Agriculture and the Confederacy

Agriculture and the Confederacy

Author: R. Douglas Hurt

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2015-03-02

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1469620014

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In this comprehensive history, R. Douglas Hurt traces the decline and fall of agriculture in the Confederate States of America. The backbone of the southern economy, agriculture was a source of power that southerners believed would ensure their independence. But, season by season and year by year, Hurt convincingly shows how the disintegration of southern agriculture led to the decline of the Confederacy's military, economic, and political power. He examines regional variations in the Eastern and Western Confederacy, linking the fates of individual crops and different modes of farming and planting to the wider story. After a dismal harvest in late 1864, southerners--faced with hunger and privation throughout the region--ransacked farms in the Shenandoah Valley and pillaged plantations in the Carolinas and the Mississippi Delta, they finally realized that their agricultural power, and their government itself, had failed. Hurt shows how this ultimate lost harvest had repercussions that lasted well beyond the end of the Civil War. Assessing agriculture in its economic, political, social, and environmental contexts, Hurt sheds new light on the fate of the Confederacy from the optimism of secession to the reality of collapse.


Alabamians in Blue

Alabamians in Blue

Author: Christopher M. Rein

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2019-05-15

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 080717128X

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Alabamians in Blue offers an in-depth scholarly examination of Alabama’s black and white Union soldiers and their contributions to the eventual success of the Union army in the western theater. Christopher M. Rein contends that the state’s anti-Confederate residents tendered an important service to the North, primarily by collecting intelligence and protecting logistical infrastructure. He highlights an underappreciated period of biracial cooperation, underwritten by massive support from the federal government. Providing a broad synthesis, Rein’s study demonstrates that southern dissenters were not passive victims but rather active participants in their own liberation. Ecological factors, including agricultural collapse under levies from both armies, may have provided the initial impetus for Union enlistment. Federal pillaging inflicted further heavy destruction on plantation agriculture. The breakdown in basic subsistence that ensued pushed Alabama’s freedmen and Unionists into federal camps in garrison cities in search of relief and the opportunity for revenge. Once in uniform, Alabama’s Union soldiers served alongside northern regiments and frustrated Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s attempts to interrupt the Union supply efforts in the 1864 Atlanta campaign, which led to the collapse of Confederate arms in the western theater and the eventual Union victory. Rein describes a “hybrid warfare” of simultaneous conventional and guerilla battles, where each significantly influenced the other. He concludes that the conventional conflict both prompted and eventually ended the internecine warfare that largely marked the state’s experience of the war. A comprehensive analysis of military, social, and environmental history, Alabamians in Blue uncovers a past of biracial cooperation in the American South, and in Alabama in particular, that postwar adherents to the “Myth of the Lost Cause” have successfully suppressed until now.


The Creation of Confederate Nationalism

The Creation of Confederate Nationalism

Author: Drew Gilpin Faust

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 1989-12-01

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9780807116067

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For decades, historians have debated the meaning and significance of Confederate nationalism and the role it played in the outcome of the Civil War. Yet they have paid little attention to the actual development and content of this Confederate ideology. In The Creation of Confederate Nationalism, Drew Gilpin Faust argues that coming to a fuller understanding of southern thought during the Civil War period offers a valuable refraction of the essential assumptions on which the Old South and the Confederacy were built. She shows the benefits of exploring Confederate nationalism “as the South’s commentary upon itself, as its effort to represent southern culture to the world at large, to history, and perhaps most revealingly, to its own people.”


The Yankee Plague

The Yankee Plague

Author: Lorien Foote

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781469630557

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The Civil War in Books

The Civil War in Books

Author: David J. Eicher

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 9780252022739

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With the assistance of several scholars, including James M. McPherson and Gary Gallagher, and a long-time specialist in Civil War books, Ralph Newman, David Eicher has selected for inclusion in The Civil War in Books the 1,100 most important books on the war. These are organized into categories as wide-ranging as "Battles and Campaigns," "Biographies, Memoirs, and Letters," "Unit Histories," and "General Works." The last of these includes volumes on black Americans and the war, battlefields, fiction, pictorial works, politics, prisons, railroads, and a host of other topics. Annotations are included for all entries in the work, which is presented in an oversized 8 1/2 x 11 inch volume in two-column format. Appendixes list "prolific" Civil War publishers and other Civil War bibliographies, and the works included in Eicher's mammoth undertaking are indexed by author or editor and by title. Gary Gallagher's foreword traces the development of Civil War bibliographies and declares that Eicher's annotation exceeds that of any previous comprehensive volume. The Civil War in Books, Gallagher believes, is "precisely the type of guide" that has been needed. The first full-scale, fully-annotated bibliography on the Civil War to appear in more than thirty years, Eicher's The Civil War in Books is a remarkable compendium of the best reading available about the worst conflict ever to strike the United States. The bibliography, the most valuable reference book on the subject since The Civil War Day by Day, will be essential for college and university libraries, dealers in rare and secondhand books, and Civil War buffs.


The Confederacy: History, Documents, Memoirs and Biographies

The Confederacy: History, Documents, Memoirs and Biographies

Author: John Esten Cooke

Publisher: Good Press

Published: 2023-12-30

Total Pages: 2628

ISBN-13:

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The Confederacy: History, Documents, Memoirs and Biographies is a seminal anthology that encapsulates the complex narratives and ideological contours of the American Civil War from the Confederate perspective. This collection traverses a rich tapestry of literary stylesfrom firsthand accounts and historical analyses to personal memoirs, each contributing to a nuanced understanding of the Confederacy. The anthology stands out for its inclusion of both high-profile figures and lesser-known voices, ensuring a diversified and comprehensive portrayal of the Southern Confederacy. The works included navigate through the tumultuous period with a blend of personal conviction and historical insight, offering readers a multifaceted view of the era. The contributing authors and editors, including notable figures like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, bring an authentic and varied examination of the Confederate experience. Their backgrounds, ranging from military leadership to political stewardship, and their direct involvement in the conflict provide an insiders perspective to the war. The collection aligns with the broader historical and cultural movements of the 19th century, reflecting the ideological divisions that marked the period. Together, these voices contribute to a deeper understanding of the Confederate identity, its ethos, and its impact on American history. The Confederacy: History, Documents, Memoirs and Biographies is an indispensable resource for readers interested in the American Civil War. It offers a rare opportunity to explore the personal, political, and military dimensions of the Confederacy through a diverse collection of narratives. This anthology is not just a repository of historical documents; it is a vehicle for education, insight, and reflection. Readers are encouraged to delve into the pages of this collection to appreciate the breadth of perspectives and literary expression, fostering a richer dialogue with the past and its enduring legacies.


The Confederate Heartland

The Confederate Heartland

Author: Bradley R. Clampitt

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2011-12-12

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0807139955

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Bradley R. Clampitt's The Confederate Heartland examines morale in the Civil War's western theater -- the region that witnessed the most consistent Union success and Confederate failure, and the battleground where many historians contend that the war was won and lost. Clampitt's western focus provides a glimpse into the hearts and minds of Confederates who routinely witnessed the defeat of their primary defenders, the Army of Tennessee. This book tracks morale through highs and lows related to events on and off the battlefield, and addresses the lingering questions of when and why western Confederates recognized and admitted defeat. Clampitt digs beneath the surface to illustrate the intimate connections between battlefield and home front, and demonstrates a persistent dedication to southern independence among residents of the Confederate heartland until that spirit was broken on the battlefields of Middle Tennessee in late 1864. The western Confederates examined in this study possessed a strong sense of collective identity that endured long past the point when defeat on the battlefield was all but certain. Ultimately, by authoring a sweeping vision of the Confederate heartland and by addressing questions related to morale, nationalism, and Confederate identity within a western context, Clampitt helps to fashion a more balanced historical landscape for Civil War studies.


A War State All Over

A War State All Over

Author: Ben H. Severance

Publisher: University Alabama Press

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0817320598

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An in-depth political study of Alabama’s government during the Civil War Alabama’s military forces were fierce and dedicated combatants for the Confederate cause.In his study of Alabama during the Civil War, Ben H. Severance argues that Alabama’s electoral and political attitudes were, in their own way, just as unified in their support for the cause of southern independence. To be sure, the civilian populace often expressed unease about the conflict, as did a good many of Alabama’s legislators, but the majority of government officials and military personnel displayed pronounced Confederate loyalty and a consistent willingness to accept a total war approach in pursuit of their new nation’s aims. As Severance puts it, Alabama was a “war state all over.” In A War State All Over: Alabama Politics and the Confederate Cause, Severance examines the state’s political leadership at multiple levels of governance—congressional, gubernatorial, and legislative—and orients much of his analysis around the state elections of 1863. Coming at the war’s midpoint, these elections provide an invaluable gauge of popular support for Alabama’s role in the Civil War, particularly at a time when the military situation for Confederate forces was looking bleak. The results do not necessarily reflect a society that was unreservedly prowar, but they clearly establish a polity that was committed to an unconditional Confederate victory, in spite of the probable costs. Severance’s innovative work focuses on the martial character of Alabama’s polity while simultaneously acknowledging the widespread angst of Alabama’s larger culture and society. In doing so, it puts a human face on the election returns by providing detailed character sketches of the principal candidates that illuminate both their outlook on the war and their role in shaping policy.