The Winchester
The Winchester

Author: Laura Trevelyan

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2016-09-20

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0300225652

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“Details the extraordinary life of Oliver Winchester, the company, and its rapid rise and slow fall as told by a distant family descendant.”—American Gunsmith Arguably the world’s most famous firearm, the Winchester Repeating Rifle was sought after by a cast of characters ranging from the settlers of the American West to the Ottoman Empire’s Army. Laura Trevelyan, a descendant of the Winchester family, offers an engrossing personal history of the colorful New England clan responsible for the creation and manufacture of the “Gun that Won the West.” Trevelyan chronicles the rise and fortunes of a great American arms dynasty, from Oliver Winchester’s involvement with the Volcanic Arms Company in 1855 through the turbulent decades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She explores the evolution of an iconic, paradigm-changing weapon that has become a part of American culture; a longtime favorite of collectors and gun enthusiasts that has been celebrated in fiction, glorified in Hollywood, and applauded in endorsements from the likes of Annie Oakley, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, and Native American tribesmen who called it “the spirit gun.” “[A] detailed but accessible look at the life, times and commerce of Oliver Winchester—Trevelyan’s great great great grandfather—and his many descendants of both the human and firearms varieties . . . Whether you’re a fan of firearms or simply of American history, there is much to enjoy and learn in this easy-to-read and well-footnoted volume.”—American Shooting Journal “The book is beautifully illustrated, with fascinating photos of the Winchester family, and with well-known historical figures—including the Native American leader Geronimo and President Theodore Roosevelt—clutching their repeating rifles.”—Times Literary Supplement